May 6, 1998 HOUSE OF

ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol. XLIII No. 20

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!

Statements by Ministers

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

Technology.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleagues are aware, Premier

Tobin is presently at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas leading a

delegation of fifty-seven businesses from Newfoundland and Labrador, the largest

contingent ever from this Province in our 20-year history of participation in this

international conference.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS FOOTE: With over 1,800 booths, exhibitors from over eighty

countries and an estimated 50,000 visitors expected to attend the exhibition, each of

these companies will have the opportunity to showcase their strengths, network with

possible joint venture partners and develop crucial business contacts.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce today that several of our

companies have signed business deals and joint venture agreements at the conference.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS FOOTE: ConPro, a subsidiary of SEA Systems Limited, signed two

contracts valued in excess of $10 million. The company will design, manufacture, assemble

and install the Control and Safety Systems on the Topsides of the Terra Nova Project's

Floating Production Storage and Off loading (FPSO) facility. SEA Systems will also provide

the Vessel Control and Safety Systems for the FPSO hull.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS FOOTE: SEA Systems Limited signed a cooperation agreement with

Houston-based CorrOcean Inc. Under the agreement, SEA Systems will represent CorrOcean

Inc. in Atlantic Canada, supplying high technology products as well as providing

engineering inspection and monitoring services. This agreement will result in the transfer

of technology from the North Sea and create employment opportunities for technical staff

in Newfoundland.

Moya Cahill, President of Pan Maritime Energy Services, signed a

Memorandum Of Understanding with Guy Cagnolatti, President of Freide Goldman Newfoundland

Ltd., for Pan Maritime Energy to provide and exchange project management and engineering

services to Freide Goldman Newfoundland Ltd. and other Freide Goldman subsidiaries. This

MOU will result in the transfer of technology and engineering services provided within the

Province worldwide.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say that while Premier Tobin was in

Houston, he met with Mr. J. L. Holloway, Chairman and CEO of Freide Goldman International,

owners of the shipyard in Marystown, to discuss the company's plans to maximize use of

that facility.

Premier Tobin tells me he was informed during the meeting that HAM

Marine Inc., a subsidiary of Freide Goldman International, received a contract to build

its fifth semi-submersible drill rig for Noble Drilling. Freide Goldman Newfoundland will

fabricate the major structural components including pontoons and columns for the

semi-submersible rig, translating into 300,000 person hours of work for the Marystown

Shipyard.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, this work, consistent with the agreement by

Friede Goldman to increase employment levels at the shipyard in Marystown, will sustain

employment levels for a longer period of time.

As well, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Holloway told Premier Tobin that there will

be new and substantial work carried out at Friede Goldman Newfoundland, which will be

announced later this summer.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the Premier also met with Mr. Dick Chaney, Chief

Operating Officer of Halliburton Inc. to discuss an increased presence for his company in

Newfoundland and Labrador. Mr. Chaney has committed to increase staffing levels for

operations in the Province in the near future.

Mr. Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador is quickly developing a solid

reputation among the key players in the oil and gas industry as an area with great

potential and a very bright future. These announcements, combined with the growing

activity and high level of participation in this international conference by our

companies, is a strong indication that our companies are leading the way as we continue to

reap the benefits associated with the development of our oil and gas sector.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.

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

I have just gotten a copy of the minister's statement, and I am going

to respond to it. My colleague just came into the House.

Mr. Speaker, everybody wants a little good news, like the song says, `a

little good news today.' But, of course, Mr. Speaker, many of these people who have

announced contracts and so on have done so, a lot of it, on their own initiative and have

done some great planning on their own. I am sure, when the Premier gets back to the

Province, the lights, camera and action will begin again, and we will hear some more over

and over again.

I will say, Mr. Speaker, it is positive and we do need a lot of

positive news, I say to the minister. One thing that I do agree on is Marystown, and I am

glad to see what is happening for the people in that area. Like any part of this Province,

it is good for the entire Province when we see things like that happening. All we have to

do now is quadruple that and continue to grow on those things around the Province, because

there are some tough times in the Province.

Yes, it is good to have good news, Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt about

it, but there are a lot of concerns out there that have to be addressed and addressed

quickly, especially in some parts of rural Newfoundland. Hopefully, Mr. Speaker, the day

will come when we will have press conferences all around the Province to announce that

there are jobs going to be created. That is what the people want to see, something

tangible, something that is real. Signing contracts and MOUs sounds good, preliminary work

is good and, yes, we need a lot of good news - this is a little news - but hopefully we

will see something tangible in the near future. Mr. Speaker, we stand and say

congratulations to what we have done to date.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Education has been recognized.

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, I was going to offer leave for the hon.

Leader of the New Democratic Party to make a statement but

apparently he is not prepared at this time.

Mr. Speaker, Phase I of the air quality testing program involving 150

schools throughout the Province has been substantially completed and another twenty-three

schools in Labrador will be completed within the next month.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, the Department is now awaiting formal

reports from the consulting companies which performed the studies.

As the reports are received, they will be circulated to the appropriate

school board and the appropriate school council. They will also be reviewed by a

departmental committee which, in consultation with the school board and the Department of

Works, Services and Transportation, will develop remedial strategies as required. It is

anticipated that any condition which constitutes a potential health hazard will be

addressed at the earliest opportunity. Most corrective measures are expected to be

undertaken during the summer period.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Education has also developed a Phase II

of the testing program and expects to have completed air testing in up to another seventy

of our schools by the middle of June.

Although it is virtually impossible to complete testing of all our

school buildings in this school year, we are confident that we will have addressed the

priority issues for the school boards.

Mr. Speaker, the department has also retained the services of Dr.

Patel, a microbiologist at Memorial University who is also reviewing the reports and

consulting on any potential health concerns.

We will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the health and

safety of students, teachers, and other workers in our schools are in no way compromised.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Waterford Valley.

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to say to the minister again today, that once these reports are

received there should be a full public disclosure. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador

should know the results of the air quality testing.

The minister admitted in the March 22 edition of The Evening

Telegram that this follows from ten years of neglect. Mr. Speaker, the minister has

said, why we have the air quality problem is because the Liberal Governments of Clyde

Wells and his government had ten years of neglecting the school maintenance system. In

fact, Mr. Speaker, the minister in that

article said: There is no question that forcing

school boards to live within meagre and shrinking budgets contributes to the sick school

syndrome.

So, it is time for this minister to do what he is saying today, look

after the air quality, admit that the fault lies in the ten years of neglect that he

talked about in the March 22 edition of The Evening Telegram , do what is right -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. H. HODDER: - and make sure the public of Newfoundland and

Labrador have access to reports as they become available.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi, does

he have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. SPEAKER: No leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member does not have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Oral Questions

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, behind the scenes in the country there is a significant

issue that has been ongoing. Within a year, the federal government and the provinces will

have to renegotiate the massive equalization program which shifts billions of dollars each

year from the richer provinces to those poorer regions. It is no secret, Mr. Speaker, that

in many of the richer provinces the attitude seems to be coalescing that the level of

tolerance towards the present equalization system is reaching a level at which there is

hostility towards it.

I would like to ask the Acting Minister of Finance: What concrete

arguments have the Province been making, to whom, and in what manner, to ensure that the

equalization formula today is no less generous than it should be; in other words, Mr.

Speaker, that the equalization money that comes in to our Province is equally as generous

in terms of assisting this Province to develop the types of programs and services that the

people in this Province expect?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, that is pretty well the same question that

the hon. the Leader of the Opposition asked the Premier, I think it was last week, and the

answer has not changed since last week. The answer is that there are no negotiations going

on talking about changing the equalization component of this Province; no formal

negotiations.

The hon. member is probably aware that for the past eight or ten years

when the various Ministers of Finance have met, the idea of equalization has come up in

the context of other things, but there are no formal negotiations going on whereby there

is any intent of changing the equalization formula in this country. It is part of the

national Constitution. It has been there for years and there is no intention on the part

of the provinces or the federal government to do away with the equalization formula, Mr.

Speaker.

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

supplementary.

MR. E. BYRNE: My God, Mr. Speaker!

First of all, it is not the same question I asked the Premier last

week. The question I asked the Premier last week was on TAGS.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, five months ago his Premier, as part of the

First Ministers, entered into an agreement to negotiate a framework on Canada's social

union, which talked about the fiscal framework for provinces and Ottawa. Now, for the

Minister of Justice to say that no negotiations are going on is absolutely an incredible

statement. The reality is that they are, so let me ask him this question.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is on a supplementary. I ask him to get to his

question.

MR. E. BYRNE: Let him ask him this question. Minister, not only the

equalization program but also the various transfer payment programs are under

renegotiation. In addition, Mr. Speaker, the country's First Ministers agreed in December

to renegotiate the rules on Ottawa's rules on its fiscal, financial borrowing and spending

within the Province.

The question is this: What steps is the government taking to present a

strong case to the federal government and other provinces to ensure that transfers are not

cut or reduced any more to poorer regions like ours? What are you saying to try to

convince Ottawa and the other provinces to ensure that these transfers, which are so

crucial to the services that we provide as a Province, do not erode even further?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I don't know if my colleague has enough

information. It seems to me the hon. member is confusing equalization with transfer

payments. The concept of the transfer payments - we all know about, was it the CHST? There

have been major changes in the transfer payments, the way the health and social services

payments have been made. These programs have been altered; there have been agreements

which have been in place for the last two years.

As for equalization, that is a component which is, I think, on the

average of the five provinces we determine about transfers due to the provinces under

equalization. There is no attempt, as the Premier pointed out, to do away with the

equalization payments in this country. I don't know what kind of fearmongering the hon.

member is trying to enter into.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, here is a news flash for the Minister of

Justice: The war is over, take the bullets out of your pocket.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Finance and Treasury

Board, in view of the fact he is here, he understands about the negotiation that is

ongoing on a framework agreement on Canada's social union with respect to the negotiation

of Ottawa's spending in terms of all the provinces with respect to equalization and

transfer.

We have been long fighting for changes to the equalization program to

allow it to act; not just to transfer money from richer provinces to poorer ones, but to

let the money be funnelled in such a way that creates sustainable economic growth. To that

end, can the minister provide any information today that would indicate to the people of

the Province that, I guess, the proposals we are making to the federal government in this

arrangement are such that on major resource developments, and the economic growth that

should come from that, equalization is not cut dollar for dollar on that issue, Mr.

Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. DICKS: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I can confirm that. The Province has

consistently taken the position, especially with respect to resource revenues which should

increase geometrically in the next several years, that there should not be the type of

offset that is now current under the present equalization plan in which we can eventually

lose about eighty-four cents on the dollar.

We are also concerned about population decreases in the Province. One

of the things we have argued, to a point successfully with our fellow ministers at a

provincial level, is that there should be a floor in provinces which have population drops

that are unprecedented, as we have had in this Province. So those are several of the

issues that we are dealing with on equalization.

With respect to equalization generally, Mr. Speaker, I believe the

principles should be the same as they have in the federal Republic in Germany. That is: In

Germany, every German is entitled to the same standard of living, regardless of where he

or she works, and to pay the same taxes. Because one of the other disadvantages in this

country is that if you live in a province which is rich, you would have lower tax rates

than you would have in provinces which are poor.

So we have made manifold, many, strong and varied representations to

the federal government and have some reason to believe that there is some willingness to

listen at the federal level; and we will know when the finalization of the equalization

talks occurs in 1999.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of

Finance a question which I asked before he got here. He is right about the situation that

occurs in Germany. There is also a situation that occurs in Ireland that transfers that

take place, when transferred, if there are new developments that bring in new money, that

money is not clawed back dollar for dollar.

Five months ago in December, the First Ministers agreed on a

negotiation for a framework of redefining Canada's social union. There is one month left

and there has been little discussion publicly on this issue. Can the minister update the

House on what discussions the Province has been involved in with respect to this; what

proposals have been made; and what sort of framework are we looking at as we move into

discussions that will radically transfer or radically, I guess, redesign the present

system of fiscal transfers to the Provinces?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. DICKS: Well, let me answer for the Department of Finance, Mr.

Speaker. We are actually involved at the financial level which directly involves the

equalization program with the federal government, which by and large is designed by the

federal government on representations by the provinces because it is not provincial money

that is transferred; it is federal money which is transferred.

Secondly, the discussions have also been occurring at the First

Ministers' level, in which they give direction to the various ministers to move forward

with these programs.

Thirdly, Mr. Speaker, we have a special group within government that is

specifically making representation to the federal government on resource offsets, for

instance, from Voisey's Bay and Hibernia. That is headed up by Mr. Bill Rowat, who is the

former federal deputy minister and someone, ironically enough, who was seconded here from

the federal government to the Province. We are making every effort, at an administrative,

at a ministerial, and at the level of the Premier, to have a fair equalization system for

this Province.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: Let's accept the premise, Minister, which is

obviously true, that the redesign of the transfer system to the provinces is about to take

place, and the redesign will be radical.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: It is. All the reports out of Ottawa, I say to the

minister, are that is exactly what is taking place.

I would like to ask the minister this: Can we be assured, and can you

elaborate even further, that the types of proposals being made: number one, ensure that

transfers on one hand will continue to some degree; our resource developments, on the

other hand, that any new money coming as a result of them, will not be clawed back dollar

for dollar; that would allow sustainability and economic growth? Secondly, what sort of

reception has the Province been receiving within the federal circles to such proposals?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. DICKS: Mr. Speaker, I will answer the question. I think we have

to first of all differentiate. I have answered the questions concerning equalization. My

view on that is that at the provincial level, which is the only level at which there has

been any formal acceptance, there is an acceptance of a floor for population declines, and

we are trying to establish a floor. We have only had provincial meetings on this so far.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DICKS: That is one part of it, as I said to the hon. member. On

the equalization claw-backs, as the member refers to them, we do not yet have any

indication from Ottawa as to what they will do or not do. That is a matter of active

discussion.

On the third matter, and that involves the transfer programs which are

different than equalization - the CHST, which is a combination of many other programs and

a substitution for it - those declines have been dramatic for all provinces. The major

issue that exists there, where we are on better terms with Ottawa than the provinces, has

to do with per capita. Most of the other provinces favour one of two systems, either a per

capita allocation solely, which favours the larger provinces - Ontario, Quebec, and

Alberta in particular, B.C. as well - and also transfer of tax points, which favours the

provinces. Ottawa is on side to some extent with that. We seem to find ourselves alone

when it comes to fighting the issue that CHST in particular should include recognition of

cost factors on delivery of service, should consider geography,

whereas the other

provinces are arguing very much in their self-interest that transfers should be calculated

on a per capita basis.

Depending on which issue, which transfer program, whether it is

equalization or the other, you find yourself at even with some people and at odds with

others.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: A final question, Mr. Speaker. The First Ministers

agreed in December that they would work out a framework agreement on recasting the federal

government's role in transferring money, and the rules of federal-provincial relations,

and it happened. That framework is supposed to be announced approximately one month from

now. Is the minister in a position to update the Province on the status of those talks?

What sort of things can we expect in that framework agreement in terms of redefining

federal-provincial relations? What proposals directly, and can the minister table those

proposals that have been made, would solidly and forthrightly put forward this Province's

stance with respect to those negotiations?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. DICKS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would make two points. First of all, the discussions are ongoing, and

we put forward positions. What the final conclusion of those will be remains to be seen.

The second thing is what the hon. member is referring to is a framework agreement. A

framework agreement is an agreement to determine the things you will discuss and

eventually agree on.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DICKS: Well, it is an agreement to define the topics on which

you will agree. It took us twenty years to reach one in one of our Aboriginal claims, so I

just don't want it to be a misunderstanding. When you say that we are going to work

towards a framework agreement, we would say that we will examine these relationships and

we might decide how we will transfer funds in these categories. Which is not to say that

subsequent to actually having a framework agreement you might not very well have some very

serious discussions and disagreements about how those should be arranged.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DICKS: No, Mr. Speaker, we are not at that point yet. When we

are, and when an agreement has been made, I think that will be the appropriate time to

table it. We will certainly make the members and the public aware when that is about to

occur, at an appropriate time.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are to the

Minister of Health and Community Services.

In light of the fact that housebound patients who require blood tests

once per month or less frequently are being forced to pay for this service, I ask the

minister: Would she immediately reverse this policy so the sick and the housebound can

have equal access to this necessary medical service?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community

Services.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I said yesterday, and I will say it again, I thanked The Evening

Telegram for providing me the name so we could begin the analysis and the assessment

of the individual cases. Our department is doing it and I will reiterate what I said

yesterday, Mr. Speaker, that in a publicly-funded system, those people who are able to

access the system have every ability to do so in either a clinic or a hospital or

whatever. If they are non-ambulatory or housebound, those services will be provided for

them.

Mr. Speaker, I have informed the public, I have informed the media, I

have informed my colleague across the way, that I would be looking into these, and our

officials are doing that. I have asked him for the names. He did not give me any names,

but I had one from the paper, and I have asked my own officials to go back and look into

it. As I said yesterday, Mr. Speaker, with a $1.1 billion department and tens of thousands

of people entering the system every day, I cannot speak to the individual cases and I

cannot speak to the specifics of those. What I have agreed to do and I feel responsible to

do, is to look into cases that are brought to my attention, and if, in fact, these people

are housebound or non-ambulatory they are able to have those services provided to them,

Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader, a supplementary.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I say to the minister, I spoke with health care professionals in

community health. In fact, I spoke with two patients themselves who said they called your

department some time ago, one a constituent of yours, and they were turned away and told

it is not a problem for the Department of Health, it is a matter for community health. In

fact, your staff gave them a number in community health to call, I say to the minister.

You got the calls before I did.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: They called me when you turned them away.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is on a supplementary. I ask him to get to his

question.

MR. SULLIVAN: I will provide these names, as the minister asked, to

the minister and to the media. If they want them, they can call.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: I provided the names also -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: I ask the minister: Would she now confirm that her

department is aware of this - I would ask her to talk to her staff if she is in doubt -

and will she now tell this House if the directive to start paying really came from her

department?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community

Services.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

First of all, I would say to the member across the House, Mr. Speaker,

this is not about constituents, this is not about politics. This, Mr. Speaker, is about

our health-care system. Mr. Speaker, I want to say it again: It is not about constituents,

it is not about politics, it is about a health-care system and our publicly-funded health

care system.

Mr. Speaker, I am not interested in getting drawn into the politics of

a constituent here and a constituent there or his constituent. This is about our

publicly-funded system. I have asked him for two days - I am glad he is going to pass over

the names. I wrote him yesterday and asked him and he could not do it, but I am glad to

have them today. And, yes, I will work with my staff, Mr. Speaker, to try to find the

answer to the questions and I will stand by what I said: If those people are housebound

and non-ambulatory, we will provide those services.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if there is anything more I should do other than take

the responsibility, that it is my responsibility, look into it and keep politics out of

the health care system, Mr. Speaker, I stand to be corrected.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader, a supplementary.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I say minister, it would not have come to my attention had you done you

job and returned your calls. It would not have happened.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Some of these people, minister - and I do have their

names for you and I told you I would call everyone personally and see if they would agree

to give their names to you. I told that to the minister in writing and she knows that

quite well.

People are being asked: Can they afford to pay? I ask the minister: Is

access to our medical services now going to be based on whether the individual has the

ability to pay or the universality of our system and equal access? What standards are the

department now setting?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community

Services.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will say it again: Every single day in our health care system, the

people in the system, our staff, our doctors and our nurses, interact with tens of

thousands of people, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I can honestly say, I do not return every phone

call I get every day because there are hundreds of them, and I will tell you, they are on

enquiries and all sorts of issues. We have hundreds of staff in our system, Mr. Speaker,

who we have come to rely and depend on, we have boards in place and we have staff out in

those boards who are hired to do that sort of work.

Mr. Speaker, we have a publicly funding system. We have been very clear

and articulate in asking the federal government for more money to go in to our publicly

funded system. As I said yesterday, with initiatives such as the ones that are going on in

Alberta, I am quite concern about the life and future of our publicly funded system.

We all know, based on the Canada Health Act, Mr. Speaker, that the

services that are provided inside the hospitals are what is provided under the Canada

Health Act. The services that are provided in the community come under the auspices of the

Province and we do what we can, to the best of our ability.

Would we like to put more money in? You can count on the fact we would.

