Vol ,TnP YT U..U.i. ..... .l.lo. ~ Province of Newfoundland FORTIETH GENERAL ASSElVIBL Y OF NEWFOUNDLAl'TD First Session VERB44TIN1 R_EPORT {Hansard} Monday, 6 .May 1985 Speaker: Honourable Patrick McNicholas Number 6

The House met at 3:00 P.M. MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): Order, please! Oral Questions MR. FENWICK: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the member for Menihek. MR. BARRY: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: I beg your pardon. were going out. MR. BARRY: I thought you Mr. Speaker, I wonder if - MR. SPEAKER: I am sorry, I recognized the hon. the member for Menihek (Mr •. Fenwick). I thought the hon. the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barry) actually was taking up his books and going out for a second, otherwise I would have recognized the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. The hon. the member for Menihek. MR. FENWICK: Thank you, Mr.

Speaker. I am going to ask a question that I have asked on two previous occasions in the last session of the House. I thought I had a positive answer in the last session. My question to the Premier is about the proposed Election Expenses Act.

Back on December 3 in this Chamber I asked the Premier whether it was possible to introduce that act in that particular session of the L262 6 May 1985 House, and he said, "We intend to put the bill before the House, but whether in fact the House is willing to deal with it in this session will be up to the House." Since the bill was not introduced in that session of the House, my question to the Premier is, given that the Throne Speech has no mention whatsoever of the Elections Act, or at least it seems to have no mention of it, what are his intentions in this particular session of the Legislature for introducing that long-awaited piece of legislation?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier. PREMIER PECKFORD: Mr. Speaker, we intend to introduce it in this session of the House. It is presently before Cabinet. All the bills were not mentioned in the Throne Speech. It has been mentioned before in previous Thr~ne Speeches and only the three or four major pieces of legislation that are likely to come before the Spring session were mentioned in the Throne Speech. Obviously, there will also be a Fall session in which most of the legislation for this year will be taken care of. So it is our intention to introduce it in this session of the House. · MR. BARRY: Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition. MR. BARRY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Premier whether he has had a chance yet to look at the book recently put out by Mr. Robert Brourassa called Power from the R262

North, and whether, in

Chapter 5 of that book light of in which there is an extensive discussion on Mr. Brourassa' s intended approach to the obtaining of co-operation from the Government of Newfoundland for future hydro development between Quebec and Labrador, the Premier has given it any consideration? PaLrticularly in view of the fact that with Mr. David Peterson's showing in Ontario and with the polls indicating that Mr. Brc>Urassa is probably going to be the next Premier of Quebec, has the Premier given any thought to possibly going up and giving Mr. Brourassa a hand and making sure he becomes the next Premier of Quebec? MR.

BAIRD: A hypothetical question. MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier. PREMIER PECKFORD: Mr. Speaker, if, in fact, the Leader of the ~iberal Party of Quebec becomes the Premier of Quebec, and that is hypothetical at this point in time, as the member for Humber West (Mr. Baird) just said, so we are dealing with a guesstimate and a hypothetical situation here~ if in fact he does, I am hopeful in that eventuality that he will take an approach towards Labrador power different than he took when he was Premier of Quebec before.

If you remember, we had as much difficulty with the Premier of Quebec, with the Government of Quebec under Mr. Bourassa, as we have had, at least up to this point in time, with the present government of Quebec. I have just received a copy of the book. Mr. Bourassa was send me a copy Leader of the good enough as well as Opposition L263 6 Hay 1985 to" the (Mr. Barry), I guess, with a little note on it. I got it Wednesday or Thurdsay of last week and I have not had a chance to read the

chapter to which the hon. member refers. But I do intend to read it within the next few days and see what the hon. Mr. Bourassa has to say about joint development and so on. If, in fact, he does become Premier of Quebec, we . will want to try to initiate discussions with him at an early date to try to resolve our differences and get on with the development of a lot of our potential hydro resources both in Labrador and in Quebec.

But, as I say, I hope that the ministry which will be appointed by the hon. gentleman, if in fact he does become the Premier, is a ministry which is far more co-operative than the ministry that was under his leadership before. are only too happy to with whoever is the Quebec. MR. BARRY: But we co-operate Premier of A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): The bon. Leader of the Opposition. MR. BARRY : I have a copy of this

chapter which I would like to table in the House and make some copies available for the press as well. I ask the Premier to pay particular attention to page 90 of this volume where Mr. Bourassa makes a point of stating that it is easier for a newly elected government to take new overtures, take new approaches to existing problems, and he states particularly the initial period after the election of a new government would be the most likely one in which the Quebec government, especially if t.hat R263

government was formed by a newly elected alternative political party, could make the type of overture to Newfoundland which would set in motion the process of binding up the wounds. I refer specifically to this next sentence and I would like to get the Premier's response to it. "One way of approaching the problem would be through a joint development project between Quebec and Newfoundland which could take into consideration the implications of the existing Churchill Falls contract." And I would like, Mr.

Speaker, if the Premier would express his willingness to look positively at these overtures that · are being held out by Mr. Bourassa, to look closely at what Mr. Bourassa is saying in this chapter, because it is a very open and a very, I believe, constructive approach, a very positive approach he is taking to the problem. Would the Premier indicate to this House if he would be prepared to meet with Mr. Bourassa as quickly as possible, particularly in the context of any new initiatives that are being planned with the present Government of Quebec? Because it might conceivably be, Mr.

Speaker, that a better deal could be obtained from Mr. Bourassa than through any new initiative from the present government. Would the Premier indicate whether he would be prepared to explore more fully what Mr. Bourassa is contemplati~g in this chapter? MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): The hen. the Premier. PREMIER PECKFORD: Mr. Speaker, one has to be very careful on this. I mean, there is a legitimate government of Quebec right now which is led by Mr. L264 6 May 1985 Levesque and the Parti Quebecois.

Whilst they have had some problems politically, I guess in the last several months, they are still the legitimate government of Quebec and one would not want to do anything to interfer with the process that is ongoing internally between the government of Quebec and the Government of Newfoundland, and quite probably the Government of Canada, so that we were seen to be dealing with other people who are not now the legitimate government of Quebec and thereby jeopardize those kinds of negotiations that could be ongoing while the present government is still in power.

So you have to be very careful because you might, you know, cut off your nose in spite of your face. But I have received a copy of the book from Mr. Bourassa. In the letter to me he indicated that at some time he would be interested, outside of the business of ~nowing that there was a legitimate Government of Quebec, in discussing those ideas with me. I indicated back to him last week in a letter that I sent him that I would be only too happy to explore those ideas with him. Anything that can positively be done to resolve the problem that we now have is a welcome sign and the comments by Mr.

Bourassa are very, very welcome and do show in writing a departure from the stance that was taken by him and his ministry when he was leader the last time. And so obviously, if in fact he does become the Premier of Quebec, we will hold him to what he says in his book. MR. SPEAKER: The hen. member for Naskaupi. MR. KELLAND: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to direct my question to the Minister R264

of Rural, Agricultural and Northern · Development. By way of

preamble, Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that we have a bit of an untenable situation in one of our communities in Naskaupi district, the Innu community of Sheshatshit, in which -we have two elected Band Councils each claiming legal status. The elections were held on March 24 and April 4 with separate chiefs and Band Councils being elected on these occasions. I would like to ask the minister what he proposes ·to do or what he has done to clear up this untenable situation at this point? MR. SP EAKE R (McNicholas): The hen. Minister of Agricultural and Development. MR. R.

AYLWARD: Rural, Northern Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate the question from the hon. member, seeing it is the first question that I heLVe had as ·Minister of Rural, Agricultural and Northern Development. The situation that exists in Sheshatshit right now is being monitored very closely by my department. I consider it to be a community problem. Our staff is available for any help that the people there want. I was in the area just before the election and met with some of these people, I know the problem, and I do not want to go and impose any solution or remedy to the problem.

It is a community problem and I am sure the people I met in the area are quite capable of dealing with their own problems. If there is any help necessary or needed, my staff is available at any time. MR. KELLAND: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. L265 6 May 1985 MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hen. member for Naskaupi. MR.

KELLAND: Some additional information, I am sure the minister is fully aware of most of these points, but there was an alleged mishandling of Band Council funding which I believe was investigated as a result of, perhaps, the minister's department receiving a request, and the unusual part of that was that just after the investigation, or perhaps even during the investigation, and prior to the April 2 provincial election, additional funding of approximately $36,000 was awarded to the Band Council there.

I am wondering, as I had not heard any sort of a statement in that regard, if the investigation showed that in fact there had been no mishandling of the funds prior to the -additional $36,000? MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): The hon. Agricultural Development. Minister and MR. R. AYLWARD: of Rural, Northern Mr. Speaker, as far as I am aware, I do not have a report with me on that investigation. I can find the information out for the hen. gentleman. The $36,000 that was given to the Band Council during or prior to the investigation had nothing to do with the investigation.

I can report to the House on the findings of the investigation, but there has not been brought to my attention that there were irregularities proven during the investigation. MR. KELLAND: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: R265

A final supplementary, the hen. member for Naskaupi. MR. KELLAND: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to also mention and ask the minister in this regard, since in the

preamble I mentioned the two elections, March 24 and April 4, in which there were two separate Chiefs and two separate councils elected, and following the second election there was a plebescite held in which 205 voting members of the community cast their ballots in the plebescite showing that 193 people voted in favour of the Band Council and Chief elected on March 24 and twelve voted against that. I have been informed in the past few days that there is some funding being held up, Mr.

Speaker, which prevents, I was given to understand, some of the Innu people who normally go in the country_ at. 'this time of year from going in because they do not have this funding which it is normal to receive. I am wondering if the minister would undertake to see that that funding could be provided for those people to go in the country now while the season is on? MR. SPEAKER: The hen. the Agricultural Development. MR. R. AYLWARD: Minister and Thank you, Mr. Speaker. of Rural, Northern First of all, there has bee~ a request for legal advice.

There is a problem in the constitution with respect to who calls an election and now there are two Band Councils. Now we are giving advice to try to straighten it out. It might need a change in their own constitution. When we L266 6 May 1985 get that advice we will pass it on. As to committing moneys to the Band Council, until we have it settled who is the Band Council and who legally should represent the people, it is very difficult to give money to one or the other.

So we are looking at it, and if, without complicating the situation, we can get the moneys to the people so they can go in the country, we will certainly try to do it. MR. KELLAND: Mr. Speaker, clarification there? may I on that just last have point MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): A final supplementary. MR. KELLAND: I am unclear now. Are you not now recognizing a Chief in Sheshatshit? MR. SPEAKER: The hen. the Agricultural Development. MR. R. AYLWARD: Minister and of Rural, Northern Mr. Speaker, what we have now is a problem between two Chiefs and two Councils.

We want that straightened out before we officially recognize either one of them. MR. KELLAND: That is immoral. MR. R. AYLWARD: Well, that is according to the community. According to the constitution, the election was - MR. KELLAND: (Inaudible) deal with. MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, if they would allow R266

me to answer, we have a situation in Sheshatshit now where the community has voted twice for two separate Band Councils and we want that problem straightened out before we start committing money to the Band Council again. That is all we are looking for. MR. KELLAND: Mr. Speaker, just one more point. MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): Order, please! MR. KELLAND: It is becoming more unclear all the time. MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Order, please! MR. KELLAND: Thank you, discuss it later. Have Mr. Speaker, we will ~Iii th the minister I been recognized, Mr. Speaker? MR. SPEAKER: Order,.please! No.

