May

13, 2010 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLVI No. 21

The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

Statements by Members

MR. SPEAKER: Today the Chair will hear the following members' statements:

the hon. the Member for the District of Bay of Islands; the hon. the Member for

the District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi; the hon. the Member for the District of

St. John's North; the hon. the Member for the District of Bonavista North.

The hon. the Member for the District of Bay of Islands.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LODER: Mr. Speaker, I rise in this hon. House today to pass my

congratulations on to the Grade 6 students of J.J. Curling Elementary on the

completion of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program or commonly known as

DARE.

Mr. Speaker, on April 23, fifty-seven students graduated from the program

with a very special ceremony which I had the honour to attend.

Special congratulations go out to McKenzie Hynes of Ms Kearney's class and

Emily Cleary of Ms Connery's class who represented their respective classrooms

by delivering DARE essays to students, teachers, parents and invited guests.

Special mention as well goes to Tyler Wise, Nicholas Childs, Emily Mercer,

Catherine Kendall and Jamie Kennedy who were recognized at the ceremony for

outstanding penmanship.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Constable Bob Edwards of the RNC,

Principal Brian Higdon, parents, school staff, the Corner Brook Rotary and

Western School District for working together to give our young people such vital

education that they will use as a tool to meet today's challenges.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, May 4 marked the 100 anniversary of the Canadian Navy, now known

as the Canadian Forces Maritime Command. The Canadian Navy has fought with

distinction in two World Wars, participating in the Battle of the Atlantic,

which has been described as the longest battle of the Second World War - from

September 1939 to May 1945.

Mr. Speaker, by the time the allies defeated Nazi Germany, Canada, with a

population of just 10 million people, had the world's third-largest navy.

To mark the 100 anniversary, Canadian Forces Station St. John's, stationed in

my district, and HMCS Cabot held a reception to celebrate the centennial of the

Canadian Navy on April 24. The celebration concluded with the Newfoundland

Symphony Orchestra's premiere performance of a new commissioned orchestral

version of Heart of Oak, the Canadian naval march.

Mr. Speaker, CFS St. John's is a Maritime command facility that provides

support to the HMCS Cabot Naval Reserve, the local detachment of the Canadian

Forces Naval Engineering School, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, seven two

eight Communications Squadron, 56 Field Engineer Squadron, 36 Service Battalion

and Air Reserve Flight Torbay.

There are a total of 711 people working at the current Pleasantville site in

a number of lodger units. There are approximately 225 regular Canadian Force,

fifty-seven civilian employees and approximately 485 Reservists.

Mr. Speaker, over the past almost four years that I have been representing

the District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, I have been impressed with the quality

of leadership at CFS St. John's. The current leader, Commander Jones, continues

to show the kind of community engagement that has becomes a hallmark of the

station.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members in this House of Assembly to join me in

congratulating the Canadian Forces Maritime Command, the Canadian Navy, on 100

years of service to our country.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of St. John's North.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDGLEY: Mr. Speaker, on March 20 of this year, our city and the

Province lost one of its very distinguished citizens with the passing of Mr. Jim

Shields at the age of eighty-nine.

For the townies among us, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps for many others, there

would be little difficultly in remembering Jim Shields Meat Market because it

was a real landmark in St. John's for many years. Jim Shields will also be

remembered as a World War II Royal Navy Veteran. He enlisted at the age of

nineteen and served in several locations overseas, including the Anzio Landings

during the 1943 Italian Campaign.

Mr. Shields was a lifetime member of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 56 and

a long-time President of the Naval Association of Newfoundland. This is a man

who was a very active member of the community throughout his lifetime and this

is attested to by the fact that he was a recipient of such awards as the

Governor General's Caring Canadian Award, the Minister of Veteran's Affairs

Commendation and the Naval Association of Newfoundland President's Award for

thirty-five years of service.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members to join me in paying tribute to and

celebrating the life of one of this Province's real heroes, Mr. Jim Shields.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Bonavista North.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HARDING: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the contributions

made by the 2910 Lions Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corp to the youth of the

Bonavista North region and to commend the individual achievements of past and

present Corp members.

Four former cadets; Samantha Batstone, Amanda Kean, Hilary Kelloway, and

Christina Knee, were recently presented with Gold Duke of Edinburgh Awards by

Princess Anne during her stay in the capital city.

The Duke of Edinburgh program promotes the development of skills, teamwork,

social responsibility and physical fitness. The individuals involved completed

the program while serving as active members of the 2910 Corp. Each young woman

is a shining example of the level of excellence that exists within the youth

population of our Province.

This Corp has always produced outstanding cadets and continuing that legacy

of distinction is also Cadet Sergeant Megan Blackwood who has recently been

nominated for the General Howard Award. This award represents excellence in the

cadet program and Cadet Sergeant Blackwood received the nomination by virtue of

completing the National Star Exam with the highest marks in the Province. Ms

Blackwood is a hard working, dedicated cadet and her entire Corp is incredibly

proud of her efforts.

The success of these individuals provides a clear example of the important

contribution made by the 2910 Corp in the Bonavista North region. The Corp

continues to play an integral role in the development of the future leaders of

our Province.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would ask all members of this hon. House to join

with me to thank and show appreciation for the continued service provided by the

2910 Army Cadet Corp and to congratulate Samantha Batstone, Amanda Kean, Hilary

Kelloway, Christina Knee and Megan Blackwood on their recent achievements.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Statements by Ministers.

Statements by Ministers

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Labrador Affairs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HICKEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to update colleagues on a series of Northern Strategic

Plan information sessions taking place in communities throughout Labrador. The

NSP is a five-year plan to improve the health and well-being of all

Labradorians. At its inception, the plan had an initial investment of some $250

million with 145 commitments. It is now expected the NSP will see $587 million

invested in Labrador, with some 210 commitments.

In recent weeks we have held information sessions in Happy Valley-Goose Bay,

L'Anse-au-Loup and Port Hope Simpson. Included in these sessions is the

presentation on our NSP mid-term progress report. Published copies of the report

are now available, which I am sending to municipalities, local service districts

and targeted stakeholders throughout Labrador to further ensure that the work

being done by this government is conveyed in a transparent and accountable

manner.

The report chronicles an unprecedented level of investment and accomplishment

that has taken place up until the fall of 2009. These efforts continue through

Budget 2010, which will see $158 million invested in Labrador to improve

infrastructure and enhance programs and services. By the end of the fiscal year,

the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador will have invested, Mr. Speaker,

more than $2.4 billion in Labrador since its first Budget of March 2004.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HICKEY: Mr. Speaker, we are building on our record of achievement

through initiatives such as the historic opening of Phase III of the

Trans-Labrador Highway, which will cost approximately $138 million when

completed, and another $1.5 million pilot project featuring a year-round ferry

service between the Island and Labrador. Mr. Speaker, other Budget 2010

investments include funding to build four social housing units in Nain, $1

million to assist with the environmental cleanup of the former United States

military station in Hopedale, and some $673,000 for a new satellite dialysis

unit for Labrador West.

Most recently, we had the announcement of the provincial government

investment of more than $4 million, with matching funds from the Goose Bay

the Happy Valley-Goose Bay airport. This investment directly supports an NSP

objective of an integrated transportation system that is responsive to business

and individual needs.

Mr. Speaker, our information sessions continue with details of sessions on

the North Coast, Labrador West and Churchill Falls announced in the coming

weeks.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. Speaker, we had a Premier one time in this Province who used to say: You

do not say it once, you do not say it twice, but you say it at least three times

before they get the message. That was the former Premier, Joey Smallwood. This

is the fourth announcement by the minister opposite since the House of Assembly

opened around the Northern Strategic Plan. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I guess there

is nothing else in the department that the minister can actually stand up and

make a statement on because we all know that he has no files in the Department

of Labrador and Aboriginal Affairs other than the Northern Strategic Plan.

Mr. Speaker, the only issue with the Northern Strategic Plan is that it lacks

strategy, I say to the minister. There is no economic strategy in the Northern

Strategic Plan. I have eight out of ten fish plants in my district and the word

fish is not mentioned in the Northern Strategic Plan for Labrador, I say to the

minister.

So, Mr. Speaker, it does not talk about economic strategy. It does not talk

about the strategy to connect communities that do not have roads in Labrador, by

road. It does not talk about how they are going to deal with the poverty rate in

many of the communities across Labrador. There is no strategy around anything of

these things, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: In fact, Mr. Speaker, when they talk about their cumulative

investment in Labrador, it includes everything from the fuel that goes into the

diesel plant to run the lights to communities all across Labrador. Well, Mr.

Speaker, we had electricity and we had fuel in diesel plants long before the

government added all the money together and called it a northern strategic

investment plan, I say to the minister.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that her time for replying has expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

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

I am glad he is going around to the communities and giving these information

sessions, but I hope, considering the fact that the minister did not attend the

annual general meeting of the Combined Councils of Labrador, that he will use

these meetings as an opportunity to listen to the people in the communities that

are not being benefited by what is going on, communities and local service

districts that still need funding for water and sewer and help paying for their

very expensive power, the need for recreational facilities.

My encouragement to the minister, Mr. Speaker, is not to talk about money but

to listen to the needs of the people. I would like to point out that the $2.4

billion over six Budgets comes to $600 million a year, which I think is not too

much to spend on Labrador considering what we get from it.

MR. HICKEY: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Labrador Affairs, on a point of order.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HICKEY: Mr. Speaker, I have heard the member for the Third Party on a

number of occasions raising the issue that I did not attend the Combined

Councils meeting in Labrador West. I want to make something very clear to the

members opposite who have raised this. We had every intention on going there but

we could not beat the weather, Mr. Speaker. If she wants to check it out, there

was a snow storm (inaudible) -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

Further statements by ministers?

The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, whether it is in the classroom, the playing field, or the

corporate environment, earning a reputation

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair has recognized the hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural

Development. I ask members for their co-operation to hear the minister speak.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, whether it is in the classroom, the playing field, or the

corporate environment, earning a reputation for excellence is achieved by only a

select few; it is also not something that is achieved overnight - it is the

culmination of tremendous amounts of commitment, creativity and collaboration.

As members of this hon. House are aware, Newfoundland and Labrador is home to

a cluster of companies and organizations that have risen to the top of the

global ocean technology sector. Awareness of the local ocean technology sector

does not end there, Mr. Speaker.