Are we lobbing? As hard as we can. Will we stop? No we won't, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister can try to skate around this issue all she likes. People

within community health professions have told me that people in your department are aware

of this problem, and I am sure the minister has been briefed. Will she simply stand up and

tell us whether she was aware that her departmental officials, senior officials I might

add, have been aware that people are been asked to pay, people who are housebound, who

cannot get out of the house and who are confined to bed? Some cannot get out of the house

at all, I say to the minister, and are being forced to pay now because the test they are

receiving is once a month or less frequent.

I spoke to people today. I have their names if the minister wants them.

As I told her I would do, I would call these people and ask permission to give their names

out.

I ask the minister: Is she aware of that, has she received a briefing

from her department on that, and would she now admit it?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community

Services.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will repeat the same answer to the same question that I have heard

three times, Mr. Speaker. I appreciated the names I got from The Evening Telegram

and I have asked my staff to look into that. I have asked the member across the way and I

am delighted to get those names. I will say it again, Mr. Speaker: In instances where

people are housebound and are not able to get the blood work done, that work will be

provided under our publicly funding system. That is the answer to the question, Mr.

Speaker.

MR. TULK: That is a good answer.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Waterford Valley.

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions are for the Minister of Education. Yesterday, towards the

end of Question Period, I asked the minister questions regarding the court case initiated

by the parents of children attending the Avalon East School Board. The minister did not

seem interested in beginning the negotiations to settle this matter.

I ask the minister again today, in the interest of the children and

that should be the priority for all of us: Will he not, now today, assign teachers to the

Avalon East School Board in special education categories in the same ratios they are

assigned to all other districts? Why the discrimination?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate an opportunity to speak further today with respect to the

general policy issue, because I think everyone understands we do not want to discuss the

specific court case.

Mr. Speaker, again the hon. member suggests there is some

discrimination with respect to students in and around St. John's, and the Avalon East

Board. The exact opposite has normally been argued to be true in the Province.

Because of the fact, Mr. Speaker, that we have the largest number of

students in and around the capital city area, because of the fact we have the largest

gathering of schools of all particular descriptions, Grade configurations, in and around

the capital city region, because of the fact that we have right now about one-third of all

the teachers in the Province teaching in and around St. John's, because of the fact that

there are more options available to students in and around St. John's than anywhere else

in the Province, Mr. Speaker, I would invite him to maybe chat again with the parents whom

he spoke about last week in the Legislature on the Northern Peninsula, who are complaining

because they do not have any options for different levels of mathematics, they do not have

any options for different courses in science, they do not have any options for different

They have the minimum program.

The fact of the matter in Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker, is

that the policies of the government have not discriminated against anybody in District 10

in Avalon East, but have always had them in a position, and (inaudible) to do so, where

they have the best educational opportunity in Newfoundland and Labrador.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Waterford

Valley.

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask the minister: Will not admit that more and more parents who live

in other parts of the Province, and have children who have special needs, are moving into

the greater St. John's region so that their children can access better medical facilities

with more options? In fact, will he not admit that the Avalon Consolidated School Board,

the predecessor to the current board in this region, have a lot of data which shows that

there may indeed be more students per capita in this region who have special needs than

there might be in some other parts of the Province, because there are expert services

available (inaudible) children's rehabilitation, and medical and other services that these

children need?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you Mr. Speaker.

Maybe I could continue to look at the area of special needs and special

education as well. Mr. Speaker, even though the formula has been slightly different in

this particular area because of the fact that you can have more than one child with

special needs put into a single school in the St. John's area,

whereas in other rural

parts of the Province - if a child with special needs shows up in a community like Croque,

they do not have the option to put those into an environment with several other students

with special needs, like they do in and around St. John's - a teacher, a special needs

teacher, a special education teacher, some particular hours from student assistants, have

to be assigned to that particular school in that particular community because there is a

single student there.

The same resource in and around St. John's can probably provide an

equally good opportunity and experience for three, four or five special needs students in

St. John's without needing an additional special needs teacher, an additional special

education teacher, additional hours for student assistants, and so on.

The range of services in St. John's and in this area, in Board 10,

including the area of special needs and special education, with the current formulas, is

still far more advanced in this area than anywhere else in the Province. There is no

discrimination. I understand that a parent and the board have launched legal action based

on one component of a formula that has something like sixteen or seventeen different

components to it. The full package, Mr. Speaker, gives an advantage to special needs

students in this part of the Province that does not exist for students elsewhere, and I

have no intention at this point of suggesting that today we are going to change any of the

formulas.

We would like, Mr. Speaker, over time, to change all of the formulas.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister now to conclude his answer.

MR. GRIMES: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Because we would like to move to a

program-based teacher allocation for students. We are not there yet. We are getting there.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. GRIMES: We hope to succeed in the years to come.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Waterford Valley, a

supplementary.

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister knows that if the Province-wide formulas were used for the

Avalon East system, they would get about an extra fifty special education teachers. I say

to the minister: Are we acknowledging that they have been assigned an extra eighteen

special needs teachers?

I also say to the minister: Of the seventy special needs teachers that

were announced in the Throne Speech and in the Budget, only fifty of them have been

assigned to the school board system. I ask him today: In view of the fact that twenty of

those teachers have not yet been assigned to the school boards, will he today commit to

the Avalon East School Board that they will have a priority on those extra twenty that

have not been assigned to the other boards to date?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would ask again that maybe the hon. member go back and check his

information, because he is absolutely incorrect in this respect.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, the seventy teachers that were referred to

and were mentioned by my colleague, the Minister of Finance, in the Budget - what we have

indicated is that there will be up to seventy teaching units available to implement

recommendations of the Canning Report on Special Matters.

The hon. member, in asking the question or putting the question,

suggested that fifty of them have been assigned to school boards. The fact is this: None

of them are assigned to school boards. Because he should understand and know, as a former

administrator in the system before he took his pension, came to the House, collected his

salary... He would have had more money, Mr. Speaker, except they robbed Harvey to pay

Loyola and Paul. (Inaudible) threw him out of that job.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, it is a serious point. He knows that these

particular teaching units are not given out by virtue of any formula to school boards.

There are individual assessments of special needs students that are done; and if all of

them are required in St. John's, that is where they will go.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to conclude his answer quickly.

MR. GRIMES: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

If all of them are required in Corner Brook, they will all go to Corner

Brook. None of them as of today are assigned, because the assessments and evaluations are

proceeding. The teaching units are for students who need them, not for any particular

board because of an issue raised by the member opposite.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the

Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

In the past several weeks, four of the country's banks have announced

their intention to pursue mergers: namely, the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank, and

later the Toronto Dominion Bank and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. In the wake of

these announcements there has been much discussion about the impact of these mergers on

consumers, on jobs, on the economy, and opportunities for investment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for St. John's East.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: In the wake of these announcements there has been

much discussion about the impact of these mergers on consumers, on jobs, on the economy,

and opportunities for investment. My question to the minister is: Does this provincial

government have a position on these proposed mergers, and is it concerned about this shift

away from variety and choice towards the creation of Canadian `superbanks'?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. DICKS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, we have concerns about the effect on the Province, and in fact we

have reviewed the original merger between the Royal Bank and the Bank of Montreal. We have

not had a chance to determine what may happen in the case of the second merger with the

Bank of Commerce and the second. I point out that primarily the regulation of banking in

the country, and in fact in totality, is under the federal government. Regardless of our

concerns, that decision as to whether to permit it or not lies with the federal government

and not with the provincial, because we have no jurisdiction over banking. (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: The time for Oral Questions has elapsed.

Orders of the Day

Private Members' Day

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CANNING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am very pleased today to stand in this House and present this

resolution regarding the natural resources, both renewable and non-renewable, in our

Province. Those resources belong to our people, all of our people. I want to just read the

resolution through for the record.

WHEREAS the natural resources of Newfoundland and Labrador, both

non-renewable and renewable, rightly belong to the people of this Province; and

WHEREAS future resource development in our Province must in every case

possible, and to the extent possible, ensure that our people are the major beneficiaries

in terms of jobs, secondary processing where it is economically feasible to do so, and any

other economic benefit that is properly achievable through effective public policy;

THEREFORE

BE IT RESOLVED that this hon. House affirm this resource

development policy on behalf of our people.

As we stand today and look about at many of our great natural

resources, it is easy to feel the heavy hand of history, and looking back at some of the

resource giveaways that I believe have occurred in this Province since Confederation, and

even before Confederation. The fact is that we have been blessed with great natural

resources: our wood, our fish, our mining opportunities, all those things that we have

that can make us a forward-looking rich Province with the capacity to do the many things

and provide the kind of society to our people that they deserve and demand.

Today we have to look at past policies for guidance to future policies.

We need to ensure always that we achieve the maximum benefit for our people through any of

these developments.

Today, one of the issues that I face in my riding is with the iron ore

industry and the Iron Ore Company of Canada. It is their desire to expand their pellet

production. Well, Mr. Speaker, let me say this: A company is not successful just because

they have a huge resource. They are not successful because they have this great

infrastructure, this capacity to mine. They are not just successful because they happen to

be in one of the greatest countries of the world. Mr. Speaker, they are successful because

of people. It is the people of Western Labrador who by and large have made this company

very, very successful. The reality is now that we believe, in Western Labrador, perhaps

the company is trying to turn back the clocks and not recognize that we have been a large

measure of their success.

When we talk about whether a project is feasible, the law is clear that

we don't look at what is absolutely the most profitable. It must just meet the basic

feasibility test in an economic environment.

Now, Mr. Speaker, IOC has proven for nearly forty years that it is

feasible to pelletize in Western Labrador. That is no surprise to anybody. They have

proven it time and time again. As a matter of fact, when they poured the cement, when they

raised the steel on this old unit in Sept-Iles, they poured the cement and they raised the

steel to expand by two extra indurating machines at IOC, at the Carrol project in Labrador

City. That was around 1972-1973. Those machines at IOC, at the Carrol project in Labrador

City, have been running ever since, earning profit for the companies, providing

opportunity to people, and the people have rewarded the company by ensuring that they use

their skills and their abilities to ensure that unit was always profitable.

What happened in Sept-Iles? Within eight years that unit shut down

because it could not compete in that era. It could not compete effectively with even that

which was constructed at the same time, at Carrol project.