The hen. member has had what I would call two final supplementaries instead of one. The hen. the member for Twillingate. MR. W. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Fisheries. It concerns this year's seal hunt or, maybe better said, the lack of it. In view of the fact that there seems to be an overabundance of seals this year and good weather conditions, certainly the need is there for a seal harvest. The only thing lacking, Mr. Speaker, is a market for the se.al pelts.

Can the Minister of Fisheries tell L267 6 May 1985 the House what he has done to help alleviate the present situation with respect to helping the fishermen sell-their seal pelts? MR. SPEAKER: The hen. the Minister of Fisheries. MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hen. gentleman knows that a total, I believe, of $100,000 in funding has been provided through the Department of Fisheries provincially this year to the Canadian Sealers' Association to enable that association to carry on a number· of activities, but, specifically, to be able to purchase a number of seal pelts from fishermen for market testing.

Now that funding, Mr. Speaker, was based on a proposal that the department received from the Sealers' Association several weeks, perhaps several months ago, in that they had identified some possible market potential in areas of Southeast Asia, and in Hong Kong in _particular, and they wanted to be able to buy 5, 000 or 6,000 or 7,000 pelts to be able to test that market this year. So the Department of Fisheries has provided $75,000 earmarked for market testing alone, in addition to a $25,000 grant that was approved several weeks before the last one was announced.

So that has been a total of $100, 000 altogether, Mr. Speaker, provided this year, through the department, to enable the Canadian Sealers' Association to do that market testing in areas of Southeast Asia that they have identified to us as being areas of good potential in which they want to do the testing. So that programme is in place and working, as far as I know, Mr. Speaker, right now. R267

MR. W. CARTER: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): A supplementary, the bon. the member for Twillingate. MR. W. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the amount given the Sealers' Association by the government. I should remind the minister, before he starts bragging about the $75,000, that it is exactly $45,000 less than the government authorized two weeks ago to conduct a traffic survey on a road on the outside of St. John's. So bearing in mind that an industry that employs hundreds of people, it seems to me that $75,000 or $100,000 is a token effort.

In light of the importance of the seal fishery, Mr. Speaker, its present importance and ongoing importance, trying to ke~p it alive, would the minister tell the House if he is prepared to entertain giving the Sealers' Association an additional amount of · mol].ey to buy more pelts from the Northeast Coast? I am told that these pelts once again can be stored and can be kept for future markets. The Sealers' Association say there is a li~ited market for a certain number of pelts.

They say also that $200,000 or $250,000 would be ample to pretty well reactivate the seal fishery, certainly on the North East Coast this year. MR. SPEAKER: The bon. the Minister of Fisheries. MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, I think that this government over the last several years, practically every year when the need arose, tried to the best of its ability to assist the sealing industry and the Canadian L268 6 May 1985 Sealers' Association in particular. So we do not have to accept any lectures about our commitment from the bon. gentleman when it comes to that score. Let me just say to him, Mr.

Speaker, that the Canadian Sealers' Association several weeks ago did have some discussions with the provincial Department of Fisheries regarding a loan guarantee, or some sort of line of credit, along those lines, to be able to build up an inventory of seal pelts throughout the Province. Now, since the $75,000 grant was approved for market testing, there has been some further discussion between the Sealers' Association and the department vis-a-vis one of their requests, for example, trying to do something about reopening the operation at Dildo.

That discussion has been ongoing and it seems, or it appears from where we sit, Mr. Speaker, that there has been a lessening of interest on the part of the Canadian Sealers' Association in regard to pursuing that idea but the door still remains open, we have not closed any doors to them, but up to this point in time what we have done is tried to assist them in a specific request that they made and we certainly have done that, Mr. Speaker. MR. CALLAN: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): The bon. the member for Bellevue. MR. CALLAN: Mr.

Speaker, the minister mentioned South Dildo and the Carino plant in South Dildo, which is the only seal pelt processing plant in the whole of the Province. The twenty-five former employees of that plant have no employment this year for the first R268

time in a long time. I.et me ask the minister, then, has the minister or the officials in his department been meeting with the Sealers' Association, and other concerned individuals, with a view to buying some seal pelts and having them processed at that facility in South Dildo to be kept in inventory, or whatever has to be done with them, for future use? Is there any disc ussions on that? MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries. MR. RIDEOUT: Mr.

Speaker, I can say to the hon. gentleman that there has been discussions between officials of my department and the Canadian Sealers' Association on 1:he matter that he raises. The hon. gentleman went on to indicate any other groups. I do not know. From my own personal experience I do not know if there were discussions between the department and the Sealers' Association and other groups in that general area, but I do know that there has been ongoing discussions bet.ween the department and the Canadian Sealers' Association on the matter. Now, Mr. Speaker, it is not all cut and dried.

To provide the financing, for example, to reopen the Dildo operation for a small number of skins, there is still a certain cost involved whether you do 5; 000 or 25,000 or whatever. So the economics have been looked at through the officials of the department and the Canadian Sealers' Association. As I said to the previous questioner, since the $75,000 grant was approved several weeks ago, there appears to hav ,e been an lessening of interest in reactivating the Dildo operation.

L269 6 May 1985 I am not saying that they are still not interested, but the interest seems to have moved from doing something there with the small number of pelts involved to perhaps untilizing whatever expertise might be in various areas of the Province to do the thing by hand. The short answer to the hon. gentleman's question is that, yes, there have been discussions between at least the Sealers' Association and officials in the department. MR. CAL LAN : A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): A final supplementary, the hon . the member for Bellevue. MR. CALLAN: Well, Mr.

Speaker, I think it is common knowledge, and the minister probably knows this, that the owners of the Carino plant, Mr. Nyggard and Mr. Webber and whoever else, seem to want a fair rental for the use of their property, their premises in South Dildo. Has the minister or his department, has the government that he is a minister of, given any consideration at all to either buying the plant in South Dildo - $2 million, I understand, is the price tag - or, that not being possible, to expropriating the property altogether and take it over by government? Has that been considered? MR.

SPEAK ER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries. MR . RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, I cannot say categorically whether or not those two options have been considered by the department. It certainly R269

has not been mentioned to me the few days that I have there, but I will ask questions and attempt to get answers for the hon. gentleman. MR. FENWICK: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: over been the the The hon. the member for Menihek. MR. FENWICK: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the situations in Labrador that has been perpetually a concern of the people of Labrador, and I think I speak for the other members in Labrador on this, is the desire to try and get a separate federal seat established for the area of Labrador .

There was representation made, I believe by all parties, back when there was a commission going around looking at it. The question I have for the Premier: Is there a position of our provincial government vis-a-vis the federal government -, now that we have a change in the government there, with respect to the whole concept of a Labrador seat? PREMIER PECKFORD: Was your question was our position . the same? MR. FENWICK: Well, I am not sure what it was before. I would just welcome a clarification of what it is right now. MR. SPEAKER (DR. MCNICHOLAS): ~he hon. the Premier.

PREMIER PECKFORD: I am very glad the hon. member asked the question. Yes, we have through our party on a number of occasions, I think at the hearing process in Labrador when the L270 6 May 1985 matter was raised and there were hearings on it, indicated that we favoured a separate Labrador seat, and we still do. I guess as a follow-up, the hon. member would like to ask whether in fact I am going to now, because I have some friends in Ottawa, push this as hard as I can? And the answer to that is, yes. MR. FENWICK: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. It is not quite the question we anticipated. MR.

SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the member for Menihek. MR. FENWICK: As it stands right now there is a Private Member's Bill introduced by Rod Murphy, a NDP member of Parliament in Ottawa, and it is all r~ady ·and ready to go through right now. And my question actually is: Will the Premier support in his representations, as he is going to make them to the federal government now, this particular bill which would actually see the setting up of Labrador as a separate seat? MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER PECKFORD: Yes, absolutely. is in the bill, I am glad to If that is what then no problem. see that the NDP member who is proposing the bill has come around to our way of thinking. MR. SPEAKER: THe hon. the member for Naskaupi. MR. KELLAND: Mr. Speaker, I would to direct a question to the Minister of Northern Agricultural and Northern R270

Development (Mr. B. Aylward). Would the minister inform the House if his department recognizes either of the Band Councils elected on March 24 or April 2? MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Agriculture Development. Minister and MR. R. AYLWARD: of Rural Northern Mr. Speaker, that is the same question I answered a little while ago. - But just to give the hon. member the position that the department is in, the more we comment on it, and the more that we say that we will recognize one or the other, the more the situation is complicated in Sheshatshit.

We want the people in Sheshashi t to get tog,ether with our help to settle the problem and we will recognize the Band· Council and the Chief that comes out of that negotiation. The one that the whole community tells us to recognize, that is what we want. MR. KELLAND : A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): Supplementary, the hon. the member for Naskaupi. MR. KELLAND: Based on the minister's answer, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask him why then does his department currently issue salary cheques to Benoit Pokue, the Chief who was elected in the April 4 election? Does he recognize him? MR.

SPEAKER: The hon. the Agricultural Development. MR. R. AYLWARD: Minister and of Rural, Northern Mr. Speaker, as I understand it it L271 6 May 1985 is not a salary cheque. MR. KELLAND: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the member for Naskaupi. MR. KELLAND: the hon. Whether it is a salary cheque, stipend, or whatever name the department wishes to put it under, we can ask what it is and why it is, but my understanding is that Chief Benoit Pokue was elected in the previous year.

Perhaps, to make it a little easier for the minister, that is why he is issuing the cheque for whatever reasons, salary or otherwise but also in my final supplementary, Mr. Speaker, I would like to know how that can be since my understanding from the Innuit community of Sheshatshiu is that that Chief, from that election the previous year, is making unilaterally? MR. SPEAKER: has no quorum and his decisions The hon. the Minister of Rural, Northern Agricultural and Development. MR. R. AYLWARD: Hr. Speaker, I will check for the hon. member what the money is issued to the Chief for.

It is my understanding right now that the cheque is written out for the operations of their building. That is what I understand it is for. I will check, I will get the information . for the hon. member and I will present it to him tomorrow. I will take it as notice. MR. CALLAN: Mr. Speaker. R271

MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): The hon. the member for Bellevue. MR. CALLAN: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr. Doyle) • Several years ago, in order to get funding for an artesian well or any water supply, you had to have fifteen families. That was changed and then you had to have a local service district. Let me ask the minister: Is that rule still in effect, that to receive funding for artesian wells you have to have a local service district? MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal Affairs. MR. DOYLE: Yes, Mr.

Speaker, that rule is still in effect, a local service district or some type of a water committee. The number of families involved, however, is at the discretion of the minister. At the moment, as a matter of· fact, we have new guidelines being established for local service districts and water committees which will see some changes made to that. MR. CALLAN: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the member for Bellevue. MR. CALLAN: the hon. Mr.