Newfoundland and Labrador's expertise in ocean technology has been labelled

as a "hot commodity" and as "standing tall as an international epicentre of

marine technology" by Marine Technology Reporter , an international trade

publication. That, Mr. Speaker, is a powerful endorsement.

Recognizing what it takes to maintain its leadership position, the provincial

government, in collaboration with educational institutions and industry,

continues to target activities to strengthen its competitiveness.

Our Oceans of Opportunity - a five-year, $28 million strategy - was

introduced and serves as the guiding platform as industry and the provincial

government work collaboratively to reach new heights.

OceansAdvance, the association representing the local sector, views the

strategy as being instrumental in continuing the momentum experienced in the

Province's ocean technology sector, and that it signals a shared vision and

affirms confidence in the future of a new economic pillar for our Province.

Over the last year, valuable investments have been made, partnerships have

been formed to advance ocean observation projects, and opportunities have been

secured to market the local sector to international audiences.

One such initiative, Mr. Speaker, is the SmartBay project which is a joint

effort of the Marine Institute, AMEC Earth and Environmental, ICAN and Earth

Information Technologies. SmartBay represents the creativity of the industry and

is dedicated to monitoring ocean conditions and protecting the ecosystem of

Placentia Bay - a bay that has approximately $7 billion in products transported

in and out of it annually.

Newfoundland and Labrador will also be hosting two major conferences that

celebrate our excellence in oceans.

In October of this year, more than 200 delegates will travel to the Province

for Ocean Innovation 2010 that will focus on underwater vehicles. We have also

been named site of Oceans 2014, an international conference that attracts

upwards of 2,000 delegates.

Both initiatives capture the interest that exists in the Province and provide

the platform to showcase our business communities and our high calibre research

facilities.

Mr. Speaker, the momentum is building. With high levels of commitment,

creativity and collaboration, greater activity and more announcements will

continue to unfold in the days, months and years to come.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White

Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Mr. Speaker, I am not really sure how to respond to the

minister today. On the one hand I have my leader who is trying to mentor me on

how to respond to ministers' statements, and on the other hand the minister is

wearing a Montreal Canadiens tie, so it is quite a challenging response.

Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister, first of all, for the advance

copy of his statement.

There is no doubt that the ocean defines who we are as people in Newfoundland

and Labrador, whether it is our history, where we grew up as children and so on,

and the economy that it has provided for us over the generations

PREMIER WILLIAMS: The icebergs that it brings down.

MR. DEAN: The icebergs that it brings down, as Mr. Premier said, yes.

The impact that has on our economy, especially in St. Anthony at the iceberg

water bottling plant, and the recreation that it gives us affords us each year

in our culture and so on. It is great to see the focus and so on. I trust that

we, as a government, and as people of our Province that we will do what we can

to preserve and promote it for many years to come.

I would wish the organizers of Ocean Innovation 2010 well. I trust that those

who attend as delegates will get a first-hand view of just how important our

ocean is to us, and looking forward to the international conference in 2014

again a great opportunity to showcase. I am not sure when the date is set for

2014, but perhaps we can have it in May or June and we can show people some of

those great icebergs that do float along our coast.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for the advance copy of his statement. I just want to

say to him: While we may be on the opposite sides of the House here in this

building, we are on the same bench when it comes to the hockey leagues. So, I am

very happy to be sitting opposite his tie.

Mr. Speaker, I am quite happy to have this statement that the minister has

made in the House today. I do recognize the tremendous technology and wisdom

that we have here in our Province right now and the research that is going on,

especially in the Oceans of Opportunity, the work they have done, for example,

about safe evacuation of rigs and other vessels.

I also encourage the minister and the government to look at how all of that

expertise we have, and the research capacity that we have could be used to look

more in-depth at the relationship of the oil and gas industry and the fishery.

The fishery is our sustainable source and we have the ability to do more

research to see how the two can co-exist and how one can grow the fishery

because of the other, because of the resources that we are now getting.

Let us do what they are doing in Nova Scotia and do more in-depth research

with regard to how we build both of our resources.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

The hon. the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to inform this hon. House of this government's

commitment to student summer employment in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, a student summer job is often a young person's first exposure to

the labour market It is a great way to establish good work habits and an

understanding of the value of earning a living. Recognizing this, Budget 2010

included an investment of $3.76 million towards the delivery of a student summer

program for high school and post-secondary students throughout the Province.

This year, the provincial government funding will enable over 600 high school

Level I, II and III students to secure work with not-for-profit organizations,

community agencies and municipalities in approximately 480 summer recreation,

heritage and community improvement projects.

Mr. Speaker, in addition to supporting high school students, the provincial

government also assists individuals attending post-secondary institutions secure

meaningful summer employment with both for-profit and not-for-profit employers.

Through the Student Work and Service Programs, known as SWASP, students

returning to post-secondary education earn a combination of tuition and wages

for their summer employment.

Mr. Speaker, this combined stipend and tuition voucher brings the hourly wage

for students to the new minimum wage of $10 per hour.

Last fall, we released Creating a Province of Choice: A Youth Retention and

Attraction Strategy for Newfoundland and Labrador. Developed by youth, for

youth, in close collaboration with business, labour and community leaders, the

strategy is aimed at countering the impacts of out-migration, strengthening the

labour market and supporting the economic development of the Province.

By directly supporting student summer employment, the provincial government

is focused on creating opportunity, reducing students' debt burden and building

a better future for our young people.

In total, the provincial government will match over 1,300 post-secondary

students with employers for meaningful summer employment this year.

At this time, I would also like to thank the Community Services Council, who

deliver their component of the SWASP program, and Service Canada, who have also

contributed $1 million to this program.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to wish all students a safe, enjoyable and

rewarding summer.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the minister for an advance copy of her statement.

I say I guess it is a good thing that we do have a good hockey game from time

to time to bring both sides of the House together with two parties.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very encouraging statement, to know that government is

continuing with funding for the Levels I, II, and III program, as well as the

SWASP program which has been ongoing for many years. We all know the benefits

that it plays to the young people in our Province, to know that the Level I, II

and III students can get jobs with various employers, and some of them, I am

sure, probably work within the various departments and the official parties

within our government.

Mr. Speaker, not only that, it is a program I think the minister could

probably vouch for this that treats everybody in this hon. House equally. It

is about the same amount of money goes into every district to hire Level I, II

and III students. It is always like that, but not every program is like that,

that is why I brought it up, Mr. Speaker.

I just want to say that we are very pleased with this program and I want to

encourage the minister - and hopefully that funding will be continually put into

this program. Only one thing I will caution, and I think we all agree with this,

from time to time, and I know I find it in our area, that there are some

students who have disabilities, cannot fit into the various programs, and

hopefully down through the years something will be done so that more young

people with disabilities can fit into the programs as well.

Mr. Speaker, having said that, I want to thank the minister, to commend all

those who helped put this program forward.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I, too, thank the minister for the advance copy of her statement. I had to

look for you there, Minister, for a minute. Thank you very much.

I used to look forward to these announcements when I was working in the

not-for-profit sector, and now I look forward to it as somebody who can help

people in my district receive this help. It is a wonderful program, the one for

high school students, and I look forward to the time when maybe we can increase

the number of students who can benefit from this program.

The SWASP program, also, is an extremely important program. What I would like

government to consider as they look into next year, is the possibility of their

working going toward a bursary that would help cover all their tuition costs as

well as other costs that they have. So many students, as we know, end up with

heavy debt, some as much as $50,000 at the end of their education. According to

a recent poll, and I just remind the minister of this, I am sure she knows it,

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians agree with the Canadian Federation of Students

that there should be a continued reduction of the cost of tuition until it is

eliminated. It is a lofty goal, but that goal has been reached in other

countries and other places, and I encourage the minister to continue looking at

this as a goal for our Province.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

Oral Questions.

Oral Questions

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, last week the Minister of Environment allowed us to review

environmental assessment documents in her office related to AbitibiBowater sites

in the Province. We were advised that we could take notes but not make

photocopies. Meanwhile, the courts in Quebec released these documents publicly

for people in the country to view. Certainly a contrast, I say, to openness and

accountability when the minister and her government refuses to issue the

information in the Province but we can pick them up on the Internet, Mr.

Speaker, once they have been posted by the Quebec courts.

I ask the minister: Why were these environmental reports that were in your

possession since last fall outlining significant environmental concerns not

released? Why were they kept hidden in your department?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Obviously, the way Quebec operates in their laws and the way we operate are

different, Mr. Speaker. Here we have ATIPP laws that we have to abide by, so we

have to redact people's names.

I told the Leader of the Opposition - in fact, I went over and offered to her

one day sitting in the House that they could come over. I, in fact, said you can

photocopy items but you cannot photocopy items with names on it, and that is why

I had somebody from the ATIPP office in the office with them at the time. That

is the offer that I made to you at that time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker

We were instructed not to photocopy anything; I want to clarify for the

minister. The other piece of this, Mr. Speaker, is that the documents that they

did finally give us was blacked out as opposed to the ones we obtained through

the Web site and posted by the court in Quebec which contained all the contents

and all the information.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister to tell us why she had those environmental

documents in her possession since last fall but yet did not release them to the

public? That is the question I would like to have answered, minister.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, again, we have laws in this Province and we

abide by those laws. Quebec may have something different, and obviously we have

seen over the past that they act very differently than we do here in the

Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker.

When we had these reports done, Mr. Speaker, if there was anything that was

identified as an immediate human health and safety issue we acted immediately.

Look at the case in Buchans, Mr. Speaker. We went out there, we talked to the

people, and we put the information on the Web site. All of these other reports

are what you would normally see in any industrial site. There was no issue of a

concern for the residents in those communities. Mr. Speaker, if there had been,

we would have done the exact same thing we did in Buchans.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do not know how the minister can judge the fact that there is no concern in

these communities when these communities did not even know these reports existed

or the information contained in them.

Mr. Speaker, last week when I questioned the minister about these reports she

stated that she was not worried because children do not play on industrial

sites. Meanwhile, it is reported in these assessments that there are soccer and

baseball fields in Botwood that have carcinogens, Mr. Speaker, which we all know

are cancer causing agents and chemicals present in the soil that are harmful to

human health.

I ask the minister: Why did you not alert the people of Botwood that their

play areas were contaminated so they could use their own judgement as to letting

their children use these public spaces in the community?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, I understand why this is difficult for the

member to comprehend because it is very technical in nature, Mr. Speaker. That

is why I offered the resources of my staff to explain this.