Mr. Speaker, there is no question in my mind that it is feasible to

expand their pellet plant capacity at the Carrol project. As a matter of fact, they are

currently now expanding from 11 million tons to 12.5 million tons in the very same plant

in Labrador City. We want them to add another 4.5 million tons.

Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you, I was tremendously impressed and I

appreciate it very much, when we had the rally at Labrador City some weeks ago on a cold

and blustery Sunday morning. The Minister of Environment and Labour and the Member for

Torngat and I, led that whole march, that rally, to the gates of the Iron Ore Company of

Canada. I want to say today how much I appreciate those two members showing up and

standing up and speaking on behalf of the people that I serve.

Mr. Speaker, this resolution is more generic, more global, more

all-encompassing than just IOC. This is a fundamental policy that we must try to achieve

on behalf of our people. It includes all resources. It includes non-renewable and

renewable, because we have not always had a great history of ensuring that which God gave

us we have used to maximize benefits to our people. We all know that. It is no secret to

anybody, and we have not always been able to achieve the best out of that which we have.

Well, Mr. Speaker, if we are going to be a forward-looking Province

with the capacity to provide the means for social advancement in this Province, the kind

of health care, the kind of education, the kind of infrastructure as a society that we

need and deserve, that which many other Canadians take for granted, we are going to need

to harness the capacity of our own natural resources on behalf of those we serve. Whether

it is Churchill Falls, whether it is Voisey's Bay, whether it is shrimp off the Coast of

Labrador, or turbot, or any other kind of fish or wood, we must always ensure that it is

used to the betterment of our people and not to our own humiliation some ten, twenty,

thirty, or forty years down the road.

Mr. Speaker, if I look back, I look at the Churchill Falls agreement

that was signed some thirty years ago. The price of power was low, and because the price

of power was low we signed an agreement that each of us look back on with deep regret and

are humiliated by to this day. Mr. Speaker, just because incidently the price of nickel

happens to be low today, that is no reason to turn back clocks to do again, to repeat

again, another type of Churchill deal. We must always, irrespective of what the instant

market says, look at the long-term picture. That is why I brought this resolution here

today, and I ask all members in this hon. House to support this resolution, to -

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, would the member take a question?

MR. SPEAKER: Would the hon. member take a question?

MR. CANNING: Sure, I will take a question.

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

MR. HARRIS: I wonder, would the member, as part of his resolution,

require that all oil that comes from Terra Nova be further processed in the Province of

Newfoundland? Would that be part of his resolution?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. CANNING: Mr. Speaker, this resolution is premised on the fact

that where it is economically feasible we do that which is achievable through sound,

public policy.

Mr. Speaker, this resolution, the resolution that I have brought to

this House, speaks to the very need for us to achieve what is possible; to achieve what we

can given our circumstance, given sound, public policy objectives, given sound, public

policy development.

Mr. Speaker, this is not an issue with which to play politics; this is

a very serious issue. This is an issue that says: We need, to the extent possible, to

always maximize benefits for our people. That is why I have brought this resolution and,

Mr. Speaker, that is why I would ask this hon. House to approve it.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.

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

I want to rise today to respond to this particular motion put forward

by the Member for Labrador West. The first thing he said, and I will repeat: It is very

generic.

For one thing, nobody in this House is going to disagree with a motion

that talks about developing our resources because, very simply put, it is the biggest

mistake over years by different parties and everybody in this Province, and one of the

major faults we have in this Province; because, when you put it in perspective and

simplify it, it is as simple as this: We have the Churchill Falls development, one of the

biggest of its kind in the world; we had one of the best fishing resources; we have a

forestry resource that is comparable to anywhere in the world; we had mineral resources of

the past; plus, now we have the biggest in the world, Voisey's Bay. We can go on and list

- Hibernia and Terra Nova. Those are just six of them - we could name more - and here we

have a population of 500,000 people and the highest unemployment rate in the world, Mr.

Speaker. Yes, this lies at the root of the problem for Newfoundland and Labrador over

years and years and years, this very motion.

What we have to start doing is turning the corner on some of them, and

we have on some of them. In forest resources, for example, profits, again - the member

talked about economic feasibility, yes. If I am going to start a business, I want to make

sure it is economically feasible as a person starting a business. That is the way they

have to look at it, and how much profit you can make. I mean, that is why you get into

business, to make the most profit. That is what it is all about, being profitable, but

what a government of the day has to do with each and every resource is try to strike a

balance between saying: Okay Inco, we want you to make some profit and we want to make

sure it is economically feasible for you; or, do we go to an extension in saying: Make as

much profit as you can with our resource; it does not matter to us.

Mr. Speaker, that is where you draw the line and that is where you

start to balance out, because for too many years in this Province, especially since

Confederation when our resources started to be developed, we have given them away. We have

simply given them away.

I started to mention the forest resources on which we started to turn

the corner. Yes, we are looking at integrated sawmills now. We are looking at modern saw

mills where we, of course, look at birch and other ways. Instead of just cutting the tree

down, smashing it into pulp and sending it out to be made into newsprint, now we are

starting to look at some other things. That is positive. This is one example of, I guess,

moving in the right direction; a long way to go in the forest industry, but we are moving

in the right direction.

Our fishery: If there was one resource in this Province that could have

sustained all of us if it were managed right, we would not need Hibernia, we would not

need Voisey's Bay, we would not need Churchill Falls. If our fishery resource alone was

managed right, and we did the secondary processing of the billions, and I could probably

even say trillions, of tons of fish that have gone out of this Province, if we had managed

that right and did the secondary processing in this Province, we would not need the

forestry, we would not need mines, we would not need oil, we would not need any of that;

but it was done wrong, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, this is very generic, but I want to make these comments to the

member because as far as supporting this, this is the mainstay of this Province. Our

resources have not been managed properly over the years. That is the reason why 500,000

people in this Province, and declining every day, with Churchill Falls, Voisey's Bay,

Hibernia, the fishery, the forestry. Imagine, 500,000 people in this Province, with all

those resources, and we are looking at an unemployment rate? We should be importing

people, if it was done right. Not to put the blame on - silly stuff that gets on in here

sometimes about the previous government. They are all previous, and they all made the same

mistake.

The Trudeau era and the Smallwood era and the Moores era, all of it,

all a mistake, right on up to today. Here is the only difference now. Today, May 6, 1998,

we have a chance to start changing the attitude of ourselves; not just Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians, but governments of the day. I just made a mention of one example in the

right direction that finally we started to do, I will say to the Minister of Forest

Resources and Agrifoods, in moving in the direction of integrated sawmills and modernizing

so that we get more out of a resource, instead of cutting the bloody tree down and

shipping it out in a load of pulp for newsprint. That has been our problem. That is just

an example.

In the fishery, like I have said before, if we took every other

resource I just mentioned and did away with it, say we didn't have it, and we just had the

fishery and managed that properly over the past twenty years, of the trillions of tons of

fish that have gone out of this Province over the years, we would have had every man and

woman who wants to work in this Province working, with that resource alone. So yes, we

made mistakes with resources, all of us have, in the past.

I am not going to go on long with this, because it is something we all

wholeheartedly support as far as using our resources. We have no problem with that. I just

said that the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods moved in the right direction with

that. The Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture moved in the right direction with the

fishery of the future and multi-species and secondary processing. I agree with that. I

will say that those are two good examples of where we started to move in the right

direction. As the minister admitted himself, they are small steps in the right direction,

but at least we stopped going in the other direction of shipping it all out, don't even

think about secondary processing.

I want to say to the Member for Labrador West, this is something I have

a great problem with, and it is contradictory to me in his resolution, and what your

Department of Mines and Energy and this government are considering with the pellet plant

in Labrador City. I want to make this categorically clear to the Member for Labrador West,

who I heard make comments on this. As far as pelletizing and expansion in Labrador City at

IOC, there is only one answer from the Department of Mines and Energy. It is to tell the

company: Forget your review. We are not going to wait for your answer on your review,

whether you are going to expand in Sept-Iles, Quebec, or Labrador City. I am asking today

in your resolution that this government and this minister say to IOC and its new

shareholders: Forget your review, we don't want to wait until the end of May.

AN HON. MEMBER: We don't need (inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: I say to the minister, it is a sensible solution, and

if you listen to it carefully you would even -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: Well, you are not saying it. The Member for Labrador

West, I am asking you to ask your minister right here today, and I will say to the people

of Labrador West, tell the new company that has been in Labrador West for years with

profits, and one of the lowest royalty regime rates in North America, that if there is any

expansion of one pellet, if there is one expansion of IOC, forget the review by the end of

May or whatever you are talking about. You don't need a review, you don't need to waste

your money, your time. If there is any expansion of pelletizing in Labrador West, it is

either done there or it is not done at all. Tell Sept-Iles to not even consider taking

their plant out of mothballs, because that is where it should stay.

I hope the member agrees with that. It should not be a `wait-and-see'

approach to what the company is going to say, I say to the member.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: Maybe you need some good advice. The minister should

simply say to them: Sorry, forget your review, forget your consideration. There is no

consideration. Close the door on it now before they even consider it.

Economic feasibility and profitability are two different things.

Economic feasibility means that it can operate with some kind of profit. Profitability to

a company means I can take $100 million or I can take $500 million profit.

I am not really interested in their profitability, Mr. Speaker. Yes,

they have to be feasible; yes, they have to be business smart and so on. I am asking the

member in this resolution, and I will be asking the minister in writing, that they tell

IOC now to forget their review, there will be no consideration. If there is any expansion

at all to IOC it happens in Labrador West or close the books. Forget about Sept-Iles, if

there is going to be an expansion. That company, and the company before them, have made a

lot of money and profit off the resource in Labrador West. If there is any expansion and

any future expansions in Labrador West, it happens there or no dice.

As a matter of fact, I will end off by saying this to the member: Use

the same philosophy which I support, that the Premier did on Voisey's Bay. Either the

profits - everything happens here in this Province or it stays in the ground. I say to the

member, you should say the same thing to IOC, that either you expand in Labrador West or

you do not expand at all.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I listened to the hon. member opposite, and some of the points he made

were reasonable and logical, but he certainly does not need to stand here in the House of

Assembly this afternoon and forget that he is an Opposition member, and start telling us

what we should do. We are elected by the people; we know what we should do. For the first

time in the history of the Province we are managing the resource the way it should be

managed. The resources today are being managed the way they should be managed.