Speaker, I want to ask the Premier a question. on April 1, which was April Fool's Day, and I hope this does not turn out to be an April Fool joke, the day before polling day the Premier sent a telegram to a lady in Blaketown who was Chairman of a Water Committee - there is no local L272 6 May 1985 service district committee in Blaketown - and the Premier said, 'This is to confirm a grant of $4,000 for your Water Committee. • Will the Premier say that that commitment is lived up to or will they have to form a local service district committee? MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER PECKFORD: I am not going to get into the legalities of it, Mr. Speaker. If we indicated that we were going ahead with a particular programme in a particular area, we will ensure that the proper legal entity is established so that the money can flow to that legal entity. There is no problem. There is supposed to be local service districts now in most places, so whatever legal entity is necessary will be established and the money will be provided. MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): Tpe time for · Oral Questions has now elapsed. Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees MR. SPEAKER: The hon.

Minister of Finance. DR. COLLINS: Mr. Speaker, pursuant 45, subsection (2) to

section of The Financial Administration Act, 1973, the Minister of Finance is required to report to the House of Assembly an account of all temporary loans raised under

section 44 and 45 of the said act. In this regard I am attaching a list of the demand loans and treasury bills issued under the above sections between R272

the period March 13, 1984, the opening date of the previous session, and April 25, 1985. Mr. Speaker, if I may, also pursuant to

section 51, paragraph (3} of The Financial Administration Act, 1973, the Minister of Finance is required to report on the details of guaranteed loans paid in part or in whole since the last sitting of the House. Accordingly I am attaching a list c:>f these guaranteed loans, · which is provided in accordance with the above sections • . MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): The hon. Minister of Mines and Energy. MR. DINN: Mr. Speaker, I would like to present the Annual Report of Mineral Licences and Mining Leases for the year April 1, 1984 to March 31, 1985. MR. SPEAKER: The hon. ·Minister of Culture, Recreation and Youth. MR.

MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like at this time to table the annual audited financial statements of the Canada Games Park Commission. The report itself is self-explanatory but I would just like to highlight one point for all ·hen. members. In the fiscal year which ended 31 March 1984, the Commission began with a deficit of $57,887 and they concluded the fiscal year with a surplus of $52,323 and the excess of revenues over expenditures was $121,776.

I would just like to go on record in this House as commending the Canada Games Parks Commission for their very prudent management and their very L273 6 May 1985 aggressive fund raising activities. Is it agreed? Notices of Motion MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Minister of Mines and Energy. MR. DINN: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce the following bills, "An Act To Amend The Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation Act, 1951," and "An Act To Amend The Newfoundland Housing Corporation Act". Petitions MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice. MS VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am .proud today to present a petition signed by close to 500 residents of the Province. Mr. Speaker, several of the petitioners are members of the Corner Brook Status of Women's Council and they live in the great district of Humber East. The prayer of the petition is the same as that ably presented last week by my friend, the member for St. John's North (Mr. J. Carter). I will quote it. "We, the concerned citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador, do hereby protest against high increasing electricity rates in our Province.

As you are aware from the news media concerning the astronomical jump from December to January in our light bills, something has to be done. We are asking for your help and support R273

in signing this petition to help stop high electricity rates in this Province: we then will present this to our MBAs of Newfoundland and Labrador". Mr. Speaker, this petition was given to me on Friday by three women who are leading the crusade to curb high electricity rates in the Province, the women of Flatrock who have started the New Lab Action Group. I know that the women in Corner Brook who signed this petition are very proud of the initiative taken by these women, of their sincerity, and their determination to do something about the problem. Mr.

Speaker, perhaps these women feel more accutely than others the great burden imposed by the increasing electricity rates, especially as it falls on people on very low and fixed incomes, and I suppose there are none in our Province worse affected than sole-support mothers, single parents who, on average, have very low incomes, among the lowest in the Province, and who often do"not have the wherewithal to supplement their fuel by cutting their own wood. Mr.

Speaker, as my colleagues on this side of the House pointed out last week, it is incumbent upon all of us to work hard, to study, to come to grips with the underlying causes for the rising electricity costs. From what I have been able to determine, the causes are complex and deeply rooted, the solutions are difficult.

But that should not deter us in our efforts, for we have to face up to the challenge of corning to grips with the root causes of the growing electricity costs, and bring them under control, so that there is not such hardship imposed upon the people L274 6 May 1985 of this Province who are on low and fixed incomes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): The hon. the member for Menihek. MR.

FENWICK: I would like to support the prayer of the petition and I would like to, since we have been introducing them on a day-by-day basis, bring up some of the matters that I have actually heard in support for previous petitions like this, which actually was not support, namely the comments from the House Leader (Mr. Marshall) on the other side who was commenting on some of the suggestions we were putting forward. As the person who presented the petition so aptly pointed out, the problems are complex.

There are a lot of things that are causing the problem right now and there are a lot of solutions that are possible. At the risk of _sounding really impartial right now, I would say that the member for St. John's North (Mr. J. Carter) actually made a number of comments in his speech that I thought were quite reasonable in terms of looking at the problem. He talked specifically about the location of houses, and he talked about the problems of individual conservation and so on.

I now repeat the call that I made the previous time, that there are a lot of concrete things that can be done in order to try and reduce that marginal amount we consume, which forces those boilers to operate at the Holyrood generating plant, which adds to our increased cost. The other thing I would like to mention is that I have been trying R274

to understand Newfoundland Light and Power's financial statement since it came out last week and the explanations they have been putting forward. Quite frankly, I would have an easier time studying Greek than I have understanding what the heck they are trying to tell us. All I know is that I am being bamboozled. I 'llirould like somebody to have a look at it and find out what is going on, beca?se I think part of thta problem obviously lies with the labyrinthian figures they are throwing at us and the confusion.

So I repeat again the! request, which I think is an eminently reasonable one, that we propose an enquiry into this whole situation and come back with some specific recommendations to get those electricity rates down, and find out who has been messing up the whole thing so badly that were caught in this situation to start with. I support the petition. MR. BARRY: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas ) :: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition. MR. BARRY: Mr. Speaker, I support the petition that has been tabled by the hon • the minister. However, Mr.

Speaker, I do not like the approach that has bt~en taken generally by members opposite, or even by the member for Menihek (Mr. Fenwick), in terms of the fact that we have to look at the longer term solutions, and the implication seems to be that that is all that should be done. Well, Mr. Speaker, the fact is that there are people on fixed incomes out there, and the minister mentioned one group, but there are many other groups.

I refer L275 6 May 1985 specifically to senior citizens, old age pensioners, I refer to widows or widowers who are not able to work, who are receiving a particular stipend per month, and who are caught in this terrible trap of seeing their disposable income every month eaten up by rising electricity rates so that they do not have money for the bare necessities; they do not have money for rent or food or clothing or drugs, Mr. Speaker. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR.

BARRY: It is crucially important that something be done in the short-term as well as the long-term for these disadvantaged ind.i. vi duals, and we are going to be following up on this, Mr. Speaker. We will want to know what members opposite are going to do in the short-term to try to deal with the hardship that is being suffered right now by too many people on fixed income in this Province. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. TULK: That is the stuff! That is a real commitment! MR. HICKEY: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition I would like to present. MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): The hon. the member for St.

John's East Extern. MR. HICKEY: I wish, Mr. Speaker, to present a petition on behalf of 250 residents of the town of Pouch Cove in my constituency. R275

The petitioners petition the government on the same issue as the one that was just discussed, the matter of high electricity rates. Mr. Speaker, I am not going to delay the House by saying too much, because a lot of what I would have said has already been said by my colleague, the hon. the Minister of Justice (Ms Verge). I would say, Mr. Speaker, that the New Lab Action Group can take pride in a couple of things. The three ladies who took the initiative live in my constituency.

I realize that sometimes their motives might well be misunderstood, but I want to say on their behalf that their motives are simple and very crystal clear. They have no axe to grind, Mr. Speaker, with anybody. They are family women, mothers, wives, residents of this Province, who did not need anyone to tell them about the high electricity rates. What sprung them into action was, in fact, the desperate situation they found themselves in, -faced with horrendous light bills. The issue, Mr.

Speaker, is new, and I do not claim to all of a sudden found solution, because I have not. not have any I support the prayer of the petition which was read by my colleague, the Minister of Justice (Ms Verge). The Prayer of this petition it is the same, therefore I will not read it. I want to say that one of the things they have already brought about is a commitment from the government to appoint a consumer representative to the Public Utili ties Board. Only good, Mr. L276 6 May 1985 Speaker, can come from that.

I am not suggesting it will solve the problem, but certainly consumers in the Province will be, I am sure, adequately represented on the Public Utilities Board. Equally, the issue of an inquiry has been raised, although not in the prayer of the petition. I simply want to say, Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, I am not convinced that an inquiry would produce anything which would result in a reduction in electricity rates. There might be lots of argument for it, Mr. Speaker, and should I come by stronger evidence that it would indeed result in lower electricity rates, then I would certainly consider supporting it.

But up to now I certainly do not have any such information, therefore I do not believe the answer lies in an inquiry. Mr. Speaker, the government has stated its position with regard to long-range initiatives insofar as attempting to .bring about a . reopening of the Churchill contract which can result in a number of things. Again, I am not sure it will result in reduced electricity rates, but if it does nothing else but stabilize electricity rates then certainly accomplished. for the future, much would be Mr. Speaker, finally, I want to say I believe the Leader of the Opposition (Mr.

Barry) is not too far off when he raises the issue of a number of groups of people. I want to certainly associate myself with the concern expressed on behalf of various groups. People on social assistance always face difficulties in meeting their bills, in meeting their needs in any given month, but, Mr. Speaker, groups outside the social R276

assistance group are E!ven worse off. There are a group of people in this Province whose praises, Mr. Speaker, maybe should be ·sung a little more than they are, or certainly a little more attention should be given them, aJo.d that is the group of people who work for very low wages, who are borderline social assistance, who are not on social assistance because they barely fail to qualify, but who nevertheless struggle to provide for their families and have no extra dollars, indeed v·ery often not sufficient to provide for their families as well, in some instances, as indeed people who are on social assistance.

For this group of people, it must be devastating when they find themselves burdened with high electricity rates. So, Mr. Speaker, I give my support unquestionably to the prayer of this petition. I commend the efforts of the three ladies and their colleagues, and . I . hope and trust that in the not-too-distant future, some resolve will be found. I ask that the petition be laid on the table of the House and referred to the depa.rtment to which it relates. MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (Dr. McNicholas): The hon. member for Windsor Buchans. MR. FLIGHT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to support the petition so ably presented by my hon. colleague. Mr. Speaker, if there is a person in this House who can make a case on behalf of special interest groups, the type o:f groups referred to by the Leader of the L277 6 May 1985 Opposition (Mr. Barry), it is the member who just presented the petition. He is well aware of how difficult it is for, number one, as he indicated, people on social assistance and special interest groups - senior citizens and widowers - to cope with the ever-increasing electricity. Mr. problem here is cost of Speaker, the the short-term. There is_ no point, Mr.