In the case of the ball field and by the way, I would like to point out for

the member's information we did talk to the Town of Botwood. In fact, my staff

were out there on October 28 because when I did see this information I thought

there may have been a concern there, but we did further investigation.

Just to break it down so you can put it into laymen's terms, there was one

single arsenic excedence that was taken between a half a metre and a metre below

the soil in the ball field. The excedence was twenty-five milligrams per

kilogram. If you compare that to the risk-based number that was done for Buchans

on the surface, that was forty-eight milligrams per kilogram. So when you put

the two in perspective, there is no human health safety concern there, Mr.

Speaker, and that was communicated to the town October 28.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister was also quoted in The Telegram this morning as saying

that no further testing is needed on this site because it is buried beneath

ground. She says you might run into an issue if you build a house on the site

but it is fine for children to play in this area.

I ask the minister: Why did you not do more testing to find out the true

scope of the problem, especially when these initial issues were identified to

you and to your department?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Again, Mr. Speaker, very technical, but I will do my best to

explain it.

When you are doing these types of assessments, you not only have to look at

the soil type but you have to look at the type of hydrocarbon, and in this case,

Mr. Speaker, it was lubricating oil. When you look at that and you look at it in

comparison to the numbers that were done on a risk assessment basis in Buchans,

it is two very different cases. In fact, Mr. Speaker, if the member would like

to know, when Buchans is remediated, one of the things that we offered to the

Town of Buchans once it is all cleaned up is to put a ball field on the site

because that is one of the remediation efforts that you do, is that you cover

up. In the case of heavy metals one of the best remediations you can do is cover

it up.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I also questioned the minister last week in relation to the sixteen sites of

concern identified at the Abitibi mill in Grand Falls-Windsor. Without

highlighting every one of the problems that exists, there is leaching of

chemicals into the Exploits River. The consultant had identified chemicals such

as chloroform, arsenic, mercury, and PCBs, along with seven other chemicals that

are above the guidelines established by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the

Environment.

I ask the minister: Why are you not concerned about the presence of chemicals

in the Exploits River that exceed your own allowable limits under your own

guidelines?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, that is the difficulty with letting people see

these reports when they do not have the technical expertise to be able to

interpret the results. If you look at the groundwater there, the gradient is

away from the river, so it is not getting into people's wells. Mr. Speaker, all

of the limits, all of the discharge -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JOHNSON: - are in line with our provincial discharge limits. There

were also environmental effects monitoring done in those areas and no issues

were raised.

Mr. Speaker, the fact that she continues to try and raise this fear out there

- if there was anything at all that we saw in these reports that would have

raised an alarm for human health and safety concerns, we would have did the

exact same things we did in Buchans. To even suggest otherwise is an absolute

insult to this government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

For a government who claims that there are no problems out there and no

environmental concerns out there they are fighting awful hard in the courts I

say to get Abitibi to do the cleanup that is required, and the minister knows

the difference and the irony in her own statement.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister again: Why do you have environmental limits

that you sign on to under the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment

if you have no intentions of following them in situations like this?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, I never once said that these concerns were not

of an environmental nature. Certainly, we want to see these remediated. What I

said was there was no human health and safety issue here, Mr. Speaker, and if

there were, we would have acted the exact same way we did in Buchans.

Mr. Speaker, all of the discharge limits into the Exploits River are in line

with our limits. They are in line with the Atlantic PIRI Tier I limits if you

want exact specifics and there was environmental effects monitoring done on the

site to show that there are no issues there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The reality is they had the reports, they kept them hidden, they did not have

public information sessions and they did not release the information out there

in the public until people went looking for it.

Mr. Speaker, the reports also highlight concerns about the presence of PCBs

and PCB contaminated material being store outside of acceptable parameters. The

minister is quoted today, again, saying that this does not pose any immediate

health concerns.

I ask the minister: How can you be certain that this will not have any health

impacts without knowing the full extent of the problem, and why aren't you

looking to have these serious issues dealt with immediately and have further

testing done?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, I think this government has demonstrated quite

clearly that we would have acted immediately had there been an immediate human

health safety issue. We did it in Buchans; you can talk to the Mayor of Buchans,

how open we were in that case. The Minister of Health was out, I was out - we

had a whole team of officials out on two different occasions.

In this Budget we committed $9 million - the tenders are going out within a

couple of weeks. All of that work is going to be completed by the fall. If there

was any other human health and safety immediate risk, we would have done the

exact same thing that we did in the case of Buchans.

All of these other issues are issues that need to be remediated from an

environmental perspective. From a human health and safety concern, I want to

tell the people out there, there is no need to panic because the Leader of the

Opposition says there is need to panic. The science behind it and we base

everything in this government on science. The science says that there is no

immediate human health safety concern.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If the minister was doing her job in acting in the capacity of Environment

Minister, she would be out there holding public sessions in Grand Falls-Windsor,

in Botwood and all the communities that are affected so that they can ask

questions and have answers to questions. Mr. Speaker, to date they have not even

seen the information, I say to you, Minister. We are sending them the CDs; we

are sending it out to them - something you should have done.

Mr. Speaker, the environmental consultant also indicated that they had to

stop their investigation of one of the sites because bags containing asbestos

were uncovered. While they could not determine the scope of the problem, they

did raise concerns about water samples in the area that were above acceptable

guidelines.

I ask the minister: As you are now the owner of this site, why aren't you

willing to investigate these problems further and the impact that it is having

on the local environment?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition may question how I

do my job, but I tell you one thing I do not do, I do not act irresponsibly and

I do not flippantly send e-mails

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: - out to mayors of towns spreading panic in a town when there

is absolutely no need to do it, Mr. Speaker.

We saw the actions, we saw in the paper last week how I had to call up the

mayor, ease the concern there because of the irresponsible actions of the Leader

of the Opposition and her staff.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS JOHNSON: Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What the minister needs to realize is there is a difference between panic and

public information, I say to you, Minister. Your job is to provide public

information

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: - to the people of this Province.

Mr. Speaker, I make no apologies for the fact that I am sending all of the

information to the towns in Central Newfoundland, and I hope that someone will

have a look at it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: I ask the minister today why she is not concerned about the

fact that there are ten chemicals above limits on their own regulations that are

leaching out into the Exploits River, a salmon river in this Province. I ask

you, Minister: Why are you not concerned about that, and why are you not taking

further action against it?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, to say that we are not concerned about the

environment is simply unfair and it is untrue. Mr. Speaker, we take the issues

of the environment very seriously, and that is exactly why we issued the orders

to Abitibi in the first place. That is exactly why we pursued the leave to

appeal yesterday in the court, and that is exactly why we will explore every

single legal avenue that we have available to our government, to ensure that

Abitibi brings the land back to the state that they found it in when they came

here to use our resources.

If there is any human health and safety issues we will deal with them head

on, and I certainly appreciate the member sending her CDs off to wherever she

likes, but the members of all these towns know that my staff are available any

time if they want to go into detail, into depth, on all of those reports. We are

in fact sending them out as they want them. I have talked to the Mayor of Grand

Falls specifically on several occasions. My staff was out talking to the Mayor

of Botwood in October. I do not know how many times I have spoken to the Mayor

of Buchans, and all for very good reason.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister of Environment and Conservation is more concerned about gravel

pit campers than she is about arsenic in our waters.

Mr. Speaker, this government invested $15 million into a Broadband Initiative

undertaken by the Premier's buddies back in 2006, yet on February 15 of this

year, government quietly announced that Government's Broadband Initiative was

cancelled, in the fifth paragraph of a lengthy news release.

Now that this initiative has been cancelled, what plans does the government

have in place to provide broadband to the hundreds of schools, government

buildings, health facilities, public libraries and municipal buildings in this

Province that still have no access to broadband?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural

Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it is important that we understand what government did in the

February news release. What we did was we cancelled the Request for Proposals.

We did not cancel the Broadband Initiative. The Broadband Initiative is alive

and well, we are still working on it, and we will be coming out very shortly

with some information to explain how we are proceeding forward.

It was deemed to be too expensive a venture, based upon the way that we were

originally planning on going, and because of our fiscal responsibility, we

decided to try an alternate route. The same goals and objectives are there, we

will be bringing broadband out to all of the government agencies, legislative

bodies, all of the schools, the service centres that we have with government.

That will be done, but it will be done in a more fiscally responsible manner,

and a way that makes sure that people receive the level of service they should

receive.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It brings back a memory. The current Minister of Finance said to me one time:

Stay tuned. We have been staying tuned on the fibre optic deal now for four

years and we still have nothing.

Mr. Speaker, this $15 million got us eight fibre optic strands which sit

unused to this day. Other than helping friends and former colleagues of the

Premier get their trans-cable network built for them for their own benefit, when

does government plan to make use of these strands, or does government plan to

sell them off?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural

Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, I will remind the member opposite that there

was a review done by the Auditor General on that $15 million investment and the

Auditor General's comment was that it was a good deal. The Auditor General

thought it was a good deal.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, the reason for that $15 million investment was

that we as a government, when we formed government in 2003, we inherited from

the members opposite what we referred to as a communications deficit. We were

lagging, we were behind the times in terms of the communications capability in

this Province and we needed to make sure that we had the basic infrastructure to

be able to provide appropriate communications.

So, that $15 million was the first phase of a multi-phase project, which

includes our high-speed Internet and our broadband strategy. We have seen

improvements to the level of service already in this Province. Our corporate

customers in the Province have seen a lowering of the fees that they are being

charged. There are regions of the Province that have seen multiple services now

and competing services. So they are getting better price points for it. So that

investment was a good investment. The investments we will continue to make will

also be good investments.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I remind the minister, they also inherited three oil deals and a good deal

called Voisey's that they do not tout too often either. In respect to the

Auditor General, I remind the minister that the Auditor General said we would

ultimately have to wait to see what came out of this deal in order to determine

if in fact it was a good deal. We, in fact, will be asking the Auditor General

to revisit the study that he did back in 2007.

The government's rationale for this project was that government and related

agencies would save a lot of money by building and using its own broadband

infrastructure rather than using what was commercially available, but now we

have a government-owned fibre optic link we are not using and we are still using

and paying for commercial broadband providers. It seems we got the worst of both

worlds. We have had to pay for our own system, and we are not using it

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to pose his question.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

We paid for our own system that we are not using and we are still paying for

commercial providers.