Let me give you a few points and correct a couple of things you said.

The hon. member said that if we manage the fishery properly there would be enough

employment for everybody in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Now, the hon member knows

that is not a fact. That could never happen, no. To say that the fishing industry could

have been the sole industry to employ all people in rural Newfoundland and Labrador is not

right.

AN HON. MEMBER: It is right.

MR. EFFORD: It is not right. It cannot be right.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. EFFORD: What we should be doing is employing the maximum number

of people possible with the longest season possible, with the most sustainable income

possible, in the fishing industry. That is the policy we should start with. That was never

done in the history of the Province until recently. This government has now turned around

the industry in this Province with no government assistance either in the harvesting or in

the processing. It is totally independent of social programs, and it is now earning money

with its own capabilities.

Here are the policies that we brought in.

AN HON. MEMBER: John, he wants to ask you a question.

MR. EFFORD: After, when I am finished.

The number one policy: We started off two years ago with 245 fish

plants in the Province. Now, for anybody in this Province to say that there will be enough

resource to keep 245 fish plants going, to employ people for the longest season possible

in Newfoundland and Labrador, is dreaming and is just as out of touch with reality as his

Tory buddies were during the Peckford days and the Moores days; just as out of touch with

reality.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) open seventy-five more.

MR. EFFORD: Yes, and in the last election, or one of the previous

elections, one of the policies they had was that they were going to open seventy-five more

fish plants.

AN HON. MEMBER: That was the last election.

MR. EFFORD: That was the last election? Seventy-five more fish

plants?

Here is what we are doing now. Since the last election, since we

brought in the new policy, in 1997 we had fifty-seven core plants operating in this

Province. Out of the 245 so-called (inaudible) buildings distributed around this Province,

fifty-seven on the Avalon Peninsula, lying to people, leaving a false expectation there

was employment. We have reduced the operating capacity of the Province. Last year,

fifty-seven core plants regionally based around the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador

to employ people for the longest season possible - not three weeks in one plant, four

weeks in another one, six weeks in another one, and then after that depend on make-work

programs, 10/42, or some kind of a social program to top up so they could get their UI or

EI. That is what was happening in this Province for decades.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: That did not happen last year. No fish plant workers in

this Province, no fish harvesters in this Province, came to the government, any department

in government, and said that we need a social program, that we need a make-work program to

top up our EI. That did not happen. Why? Because the number of fish plants reduced in this

Province caused the people who needed work in those plants to get the seasonal work that

they required. Why did that happen? We brought in another policy. No more shipping

unprocessed fish out of this Province to be further processed anywhere else unless the

consumer demanded a fresh quality product. That is the only reason it went out of this

Province unprocessed.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: This government did that. We did not talk about it and

not do it; we did it. We did not do it for political reasons. We did it for the maximum

benefits of the people in the Province.

Let us look at the sealing industry. The first time in the history of

this Province - for over 200 years there has been a seal

harvest in this Province, and the first time there was a tannery in

this Province was this year. Never before in the history of this Province was there a

tannery. Now, Mr. Speaker, we have three tanneries, three tanneries today in this

Province, three oil refining processing plants in this Province. The next thing we are

doing is the capsulization of the seal oil and capsulization of the (inaudible) meat to be

done here in this Province, not in some other part of the world where the Tories would

have had it done.

MR. SULLIVAN: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

On a point of order, the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture is up here in the House

trying to take credit for something that his predecessor, the former hon. Bud Hulan did.

The minister should admit that his predecessor got the ball rolling.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

The hon. the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

MR. EFFORD: That is not even worth a reply, Mr. Speaker. Let the

people of this Province be the judge and say who did it and who did not do it. This

government, Mr. Speaker, not this minister, brought in the policy. That is the problem

with members opposite; they do not know how our government operates.

MR. TULK: They were pushed to it by you though.

MR. EFFORD: A little bit of pushing, yes.

But we do, Mr. Speaker. It is the first time in the history of the

Province that we have three seal processing plants right to the full extent of tanning,

refining of the product, refining of the oil and the packaging of the meat being shipped

all over the world and they are going to increase. A $100 million industry at least, five

years down the road, if we properly continue to manage that particular industry.

AN HON. MEMBER: We are going to wipe out an industry?

MR. EFFORD: The other thing we did - what do you mean wipe out the

industry? You know all about it too, another bright wave.

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

On a point of order, The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I am just going to quote for the minister

from Hansard on Monday where he is said, "...Mr. Speaker, I would like to see the 6

million seals, or whatever number is out there, killed and sold, or destroyed or burned. I

do not care what happens to them..."

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: How can we have $100 million industry, Mr. Speaker, if

he wants to kill all the seals?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to take his seat. There is no point of order.

The hon. the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

MR. EFFORD: And he calls himself a lawyer. Blessed Lord.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you the other thing we did under the

management of the so-called government for a decade. The caplin fishery harvested, on

average, 40,000 tons of caplin. They took the female caplin, boxed it and sent it to

Japan. They took the 20,000 tons of male caplin and dumped every single one of them on the

beaches and on the bottom to rot away and just create an environmental problem.

What did we do as government? A letter has gone out, went out last

year, no more dumping of male caplin in the ocean. Each and every caplin must be totally

utilized, whether it is for zoo food, whether it for fertilizer for the ground, whether it

is for industrial waste, or whether it is for human consumption, or food for aquaculture

or whatever, total utilization of the whole of the male and female caplin. That is the

policy that this government brought in. It is simply called this, Mr. Speaker: managing

the resource to the maximum benefits of the people.

MR. TULK: John, tell them about the cod farms.

MR. EFFORD: Yes, let's talk about the cod farms. For decades and

decades people involved in the fishery of this Province put the cod traps out and took the

cod fish, hauled up the cod traps, separated the large fish from the small, and threw the

small fish away. A total waste of a resource. What did we do last year? We brought in the

cod farming, where a fisherman now will haul his cod trap, take the large fish out that

they want to bring to the market, take the small fish alive, put them into a cage adjacent

or close to that area, feed them with the male caplin that you would have normally

destroyed and thrown away, grow the fish for two or three months, double the value, double

the price, and sell them in the fall of the year where it demands a top quality product

and demands a top market price. This government -

MR. TULK: I have given another (inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: There you go. This government brought in that policy,

Mr. Speaker, and I am not going to go on and name all the other numerous policies that we

brought in.

AN HON. MEMBER: They are all going to be in Liberal districts.

MR. EFFORD: Every single one of them is a Liberal district. In

fact, most of it was in Port de Grave district.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible) Bonavista North?

MR. EFFORD: Oh, a lot of it in Bonavista North.

Seriously, Mr. Speaker, it comes down simply to looking at the value of

the resource, appreciating the resource that we have, management, so that the people in

this Province can get the benefits out of it instead of having to depend on governments,

whether provincially or federally, for subsidies, for make-work programs or for grants to

keep their industry going, whether it be the harvesting industry or the processing

industry.

My hon. colleague from -

AN HON. MEMBER: Labrador West.

MR. EFFORD: - Labrador West - I was going to say Torngat. I am

proud to be able to stand and support the resolution put forth because it is a timely -

MR. TULK: Well, Torngat is always on your mind.

MR. EFFORD: Is always on my mind.

It proves that all members of this government, all members of this side

of the House, have to focus on maximizing the resources, whether it is the fishery, the

forestry, mining, the oil industry or whatever the resource is; maximizing the resources

to the ability that we can for the benefit of all people in the Province of Newfoundland

and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal - Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on this resolution now

before the house, concerning the natural resources of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, no one could disagree with this motion, because it is

basically the policy of every Newfoundlander, every government, every opposition, every

party that ever existed in the Province of Newfoundland, that we should try and get the

maximum benefit from our resources. It is such a novel idea, even the Newfoundland and

Labrador Party created itself for the sole purpose of promoting this policy.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where are they gone?

MR. HARRIS: I do not know where they are gone, but that is how

basic a policy statement this is.

I look at this motion, Mr. Speaker, and I look at the member and the

members district and the problem he has there and I ask: Is this a grandstand by the

member, because it is an issue in his district right now, or is this a policy that can

actually have some effect on what is going on in his distract right now, or what might not

be going on in his district right now, which we all in this Province want to see happen,

and that is a new pellet plant?

Mr. Speaker, what does this mean, as to whether or not it is

economically feasible to do so? Why is there a study going on, whether or not it is more

economical, not economical but more economical, for the company that now owns the IOC to

undertake pelletizing in Sept-Iles, or building a new plant in Lab West?

It is almost a `no-brainer', Mr. Speaker, it is a `no-brainer'. That

plant down in Sept-Iles has been taken over. Every month, ever since it has been there,

they have the engines all oiled up and they are running the fans every month. They are

maintaining the system, they have been doing it for thirty years.

If the choice is for IOC, is it cheaper for us to turn this one on or

build a new one, the answer is going to be that it is cheaper to turn this one on. We know

what the answer is going to be and I suggest, Mr. Speaker, this policy here is not going

to stop that, because they are going to come back and say: Oh, it is not economically

feasible to build a new plant, we already have one down the road, down the railroad.

I say, Mr. Speaker, that this issue of the pellet plant in Labrador

West is going to be a test for this government. Never mind Voisey's Bay. Let's not wait

for Voisey's Bay or what ever is going to happen down the road. This is a test for this

government's policy, and if the pellet plant is built in Labrador West as a result of this

decision - and I do not mean built ten years down the road or five years down the road

under some arrangement. I mean whether this plant opens in Sept-Iles or there is a new

plant built in Labrador West instead is a test for this government's policy.

If they can, in the face of a negative decision by IOC, force a pellet

plant to be built in Labrador West and keep that one in Sept-Iles shut down, that will be

the test. Can they do that under this policy? I do not think they can, Mr. Speaker. I

would be happy if they could, I would praise them it they did, but under this policy, Mr.

Speaker, how is economically feasible going to be interpreted? Because very clearly, Mr.

Speaker, IOC can say: How can it be economically feasible for us to build a brand new

plant when we have one? Maybe the member can address that when he rises to speak at the

close of debate.