Speaker, talking about a long-term solution to this because there are people right now who ·will not survive until there is a long-term solution. . The Minister of Energy (Mr. Dinn) has indicated, and it is a fact, that in this Province we have run out of hydro power. There is no more hydro power available in this Province, so adding on to our capacity at Holyrood is only going to make the matter worse and drive up the fuel adjustment more and more. The only source of cheap power for this Province is power generated in Labrador. We know, Mr.

Speaker, there will be many debate-s in this House in the next months on the Labrador situation, on the Upper Churchill contract, on the Five Rivers, and on the power talked about today by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barry) in Question Period. But the fastest solution that can come will take at least four or five years. So, Mr. Speaker, what happens in that four or five years to the people on fixed incomes, particularly those groups we are talking about? What happens? We have to have an immediate short-term solution or those people are just not going to survive. Mr.

Speaker, I want to associate myself with the request for a public enquiry, because at least we will show some sincerity, and I R277

believe we should make sure there are representatives of those various groups we are talking about, the consumer, the persons on fixed income who cannot cope anymore, on that enquiry.

By doing that, we will at least have the satisfaction of knowing, when that enquiry brings in its report, that it will not be seen as something brought in by a bunch of lawyers who are paid by Newfoundland Hydro, or paid by Newfoundland Light and Power, or by ministers of the Crown who have a vested interest, or by members of the opposition who might have a vested interest, it will be seen as an enquiry pointing out why we are in the mess we are in and what the solutions might be.

And if the people on that enquiry represent the people who are suffering so much as a result of the high cost of electricity, maybe the people who are the victims of the high cost of electricity will accept the report a little more knowing their peers are saying, this is the problem. And I do not believe that any enquiry made up totally of professionals, the people who have been perpetrating the kind of a mess we have with regar:d to hydro in Newfoundland, will every satisfy the New Lab group, nor should it.

I believe that this House should look· at the appointment of a public enquiry, making sure that the consumers in this Province are well represented so that their report can be believable. And the only way it will be believable, Mr. Speaker, is if we have people on that enquiry who are victims of the situation now, who will be believed by all the victims they represent, the victims, of course, being the consumers of Newfoundland and Labrador. L278 6 May 1985 Mr. Speaker, petition.

I Thank you very much. support Orders of the Day the Motion, Justice the hon. the Minister of to introduce a bill "An Act To Amend The Act,R carried. (Bill entitled, Judicature No. 2) On motion, Bill No. 2 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow. Motion, the hon. the Minister of Justice to introduce a bill entitled, RAn Act To Provide For Arbitrations," carried. (Bill No. 3) On motion, Bill No. 3 read a first time, order~d read a second time on tomorrow.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of · Justice to introduce a bill entitled, RAn Act To Amend The Department Of Justice Act," carried. (Bill No. 4). On motion, Bill No. 4 read a first time , ordered read a second time on tomorrow. Motion, the hon. the Minister of Justice to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The Justices And Other Public Authorities (Protection) carried. (Bill No. 5). Act,", On motion, Bill No. 5 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow. Motion, the hon. the Minister of Justice to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The R278

Motor Carrier (Bill No. 13). Act," carried. On motion, Bill No. 13 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow. Motion, the hon. Minister of Development to introduc:e a bill entitled, "An Act To Style The Department Of Development As The Department Of Development And Tourism," carried. (Bill No. 9). on motion, Bill No. 9 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

Motion, Health the hon. the Minister of to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Provide For The Registration Of Psychologists," carried. (Bill No. 12). on motion, first time, Bill No. 12 read a ordered read a second time on tomorrow. Motion, the hon. Fisheries (Mr. the Minister of Rideout) to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Fishing Industry Advisory Board Act, 1975," carried. (Bill No. 11). On motion, first time, Bill No. 11 read a ordered read a second time on tomorrow. Motion, the hon. the Minister of Consumer Affairs and Communications (Mr.

Russell) to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Insurance Companies Act," carried. (Bill No. 6). On motion, Bill No. 6 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow. Motion, Labour L279 the hon. (Mr. the Minister of Blanchard) to 6 May 1985 introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Workers • Compensation Act, 1983," carried. (Bill No. 19). On motion, Bill No. 19 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow. Motion, the hon. Social Services introduce a bill, The Day Care Services Act, (Bill No. 18). the Minister of (Mr. Brett) to "An Act To Amend And Homemaker 1975," carried.

On motion, Bill No. 18 read a first time, ordered read a . second time on tomorrow. Motion, the hon. the Minister of Culture, Recreation and Youth (Mr. Matthews) to introduce a bill, "An Act Respecting The Preservation Of The Historic Resources Of The Province," carried. (Bill No. 7). On motion, Bill No. 7 read a first time, ordered read a second time op tomorrow. Motion, the hon. the Minister of Finance (Dr. Collins) to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Public Service (Pensions) Act," carried. (Bill No. 10). On motion, first time, Bill No. 10 read a ordered read a second time on tomorrow. MR.

SPEAKER (McNicholas): Order 1, Address in Reply. The hon. the Minister of the Environment adjourned the debate. The hon. Environment. the Minister of the SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. BUTT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. R279

When I concluded my brief remarks on last Tuesday I was just about to get into some of the very positive aspects of this Throne Speech, to point out to all hon. members some of the very positive things in the Throne Speech and, indeed, to point out very graphically the social conscience of this government. Mr. Speaker, the first item I would like to touch on, and there are several addressed in the gracious Speech from the Throne, and I do not think it has gotten too many comments from members on both sides, is the School for the Deaf.

Members will note, in reading the Throne Speech, that $10 million has been allocated for this very important facility. A world class School for the Deaf will be built on Topsail Road, on the site where the old Sanitarium used to be. That is a far cry, by the way, from where it was located befor~ near the end of the runway out at Torbay Ai~port where instructors and students alike were subject to all kinds of interruptions. That is a very positive piece of business that is outlined in the Throne Speech, some $10 million for a world class facility for the people with hearing deficiencies in the Province.

I understand, as well, it will house some 135 students, up some 50 students from the previous facility. So I wanted to touch on that, Mr. Speaker, because $10 million in a time of restraint is a lot of money, but it points out very graphically that this government has a social conscience and, indeed, is addressing this big problem with the inadequate School for the Deaf we had in Torbay in a very meaningful way.

I would also like to commend the former Minister of Education ( Ms Verge) who, in no L280 6 May 1985 small way, made a major contribution in government to getting that facility for the people who have hearing deficiencies. It is going to be a first class facility. The money has been allocated and it has been outlined in the gracious Speech from the Throne. There is another $60 million allocated for school construction. I want to dwell on that for a little while because that is an issue that has been kind of dear to my heart as well because in that $60 million for school construction I Mr.

Speaker I I know that some of the real problems that I have in the district of Conception Bay South will be addressed. The Conception Bay South Integrated School Board has been experiencing for quite some time an unusual overcrowding pr~blem. This has happened not only in a couple of schools but the problem has been broad ranging throughout the entire district. It will also reflect on two other districts, Mount Scio - Bell Island, represented by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barry) and, of course, the new district of the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr.

Doyle), in the district of Harbour Main - Kelligrews, I think it is going to be called, indeed the Kelligrews - Upper Gullies area of his district. There is an overcrowding problem there as well. So this $60 million, Mr. Speaker, is a substantial amount of money, once again, during very tough economic times, to have allocated for new school construction. Once again it points out, in no small way, the measures that this government will take to ensure that the students of the Province are educated in R280

good buildings, and good surroundings. MR. PEACH: A good point. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. BUTT: The member for Carbonear (Mr. Peach) points out it is a good point. It is a very important point, Mr. Speaker, and one that I am very pleased with. I am very pleased to see it there because I am sure that the DECs an.d IECs, in their wisdom, will see that some of that money is earmarked for Conception Bay South to address, in no small measure, the very, very serious overcrowding problem we have in that district. As well, and it has not been highlighted very much, Mr.

Speaker, there is $36 million for new hospital construction. I am sure the Minister of Social Services (Mr. Brett) will be very pleased when that beautiful new facility is opened in Clarenville in the very near future and Your Honour, whose district it borders on, will be very pleased to be there for the opening of that new hospital. There are others, of course, around the Island. There is $12 million for new clinics as well and I know all hon. memBers are very pleased with th.at kind of input from government during a tough time to address some of these social problems. Just keeping along that line, Mr.

Speaker, it should also be pointed out that spending in the Department of Social Services itself has risen dramatically. It has gone from $123 million to $212 million. Of course, in doing that we got · into getting people who L281 6 May 1985 have been able-bodied social into the of good service recipients back lot work force. A community work is being done utilizing that programme. I think the most positive part of that programme, not talked about in any great way, is that a lot of those people who leave the role of a social service out and go to on it again. positive thing AN HON.

MEMBER: recipient and go work, never go back That is the real about it. They go on unemployment insurance. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh l AN HON. MEMBER: No, they do not. They go back in the work force. MR. BUTT: No, a lot of them find work in other areas. That is a fact. That is very factual. I do not know the exact per?entages, but there are a large number of those people who never go back on social assistance again. The statistics are there to back it up. It is a very, very positive programme.

Not only that, town councils and service clubs and other applicants can avail of this programme to do a lot of good work in the community. It is one that I will utilize this Summer in the Department of Environment to get large pollution problems cleaned up in various areas of the Island and, of course, in the district. Now, Mr. Speaker, the other thing that did not impact on me directly as a private member in Conception Bay South, but I did share the concerns of the members of the West Coast, in particular, the member for Humber West (Mr. Baird) and Humber East (Ms Verge) and R281

Humber Valley (Mr. Woodford) was a big dilemma they faced. Indeed, the government was faced with a big dilemma. It looked very, very bleak. It looked like Corner Brook was about to close down. I am happy to see the han. member for Humber West back in his seat today and I welcome back this most colourful member to the House of Assembly, Mr. Speaker. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. BUTT: He is a great contributor. But this government, Mr. Speaker, under very, very tough times put a package together to ensure a bright and prosperous future for Corner Brook. That was a monumental task at the time, Mr. Speaker.

There were very few people - there were all kinds of doubting Thomas' out there - who did not think that we were capable of doing it. But we c;lid it and, once again, that agreement with Kruger is one that will stand the test of time. It is going to secure a very bright future for Corner Brook. Some $200 million is being spent there. As well, of course, there has been an upgrading in Grand Falls, worth some $33 million with Price-Abitibi and that will ensure the viability of that area as well.

So there are a few very positive issues that were raised in the Throne Speech that really got no coverage up until this point in time, but han. members should be aware of them, particularly new members. I was kind of impressed with the han. gentleman for Stephenville (Mr. K. Aylward).

He is going to be filling a big pair of boots, by the way, the former member from there, his predecessor, an old seat mate of L282 6 May 1985 mine here, always had the best interest of his constituents at heart, and I hope that this new member, who was most impressive in his maiden speech in the House, by the way, the new member for Stephenville, will take the concerns of his constituents to heart as well as his predecessor did. Now, Mr. Speaker, I would just like to deviate for a few minutes. I am not going to be sidetracked too much.