I ask the government: Now that you have us between a rock and a hard spot,

how do you plan to get us out of it?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural

Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, we did come from a hard spot. The hard spot was

over there when we inherited government; we have now moved them. We have come

from a hard spot, we have moved into a much more comfortable spot. We now have

redundancy in the broadband capabilities, the high-speed Internet capabilities

that we have. We did not have that before. I do not think I need to remind

people in this Province that we used to have outages. We had the whole Province

went down when we had a fire at the Allandale Road station because of the fact

that we had a lack of redundancy.

I will also remind the member opposite that we do have competing carriers now

here in this Province because of the fact that we have that $15 million

investment. We also have an investment by Greenland in terms of Milton out in

the Clarenville area, where they now have connected us to them and them to us.

It allows researchers at Memorial University, for instance, to now do research

right across the world. There are all kinds of benefits being sought by that

investment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

They might not have had a very high comfort level when he says they became

government but we certainly have a tanglation' of fibres here now, I would say.

The main reason that government has provided for cancelling this initiative

is cost. Rather than costing $20 million a year - which the Premier himself said

- for ten years, that we are going to do this deal. It would cost $200 million.

Now they have discovered, four years out, that it is going to cost $500 million

rather than $200 million. We still have eight cables that we own that we are not

using.

Considering this kind of gap exists, minister, between the government's

dreams and the reality that is on the ground: How can we have any confidence

whatsoever in this government's ability to do a fundamental project management

and to cost it properly?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural

Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, we have already shown by the investment we have

made of the $15 million, the benefits that have accrued to this Province. I have

mentioned to you the fact that we now have redundancy available and that when we

have the original line go down, the whole Province does not have to go down.

We have competing services. We have them happening in various areas of the

Province. Before there was only one service provider, now we have multiple

service providers. We have multiple services being offered. People now have

high-speed Internet, people have high-definition television; people are seeing

those kinds of benefits coming to their regions because of this investment.

The strategy was a multi-phased strategy. The first phase was the $15 million

investment. The second phase was going to be what we refer to basically as the

GBR, the Government Broadband Initiative. The planning on that deemed it to be

too expensive in the direction we were going. We are doing the prudent fiscally

responsible thing by stepping back from that and looking at alternative ways of

meeting our goals.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

That is cold comfort to the citizens of this Province who were promised they

would have high-speed Internet access and to the government agencies that we

were promised would be connected four years ago.

Every day, Mr. Speaker, we get calls and letters from people around this

Province who cannot understand why they cannot get broadband services in their

area after government promised it to them. We have businesses that cannot

relocate to rural Newfoundland. We have students who cannot do their academic

work. Broadband is not a luxury any more, it is a necessary part of modern life

and the modern economy.

What hope can government give these communities, minister, that they will be

able to receive affordable and reliable broadband services?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural

Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, the hope is much greater under this government

than it was under the previous government. That is the first thing I will say.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, the investment that we have made was meant to

make sure that we are able to provide the level of service that people expected.

There was no deadline given with that. We were in the planning stage. We did not

have a deadline date committed. We were planning on trying to move forward with

our Broadband Initiative. We are still doing that. We will be able to provide

the services to people; we just have to make sure we do it in a fiscally

responsible, prudent manner. I would suggest to you that the people of the

Province would expect nothing less of us than to make sure that we do that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

All they have to offer is stay tuned, stay tuned. Fifteen million bucks out

the door, four years in, and stay tuned.

Mr. Speaker, as this government was winding down its own broadband

initiative, the federal government is ramping up theirs. On May 9, this year,

the federal government announced projects across Canada aimed at linking homes

in rural households. There is only one such project in this Province. They are

going to link 207 homes in Red Bay, Labrador. That, by the way, has nothing to

do with this government. It was a project of SmartLabrador. At that rate, it

will take hundreds of years to connect Newfoundland and Labrador the way we need

to be connected.

What actions will this government take to partner with the federal government

or do you intend to talk to the federal government in any way in order to get

this train back on track and get the homes in this Province connected to

high-speed Internet as they ought to be?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural

Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, I will make this point first of all to the

member opposite. The government's broadband initiative was not meant to bring

high-speed Internet to homes in this Province, nor did we ever say that it

would. What we said was that we were going to link all of the government

facilities together. We were trying to make the business case for the

telecommunications carriers, a better case so that they could provide services

to the homes. That is what we are attempting to do.

Right now, the regions that are unserviced are unserviced because the private

carriers, which are regulated by the federal government to provide that service,

will not go in there and provide the service because of the fact it is cost

prohibitive.

So what we are trying to do by expanding the government network is to make

sure that some of the electronics and some of the technology that is needed in

some of our rural regions is available to the private carriers to piggyback off,

to be able to bring services to the private citizens and to the people of the

Province. We are prepared to partner with the federal government, with private

carriers, with anybody else that has the means to be able to allow us to reach

the goal that we are trying to reach, which is providing services throughout the

Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday government hired a consultant to review offshore oil

spill safety practices, a good first step. However, when the Cougar S-92

helicopter crashed last year, government appointed a commissioner to investigate

and gave that position wide resources to complete that job.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Premier: What resources will government give to the

consultant to be able to complete his work in ninety days?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Deputy Premier and Minister of Natural

Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, my department is currently working, as we speak here today, on

the development of the work plan for the review. Out of that will come a listing

of resources that he will need to help him complete his work. Our commitment,

Mr. Speaker, is to ensure that he has all of the tools, all of the resources he

needs to do to fulfill his mandate.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I look forward to hearing from the minister with regard to that work plan

when it is finished.

Mr. Speaker, in yesterday's press release the minister says safety and

protection are paramount in our offshore, but in the terms of reference there is

no mention of workers, in spite of the fact that eleven workers were killed in

the Gulf. Mr. Speaker, the terms of reference for the consultant are vague on

the legislative and regulatory regimes and practices regarding worker safety in

the potential of spills.

I ask the minister, Mr. Speaker: Why he is investigating the regimes

regarding worker safety not mentioned in the terms of reference?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Deputy Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the terms of reference make Captain Turner responsible for a

review of all of the legislative and regulatory processes in our offshore; both

those contained within the Accord act and those outside of the Accord act. Mr.

Speaker, that means human safety and the environment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I am glad to hear that specified clearly because it is not clear from the

terms of reference.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Natural Resources said she is

confident that the C-NLOPB will protect worker safety, citing that they have a

chief safety officer and a chief environmental officer. However, Mr. Speaker,

during the S-92 crash hearings, that same chief safety officer revealed that

though he knew emergency suits were not fitting properly, he did not know as a

regulator how to broach these problems with the operators.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister: In the light of this information, how can

she say that she has confidence that worker safety issues are being covered by

the current regime and why did she not see the need because of that to include

the regime specifically covering worker safety in the terms of reference?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Deputy Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my former answer, when Captain Turner was asked to

review all of the processes of the C-NLOPB, the Accord acts and response systems

not covered by the Accord acts, that meant everything, Mr. Speaker. There were

no carve-outs at all. So it would be logical to understand that human safety

certainly will be a part of that review.

Now, Mr. Speaker, in terms of the suits, emergent suits that are worn and the

issue that has been raised in the Wells Inquiry with regard to the helicopter,

Mr. Speaker, standards are set outside of the C-NLOPB and there is a federal

authority responsible. The standards that were existent in this country at that

time were being met. Those standards are now being reviewed, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: A final question, the hon. the Member for the District of

Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I do ask the minister though, Mr. Speaker, when she heard these comments made

during the Wells hearings, which I am sure that she did, did she follow it up to

look at what the role of the chief safety officer might have been in pursuing

how he could deal with - it is very disturbing to read. It is said in the

report, and I have read it, that he did not know how to broach this issue

because of the regulations. That seems to be a real weakness in the C-NLOPB, Mr.

Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Deputy Premier

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, and not only were we looking at it at the time it rose in

the Wells Inquiry but the Premier and I raised this issue publicly. We raised it

with the C-NLOPB. We raised it with the operators in our offshore. We raised it

with the federal government, and we raised it with the certifying agencies and

organizations in this country.

Mr. Speaker, we take these issues very, very seriously and while the board

operates arm's-length from this government, Mr. Speaker, we raise issues

whenever they are identified.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time allotted for questions and answers has expired.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

Notices of Motion.

Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I stand today to present another petition on behalf of the residents of:

King's Point; Harry's Harbour; Rattling Brook; Deep Bay, Fogo; Goose Cove;

Corner Brook; Jackson's Cove; Grand Falls-Windsor.

Mr. Speaker, I will read in the prayer of the petition again:

WHEREAS we the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have always built cabins

and tilts away from our homes for hunting, fishing, berry picking or just

spending time up in the country or places around our shores sometimes just to

get away from the stress of everyday living, a place to relax and enjoy the

great outdoors; and

WHEREAS your government has come down hard on the thousands of cabin and

trailer owners that are out on our land with eviction notices and forcing them

to move without providing them with an alternative; and

WHEREAS Kruger Incorporated has timber rights to approximately one-third of

the forested land on the Island is refusing the vast majority of applicants for

cabin development;

WHEREUPON your petitioners call upon all members of the House of Assembly to

urge government to have compassion on the citizens of this fair Province and

allow them the right to enjoy what is rightfully ours. We were born on this land

and we should have the right to enjoy it, and as in duty bound your petitions

will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, those people were asked to leave different areas for various

reasons. I know there were some concerns environmentally but why would everybody

have to leave a site if there were issues that were environmentally unfriendly

because now we know what happened in the Whiskey Pit area.

I spoke to an individual today who said that yes, we can go back there

camping on the May 24 weekend as long as we move our trailers on the weekend.

That is fine, that is all people are asking for. Why was everybody booted out at

the one time? That is the concerns those people have. It is not only in that

area, it is right throughout this Province. They are asking government just to

sit down and consider the situation and see if they can come to a solution where

everybody will be happy with the situation.

We know the May 24 weekend is approaching and many people are concerned,

wondering if they can do this, wondering if we can do that, wondering if someone

is going to put a sticker on our trailer or whatever, or tell us that we have to

move it.

Mr. Speaker, people are saying the federal government took away our right to

go out and jig a fish when we wanted it. Now they are saying the provincial

government is taking away our right to go out and enjoy the great outdoors.

There is only one thing left in this Province now that anyone has that is free,

and that is the free on the Bingo card. From now on, I would say that will be

taxed before it is all over, or you will not be able to use it when you go to a

bingo hall.

Mr. Speaker, those people are saying, look - the lady I spoke with this

morning, I think she said her husband is seventy-one years of age and all they

are asking is to be given the right; and hopefully they have that right. I am

sure my hon. colleague across the way knows who I reference, because I received

a letter from the lady, and it is good to see that people are talking to them

and saying: Look, yes, you can do this under certain regulations.