Mr. Speaker, we all support the maximum use of our resources to the

extent possible. I'm not so sure about the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. The

Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture was talking about some of the projects that he

supported, and some of them are excellent. He supported them, although I understand they

were paid for by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I know this grow-out of

cod on a test basis was done to increase, double or triple, the value of cod caught in

Placentia Bay last year. It was supported by the federal Department of Fisheries and

Oceans department to bring that grown-out cod to market down in Boston and increase and

enhance the value of that cod. That is an excellent program, and we have to be very

creative about the use of our resources to maximize them.

As a policy - and I support this policy - so far this has been a

failure in this Province. You look at Bowater's, you look at Abitibi-Price in Grand Falls.

We have had paper mills in this Province for seventy-five years or more, and what have

they done? Have they diversified the economy of the Grand Falls, Stephenville and Corner

Brook areas? No, Mr. Speaker. They have produced one product, newsprint; one product being

produced.

I remember I was on an airplane with several of the members opposite

going out to Gander a couple of weeks ago, and reading in a magazine of a paper mill in

Quebec, Tembec I think it's called. This is a paper mill that was taken over by workers

twenty-five years ago because the company didn't want to run it any more. They weren't

making enough money. It was taken over by the employees, and they had support from the

government, and they had a list of all the products they were producing. They were

producing textiles, clothing, cellulose, furniture, they were producing about a dozen

products from the one paper mill they had taken over that was doing one thing when they

took it over, and that was make paper.

Why, Mr. Speaker? Well, because it was economically feasible for

Abitibi-Price to make pulp and paper, ship it out and do nothing else. It suits their

business plan. That is part of their operation. They want paper for their paper mill. They

were quite happy to take big sawlogs, some of them two and three feet in diameter, and

stick them into the hopper and turn them into paper, while the sawmill industry goes

without. We have had that history for the last seventy-five years.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Yes, the last three years. Why did we wait seventy-five

years to have a policy like that? Why would we wait seventy-five years? You were here and

he was here, I saw him. He used to be down in the back benches or halfway through the

wall. He was in the back benches or halfway through the wall. He was here.

As a policy, Mr. Speaker, it's a good thing, but is this something that

can actually control events? I ask the member to consider the effects - and we haven't had

a proper debate about it in this House, and perhaps I should bring in my own resolution -

on the consequences of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. That is something we

haven't considered here in this House. All these policies we are talking about, provincial

preference for tendering, further processing in this Province, all these will be illegal

under the MAI. There are those who say it was wiped out at the end of April, but that's

not true. They are only going back for another round.

The Multilateral Agreement on Investment, let me explain -

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I will get to that now in a minute.

The Multilateral Agreement on Investment is an agreement that will

allow foreign and direct investment rules to be protected so that we can't force them to

do anything other than what they want to do with product in this Province. If they have a

foreign direct investment, if some foreign company invests in resources in this Province,

they will have the right to take them out, and that is something that we have to

challenge, and I will be bringing a resolution to this House and we can have a full debate

on that.

I want to talk about the seal fishery, Mr. Speaker. My Party, federally

and provincially, supports the seal fishery. I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that there will

not be any seal fishery if this minister gets his way; what he said in the House on

Monday, Mr. Speaker, that he wants to see every single seal killed, destroyed, burned. He

does not care what happens to them. There will be no tanneries, Mr. Speaker, if there are

no seals, I say to the minister. There will be no leather chairs like this, Mr. Speaker,

if there are no seals. There will be no seal oil if there are no seals. There will be no

$50 million-a-year industry, Mr. Speaker, if the minister's intemperate, off-the-wall, out

to lunch statements, like he made in the House of Assembly, are put into practice, or even

perhaps - I suspect, Mr. Speaker, we will likely see Hansard from Monday quoted in the

next advertising campaign of the IFAW, Mr. Speaker, saying: This is what the Minister of

Fisheries and Aquaculture of Newfoundland says: Kill, burn and destroy every single seal.

MR. TULK: And you are likely to be the fellow to send it to them.

MR. HARRIS: Don't you worry, I say to the Government House Leader,

don't you worry, the IFAW probably has copies of Hansard. They probably get them. They

probably monitor what is being said in this House about the seal industry, looking for

intemperate statements like this, off-the-wall, that they can use.

Now, I have to say the minister is usually pretty good. Usually he says

these things off mike. He usually says these things when the microphone is not recording

his voice. But Monday he lost it, Mr. Speaker, and he said, on the public record, that he

believes that every single seal, 6 million or however many are out there, should be

killed, destroyed or burned. Now that is the kind of comment, Mr. Speaker, that we can do

without in this House. That is the kind of comment that we can do without in this

Province. Mr. Speaker, we believe - I believe, on this side of the House - that we should

have a full-fledged seal fishery and a seal industry, and we probably should have half as

many, a quarter as many seals. The balance of nature has gone askew, there is no doubt

about that.

We should have an appropriately developed policy with the kind of

support that we are going to need from biologists and other people, perhaps around the

world; get the support from organizations who believe in the balance of nature, and will

have recognized that the balance has been undone by the policies of the Government of

Canada and by what has happened to the fishery, and impose a proper reduction in the count

of seals. We are not going to have that, Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of Fisheries and

Aquaculture is making the kind of statements in the House that he made on Monday;

intemperate, off-the-wall. I thought he had lost it, Mr. Speaker, he had lost it. That is

the kind of statement you might hear someone make in a bar when they have had too much to

drink and are just passing the time, not the kind of statement you would expect from the

Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture of the Government of the Province of Newfoundland.

I think, Mr. Speaker, if he does not resign, he should immediately

withdraw those remarks and apologize for treating a matter of this seriousness in the way

that he did on Monday. I think, Mr. Speaker, it is disgusting.

I believe in the seal industry and we can do a lot with the seal

industry. We are doing a lot with the seal industry but we are not going to be able to do

the minister.

So I believe, Mr. Speaker, that this policy that is being proposed, the

resolution, is a good one, but I do not believe, Mr. Speaker, by itself it can resolve the

problem because it is basically a motherhood kind of statement. The proof of the pudding

will be in the eating, Mr. Speaker, and we will see whether or not the government of this

Province is prepared to insist against the wishes of IOC and without cost to this

Province. It is all very well if we subsidize it and say: You do it and we will pay for

it. That is one of the favourite ways; like Voisey's Bay, you build a smelter and we will

pay for it by reduction of royalties. We will make your operation profitable by taking

back what we are due by ways of economical grant. That is easy to do, Mr. Speaker.

What is hard to do is to insist that IOC build a plant in Western

Labrador when they have one down the railroad in Sept-Iles ready to operate, I won't say

on a moment's notice, but without too much fuss and bother. They can set that one in

operation.

If they come back with their feasibility study and say, well it is

obviously more feasible to operate the plant down in Sept-Iles, what is this government

going to do? That is going to be the test, Mr. Speaker. Are they going to insist and make

it happen, or are they going to subsidize it so that it will happen, or are they going to

recognize that their policy has failed? That is what I would like to see the member

address when he gets up at the end to do the clean-up on this particular debate.

MR. SPEAKER (Penney): Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. ANDERSEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to speak to the motion put forward by my colleague, the

Member for Labrador West, from the big land.

Mr. Speaker, I realize the last time I spoke in the House that the

clock stopped, so I will be very brief today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the motion put forward by my colleague

from Labrador West, because when we look at the state of our Province today and the high

unemployment rate we have, and we look at the resources that we have no control over, then

it is very easy to see why the young people in this Province are moving elsewhere.

I heard the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi when he mentioned that

the Member for Labrador West was faced with sort of a crisis in Labrador West regarding

the pellet plant, and the member felt he was grandstanding. Well, Mr. Speaker, if we stand

up in this Province, as a government, and fight for jobs for our children and our future,

I believe that my colleague and the people on this side of the House are not

grandstanding, we are standing together.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. ANDERSEN: Mr. Speaker, being a member of the government, I

caution my colleagues on this side of the House that this resolution put forward by my

colleague requires a lot of attention. We, as a government, have to deal with it. If we

stand in this House to support this resolution, then speaking is one thing, but until we

implement the right procedure, then it is a failure.

Mr. Speaker, I again congratulate my colleague. Probably no other

member in this House knows the frustration, when you see resources taken out, such as the

failure of the cod fishery, when people in certain parts of this Provinces did not even

qualify for a TAGS Program. So, Mr. Speaker, I applaud my colleague. I was proud to travel

to Labrador West and to go before the people there and show them our support.

I call upon all Members in the House of Assembly to support the

resolution, and again I thank the member for bringing forward such a strong resolution to

this House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's South.

MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is ironic, Mr. Speaker, that the Private Member's Resolution, the

wording: " - future resource development in our Province must in every case possible,

and to the extend possible, ensure that our people are the major beneficiaries in terms of

jobs, secondary processing where it is economically feasible to do so, and any other

economic benefit that is properly achieved through effective public policy.

Secondary processing, Mr. Speaker. It is ironic that five minutes after

I asked questions of the industry minister yesterday, the Member for Labrador West put

forward a resolution talking about getting the maximum benefits from our resources because

they are our resources. Yet, in my questions yesterday to the Minister of Industry, Trade

and Technology, I asked the minister to do that very same thing with our water resource to

ensure that we get the maximum benefit possible. After all, it was only last month that we

opened up in this Province a state of the art bottling manufacturing plant capable of

manufacturing bottles to bottle whatever you want to bottle from shampoo to windshield

wash, to juice, to water, to whatever you want to bottle, can be bottled using the bottles

that come from this manufacturing plant.

It was a great initiative by business people in our Province to open

this plant, great foresight, and I anticipate they should be very busy. Keeping that in

mind, Mr. Speaker, it should be economically feasible to bottle water in this Province

considering we now manufacture the bottles in this Province. Furthermore, Mr. Speaker,

under NAFTA and under the World Trade Agreement, if we export water out of this Province

and into the States, or out of this Province to anywhere else in the world, we open up

that resource to anybody else who may want to export water in bulk. We open up that

resource to anybody else in the world who many want to come in and suck it dry. Now, Mr.

Speaker, that is not fearmongering. That is a part of the North American Free Trade

Agreement.

I read a quote yesterday, Mr. Speaker, that: Once a precedent is set it

could have a cumulative effect and then you would simply open the door to others to do the

same. After a while you are going to have a substantial dilution of your resource without

any way of managing it and without any way of assuring it does not take place.