But this is an important point as well, and it was mentioned in the Throne Speech, but, once again, previous speakers had not mentioned it. I guess it refers to a select group of people, people with a lot of talent, but it also points out that this administration is very conscious of many groups of people we have around us. I am talking about the 1 per cent of the capital cost spent on a project for government to be allocated to ~ewfoundland artists, painters and so on. That is very important for that particular group of people and I think it is certainly worthy of mention.

The really big issue in the Throne Speech that I really get turned on to, I must say, that gets me riled up really well, is the training for young people. · If we are ever going to address the unemployment problem that we have today with young people, the one way, and the long-term way to address it, is by proper training. The day, say, that a welder would go into a trade school and receive nine months of vocational training and come out knowing how to burn a rod and do a few not very meaningful jobs, is no longer with us. We are reaching an · end of that era.

It is very important that we reach an end of that era, because really R282

and truly, what we need now in this Province - there are numerous others, but I am just using that one as an example to point out to hon. members - but the fact of the matter is, what we should be doing is going with three-year technology programmes so that when a young man or woman leaves vocational school and, as in the case of a welder, he or she knows something about ultrasonics and can go out and take a meaningful job in the construction industry, Mr. Speaker. So I get pretty excited about the moneys that are going to be allocated for trainijog young people. It is going to be long-term.

Not overnight, but eventually, it will address this very serious youth unemployment we have in a very meaningful way. It is a crippling disease that we have here. It is also quite prevalent in other jurisdictions as well. But the amount of money that this government will spend on youth . training over the next couple of years, Mr. Speaker, will certainly have a very, very positive effect. I am very pleased that the hon. gentleman from Stephenville (Mr. K. Aylward) is back in his seat because I listened to him quite attentively in his address on youth unemployment.

It is an issue that is very, very dear to my heart. Even though I do not consider myself a teenager anymore, I do have a very close association and affiliation with a lot of young people and I hear their problems on a daily basis, as a matter of fact, on a very personal basis. I have three teenagers myself, one in a post-secondary institution, and two will be finishing up next year, and I realize, right at L283 6 May 1985 home, at the kitchen table, that there is a big problem out there. But I see the solution to that problem through good and innovative training.

And we do not have to go too far away to be innovative. We have good, innovative people right here in this Province, but we have to bring in programmes that will address the reality of today. When I hear of marine technology programmes, I get turned on with that because, for the most part, except for that portion of the Province that is on the mainland, Labrador, a very beautiful part of Newfoundland, we are completely surrounded by water. There is 'water, water everywhere'. I see marine technology training as being the key and the highlight of the Throne Speech.

I would like for all hon. members, when they get up to speak, to address it. I know the Minister of Career Development and Advanced Studies (Mr. Power) elaborated on it in a substantial way. But all ideas pertaining to youth training should be 'enunciated by members in this House because it is the biggest problem, as I see it, that we have in this Province today.

I would like to commend the Minister of Career Development and Advanced Studies for negotiating under difficult circumstances and getting ·substantial amounts of money earmarked for this most important activity that will take place in the Province in the next couple of years. Of course, we are going to have new facilities for students. I was reading recently that the president of the new Fisheries and Marine Technology is already, even before the opening, looking at an expansion. R283

MR. TULK: (Inaudible) • MR. BUTT: Now, Mr.Speaker, I want to keep to a very serious note while addressing this particular issue. MR. HODDER: It is difficult to do when you are looking at the member for Fogo. MR. BUTT: Yes, it certainly is. I must say that I was impressed by the maiden speech in the House on Tuesday of the young gentleman, the hon. the member for Stephenville (Mr. K. Aylward). I thought he showed real concern and a keen interest in this area and, judging from his looks, I would say he is probably not too long out of that category himself.

As a matter of fact, he may have come directly out of it into politics. I do not know the han. gentleman's background but, in any event, I thought he made a good maiden speech. He has, I want to tell him again, big boots to fill, because his predecessor was very, very - MR. TULK: He was very big. MR. BUTT: I know, because he was my seat rna te here in the House, how hard the han. gentleman worked on behalf of his constituents. So the han. the member for Stepl).enville is going to have big boots to fill in the coming months, Mr. Speaker.

As politicians, we should never forget those who put us in place, because the same people will take us out again. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I want to once again L284 6 May 1985 thank the people of Conception Bay South and express my deep gratitude for their having elected me the third time around as their member. I am very grateful to them. This is the second time I have said it. I will pick that part out of the Hansard and make sure it goes in every home when I have an opportunity to do a mail-out again. Mr.

Speaker, I look forward to further speeches from members opposite and from the government side as we continue with the Address in Reply to the gracious Speech from the Throne. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. MR. FENWICK: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (Greening): The han. the member for Menihek. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. FENWICK: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is my first opportunity to get a broad ranging series of comments in. I intend to make some comments actually about the Speech from the Throne as well but I would also like to make some comments on the election and the appointments and so on.

So it will be sort of general comments. I am quite pleased to have the opportunity today to do that. I would like to welcome the Deputy Speaker, who is sitting in the Chair. I am sure that his rulings will be sung out with his usual aplomb, and · I would also like to welcome the Speaker, who is not here right now but who is probably listening. I would also like to R284

compliment the Speaker on his visual acuity for being able to see me down here at the long end of the rows and that he has been able to recognize me as well as he has over the last little while. I am quite pleased at that . I would also like to welcome the new members into the House of Assembly, specifically the three new members on the side opposite. The member for Humber Valley (Mr. Woodford) did an excellent job I found this weekend on his initial speech on provincial affairs.

Having done a lot of those I realize how difficult they are to do and I appreciate the fact that he came across quite well on his first one. Also I compliment the new member and new minister. That is quite an accomplishment to come right into the House and assume a portfolio. I think it shows a lot of faith in the training and the background that you have had and judging by the first piece of legislation I have no complaints to this point. I would also like to welcome all the new Liberal members into the House.

I do so because I think that this is a better Legislature now than it was before because of the increased number of Opposition members. I have listened to some of the initial speeches and I have been impressed with the quality of the new members. I thin k they are adding a lot to the House and I think that as the legislation is introduced into the House we will see a better level of debate in the sense that we will be able to criticize more thoroughly the details. When I say 'we' I am saying the Opposition as a collectivity of two different parties.

I think that it is important that we have enough resources and enough members to do L285 6 May 1985 the kind of criticism that is necessary in order to make sure that the legislation we are passing is in the best interest of all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Also, I would like to welcome some of the new ministers since there was a number of new ministers appointed to the government including the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Ottenheimer) who was the Minister of Labour before the election and who - I hate to say this to the current Minister of Labour (Mr.

Blanchard) - I am giving considerable amount of credit for that new labour bill. Since it was announced prior to the election I think we have to give him some of the credit for it, although I like your amendment. I think that that does signify a significant change in policy by the government opposite because when you look over all those changes they are going to make · it easier to form unions and to get them established. I think that that is an important point. I recognize that the government has recognized that there were difficulties there and are moving in that area. I think that that is an excellent move.

Now, about the election: It is a vagary of our · British Parliamentary system that the changes in the percentage of the vote are not reflected in the House. The fact of the matter is, in each individual district, the person who has the largest number of votes is the person who wins, and the votes that go to the other members or the other people who contest it are essentially lost. It is just gone. What is remarkable about it is that you could think, for example, of a R285

situation where, if there were only two political parties in a province, if one party got 51 per cent of the vote in every district and the other party got 49 per cent of the vote in every district, you would only have one party in the House. The other party would be shut out entirely. Of course, this has a tendency to create what I think the political scientists call the artificial majority.

So, even though we are looking at thirty-six people on the other side, which is somewhere in the neighbourhood of around 70 per cent of the House, we know it is an artificial majority since the only reason that there are that many, when you have a percentage of the popular vote which is less than 50 per cent, is because of this particular anachronistic, I would call it, system that we are using, which f~llo~s the ancient British tradition. If we were following the more progressive systems, the proportional representation type systems, we would see many less members opposite and we would see a few more over here.

I think, if I added it ·up correctly, there would be approximately eight or nine more New Democratics, based on the proportional representation. I am not arguing for it. I am just saying that if this was a European legislature we would have a different breakdown of people. By the way, I believe it is an excellent system and I believe it is a better system. I am not complaining about the rules. I knew what they were when I started, we knew as a party what they were when we started into contesting elections in this Province and contesting them all across the country so we are not complaining about it.

I just wanted to point out that the appearances are deceiving. As a L286 6 May 1985 matter of fact, put a label on if you went the forehead and of each person in this House and said, 'On average how many voters voted for your party and divided by the number of members how many voted for you?' we would see approximately 3,700 votes for each one of the members opposite, somewhere in the range of 7,000 votes stuck on the forehead of the people over there and something like 39,650 votes stuck on my forehead.

I am not suggesting that we do that because it sounds sort of foolish but what I am trying to tell you is that the appearance of the House here is actually a lie in comparison to vote totals that were actually out there. I think that is important that we realize that when we have these sort of smug assurances from the Premier that there are thirty-six over here and there are only fifteen over here and there is only one over here. It is important I think t.hat we realize that. Well what did happen in the election?

If we look at the percentages of the popular vote, the party that I represent increased its popular vote by about 10 per cent and I think that that is a very significant accomplishment. As a matter of fact I think that that is a remarkable accomplishment. We have for example crowing from the Liberals on the left of me here - this is only physically the left of me - we have crowing from the Liberals over here the victory in Ontario where I think the increase was something like 4 per cent of the popular vote. We did two and a half times as well only it does not translate as seats so I ·think that - MR. BARRY: R286

If you start from nowhere! it does. MR. FENWICK: All I can say to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barry), it is better to start from nowhere than it is to be going nowhere as he is. SOME HON. MEMBERS : Hear, Hear! MR. FENWICK: To continue on \lri th the analysis. We went up 10 per cent. Admittedly it \lras a low total to start with. The Liberal Party went up by about 3 percentage points, and that is significant because qui1te frankly I did not think that would occur • I credit it, quite frankly, to some of the excellent candidates they ran who got elected.

I think the members that we see here are a credit to the fact that they were able to get good candidates and I recognize that. I have talked to a number of them since they have been in the House and I am impressed with their ~~lity. I think they are good people and I think that that is one of the major reasons that the vote total went up. If you look back over the last ten or fifteen years the vote total for Liberals in this Province, as a whole, really has stayed very steady and if anything has actually sort of diminished a bit each year.

In other words, what I am trying to tell you is that in my opinion, now I could be wrong, but in my opinion the Liberal Party has not shown a vast increase in vote. Even given the horrible difficulties that the Tories opposite suffered through, they were not able to gain any more than 3 per cent of the vote. I think it is an endorsement to how badly the Tories were perceived before that, but I think it is also a ringing L287 6 May 1985 non-endorsement to the Liberal Party and it just happens to be that there some good candidates in the various places. MR. BARRY: I mean, if you only had another 15 per cent. MR.

FENWICK: It will come. It will come. What was the vote? I have heard some analysis of it. I have heard people everywhere else saying that all it was was a protest vote. I am willing to admit that there are people who voted against the PC Party and would pick any other party and vote for them. And I agree, we did get some protest vote. I would also suggest to you, if you look at the 3 per cent the Liberals gained, that there is probably a big chunk of protest vote there as well and in a normal election we may not see this peak of a Liberal Party ever achieved again.