All I am asking is, on behalf of those residents - and every one of those

people live in rural Newfoundland, Mr. Speaker. All they are asking us is to

reconsider what is taking place so that they can enjoy the great outdoors.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

MS JOHNSON: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation, on a

point of order.

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, it is probably more of a point of clarification.

The member opposite leaves the impression that we are not okay in the

government with short-term camping. Mr. Speaker, I have said publicly on many

occasions, we have no issue with somebody who wants to go out and camp for the

weekend, just as long as it isn't a permanent fixation, you do not see

outhouses, you do not see decks and so on -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JOHNSON: - and just as long as they take the septic home with them at

the end of the weekend.

I want to make that perfectly clear, because the long weekend is coming up.

We have never had an issue with that, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

As the hon. minister stated, it is not a point of order; it is a point of

clarification.

Further petitions?

Orders of the Day.

Orders of the Day

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We will go to the Order Paper and call Motion 1, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Motion 1, that this House approves in general the budgetary

policy of the government; the Budget Speech.

The Chair recognizes the hon. Deputy Chair of Committees and the Member for

Humber Valley.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would certainly like to take the opportunity to welcome to the fold, to our

caucus, the Member for Topsail. Congratulations to both him and the Member for

Terra Nova on two outstanding maiden speeches that were a joy to listen to in

this hon. House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLY: They contained very relevant commentaries on the successes of

this government.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to thank the government for their

quick response and support given to the Town of Hampden with their recent

washout. The Departments of Transportation and Municipal Affairs were there for

the community, so I am so pleased with their outstanding efforts. On behalf of

the people of Hampden, and on my behalf as their MHA, a most sincere thank you

to this government and to my colleagues.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLY: I am certainly happy to stand today and give my response to

the Budget, from both a provincial and a district perspective.

It is tradition, Mr. Speaker, for a Finance Minister to buy a new pair of

shoes for Budget day. This year, the footwear the Finance Minister bought was

not for wearing, but rather symbolizes the Province's focus, and this Budget's

focus, on children and families. Mr. Speaker, it was a tiny pair of blue ceramic

baby boots which cost $1.47. The colour blue, Mr. Speaker, is strong and

steadfast like this government.

This Budget is all about the future, it is all about our children, and I

would like to congratulate the Finance Minister on the outstanding job my

colleague from Humber East. He has become, for me, a mentor, a close colleague

and a friend. He is well respected not only in his district, but the entire West

Coast and throughout this great Province of ours, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLY: Mr. Speaker, John F. Kennedy once said that children are the

world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future. This Budget and

this government certainly recognize this fact with its emphasis on children. We

are definitely moving in the right direction, and I honestly believe that we are

doing it as a government because we care about the youth in this Province of

ours.

Mr. Speaker, prior to 2003 this Province was certainly in the economic

doldrums. With mounting debt and crumbling infrastructure, the debt was

approaching $12 billion, and a deficit approaching $1 billion a year. Those were

the dark ages in our Province's economic history, Mr. Speaker. Just think about

the awesome burden that the previous Administration was placing on the shoulders

of our youth and the future generations.

Something very significant happened, though, in 2003 when the current

government took office. The dark ages are behind us. The sun is shining, and in

the sky so blue, Mr. Speaker, the Province is experiencing a renaissance of new

ideas, growth and prosperity

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLY: under the guiding hands of our current Premier and his

dedicated team.

All told, the government budget is approximately $7.5 billion, and it plans

to run a deficit of $194 million. The Finance Minister said that as the Province

continues to recover from the recession, it needs to keep the current momentum

going.

This year has been a very difficult year, not only for Newfoundland and

Labrador, not only for Canada, but worldwide. The economic global recession that

happened over the last year or so has certainly impacted on all of us. Here in

Newfoundland and Labrador we were not immune to that particular recession,

especially in terms of GDP, which is Gross Domestic Product, the value of goods

and services that are produced in this Province in a year.

We acknowledge up front that GDP in this Province was reduced by some 8.9 per

cent due to a number of things, and certainly industry closure. We survived the

brunt of the recession here in this Province again because of economic

foresight, Mr. Speaker, of this government, because of the speedy action of this

government, and because of the outstanding leadership provided by this

government under the current Premier and the Cabinet ministers and caucus.

Newfoundland and Labrador, like the rest of the world, has indeed felt the

effects; however, we have remained far better positioned to weather it than most

jurisdictions internationally and here in Canada. The Greece experience today

should be a wake-up call for others. Thankfully, the government's head was not

buried in the sand but took steps involving financial prudence to put our

Province on the right track for its people, and especially our children, so we

would have the financial capacity to face the current economic storm.

We had the right plan, a strong foundation already in place which guided us

through the downturn and kept our momentum going. Now, Newfoundland and Labrador

is set to resume growth in 2010 and confidence once again, Mr. Speaker, is

soaring. Consumer confidence in this Province, Mr. Speaker, is now the highest

in Atlantic Canada. Incomes are growing, Mr. Speaker, housing starts are rising,

and so too is the retail trade. In fact, Mr. Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador

recorded the strongest increase in retail sales among all provinces in 2009, and

another 5 per cent growth is projected this year.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week the Minister of Business reported to this hon.

House that business confidence is very strong as well. He reported that

according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business latest Business

Barometer and, of course, a barometer forecasts - even though on a national

scale optimism has fallen of late, the level of business confidence in

Newfoundland and Labrador is the second highest in the country, and well above,

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian average; a most significant accomplishment that this

government can certainly be proud of, Mr. Speaker.

In fact, the survey showed that 98 per cent of firms in this Province rate

the overall state of business here as either good or satisfactory. We have a

positive climate for business investment and growth being created right here in

this Province, the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker. We are

doing this by investing in programs to facilitate business expansion, by

investing in our education system and initiatives that support the development

of the skilled labour on which businesses rely, and by improving the tax and

regulatory environment, including further reductions in personal income and the

small business tax rate in Budget 2010.

More and more businesses are recognizing that Newfoundland and Labrador is an

attractive place to be. The doom and gloom mentality of the Opposition is far

from healthy. Sometimes you wonder if they are not operating in a vacuum from

the real world. Capital investment growth in this Province is poised to lead the

country this year at a projected 23 per cent. This is a choice location to

invest, to pursue a career and to live, and our government will continue to

ensure that we have the environment to support new business attraction which

will generate prosperity and pay dividends for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians

today and into the future.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLY: These investments are paying dividends and will benefit our

children and our grandchildren.

More positive news, Mr. Speaker: personal income growth grew by 3.9 per cent,

in fact. It is projected that it will grow by about 3.9 per cent in 2010. Our

residential construction increased by 11.4 per cent to $1.5 billion, Mr.

Speaker. Again, huge confidence is shown in this Province. Our population, Mr.

Speaker, increased. For the first time since 1983 we were able to show in this

Province an increase of 0.5 per cent in net migration. That is something that we

are certainly all in this hon. House very proud of.

This funding in infrastructure projects will benefit all regions of the

Province, not only the larger centres, and represents a new record for

infrastructure spending. We have a government who cares and sees the blue sky

potential of this great Province. We have a government who cares. We have a

government who cares and is committed to rural communities.

In my district, a rural district, money is going into roads, money is going

into recreation, money is going into water and sewer, money is going to provide

support to seniors' groups, money is going into business and money is going into

health care. Thanks to this government, we are seeing change, Mr. Speaker,

change for the better throughout Newfoundland and Labrador. This government, Mr.

Speaker, is on the move and cares about the people of this beautiful place we

call home, Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLY: This investment in infrastructure

AN HON. MEMBER: I can't hear you.

MR. KELLY: Well, if you listen you might.

This investment in infrastructure is expected to generate 7,740 person years

of employment in the 2010-2011 fiscal year. No doubt, this government has a

vision for a strong and prosperous tomorrow for the people of our Province. By

looking forward and anticipating the needs of future generations of

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians we are making the right investments to ensure

that our children and our grandchildren will inherit a diversified, strong

economy along with the quality public infrastructure needed to support it.

Here and around the globe economies are recovering from a recession, and

rising out of that period of uncertainty we are surely ensuring Newfoundland and

Labrador is well positioned to grasp emerging opportunities.

Budget 2010 included significant investments in public buildings,

transportation, justice, environment, conservation, Newfoundland and Labrador

Housing infrastructure, as well as in municipal, education and health

infrastructure. Budget 2010 provides $367.7 million for various infrastructure

initiatives through the Department of Transportation and Works which included

$177 million in provincial funding for road and bridge expenditures throughout

the Province. This provincial government investment will be supplemented by an

additional $57.9 million in federal government funding, for a total bridge and

road investment of $235.6 million, Mr. Speaker.

In my district, approximately $6 million has been allocated to resurfacing

the TCH from Crooked Feeder to just west of the Hampden intersection. Major work

is scheduled for the Howley Bridge as well, Mr. Speaker. This Budget allocated

$50.3 million towards the purchase of four new water bombers in our Province,

Mr. Speaker, as announced in October, 2009; two of which, of course, will be

received or have been received this year.

Other investments include $10 million for heavy equipment acquisitions and

$1.5 million, Mr. Speaker, in a provincial government contribution to the

ongoing work at the Deer Lake Airport runway extension, which is being

cost-shared between the provincial and federal governments and the Deer Lake

Regional Airport Authority.

Municipalities, Mr. Speaker; Budget 2010 provides $135.5 million provincial

investment for municipal infrastructure. This will leverage an additional $53.4

from the federal government, bringing the total to $188.9 million, and if you

add in the municipalities' contribution, $225 million.

In The Telegram after the Budget came down, Mr. Speaker, a number of

leaders in the Province, a number of municipal leaders made some commentary on

the Budget. This is one individual, the Mayor of Leading Tickles - and of course

the Mayor of Leading Tickles happens to be in my good friend's District of

Exploits.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLY: Mr. Harry Hallett, who is now also the President of MNL, which

is Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador, said: "There's a good deal of

infrastructure money there that is badly needed. In fact, it's the largest

amount of money that's ever been spent on infrastructure in this province. Good

stuff." Good stuff.

Municipalities are also being given $2.5 million to buy fire trucks as part

of a $7.6 million four-year project. They will also get $1 million to upgrade

and replace firefighting equipment, Mr. Speaker.