That was a quote by the Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Lloyd Axworthy,

taken out of yesterday's Globe and Mail . He is aware of what the Free Trade

Agreement will do, Mr. Speaker. The Canadian Citizens' Council is aware. They say that if

we export our water in bulk from Lake Superior - now of all places, Lake Superior, that is

full of sewer and factory flush out and everything else, and yet they are thinking of

sending that out as a raw resource. We have far more pristine water here in this Province,

Mr. Speaker.

In Ontario they are looking at sending out 600 million litres a year

over the next five years, out of Lake Superior. Out of this Province, out of Gisborne

Lake, the proposal is on the table to ship out 15.6 billion litres a year - not 600

million but 15.6 billion litres of water a year. Now, Mr. Speaker, it is not so much that,

that concerns me. If we start to export our water in bulk, what do we have in place to

prevent somebody in the future from coming in and saying they want to export water in

bulk? If we allow it to go to the States or to any other country, especially to the States

under NAFTA, we have absolutely no grounds to stop somebody else from coming in and

exporting in bulk. That is written into the NAFTA agreement.

So let's presume that it is not even going to go to the States,

although I see absolutely no reason we cannot put in place legislation to ensure it does

not, but let's assume it does not even go to the States. Let's assume that it goes to

Quebec for bottling.

If Quebec can find a market for bottled water that is shipped from our

Provinces, surely with a bottling manufacturing plant here in this Province, and with the

raw resource here in this Province, and with this resolution that was put forward by the

Member for Labrador West to develop the resources for the maximum benefit of the people of

our Province, wherever it is economically viable to do so, surely it would be economically

viable to bottle our own water resource with our own bottles manufactured in this

Province.

Mr. Speaker, it is a very contradictory statement to have this come out

five minutes after the answer that was put forward by the Minister of Industry, Trade and

Technology yesterday.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. T. OSBORNE: No, contrary to what you have been telling people,

Sir, I am not. I am against exporting water as a raw resource. I feel that the citizens of

Grand Le Pierre, as well as the citizens of this Province, should benefit in the maximum

possible way from that resource. That means the jobs from the bottling plant, the jobs

from the manufacturing of the bottles, the jobs from putting the water into the bottles,

and from labelling them, and from shipping them out. Not putting it into a carrier as a

bulk resource and shipping it somewhere else to have the secondary processing done.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. T. OSBORNE: Contrary to what you have been saying, Sir, I am

looking out for the benefit of the people of this Province so that they get the maximum

benefit from our resources.

Mr. Speaker, we have to start doing that in this Province; we have to

start deriving the maximum benefit possible from our resources. That means the jobs from

secondary processing, the transportation of the processed product right here in this

Province. Have we not yet learned from the mistakes of the past, where we give away our

resources as raw resources to be shipped off somewhere else, and then to come back here as

a secondary product? Have we not learned from the mistakes of the past?

We have to start deriving the maximum benefit possible from our

resources. It is fine for the minister to stand in her place and say: We are going to look

at this case by case, proposal by proposal. Let me say this: As this private member's

resolution states, if we put the legislation in place to ensure that the secondary

processing was done here where economically feasible, we would make sure that we got the

secondary processing jobs. We would make sure that there are more people in Grand Le

Pierre hired than just a couple of people to load it into a carrier and ship it off. If

the company that is going to set up at Gisborne Lake have the intention of putting a

bottling plant in place, which they say they have, what is the problem with putting

legislation in place? Instead of putting the cart before the horse, why don't we put

legislation to say that our water resources should have the secondary processing done

before we ship it out? Why not put that legislation in place?

If the company that is going to set up there has no problem with

putting a bottling plant there, why don't we make sure that there is legislation, so that

we don't end up doing the same thing we are doing with Inco, chasing around in circles

trying to put a resource tax in place after the deal is signed, after they have bought it

from Diamond Field Resources, after somebody else has made $4.3 billion, and we have not

yet derived anything from that resource?

Mr. Speaker, it is time we start looking at our resources to get the

maximum benefit, the maximum jobs, the maximum spin-off revenue from that resource

possible, and that is what I am in favour of in Grand Le Pierre. The next time you are

speaking, Sir, to the Mayor of Grand Le Pierre, you can tell him that I want his community

to have the maximum number of jobs possible from that, because that is what I am standing

for, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.

MR. SPARROW: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPARROW: He can speak for himself, I am sure.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to speak here today, and it is

an honour to speak to the resolution put forward by my colleague from Labrador West. I

think it speaks quite well of -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SPARROW: I think it speaks quite well of my colleague that he

would stand up for this Province -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SPARROW: - stand up for his district.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SPARROW: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is this government that has put forward the strategies to do

value-added in this Province. I have gone around with the Minister of Fisheries and

Aquaculture in my district when we opened the cod plant in Argentia, in Freshwater, which

unfortunately had a few problems afterwards, but we opened up that plant. It is the

largest cod hatchery in Canada. John Efford and his department put forward a lot of good

ideas there trying to get it up and running. It was implemented with federal funds brought

to the district, I might add, by the hon. Jean Payne, working pretty hard on behalf of the

residents of my district, a very good person.

Also in forestry, my colleagues, and the hon. Beaton Tulk and the

current minister, worked hard in the forestry adding value-added as was just mentioned

earlier by the NDP member.

Churchill Falls; the Liberal government brought it in at a low point in

time for energy prices, yes, but it was put there with a Liberal initiative and is still

there today; and it will certainly turn out to be a good deal. Of all the governments

since Confederation that have tried to do something, it has been this government that is

going to get extra value out of the Upper Churchill contract; this government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPARROW: Everybody else is saying: Somebody should do this,

somebody should do that. I see the Member for St. John's South was all bottled up about

water a few minutes ago. I cannot understand, when you look at - the big thing that

Newfoundland and Labrador has to start doing is, we have to start being salesmen. There is

no point gearing up in production, no point whatsoever. There is no point buying ten

portable saws and sawing up lumber when you have no place to sell it. You have to be

geared up for sales.

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology has gone out, worked

hard, and promoted this Province all over Canada, all over the world. It is on Sunday,

Mother's Day, she has instructed people from her department to bring people to my

district. They are not coming to my district only; they are going all over the Province,

four or five different locations. It is a never-ending story to sell this Province, and it

is this government and these people on this side of this House who are not the wishy-washy

people who are wondering what is going to happen. They are making things happen. They are

doing it with the Lower Churchill.

I was up with Chuck Furey when he spoke about the pellet plant, the

hon. Chuck Furey, and with the Member for Labrador West and all the members from Labrador,

in Labrador West, talking about that pellet plant. That deal was signed in 1938,

pre-Confederation, and it is this government who is insisting, this government who is

going to say, that it is going to Labrador West and not Sept-Iles.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I want to talk about value-added as it

relates to my own district. What I would like to say is: It is no surprise to me -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) smelter.

MR. SPARROW: There will be a smelter, there will be a refinery, and

they will be in Argentia.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPARROW: I did not get into this business to get a job. I got

into this business to bring jobs to my district.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPARROW: I did not need a job. The only job I have ever had is

the one I have in this House, and I am proud the people sent me here.

AN HON. MEMBER: Never had a job before?

MR. SPARROW: Never had a job before, Sir, self-employed, but I will

say this: It is no surprise to me that Inco chose Argentia when they reviewed all the

sites in Newfoundland and Labrador. It is no surprise because there were two great leaders

of the Western World who came up through the fog in Placentia Bay, down to Ship Harbour

across from Argentia, and they were the great Winston Churchill and the great Franklin

Delano Roosevelt. They chose it because it was going to save the free world from that big

menace, Adolf Hitler, because it was right next to the shipping lanes that was so

threatening to the industry of the United States and of Canada. So it is certainly no

surprise to me, certainly no surprise at all, that the smelter will come to Argentia.

I would like to say that we have to work as a team. There is no point

if we have a mine that is not using the value-added of the smelter refinery. We have to

work as a team, and we can certainly do that. This government will not be just wishing and

hoping; they will be acting and making the future happen here in Newfoundland and

Labrador.

I am more than pleased to support the resolution of my colleague for

Labrador West. Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright - L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to rise today and have a few words on the motion that has been

put forward by the hon. Member for Labrador West. I hope that this is the continuing of

continuous resource development, maximizing opportunity and benefit for this Province. I

guess I want to talk a little bit from the perspective of the place where I come from and

the people I represent in Labrador.

The issue of a resource development, who owns it, whose opportunity it

should be, and who should maximize the benefits from it, has always been a contentious

issue in Labrador. It is one that has caused great controversy in the past and I am sure

will cause great controversy in the future. For too long people across Labrador have been

standing and saying: We can no longer sustain the economy of the region where we live if

we are going to continue to have resource extraction, exporting of resources, taking

everything out from under our nose, and leaving nothing for the people there to be able to

make a living and survive on.

It has come to, I guess, some very controversial points in Labrador

over the years with talk of separation, with talk of the New Labrador Party, with the

height and the moment of politics that people have played. It has always come down to

resource development and the people who live there. I would have to say that in this

motion there should be other things. I think that adjacency should account for something.

Wherever you have resource development within this Province, whatever region you have it

in, there should be an adjacency principle that is attached to it. I think people in

Labrador have been asking and begging for this, and have been asking that the Province

recognize the extreme importance and the need to have this done.

I would say now that today the people of the Province are recognizing

it. In light of new developments that are happening in the Island of this Province and in

Labrador, the entire population is understanding and seeing the need for adjacency, the

need to be doing things at home and maximizing the benefits at home first, before anyone

else has the privilege and the opportunity to do it.

I guess first of all I want to talk about the Voisey's Bay project and

what it means. I know how the people of Argentia are feeling today with the uncertainty

over the smelter and the refinery, because I know how my people felt a year or so ago when

we were told we would get no smelter and no refinery in Labrador. It was a sad day,

because we had our hopes built up. We were out there lobbying, we were active. We though

this industry was going to be the first resource from which the people of Labrador would

see maximum benefits and economic opportunity derived. I know how he feels today because I

know how we felt. It was a sad day, it was a disheartening day for us, but we accepted it

to the extent that the benefits would go to the Province, that there are other people in

this Province who are having a hard time, and a difficult time, and need to survive as

well as we do in Coastal Labrador.