So I will accept the fact thc;tt there is some protes·t vote. But I will not accept that the protest vote we got was any more than the Liberals. And I would like to look back on it and say that in 1982, because of the fact that we only ran less than half the number of candidates that were required, that perhaps we could re-interpret that and say that a lot of the votes that the PCs got in that election were normally NDP votes who had nobody to vote for and decided that they would vote for them in that instance.

That is at least as logical and consistent an explanation of what went on as to say that what we got was a protest vote. But, the fact of the matter is what we experienced in that election, and quite frankly it was quite surprising because I was not R287

ready it, neither was the party ready for it, was support that was not a protest vote for the most part o We had people calling us from districts where we have never run candidates before in saying, wwe wanted an NDP candidateow There was already a Liberal one there o They did not want a protest. They wanted an NDP candida~e. That happened again and again and again and it tells us that, somehow, the message that we have been trying to put forward over the years is now getting across and that we now have positive people. MR. BARRY: Why are you still below the national average of NDP support? MR.

FENWICK: The Leader of the Opposition (Mr o Barry) is claiming that there is a difference there. I~ you go across all the legislatures in Canada and you look at who is represented in legislatures in Canada, you will actually find the PCs represented in eight legislatures in Canada, we represented in eight legislatures and the Liberals only in five. So I am not entirely sure where the Leader o~ the Opposition is holding forth on all this - MR. BARRY: No, no, the percentage of popular vote that is obtained by the Federal NDP Party - what percentage do they have, twenty something per cent? MR.

FENWICK: About 20 per cent, yes, in that range. MR. BARRY: Why are you below that? MR. FENWICK: L288 6 May 1985 I would say that matter of growth growing up to it. it is and just a we are So what I have seen, and what the other members of the party saw, was a coalescing of people behind the party for the first time, not as a protest, not just to go behind individual candidates, but because they clearly perceived what we were talking about, thought it was a good idea and were willing to support it. They did have a Liberal candidate in most cases to vote for if they wanted to protest, and they did not.

Also, of course, it tells us a lot about St o John 1 s. St. John 1 s was a very interesting situation. By the way, I have an analysis of that. The Government House Leader (Mr. Marshall) is not here so I will hold on to that a bit, but I have a very interesting analysis of his seat which I think bodes very poorly for his future. I just want to recall a few comments we made back in November or December. If I recall correctly my friend from Humber West (Mr. Baird), whom I am glad to see back in the House today - SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR.

FENWICK: - if I recall his usual comments were, wyou will be the shortest-lived member of the House of Assembly that ever sat here." If I recall, I heard it at least a dozen times and I am glad to say to him that it looks like I am going to beat out somebody's record, I do not know whose, but I expect to be here at least until the end of the life of this Legislature and I am glad to prove that the member for Humber West is R288

at least not a great prophet even though his son is a reasonably decent hockey player. MR. BAIRD: You will be the shortest NDP member in this House o:f Assembly because you will be the last one. MR. FENWICK: Ah ha. That will be ju:st as good a prophecy as the one you made last Fall so I am looking forward to telling that. As a matter of fact, I notice at this point the conspicuous absence of the Minister of Forest Resources and Lands (Mr. Simms) whom I would like to make a few comments on as well. I would also like to mention the election in Menihek.

Quite frankly, that was one of the most bitterly fought elections that we have ever seen. In this particular instance we saw parts of the big blue machine from Ontario, or somewhere, brought up to Labrador West to organize the campaign for my opponent .. AN HON. MEMBER: The big orange machine. MR. FENWICK: We call it Orange Crush, that is what we call this, no·t the big orange machine.

Anyway, the point is virtually the local newspaper was bought, virtually all the media was bought, virtually all the canvasers they could buy were bought, and virtually everything was bought by the campaign that my opponent threw against me. The only thing that stopped him was the hundreds of workers that we had who refused to be intimidated by that and were able to' mount one of the best campaigns that I have ever seen.

I would like to say L289 6 May 1985 today that the district organization, the people who we have working for us up in Labrador West, are, by far, -the best district association that anybody can possibly have. The ·bon.-member for Fogo, did you always do that when you were teaching as well? Did you encourage all your students in class to make comments while you were talking? MR. TULK: No. MR. FENWICK: I was just wondering where you got the hang of it. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh! MR. SPEAKER (Greening): Order, please! Order, please! MR.

FENWICK: The fact of the matter is in Labrador West some )lnusual things happened. We won the by-election - SOME RON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh! MR. FENWICK: I have never seen so many former teachers who did not know when to keep.their mouth shut. Anyway in the by-election back last October we won by 60 votes, 1,744 ·votes to 1,688. In the general election we increased our vote total by 1,100, to about 2, 800, and the PC vote total also increased to about 2,600. For those of you who are interested, our turnout in the general election was over 90 per cent, something that, quite frankly, I have never ever seen before.

I thought it was an unusual R289

situation, but then I checked in Grand Falls and the turnout was about 88 per cent, 89 per cent. We are still grappling to try and figure out why the percentages in those two districts where we ran the strongest campaigns, that the vote total was so high. The only thing I can think is that we managed to identify people who had not voted before, because the PC total was approximately the same as it was in '82, it was down a bit, but then so was the population of the area. AN HON. MEMBER: What about the Liberals? MR. FENWICK: The Liberals went from 800 down to 300 unfortunately, but we could not account for that.

Maybe it was a question of leadership, I am not sure. MR. DINN: That is not nice. MR. FENWICK: Well, you have not heard the other cracks. Anyway, the point of the matter is what seems to have happened is we identified alienated people, or people who had not voted before, who voted for us for the first time. In other words, when you have 70 per cent of people voting and the other 30 are not it seems that we are able to reach these 30 per cent, or at least a good portion of these 30 per cent better, it seems , than other parties and that is the only way I can explain it.

I give it to whoever wants to do a political science thesis in order to try and analyze what happened, but all I can say is that we are very encouraged because, it seems to us, there is a lot of people out L290 6 May 1985 there who are susceptible to the kind of message that we want to put forward and are interested in it and are willing to talk about it. The other thing that I would like to mention about Menihek is that, as most of you know, Menihek is a microcosm of the rest of the Province. We have people in Menihek from all over the Province. We also have people from Menihek all over the Province.

There is a considerable mixing back and forth from it. My argument to you, in order to show where we think we are going in the future, is that if we are able to take a district that is a microcosm of the rest of the Province, then I think it bodes very well, or argues very well, for what we think we can do in the future in the rest of the Province. It is one of the reasons that we have come out of this election feeling much more buoyant than we ever had before. I mentioned Grand Falls. I think the fact that we do not have the Minister of Forest Resources and Lands (Mr.

Simms) in here today is a testimony to the strength of the campaign we had and also, I guess, to the clogged court calendar or they would have heard the judicial review before. I do not expect, by the way, any significant change in the number of votes in the judicial review which is going ahead on Friday, but we are looking at it because we wanted to check to make sure that if there were any chance to do the member for Ferry land ' s (Mr.

Power) favourite trick of controverting an election, then we certainly would like to get involved in that sort of process, if we could, because we would 'Very much like to see a by-election there in the R290

future. The Government House Leader (Mr. Marshall) is not back, but I would like to suggest to htm that we have been looking back over the votes in St. John' s East. We ran second in 1982 and did . quite well when it was just a small district. We did extremely well this time, getting almost 2,000 votes in St. John's East and giving the member for St. John' s East (Mr. Marshall) probably the strongest run that he has had in quite a while. And, quite frankly, we have actually looked at it in terms of polls and we now realize that if it were the old St.

John's East district we would have been in a fortunate position of having won the seat because we won the polls in the old district. As one of my colleagues in the Party says, ' It looks like he won his seat because they gerrymandered the district before that! Then again, we cannot really say that for ~ure, but the fact is that he would have lost the old seat which is quite an interesting thing to have happen. MR. OTTENHEIMER: It was an impartical c1:mmission, as the hon. member knows. MR. FENWICK: I know that. What about the Throne Speech itself? It spends a lot of time talking about the Atlantic Accord.

Really, what can we say about the Atlantic Accord since this is the first opportunity to talk about it in the House since then? I do want to mention a few things about it. It mentions two fundamentals: joint management, and the resource to be treated as though it is on land. As the Leader of the New Democratic Party L291 6 May 1985 in Newfoundland and Labrador, I am quite pleased that that is in there.

It is something that we have been working for since 1979 both federally and provincially, and something that we have never ever had any serious disagreement with the provincial government over since that particular time. However, the assumption that comes out of it is one that we seriously question. The assumption in the Throne Speech is that the Accord itself and that industry that will generate the kind of employment and wealth that will produce the jobs that we need. I think the question that we have to ask ourselves, if we accept this as the way in which we are going to develop, is: Is this assumption valid?

Is it a safe assumption to assume that the money and the jobs will be there? Before I address it, I would also like to say that I hope they are. I hope that there are so many jobs coming out of the Atlantic Accord and the offshore oil industry that we have to import workers. Actually, we would not have to import them because there are something like 85,000 native born Newfoundlanders living in the rest of the country right now, and I would suggest that there are a considerable number of them who would like to return home.

But having said that, what is the possibility that it will produce the kinds of jobs we need? Well, I have looked over some of the reports that have come out and in almost all of them I cannot see any more than a few thousand jobs in the exploration phase, and, indeed, I think from the figures that we have had released from time to time that even the government has conceded that there is not a huge number of jobs in the exploration phase itself. R291

They concede that there are a considerable number of jobs if you have to build concrete platforms. I agree. I think that we are talking 4,000 or 5,000 jobs to build a major size concrete platform and that, of course, is a considerable number of jobs with spinoff effects and so on and so forth. But the construction phase is only a short period of time, a few years - three, four or five years or whatever the time will be.

Unless you are absolutely lucky and continue to build these platforms one after another over the next fifteen or twenty years, really what we will be seeing is a huge bulge in employment for that period of time and then a collapse at the end of it. MR. DINN: That is an assumption. MR. FENWICK: Well, assuming that there is only one platform. I agree, it is an assumption.

The possibility is that there may be two, but still the fact of the matter remains we are not talking about an industry that will go on for the next thousand years, we are talking about an industry .that might be good for five, ten or fifteen years. Whatever we assume there is an end to it, and the end, I would suggest, will be a major economic hangover that we as a Province would have a tremendous amount of difficulty handling, since, of course, the loss of something like 5,000 jobs would be an incredib .le loss to the Province at that time. Beyond that there are some spinoff jobs from it.

But whatever they add them up it is not 60,000 jobs. And I would argue with you that that is the magnitude of the unemployment problem in this L292 6 May 1985 Province to this very day and that is the magnitude of the problem we have to address. And if we had a participation rate in our society of women that was higher and of men that was higher, we may be talking of 70, 000 or 80, 000 jobs, because to a large extent we have a lot of people who are not working, who are not looking for work, because either they are discouraged workers or they just do not see that as a fit role for them.

And if there were jobs and there were employment coming up, there is always a strong attraction for bringing addi tiona! people into the work force, so we are probably talking 70,000 or 80,000 jobs just to make any kind of a full employment situation exist in our Province. I listened with a lot of approval to one aspect of the Throne Speech because I thought it was an important point and I would like at th{s point to publicly acknowledge it.