From the West Coast, Mr. Speaker, Corner Brook Mayor Neville Greeley, who

also happens to serve on the Board of Directors of MNL, Municipalities

Newfoundland and Labrador, he is the Western Director, and he said: "the budget

is great for the province as a whole, but was pleased with what municipalities

received. From the municipalities' perspective' in quotation marks, Mr.

Speaker, it was a good news budget,' Greeley said."

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador supported a number of municipal

infrastructure projects during the last two years in my district. Municipalities

applied for and received funding which was used for paving and road

reconstruction, water and sewer, and fire protection services. In total, Mr.

Speaker, over $9 million worth of projects were funded with the Province's new

municipal cost-shared funding ratio which is being widely and highly received

throughout our Province.

The Province also approved funding recently, Mr. Speaker, of $86,130 to

upgrade the Deer Lake waste management site and close the incinerator. The site

provides services to a number of municipalities in my district.

Mr. Speaker, education prior to entering politics, I spent thirty years in

the education field. It is a proud moment for me to be here this year, in this

Budget, when the amount came down, that this year the Budget for education was

$1.3 billion - the highest allocation in this Province's history.

Mr. Speaker, I was guest speaker at a luncheon banquet of the Provincial

School Administrators' Conference in March of this year. I spoke to many

administrators who spoke highly of government's commitment to education and the

positive changes being experienced in many areas. Just think about it, Mr.

Speaker, no interest on the provincial portion of student debt, free textbooks

from K-12. There was a time - all thirty years I spent as a school administrator

- the textbook policy for the Province was free textbooks from K-8. Often,

students, unfortunately, had to make program choices based on a cost of a

textbook in high school. I am so very pleased that this government had the

foresight to make that change. It is certainly well-received and it is wonderful

- absolutely wonderful.

Not only have they done that, Mr. Speaker, but they provided significantly

more funds to the university, to the College of the North Atlantic, to the

college system. This government's commitment to education is unprecedented.

A number of schools throughout the district have received funding from the

provincial government for improvements to their facilities. Projects, Mr.

Speaker, included: roofing, site access changes, heating. In my district alone,

it totalled over $1 million for maintenance. Of course, prior to 2003, as a

school administrator, we had to go around with garbage buckets to collect the

water that was coming into the classrooms from leaky roofs.

This government, Mr. Speaker, continues to ensure that in Newfoundland and

Labrador, students receive a quality education through excellence in programming

and curriculum. Quality education is vital for our youth and for the prosperity

of our Province. Our government has made tremendous advances in education in

recent years. We are continuing to make the right investments in Budget 2010, so

that we provide the best learning opportunities for students of all ages in this

Province.

Class size in Budget 2010 was capped for Grades 6 and 9 - very significant.

Also, Mr. Speaker, there were increases in supports to classrooms; $14.6 million

to help meet the diverse requirements of students with special needs. Budget

2010 also included $2.2 million to complete the implementation of Excellence in

Mathematics strategy in Grades 3, 6 and 9 and to begin expansion of the strategy

into high school.

Mr. Speaker, to help prepare young children for their school years this

government has done a lot. Not only that, they are looking at investing now into

early child education this year as well in Budget 2010.

Mr. Speaker, a sustainable and viable economy depends upon high literacy

levels. Literacy is the means by which our children become strong, critical and

creative thinkers.

Mr. Speaker, I realize that my time is running short. Health and Community

Services - $2.7 billion this year in the Budget - the highest again in the

Province's history. Of course, I am so proud to say that approximately $350,000

was spent to do repairs in the Deer Lake clinic.

Tax reductions - tax benefits for seniors, increasing the program

expenditures, the low income benefits for seniors, so much in this Budget for

seniors. Reductions in personal income taxes as well.

Tourism, Mr. Speaker, we have all heard many accolades about what this

Province is doing in its marketing efforts to encourage tourism.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that his time for speaking has expired.

MR. KELLY: By leave?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member, by leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the member, by leave.

MR. KELLY: Mr. Speaker, under poverty reduction, since 2006 we have

invested $482.7 million in poverty reduction - half a billion dollars. By all

accounts, we are seeing progress. The incidents of low income have decreased

from 12.2 per cent to 6.3 per cent, a decrease of some 30,000 people who are no

longer considered below the poverty line. As well, the depth and persistence of

poverty in this Province has shown considerable improvement. In fact, the depth

of poverty in this Province, Mr. Speaker, is the lowest in all Canada as a

result of our Poverty Reduction Strategy. We now know that 4,000 fewer people

are on our income support caseloads.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLY: Mr. Speaker, I am so proud to be a member of this outstanding

team, a team who has done so much for the children and youth in this Province, a

team who has done so much for seniors, a team who has done so much to reduce

poverty, a team who has done so much for education, a team who has done so much

to support business, a team who has done so much to support health care, a team

with a true vision for this Province, a team who cares about all of our

Province, especially rural Newfoundland, a team who truly believes in the future

of this beautiful place.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLY: Yes, Mr. Speaker, a team who is doing so much to help all

Newfoundland and Labrador. If Joe Chesterfield was a real person, he would see

the benefits too, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLY: Mr. Speaker, I will conclude my comments, but I want to say

that I very much support Budget 2010 and all of the positive work that we are

doing for the people of this great Province.

Mr. Speaker, an old Chinese proverb states: One generation plants the trees

and another gets the shade. I am confident that today's investments will indeed

have significant benefits down the road, especially for our children.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Bonavista North.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HARDING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am quite pleased today as well to stand and speak in support of this

Budget, the same as my government colleagues have done. That is a bit different

from what we expect from the Opposition. From me, you will hear about the good

things that are in the Budget, from the Opposition you hear what is not in the

Budget.

Mr. Speaker, before I get into that I would like to take the opportunity as

well to join my colleagues in welcoming our newest members to our caucus: the

Member for Topsail and the Member for my neighbouring District of Terra Nova.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HARDING: Mr. Speaker, prior to last year's Budget, our government

anticipated that we would be facing a number of challenges. We were part of a

worldwide recession, but our government had a plan to counter these challenges.

We continued with our tax reductions, we continued with our debt reduction,

we continued with strategic spending and we continued with our investment in

infrastructure and our social programs. Mr. Speaker, we continued to stay the

course and we are following a similar plan for 2010-2011.

As our Minister of Finance said when he presented the Budget, now is not the

time to put the brakes on. Our objective is to keep as many people as possible

working in this great Province. Our objective is to keep the economy going, and

that is what we are doing. I would have to say that we must be doing a pretty

good job of it because the financial experts and the credit rating agencies

continue to reaffirm that our plan is working and we are making significant

advancements and improvements upon the fiscal foundation that we started back in

Mr. Speaker, having said that, we must continue to take a responsible and a

cautious approach to our investments and our planning. We must ensure that our

spending of public money is sustainable in the future. Mr. Speaker, that is the

key word, sustainable in the future. While we have billions of dollars coming

into our revenue each year, this year is no exception, we still have to be

extremely careful as to where we spend that money. While the price of oil might

be $78 or $80 a barrel right now, we do not know what it will be next week, two

weeks from now or three months from now. We must be forever cognizant of that

fact, Mr. Speaker.

We found that out last year when the price of oil dropped and we will

encounter it again as long as this Province is an oil-producing Province. We

know that some day the oil wells will run dry. We know that we are dealing with

a finite resource. Whether it is twenty-five years, thirty-five years, fifty

years, we do not know because we have so much unexplored potential in our

offshore resources. Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, the end will come to these

revenues.

It is my hope as a member of this government, and I am sure it is the hope of

the Premier, the Minister of Finance and all of the members in our caucus, that

after we catch up on rebuilding our infrastructure and after we get a major grip

on our debt charges, our long-term debt, that someday we will begin to build

some kind of endowment fund, some kind of major savings plan so that we will

have money for the rainy day. Mr. Speaker, we have already actually begun that

process of preparing for the future and we are doing that by investing or

planning to invest in the Lower Churchill Hydro Project. What better use can be

made from our non-renewable resources into the renewable water resources of the

Lower Churchill River? If you want to talk about investing in our future, then

there it is, Mr. Speaker: a project that is recognized as one of the best

undeveloped hydroelectric projects in the world; a project that will continue to

provide revenues to our Province as long as the water flows. That is our plan,

Mr. Speaker, that is the direction this government has taken.

If you listen to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Speaker, what do you hear?

AN HON. MEMBER: Not very much.

MR. HARDING: Not very much, my colleague just said, and it is true.

Last week I heard her make three statements in particular: the government is

not spending much money for middle and lower-income families; (2) we are not

spending money in rural Newfoundland and Labrador; and (3) we cannot even pay

our doctors an adequate wage.

Now, Mr. Speaker, let me deal with the doctors first, just briefly. We have

$79 million on the table now for increased wages and benefits for the doctors in

this Province. We have more money than that, in terms of funding for new

hospitals, new home care facilities, and new equipment for these facilities.

Mr. Speaker, on April 13 I was driving from my home in Badger's Quay to St.

John's, and it was somewhere just before 7:30 in the morning or just after 7:30

that I heard an interview that was given by a doctor at the hospital in Gander.

The statement that he made was that they needed, or this Province needs an

additional 122 emergency room and family care doctors in our Province right now.

That is the statement that he made. In the same breath, Mr. Speaker, he said

what really bothered him and this is what really got to me. What really

bothered him was the fact that in the afternoon he would look out over his

clinic and he would see so many people with runny noses, sore throats and sore

arms.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I have been in the workforce for over forty years and I

have never gone to a hospital yet for a runny nose or a sore throat or a sore

arm. Mr. Speaker, while I say that, I know that there are some people with

certain illnesses and diseases who have to go to see a doctor at the onset of a

cold or the flu. I know that some of our seniors have to do the same thing

because they cannot come back, these diseases, at this time in their lives. Mr.

Speaker, that is quite understandable and that is not the people I am talking

about it. If all of the other people that that doctor was referring to, if these

are the people, the people with the runny noses and the sore throats, if these

are the people he is using in his statistics for wait rooms, wait lists in our

hospitals, then we do have a major problem with health care in this Province.

Mr. Speaker, I want to go to the other point now with respect to the Leader

of the Opposition's comments. She said that we are not spending money in rural

Newfoundland and Labrador. Well, Mr. Speaker, overall last year, this government

invested somewhere around $800 million in infrastructure funding for the

communities in this Province. Most of that money went to communities in rural

Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HARDING: I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that the Leader of the Opposition

did not go through Bonavista North last year because if she did

AN HON. MEMBER: She probably does not know where it is.