We realized that whatever benefits from any development, whether it is

in Argentia, Corner Brook, Goose Bay or L'Anse au Clair, are going to be distributed to

all the people. We know it is the revenue from these resources that feed our schools and

our health care system, all of which we benefit from, and we realize that, but it doesn't

make it any easier to accept.

I am going to talk about the fishery. The fishery is a resource that

has been in abundance along the Coast of Labrador, north and south. It is a resource that

could sustain every person and every community along that whole region, and it is not

doing it. Why is it not doing it? Because the people who live there don't have the

privilege or the opportunity to benefit. Because they are not the decision makers. Mr.

Speaker, they don't distribute the quotas, they don't set the regulations, they are merely

players. They are just the players in all of this and someone else decides all of the

logistics and the policies and the legislation that goes with it for them.

Mr. Speaker, we have lobbied, we have cried, we have begged to be able

to control the fisheries resources off the Coast of Labrador within the Province of

Newfoundland and Labrador, and still today we are unsuccessful in our plight to do so, and

still today we are suffering because of it. So, Mr. Speaker, the resource development, the

export of resources and the fact that we don't benefit 100 per cent is nothing new to the

people where I live. It is nothing new to the district that I represent. We have been

experiencing it for years and years and years, and we are still experiencing it.

Mr. Speaker, there was a point when we thought that maybe whatever

quotas were out there in the fishery, we will capitalize on it because we will lobby and

get this regulation that says: Any resources from the sea that are landed in communities

in Coastal Labrador have to be processed in Coastal Labrador. Do you know what happened

then, Mr. Speaker? They did not even land there. They went somewhere else. When they did

not go somewhere else, they sent boats up. They tied up side by side in harbours and

transported the resource from one ship to another ship so they would not have to dock at

that wharf, because if they did the people there would benefit and they did not want that.

Things have not changed, Mr. Speaker. We are still experiencing those problems, those

difficulties, trying to overcome those pains and challenges that we have to deal with to

be able to make a living up there.

Well, I hope with this new policy, Mr. Speaker, that those things will

change, that we will see the maximum benefits from that resource derived by the people

there; we will see their plants open, their boats full and their tables bountiful, Mr.

Speaker. I hope the benefits are going to be theirs.

I also want to talk about the energy resource because energy has been

another resource that we have been exporting out of Labrador for years and years and

years. Well, this year, Mr. Speaker, we got a break. The Premier went in and negotiated a

deal on the Lower Churchill to re-route benefits to this Province from that development.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I will have to say that adjacency has to be considered. There have to

be benefits to the people who are adjacent to the resource as well as the people that are

within the Province that houses the resource, Mr. Speaker. That hopefully will be

accomplished as a result of a resolution that has been put forward here.

We hope that because Labrador's resources are contributing grossly to

the economy of the Province that we also will benefit a certain amount from these

resources, Mr. Speaker, and we will see cheaper power for communities and people who are

adjacent, not just for people in the United States and in Quebec; but we will see cheaper

power for the people that are within 50 kilometres of the resource, 100 kilometres of the

resource.

I have to say that the resolution that has been put forward by the

Member for Labrador West is certainly one that every member in this House, I am sure, will

stand and support unanimously, simply because we are all here to ensure that the benefits

of all resources accrue to the people in this Province, and that they are employed and

that they receive maximum opportunity from each and every thing that we can do and

capitalize upon.

So I would say, Mr. Speaker, that when the shrimp management plan comes

down a few weeks from now, the increased allocations will not go to the fourteen or

fifteen federal licenses that are held by the multinationals off the Coast of Labrador,

but rather the allocations will come to the people of this Province, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JONES: They will be distributed amongst the communities of

Labrador. The people of Black Tickle will not have to worry where their quota is coming

from for their plant, Mr. Speaker, because it will not be given to the multinationals. It

will stay for the benefit of our people. That is what we want.

That kind of management has to be taken with all resources, and not

where it is possible. I would say, Mr. Speaker, it is always possible. Nothing is

impossible and we will just have to make the resources in this Province work for us, work

for our people so that we all capitalize on it.

I say to the member for Labrador West, that I support your motion

wholeheartedly.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Government Services and

Lands.

MR. McLEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak for a few minutes on this

particular resolution brought forward by my colleague for Labrador West.

It is very interesting now, Mr. Speaker, that we have to be debating a

resolution like this at all because now that we have started to develop our natural

resources to the degree that we have, it shows the fortitude of this particular

government, Mr. Speaker, that we have taken the aggressive action to ensure that we get

all of the benefits from the resources that we will be developing.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take you back for just a minute or so to

the older days. In the area where I was born and raised, my father always trapped. He

brought home loads of fur each year and all of that fur was sold for practically nothing.

It went to Montreal or Toronto and it was made into fur coats and were sold for millions

and millions of dollars. Mr. Speaker, up until two years ago we were still looking at

that. Our resources are being shipped out of this Province.

Mr. Speaker, I bring you back to the Iron Ore Company of Canada. We can

talk about a former Prime Minister of Canada who was President of IOC for a number of

years, who shipped all of the product down to Sept-Iles, so that Quebec could reap all of

the benefits of that particular product.

Mr. Speaker, what we have done in the last two years to ensure that the

pellet plant will be built in Labrador West where it certainly should be -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible). Do you agree with what I said?

MR. McLEAN: I did not hear you?

AN HON. MEMBER: There should be no review. Tell the company, you

either (inaudible) in Labrador West or forget it.

MR. McLEAN: Well, I tell the hon. member opposite, that we have

taken a pretty tough stand on that and we will probably see that in the end, that the

pellet plant will go in Labrador West. We certainly indicated to the company that we do

not take seconds,

we will only take what is reasonable for this Province.

Mr. Speaker, I would say that not only for mining, but for the fishery,

for the forestry, for oil and gas and whatever we have to develop as natural resources in

this Province. We have to do it for the maximum benefit of the people of this Province, no

matter where it is.

Let me say, Mr. Speaker, that a lot of the hype over the smelter issue

came out of my district. Originally, back in February, the council up there indicated that

they wanted us to build a mine and mill without a smelter. Then the MP for Happy Valley -

Goose Bay indicated that he was in support of that.

I have to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that these two initiatives don't

represent the people that I represent. A large number of the people in the Lake Melville

District support the policy that this government has right now, and that is a very

aggressive policy of making sure that we get the maximum benefits from the resources that

we have.

I would also say, Mr. Speaker, that the majority of people in Labrador

support the policy that this government promotes, in terms of the development of our

natural resources. Because if we do not do it, in this particular time when the

exhilaration of natural resources is coming on stream, then let me assure you that fifty

years down the road we will still have nothing, as we had nothing when the Churchill Falls

deal was signed in 1969.

We saw Quebec gain millions and millions of dollars, while we were

sitting there with a hugh resource; likewise with the Iron Ore Company and likewise with

the fishery off our coast, a lot of that resource secondary processing being done outside

of this Province.

Mr. Speaker, in the woods operations in Labrador right now, if we get

into secondary processing we will be able to bring our employment rate down in that part

of the Province to zero because we will then be looking for people to come in to work.

I agree with the speakers who have spoken so far, that we have to be

very cognizant of our natural resources today and we have to ensure, through resolutions

like this and through the government being very aggressive, that we get the maximum

benefits.

I support the Member in Labrador West in his resolution today.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. CANNING: As I stand to close the debate on this resolution, I

want to reflect upon some of the things that were said here today.

With respect to the Iron Ore Company of Canada, we have not made one

move without full dialogue and consultation with the Chamber of Commerce up there, the

town up there, the United Steel Workers of America up there.

As a matter of fact, before I brought this resolution to this House of

Assembly yesterday, this resolution was read to the President of the United Steel Workers

of America for his approval.

I was shocked here today to listen to the new corporate lawyer, the new

advisor to the Iron Ore Company of Canada, none other than the Leader of the New

Democratic Party, advising IOC that you have two options really: one is to start that

plant is Sept-Iles or look for a subsidy from the government.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I listened to other people talk about the Iron Ore

Company of Canada; what aggressive stand we should take. We need no advise from those who

are of the same party, that we had once a President of the Iron Ore Company of Canada who

became Prime Minister of this country, the Hon. Brian Mulroney, who did not treat us as

well as he should, I can tell you.

We have absolutely worked closely with communities on this issue but

this has more to do with the whole of the Province as well.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) 6,000 jobs.

MR. CANNING: Yes.

The reality is, this resolution today is about all of our resources,

the non-renewable resources as well as the renewable resources. I can tell you, Mr.

Speaker, that I absolutely and firmly believe that, and I believe every colleague I have

on this side of the House believes in that resolution, and I hope that those who are on

the other side of the House agree with it too.

I am pleased to hear some of the comments from the Member from

Cartwright - L'Anse au Clair with respect to adjacently, a policy which I believe in too.

I can you, Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Labour and I and the

Member from Torngat Mountains led a rally of 1,500 people to the gates of the company, the

Leader of the NDP was not there and, Mr. Speaker, old coppertop was not there either.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I wish to close the debate on the resolutions.

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

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi on a

point of order.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, the Member for Labrador West is accusing

me, number one, of being a corporate lawyer for IOC, and secondly, for not attending a

demonstration in his district.

Mr. Speaker, I was there the week afterwards and fully supported the

idea of the pellet plant being in Labrador West. It has to be there. My concern, Mr.

Speaker, is that his policy and his resolution won't do that job. That is the point I was

making.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order. The hon. member is just further engaging in

the debate.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. CANNING: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I would now like to close off

debate.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Is the House ready for the question?

All in favour of the resolution.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: Opposed.

Carried.

AN HON. MEMBER: Division.

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. gentleman, rather than put

everyone through Division, wants to know whether it was unanimously accepted or not, I am

sure the Opposition House Leader and myself would agree that this resolution was

unanimously accepted and have it so recorded, so he can go home and sleep well tonight.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

Let the record show that the vote was unanimously in favour of the

resolution.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. TULK: Before your hon. moves the adjournment, which today I

understand he does, I would like to inform the House that the Resource Committee this

evening will review the estimates of the Department of Forestry Resources and Agrifoods in

the House of Assembly.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday,

at 2:00 p.m.