I think it is one of the best ways to go out of that particular industry, ·and that is the Ocean Industries Development, the idea that we can develop a research and technological expertise in this particular area. I think that is an extremely important way to go.

I have not seen as much of it as the Premier and the government obviously has, but it seems to me that is an area where you have a natural advantage, and something that we should be building on, with the University, with the water tank, with the ice tank, with all the kinds of infrastructure we have so we can become an acknowledged world leader in this kind of research. These are excellent jobs, long-term jobs, one which could draw people from all over the country. I would very much like R292

to see more and more work done in this area because I think it is one of the few areas of this particular industry that has the kind of potential that I find really existing. Beyond that the Throne Speech only mentioned a series of federal/provincial agreements. They do something, and I admit they do something, · those forestry ones and a number of others. But in a large number of cases these are not attacking the 60,000 or 70, 000 people who are unemployed. What they are doing is replacing previous federal agreements that have already raised our employment level to where it pitifully is right now.

I think the reason they can be heavily criticized is that they do not incrementally add anything new in the way that we would like to see things added, that we feel is necessary in order to make a dent in our unemployment rates, especially among young people where our unemployment rate is just scandelously high.

Well, the question then we have to ask is · if this is a partial solution - and agreed, if the Ocean Industries get ahead and the platforms are built and our oil does come onshore that we will have some impact on our unemployment rate, I do not think a huge amount, not the amount that is needed, but at least some of it - the question we also have to ask I think is: What happens if it does not go forward? I think that is an important one for us to realistically sit down and discuss at this point.

Because to not have that go forward when that is all that the government has been banking on will mean that we are condemned to the situation we have today which is 22 per cent to 28 per cent unemployment depending on L293 6 May 1985 where you And that, are in the Province. in my opinion, is an horrendous situation. Given the situation with the Western Accord and the cancellation of the PIP grants, I think that we could seriously question what will be the future of our offshore oil industry I hope it is good, but at the same time I can argue to you that it may not be nearly as rosy as we think it is.

There are other things in the Speech from the Throne that I want to mention in passing. The Accelerated Development Management Programme for Women I think is an excellent idea. I think affirmative action for women is a great idea, but I note that it is going to be limited to one person per department, and if we add up that we have twenty or twenty-two departments - and I forget exactly how many - then we are talking ~bout twenty women in this programme being . accelerated.

Really, although, I appreciate the fact that it is there, I do not think we are talking about huge changes in our employment in hiring and promoting practices. The labour changes I approve of. I expect to have considerably more to say about those when I get my chance to enter into debate on Bills 14 and 15. In

summary, I would like to say there are some things in the Throne Speech, but I do not think it has addressed the unemployment problem that we really see as a critical one. What I would like to suggest in the few minutes that I have left is one of the platforms that I thought we should put forward, and quite frankly it is one of the bills that I was R293

forced to withdraw last week because of the particular kind of rules that we have right now, and that is the whole concept of the universal pension plan. I want to bring it up because it seems to me that if we approach it correctly this could be not only a great social benefit for the Province and for the people who do not have a pension plan now, but can be used as an engine for producing development every bit as important as the Atlantic Accord on offshore oil could have been. It is quite simple.

In our Province today there are only a small percentage, probably 20 percent or 30 percent or 40 per cent of the people, who have any kind of a pension plan at all other than Canada Pension and Old Age Pension. We are lucky that we have one, the teachers have one, the public employees have one, large corporations have one.

But for the vast majority of our work force, inshore fishermen, for example, for most of the fishing industry, for the logging industry, for everybody working in retail trade essentially, except for some of the very biggest stores, people do not have anything other than the Canada Pension Plan and the Old Age Pension to rely on once they get old. What we are suggesting in that pension plan is a voluntary plan where everybody in the Province who wishes to could contribute to it, and the employer would be required to contribute a reasonable amount as well, just like the private plans are.

And this fund would be primarily invested in reasonably safe investments, but a considerable amount of it would be used in order to produce the development L294 6 May 1985 that we see as necessary in order to produce the jobs in our Province.

We think a fund like this in years could produce hundreds of millions of dollars, indeed billions of dollars, and then would be in a position to provide the kinds of ocean industries we are talking about, to provide the local capital required to revitalize our forest industry, to provide the capital required to revitalize our fishing industry and all the other natural resource industries that require that income. To me this a more solid, safe, reasonable and logical way to progress in terms of development than just ban-king on offshore oil alone.

It would give us the opportunity to provide for people • s old age, which is an extremely important facet of it, and at the same time provide the kinds of industries that we need in this Province in order to grow in the future. I offer it as a concrete suggestion. You are going to be hearing from me about it for a considerable amount of time because I think it is an issue whose time has come. It ranks, in my estimation, with Medicare, as the kind of major social programme that has to be implemented in order to give our citizens the kind of minimum care that is necessary.

I think the time has come for us to look at it and I am going to be pushing it all I can and so is my party. For that, Mr. Speaker, I thank you very much. MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): Before recognizing the hon. the minister, I would like to welcome Mayor Jerome Walsh · of Marystown, in the district of Burin-Placentia West. SOME HON. MEMBERS: R294

Hear, hear! MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Consumer Affairs and Communications. MR. RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to congratulate you., Sir, on your appointment to the tedious, I suppose, and the very responsible position of Speaker. Having been in this hon. House for approximately some six and a half years in total, I suppose, I would like to be setting some kind of a record as this is the first opportunity I have had to make a speech. MR. BARRY: Your maiden speech? MR. RUSSELL: Yes. The member for Menihek (Mr.

Fenwick) mentioned that he may have had the shortest tenure or some reference was made to his possibly having the shortest tenure in this Legislature. Well, Mr. Speaker, back in 1972, I thought that I might have had the shortest tenure, not only as member in this Legislature, but as Speaker. I had the unique experience of being elected in the October election of 1971, and being here on that famous or infamous day of March 1, 1972, and coming in off the st.reet and assuming the position, Sir, which you now have. And that I would not wish on anybody anymore.

It was rather a unique experience, and having gone through that on 1 March 1972, I received a telephone call the next morning advising me that we were into another election. So I said, well, I might indeed get my name in the Guinness Book of Records as having served for the shortest term as Speaker in the history of this L295 6 May 1985 legislature, possibly. However, the good people of Lewisporte district saw fit to re-elect me in 1972, gave me .a leave of absence, I suppose, in 1975, and I am certainly pleased that they saw fit to re-elect me in 1982 and again now.

I would also like to congratulate the member for Terra Nova (Mr. Greening) on being elected Deputy Speaker of this legislature. It is a very interesting position and I am sure as time progresses, Mr. Speaker and Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will feel that you are up there all alone. I sometimes think of the former member for LaPoile when he would say, "Us people on this side, Mr.

Speaker, are not going to be intimidated by forty-three to eight, and things like that." Perhaps there were momen·ts when sitting up there I might have said, 'Well, how would you like the odds to be fifty-one to one?' Because there are moments when things happen, when you are kind of referee, and you think you are in a no-win situation. However, I can honestly say that I enjoyed my tenure as Speaker of this legislature and to those old members, so to speak, who had to suffer out my rulings over the past number of years, I hope I did not treat you too badly.

To the new members, specifically my colleagues here behind me, I would like to congratulate them on their maiden speeches, I suppose, in moving and seconding the Address of Thanks to the gracious Speech from the Throne. I think they did a very commendable and a very remarkable job. To all of the new members who were elected on April 2, I offer you my congratulations. It is certainly a pleasure and a great honour to R295

.:.._~ be elected in a district, for whatever party, and to get in here and have some say in the decision-making process of the Province. I suppose now that I am left the Speaker • s Chair it gives me the right to throw away the yoke of impartiality and assume the opposite of that, and it gives me the rig;ht or the privilege to say all sorts of negative things about the Opposition. However, Mr.

Speaker, I do not think that the constituents of Lewisporte district, or indeed any other district in this Province, voted us here to get into any kind of personality clash, and I hope that kind of thing will not happen in this House of Assembly; it was one of the most difficult things for me to have to listen to as Speaker, and perhaps one of the most difficult things to make a ruling on from a procedural viewpoint. Certainly it was not proper, and I do not think it is proper for members to reach that level of debate, if one can call it debate, and deal in personalities.

And, as I said, I do not think the voters of our various districts sent sent us here to do that. I am sure there will be opportunities and occasions, and issues will arise in this legislature, when we will have differences of opinin along party lines: That is the system we have, I suppose, the adversary system, · if you will. Mr. Speaker, as all of us campaigned in the recent election there were many issues, I suppose, but there was one, in my opinion, which stood out above all the others.

It has been mentioned by many of the persons who have already spoken in this debate and I am sure it will be referred to by many others, and that, of course, is unemployment. I was L296 6 May 1985 pleased my colleague, the hon. the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Rideout), made an amendment to the Private Member's Motion on Wednesday which sort of took from it the political overtones. Because while there are, as I said just now, some issues that we can be a bit more partisan in this legislature, I do not think the unemployment issue is one of them.

I think it is too serious an issue and too important an issue for us in this legislature to take sides along political lines. I hope that something can be done, some suggestions made, as were made in the Throne Speech, to help curb the very high unemployment rate in this Province, specifically as it applies to the youth. I would like to compliment the member for Stephenville (K. Aylward) on his speech and the comments he made pertaining to youth unemployment. It is a very frightening statistic and a challenge that all of us in this legislature will have to grapple with over the weeks and . months to follow.

As an example, I had a trades college student in my office on Friday morning somewhat frustrated because he was not able to find a job. Mr. Speaker, I can assure you it is not because he did not try, or he has not tried, or he is not trying. In fact, he placed on my desk approximately thirty-two or thirty-five written replys that he had from employers saying, 'I am sorry, I do not have a job for you.' And he assured me that there were that many more letters of application that he had made to other employers.

It is indeed a very frightening thing, I suppose, not only for young people, but more so for young people who are starting out in the workforce and trying to find some R296

kind of employment. Employers say, Well, you do not have any experience. The other side of that, obviously, is, Well, how can I get experience if I cannot get a job. It is a kind of Catch-22 situation and I hope it is something we can deal with on both sides of this House and make some very positive suggestions for solutions. With regard to youth employment I am very pleased with the announcement by government, as was referred to in the Throne Speech, of what is generally referred to as the SEED programme, the Summer Employment · and Experience Development programme.

I am very pleased with the response from my own district and, I suppose, the same thing might apply to other districts in this Province. There are quite a number of employers who have subm~tted applications under this programme. I took a little bit of time this morning to look at some numbers, so to speak, and from all over my district there have been applications submitted totalling 129 jobs for 1371 man weeks, or person weeks, or whatever weeks you wish to refer to it as, for a total dollar value qf $270,827.

Now I hope all these projects in my district are approved by the committee which deals ~11ith this programme. I am sure that most of them will be, and hopefully they will be approved in the next short while so that the youth and the employers who are out there , waiting for some kind response their applications, certainly the young people, the students who are waiting to hear and find employment, will be able to start work and get some experience, hopefully in line with their university or other post-graduate L297 6 May 1985 high school training.