MR. HARDING: That could be as well except for the by-election a few

years ago. They all knew where it was then, Mr. Speaker.

A few of the expenditures in my district last year: Indian Bay, just over

quarter of a million dollars for their water system; Musgrave Harbour, $2

million for upgrading and repaving the roads; Lumsden, $700,000 to replace their

water treatment plant; another $240,000 was approved for Lumsden for a new fire

truck and that truck is currently on order and will be delivered later this

year; Gander Bay South, $62,000 to cover an overrun in their waterline

extension; Centreville, Wareham, Trinity, almost a half a million dollars to

replace their water systems; New-Wes-Valley, approximately $2 million to upgrade

the school, Lester Pearson Memorial High; another $1 million to build a new fire

hall in New-Wes-Valley; $5 million approved over a three-year period for water

and sewer installations in the community; $1 million last year as well to

complete the sewer extension from Lester Pearson Memorial High.

Mr. Speaker, I could go on. In roadwork, $2 million last year on the Gander

Bay Highway, and a

section between Trinity and Indian Bay. In addition to that

$2 million, another $2 million to replace two bridges on the main highway in the

Deadman's Bay area. In terms of special assistance grants, it was almost

$200,000; that included $100,000 for the Barbour site in Newtown.

Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on this afternoon with more and more of these

expenditures but I will go now to the third comment that she made, and that was

with respect to not spending money for middle and lower-income class families.

Mr. Speaker, in terms of taxation, we have implemented and enhanced the

Low-Income Tax Reduction, this was started in 2005. This eliminates the

provincial portion of income tax for individuals with net incomes of less than

$16,000 and families with net incomes of $27,000. These people do not have to

pay the provincial portion of income tax now, Mr. Speaker.

I will give you a little example of what it means to some of these people. In

2009, last year - or now when people were completing their income tax return

this spring an individual with an income of $16,000 saved $544 in personal

income tax. In terms of a family with an annual income of $26,000, that family

saved almost $800 last year, and that will continue, Mr. Speaker, as the years

go on.

On July 1 of this year, the Minister of Finance announced again another

decrease in personal income tax rates, applicable to the second and third income

tax bracket people. These are more the middle-income tax earners. Their taxes

will decrease from 12.8 per cent to 12.5 per cent and from 15.5 per cent down to

13.5 per cent. We have been reducing income tax for every worker in this

Province for the past number of years. We have now the lowest personal income

tax in all of Atlantic Canada.

In 2005, our government froze post-secondary education tuition for all public

institutions in Newfoundland and Labrador. Last year our government eliminated

the interest on the provincial portion of student loans. This benefited 49,000

people living in our Province. We increased the up-front non-repayable

needs-based grants to students; approximately 8,400 students receive these

grants. Mr. Speaker, these grants, the biggest part of them go to students from

rural Newfoundland and Labrador because it is based on need, and the cost of

educating a person from rural Newfoundland is much higher; in fact, almost twice

the cost of someone living in the metro area or in the immediate area of St.

John's.

Persons below the low-income cut-off level in 2003, there were 63,000

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians in that category. What I mean by low-income cut

off, is it refers to people who spend more than 20 per cent of their income on

food, clothing and shelter. In 2003 we had 63,000 people in that category. In

2008 that had dropped to 33, 000 people, today it is even lower. It is still not

low enough but we are at least moving in the right direction.

We expanded again this year, the Newfoundland and Labrador Prescription Drug

Program. This year, again there is an additional $3.2 million to cover the cost

of adding ten new drugs under the Newfoundland and Labrador Prescription Drug

Program, and some of these drugs are cancer fighting drugs. We have expanded the

Newfoundland and Labrador Dental Health Plan where we now include youth from

ages thirteen to seventeen. These people were not included before. We have free

textbooks and eliminated the school fees for our students. A provision in this

year's Budget to cover the cost of these textbooks and the different fees is

almost $20 million.

We have increased continually the minimum wage in this Province, giving our

lower-income earners more money to put in their pockets. We have done a new

financial assessment process for home support workers. Starting in December of

last year, this will see more money staying in the pockets of our seniors and

others requiring home support. These people with lower incomes will pay the

less, and I will give you an example, Mr. Speaker.

Persons with a family income at or below $13,000 per year for a single

person, and $21,000 a year for a couple will not be required to contribute

towards home support. Before, just as a comparison, a person with a monthly

income of $1,169 would have had to pay $295 a month for home support. Now, under

this new plan that came into effect in December, they only have to pay $15 per

month.

Mr. Speaker, in the case of a couple receiving home support, a couple who had

an income last year - or before December of last year - an income of $2,155 per

month would have had to pay almost half of that for their home support, $1,077.

As of December 9 of last year that couple receiving home support now have to pay

just $124 - 124, Mr. Speaker, in comparison to $1,077.

The maximum Seniors' Benefit increased from $803 to $900. On July1 government

will increase the hourly wage again for home support workers by seventy-five

cents an hour. This will cost the government an estimated $8.9 million. We have

eliminated the sales tax on insurance premiums.

In this year's Budget alone, Mr. Speaker, there is a total tax reduction to

the people of this Province of $48.5 million. Since 2007, total tax reductions

for people in this Province have amounted to $1.2 billion. That is money going

back into the working people of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, we are certainly investing in our infrastructure. We are

investing in our rural communities. We are investing in poverty reduction. We

are investing in health and wellness, and we are investing in our children, in

the future of this Province.

This Budget again, Mr. Speaker, is about making the right decisions for the

right reasons. It is the right investments for the day that will achieve the

best results for tomorrow.

I see that my time has expired, Mr. Speaker. May I have leave just to

conclude?

MR. SPEAKER (T. Osborne): The hon. member is asking for leave.

Does the hon. member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member, by leave.

MR. HARDING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just want to say, in conclusion, that we are, as a government, on the right

track and people can see the improvements everywhere in the Province. In 2003,

this government was floundering in a deep hole; in 2010, we are continuing to

move upward and onward. It is just like our Minister of Fisheries and Oceans

said a while ago when he was involved in the controversy over the fishing

industry in our Province, he made the statement that we all have to work

together in order to make that industry what it was and what it can be - the

processors, the fisherpeople and governments working together. That is what it

is with everything, Mr. Speaker, it is going to take all of us to bring this

great province back to where it should be and where it deserves.

I will conclude with a quote from Helen Keller. Helen Keller said: I am only

one, but I am one. Alone, I can do very little, but together we can do much.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Labrador Affairs.

MR. HICKEY: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

It is indeed an honour to stand in the hon. House here today and to have a

few minutes to speak regarding Budget 2010. It is also an honour, Mr. Speaker,

to stand in my place representing the people of the great District of Lake

Melville that includes the great Towns of North West River, Sheshatshiu, Happy

Valley-Goose Bay, Mud Lake and Churchill Falls.

Mr. Speaker, we have come a long ways, this government, since 2003. We came

into power at a time in which the people of this Province wanted change. I say,

Mr. Speaker, according to the polls, I believe that that people of the Province

are pleased with the work that our good Premier is doing, the Cabinet and,

indeed, members of our caucus throughout the Province of Newfoundland and

Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, when we came into office in 2003 we were certainly in a fiscal

position that certainly in a position in which the hon. members on the other

side of the House had basically squandered it. They had squandered the good

money, the funds of our Province, and we had to get it back on track, and on

track it is.

I want to take a few minutes this afternoon and talk about some of the good

things that are happening up in Labrador, because Labrador, Mr. Speaker, when

the hon. crowd across the other side was in power, was really a forgotten place,

as part of this Province. I can attest to that, having been certainly involved

with the Combined Councils of Labrador, as the Mayor of the Town of Happy

Valley-Goose Bay, and certainly served in a municipal benefit on municipal

council there. Mr. Speaker, I can tell you, having dealt with the hon. crowd

from the other side, that Labrador was indeed forgotten. There was a deficit in

Labrador. There was a deficit in health care. There was a deficit in

transportation. There was a deficit in infrastructure. We have come a long ways

in just a few short years.

I will say to you, Mr. Speaker, that one of the projects that I was very

pleased that our government took on, front and centre, and that was the

Trans-Labrador Highway. That was a key piece of infrastructure that we in

Labrador had fought for many years that we had asked previous governments to

become involved in. I will say the federal government of the day, the late

Lawrence O'Brien, he certainly played a key role in bringing some $341 million

to get the road built between Cartwright and L'Anse-au-Clair. Listen, Mr.

Speaker, I will tell you that we have made great gains in Labrador over the last

number of years.

I want to go through some of them because when I listen to the hon. crowd

across the way trying to tell the people of the Province that the sky is falling

in, the doom and gloom that is around our Province. I say, Mr. Speaker, nothing

can be further from the truth - nothing can be further from the truth. Our

Province is in better shape today than it has ever been in its history. The

reason why it is in better shape that ever it has been in its history is because

we have the leadership in our Premier and because of the dedication of our

Cabinet and caucus to ensure that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador gain

the maximum benefits of our resources, and that our youth have a strong future

as far as jobs, opportunities for training on some of the big projects that we

are going to see coming forward over the course of the next number of years.

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about some of the things that are happening in

Labrador, and I certainly, as the Minister of Labrador Affairs, want to talk a

few minutes about the Northern Strategic Plan for Labrador. Right now we are

going to be spending somewhere in the vicinity of $587 million will be invested

in Labrador through the Northern Strategic Plan to expand the infrastructure, to

advance the delivery of programs and services, and to encourage economic

prosperity. By the end of the coming fiscal year, our government and I am

proud to say will have spent more than $2.4 billion in Labrador since the

Budget of March of 2004.

Budget 2010, Mr. Speaker, supports our government's efforts to achieve real

and substantive progress for Labradorians, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. This

investment builds upon the impressive record and accomplishment of this

government. This government is listening intently and working hard to achieve a

collective vision of a prosperous and progressive Labrador for all.

Mr. Speaker, in the area of Transportation and Works, and I just want to

highlight for the people of the Province, for my colleagues here today, that the

provincial government is showing a continued commitment in infrastructure, and

the Trans-Labrador Highway is the number one infrastructure project for the

Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. We are also investing, certainly this

year we will see the connection, the completion of Phase III between Cartwright

and Happy Valley-Goose Bay. I can tell you it certainly did my heart good when

we delivered to the people of Coastal Labrador last year, in December, when we

connected the road between Cartwright and Happy Valley-Goose Bay, I can tell

you, Mr. Speaker, we have done a lot of great things in this government, but I

can tell you the positive reports that we got from those people along that

coast.

I will tell you the story of a gentleman, a friend of mine, who worked for

Newfoundland Hydro; he was in Cartwright. I happened to see him in Happy

Valley-Goose Bay. He told me about how he had broken one of his teeth, and about

how he got up in his car the next morning and drove to Happy Valley-Goose Bay,

saw a dentist, had it fixed, and was back home in his community that night.

Before the road connection, Mr. Speaker, that would have cost him $800 in

airfare.

So, Mr. Speaker, this is very much appreciated by the people of those

communities who now come in to Happy Valley-Goose Bay for everything from their

fuel, their medical, dental, banking all of those communities now are better

served because of the connection on the Trans-Labrador Highway.

Mr. Speaker, since we came into office, I can tell you, we have spent

somewhere in the vicinity of $185 million to $200 million on the Trans-Labrador

Highway. This year alone we will spend another approximately $90 million to

continue the hard-surfacing between Happy Valley-Goose Bay and Labrador West.

This road, Mr. Speaker, is continuing to attract attention.

Mr. Speaker, before this road was connected, I was talking to a trucker who

told me he used to have to put his false teeth in his pocket because he could

not keep them in his mouth while he was driving over the rough roads that we had

left over by the Liberals. Well, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that is no longer

the case.

It is not only in Labrador we are seeing transportation improvements, Mr.

Speaker. We are seeing improvements to transportation here on the Island part of

the Province. I was out in the good community of Deer Lake last fall and I went

and drove up to Plum Point. It was nothing but a clear sheet of blacktop from

Deer Lake right to Plum Point and beyond. So I can tell you, when I drove over

it in 2003, Mr. Speaker, it was potholes.

AN HON. MEMBER: All the way.

MR. HICKEY: All the way. That is why the people of the Province wanted to

see change. They were sick and tired of driving in the potholes. They were sick

and tired of the schools that had never seen any maintenance. The windows were

leaking, the roofs were leaking; you name it. They never did anything,

absolutely not.

Mr. Speaker, we are doing it. In 2003-2004 the then Minister of

Transportation and Works and previous Premier of the Province, the hon. Tom

Rideout of the day, went to Ottawa and managed to convince the federal

government that the Trans-Labrador Highway had to be part of the National

Highway System. That was the key. That enabled us to be able to take the

standard that we had before, widen the road three metres and, I can tell you,

anybody who drives that highway today, with what we have done, is very pleased

and very proud of the progress that we have made there.

It took some challenges. I remember in 2003 when we took office, down in the

Member for Cartwright-L'Anse-au-Clair's district, we had to put in a brand new

depot. We spent I believe it was $1.5 million, Mr. Speaker. We had to put a

depot at Chateau Pond to fix the rock cuts, Mr. Speaker, for the hon. member,

the now Leader of the Opposition. Now they are called Yvonne's rock cuts.

Everyone down along the coast calls them Yvonne's rock cuts.

Mr. Speaker, that is still there, it is still an issue, and we will certainly

look at fixing that problem in the course of the next year or so, but now there

business opportunities for everybody in Labrador and certainly our connection to

the Island portion of the Province.

When it comes to health care, Mr. Speaker, health care is certainly a huge

issue. It has been a huge issue for us in Labrador for many years, but we are

making improvements. I am happy to report here that we are about to open a new

long-term health care facility in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Construction is about

to start in my colleague's district of Labrador West on a new hospital and a new

college facility over there. Close on $100 million will be spent over on that

facility, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to dialysis equipment: before, when you were in

Labrador West or in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, you had to move your family right

out of Labrador in order to get kidney dialysis treatment. That is no longer the

case, Mr. Speaker. Kidney dialysis units are now in place in Happy Valley-Goose

Bay. Certainly, in this year's Budget there was another some $700,000 to put one

in Labrador West. It is much needed, Mr. Speaker, and much well-deserved by the

people over in Labrador West.

Mr. Speaker, I do want to touch on another couple of issues regarding health

care. While I have not waded into this issue lately, I do want to make a couple

of comments regarding the move of the air ambulance. This has been a very

important issue for the people of Labrador for some time. This has been an issue

that certainly my colleague from Labrador West and my colleague from Torngat

Mountains - this has been a hot-button issue for us on this side of the House as

we deal with the many issues and complaints that we have had over the last

number of years.

The air ambulance, of course, is a critical component to the health care,

providing medevac services to patients when road ambulance and commercial

flights are unsuitable to a patient's condition, during the distance of a

patient's transport, and its geographic location.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell you, as the MHA for Lake Melville, this has been a

huge issue for me and for my constituents. I remember one time there, a couple

of years ago, between myself and the Member for Lab West, we had some ten

patients who were in St. John's waiting to go home. Because of conditions, they

could not take a scheduled flight at that time. We had to wait until an

emergency happened in Labrador, to be able to take those people home to their

loved ones on a medevac. We had to wait for someone to get sick up in Labrador

so we could ship these people back from the Health Sciences and St. Clare's

Hospital. That was not acceptable, Mr. Speaker.

I have to say, this week I was a little perturbed, to say the least, when the

Member for The Straits & White Bay North stood on his feet and made this

comment. He said, "The fact" - and I am reading from Hansard here, Mr. Speaker

- "The fact that you would take a service that is so vital to this Province,

that you would remove a piece of the economic engine that drives our district

and so on." Well I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, my concern is for the health care

of the people of Labrador, and not for the economy. That was an issue that has

been far too long - that has happened in Labrador.

I remember back in 1991 - and I am sure the Leader of the Opposition will

remember this, because she was the Mayor of the community of Mary's Harbour - in

1991, the people of Labrador, all the communities had met and said: Listen, we

are not happy with the service that we are receiving in Labrador by Grenfell. At

that time it was unanimous, and the member who was then the Mayor of Mary's

Harbour agreed with that, that we should have our own health care system in

Labrador and our own board.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who was the mayor?

MR. HICKEY: The mayor at the time was Yvonne Jones who is now the Leader

the Opposition, and this has been an ongoing issue, Mr. Speaker. I can tell you

one thing right now, those days are over. It is not about a community's economy,

it should be about the health care of the people that we serve. I want to

commend the Minister of Health. I want to commend the Cabinet and the support we

received from the caucus on this particular issue. We have received letters, Mr.

Speaker, from the towns Forteau, who are in the hon. member's district

Cartwright-L'Anse-au-Clair, in which they say and they support the move of the

air ambulance from St. Anthony to Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that when referring to members of the Legislature

that we refer to them by their title or their district.

MR. HICKEY: I apologize, Mr. Speaker; a slip up, Mr. Speaker. I get

emotional over this stuff.

Mr. Speaker, the Nunatsiavut government also wrote letters of support, as did

the communities of Makkovik, as did the community of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, as

did communities of Rigolet, Postville, Forteau, L'Anse-au-Loup. All of these

communities see that the work we have been doing on this particular file, is we

made a decision that was in the best interest of the people and the health care

of the people of Labrador. We had an independent consultant go out and brought

us back an independent report. It was very clear from the report that things had

to change. We were not prepared to continue to see the lives of our loved ones

and our families at risk because we wanted to keep an air ambulance in St.

Anthony to drive the economy of St. Anthony. That is not where we should be

making our decisions, Mr. Speaker. We should be making our decisions in the best

care and the best interest of the health care of the people of Labrador, and

that is exactly what this government is doing, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I could go on here for another two hours to talk about the good

things that are happening in Labrador, but I will tell you, that in my district

things are going very well and we hope to certainly see an expansion in the

mining industry in Labrador West. I was absolutely delighted the other day to

hear that the economy of Labrador West is going to see an influx of close on

half a billion dollars in Phase I of their expansion over there with future

expansions. When we look at the mining up in Schefferville with the New

Millennium project and the Labrador Iron Mines project, all of these are going

to create great wealth, Mr. Speaker, not only for Labrador but for our entire

Province.

I just want to say, Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be part of a government under

the leadership of Premier Williams in which we are moving this Province forward.

I think the message we sent to Hydro-Quebec in the last couple of days is

certainly evidence that there is going to be no more giveaways, Mr. Speaker. The

giveaways are over. We saw the giveaways when the hon. crowd on the other side

were in power. We saw that from Grimes and Tobin and -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that his speaking time has expired.

MR. HICKEY: Mr. Speaker, with that I will

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HICKEY: Mr. Speaker, I will have an opportunity to

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

At this point, we will adjourn debate on the main motion, on Motion 1 on the

Order Paper, and we will continue through the Orders of the Day. We will go to,

on the Order Paper, Order 4. We will continue Second Reading of a Bill,

An Act

To Amend The Commissioners For Oaths Act, Bill 7.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Bellevue.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. PEACH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is always good to hear my colleagues in the House speak on the different

issues that come up in the House, especially on the Budget and to hear them

speak on some of the bills that are being put forward in legislation. It gives

me great pleasure to stand here in this hon. House myself and take my place as

the MHA representing the great District of Bellevue and speak to Bill 7,

An Act

To Amend The Commissioners For Oaths Act.

Mr. Speaker, a couple of days ago this bill was introduced and was opened by

my colleague, the Minister of Justice. I just want to mention some of the

comments that my colleague made in the purpose of amendments of the

Commissioners for Oaths Act. This bill "would broaden the category of persons

who may be appointed commissioners for oaths or persons who have the status of

permanent residents of Canada." It also gives a permit to the minister to set

fees that a commissioner may charge for his or her services. It also makes it an

offence to pretend one is a commissioner when one is not. Mr. Speaker, I will

elaborate on that in just a few minutes.

Mr. Speaker, after my colleague the other day spoke in the House, the

Opposition House Leader got up, and he had sixty minutes to speak on this issue.

I have twenty minutes, but I do not know if it is going to take me twenty

minutes or not, but I will try to do my best in addressing some of the comments

that were made.

The Opposition House Leader certainly gave us a good lecture on the

Commissioner for Oaths. Although he did emphasize on the Commissioner for Oaths

being documents that are witnessed in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador,

he spent most of his time, Mr. Speaker, speaking on what would have been a

criteria for a notary public outside of the Province. It was a lot of time, I

felt, wasted on this bill and should have been directed directly to the comments

of the bill, Mr. Speaker.

I, myself, had some experience as a Commissioner for Oaths over the years. I

was Mayor in Norman's Cove-Long Cove for ten years