Another of the problems, if you will, or the issues that arose during the campaign, was the high cost of electricity rates in this Province. It is a very serious problem for single parents and those who are on fixed incomes, as other members have indicated in presenting petitions, in response to and in support of petitions in this Legislature. Obviously, I do not propose to have the answer to it.

It is, however, a very serious problem and this government, of which I am pleased and proud to be a part, is already contributing something in the area of $40-plus million dollars to subsidize electricity rates in this Province. I suppose one has to ask the question: How much more can this Province afford to subsidize electricity rates or subsidize anything else in this Province, given the economy as it is today and the situation ~n which we find ourselves?

I suppose the long-term, or part of the long-term answer is as was mentioned in the Throne Speech on page 7, and I quote: "The solution to this on-going problem is quite simple - we need access to a larger block of inexpensive power from the Upper Churchill project." Now, I suppose it is quite easy for us to talk about that and to say it should be done. I hope, and I am optimistic, that the Premier and our Minister of Energy (Mr.

Dinn) will be able to get together with the Quebec officials and with the Prime Minister, who has indicated some interest in contributing to this, as soon as possible and will be able to find a long-term solution to this very serious problem facing us all. R297

The Throne Speech, Mr. Speaker, made some reference to the need to sort of change the direction, if you will, of post-secondary training in the field of vocational education to, I suppose, project it in line with the needs dealing with the offshore and related to the offshore. I would like to say at this time, apart from my bias, I feel that Lewisport district generally, but more especially the town of Lewisporte, is very conducive and very proper to this kind of change in emphasis in the Lewisport District Vocational School. Mr.

Speaker, the town of Lewisporte is unique in the sense that there are very few places in the Province, I suppose, that can boast of being connected by road, by rail, by sea and have an international airport within thirty-five or forty minutes drive from it. In that respect, it has a great deal to offer. It is also, of course, a shipping centre that is used by C.N. Marine, particularly on the Labrador run. I am sure my friend across the way, the gentleman from Naskaupi (Mr.

Kelland), can speak of the contribution and the relationship that exists and hopefully will continue to exist, the very positive relationship between Lewisporte and Happy Valley Goose Bay, in t~rms of the services being offered by C.N. Marine. Some proposals have been made, Mr. Speaker, by the Principal and staff of the Lewisport District Vocational School for a change in direction, for new courses. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Principal of that school and his L298 6 May 1985 staff for putting together these kinds of proposals. I will specifically mention one of them.

It has to do with a welder-diver course, as it is generally referred to, which is a high-tech course that will train people in the welder-diver field, obviously related to the offshore. I am optimistic, Mr. Speaker, that in the next few weeks this programme will be approved and moneys will be allocated to develop this course in Lewisporte and in the Lewisport District Vocational School.

While that is important, and while that course will provide a few new jobs not only in construction but a few full-time jobs after its c()mpletion, I think it is important to see a change of emphasis in other directions, in those offshore and other training courses that are so badly needed. There is not as much suggest, Mr. Speaker, of clerk typing and need now, I in the field clerk steno courses as there once was.

Prior to the 1982 election I had the opportunity to work with the Newfoundland Housing Corporation in the personnel area, and I understand from others in this field at the present time that when there is a competition now, for example, for a clerk typist or a clerk steno, it is not unusual to get 100 to 115 or 120 or more applications for that kind of position. So maybe it is time we took a more serious look at the direction in which we are going and the kind of training we are presenting in our vocational schools to meet this new kind of challenge and this new direction.

I would like to compliment the Minister of Career Development and Advanced Studies on his R298

appointment to this department, if you will . he is going about things right way and hopefully, said, we will see developments in that areal. new I think in the as I some Some criticism has been levelled at government over the past number of weeks for its appointment of a Royal Commission on Employment and Unemployment. Mr. Speaker, I support that Royal Commission. I do not propose to have all the answers to the unemployment problem in this Province. Maybe I have some suggestions and some ideas, as all members of t~is Legislature do.

I would like to think we are open enough and democratic enough to realize that there are others out there, employers, labour leaders, unions, arid Mr. John Q. Public, who also have some suggestions and some ideas for long-term and maybe_ short-term solutions to the unemployment problem in this Province. So, Mr. Speaker, I support this Royal Comm ission• and look forward. to the presentations being made :to this inquiry and to presentation of the final report. Hopefully, as I said, we will have some long-term solutions to this very serious problem . that I alluded to earlier, with which I am sure we all agree.

Much has been said about the Atlantic Accord and what it means in terms of the revenues as if the resource was onshore, the joint management of that, and the numbers of jobs that may or may not be there. I am delighted that the Province has reached an accord with the federal government, something that did not have the political will, perhaps, of the previous administration . in Ottawa, certainly not along the lines that we have at the present time.

L299 6 May 1985 However, that is in the past and we do have an Atlantic Accord, one that I think we all agree with in principle, and we are all looking forward to having some negotiations and discussions on the mode of development. I feel very positive that we shall be able to negotiate with the companies with regard to concrete platforms, since obviously, that is where the most jobs are, and I hope that we can reach a very positive agreement in that way. Mr. Speaker, I would be very remiss if I did not refer to a few other things in the Throne Speech.

I would like to take just a moment to say how pleased I was to hear and to read in ·the Throne Speech of the initiative being taken with regard to putting into the Constitution an amendment, if you will, to give the Pentecostal Assemblies their rightful place in the educational system of this Province. Coming from and representing a district which has a fairly high Pentecostal population, somewhere in the area of perhaps 35 per cent to 40 per cent, I have had some feed-back and I can assure you, Mr.

Speaker, that the Pentecostal population, if you will, of my district, and I am sure the other districts in this Province, are very pleased about this step to be taken in this session of our Legislature. I am also very pleased, Mr. Speaker, with the efforts that were made and the successful conclusions and decisions that were reached by this government in their dealing with Kruger, and the changeover from Bowater to Kruger and the takeover of that operation there. MR. FENWICK: You have a lot to catch up on now. R299

MR. RUSSELL : Mr. Speaker, the member for Menihek (Mr. Fenwick) says I have a lot to catch up on, six and a half years, I suppose, to catch up on. I was very pleased with the decision and the deal made in Corner Brook for Kruger to take over that operation and certainly the jobs that were maintained there as a result of that. Partly related to that, Mr. Speaker, I want to refer to the Bowater company that operated the Corner Brook mill prior to that, and more specifically the closing down of their Glenwood operation. And I am sure the member for Gander (Mr.

Baker) would agree, if he were here - and I think he made some reference to it in his speech - that it did have some kind of a very negative impact on the economy in certain areas of my district, as several of the loggers who work for Bowater were employed in the Glenwood operation and of course when that closed out they became unempl~yed. I want to emphasize, Mr.

Speaker, that I have been hearing through the grapevine, and I intend to make some more of an official enquiry, if you will, that Kruger just might be interested in doing something in Glenwood, maybe not along the same lines as they were before, but I hope that that is correct.

I am not going to, and I do not have any intention of building up the hopes of the people who were employed with Bowater before, that something will develop in Glenwood, but I have been hear _ing some things that were positive and I sincerely hope that they can become official and I shall be making an enquiry into that affect within the next few days. L300 6 May 1985 Mr. Speaker, one of the other announcements, if you will, that was made a short while ago has to do with the extension to the Central Newfoundland Hospital.

Certainly that particular institution provides a tremendous service to the people of my district. I am very pleased with the Premier's announcement of the $16 million expansion that will take place there over the next number of weeks and months and years. I am sure that other members who represent districts in Central Newfoundland who are serviced from that facility will be pleased with the improvements that will be developed there over the next number of months and years, as I said. Mr.

Speaker, I have alluded to the Atlantic Accord and the possibility that hopefully the negotiations result in concrete platforms. However, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that while this is very important, most important to this Province and to this government in terms of the potential jobs in concrete platforms and the direct jobs and the spinoffs that go with it, and that we have to get some new dollars to do some of the things that we want to do in terms of services such as water and sewer and roads and to put more into the fish~ries, but let us not lose sight, Mr.

Speaker, that the . fishing industry and the forest industry and the mining industry still have a very important role to play in this Province. I refer specifically to the fishing industry, if you will, and maybe to a business in my district, or a company in my district, that is having a very tremendous impact in a positive way on the economy of the district and I suppose to the Province as a whole. And for R300

those of you who are not familiar with it, of course I am referring to the Notre Dame Bay fisheries, which is so much involved in a number of things and which, although it is a kind of a seasonal operation, produces a very excellent product and is very much involved, of cours,e, at the present time in lobsters to Boston and to other parts of the United States. And there were times last Summer when there were several other species and things like that which I do not think they are into it this year at the present time but I wish they were. They put up a very excellent canned seal, et al.

But, Mr. ppeaker, last year in season, if you will, because they are involved in crab processing and because they will be moreso involved in that this season in providing seventy-five or eighty more jobs, as I understand it, we are talking about approximately 300-plus jobs at that community and at that company. Very little perhaps has been heard about . the company in terms of being in the papers or in the media, but I can assure you, and I think my friend from Fogo (Mr. Tulk) would agree, that that is a very good operation that 'they have going down there. MR. TULK: It is too bad we do not have more like them.

MR. RUSSELL: I agree it is too bad we do not have more like it, and producing the kind and quality of product that they are producing and, of course, the jobs that go with it. MR. TULK: They are creative too. MR. RUSSELL : L301 6 May 1985 They quite are very often creative. talked I to have the management of that company and I am optimistic that they will be expanding their facility down there in other fields and other areas over the next number of months. MR. TULK: Build a Fogo Island Co-op and I will support that. MR. RUSSELL: Anything, Mr.

Speaker, that creates jobs in this Province, and is producing a good product, I am willing to _ support. Mr. Speaker, I understand that my time has just about expired. SOME BON. MEMBERS: By leave. By leave. MR. RUSSELL : I am looking forward to other debates and feel, now that I have the opportunity to be a little more vocal, that I will be able to provide •the kind of service perhaps to my district that had some limitations, perhaps, when I was Speaker. Thank you, very much. SOME BON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. SPEAKER (Greening}: The hon. member for the Strait of Belle Isle. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR.

DECKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since this is what has come to be referred to as my maiden speech, I too, Sir, should like to offer my congratulations first to yourself as Deputy Speaker, and also to the R301

Speaker. During the past few days I have watched your rulings and I am convinced, Sir, that the rules and the traditions of this House will be carried out with dignity. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. DECKER: I should like to express my appreciation to the people who put me here, to the voters in the Strait of Belle Isle. They have given me a great trust. I only hope that I can live up to the trust that they have placed upon me. I should like to congratulate all the other hon. members, Sir, who have been elected and re-elected. I want to wish them well.

I want to tell them that I will support them whenever they act in the best interest of this Province and in the best interest of my district. In the past, Mr. Speaker, I have had many · occasions to have dealings with members on both sides of this hon. House. For example, while the hon. Premier was Minister of Municipal Affairs he made it possible for the Town of Roddickton, of which I was Mayor, to receive some $500,000 for the extension of water and sewer projects. Again, while the hon.

Premier was Minister of Energy, he made it possible for some money to be directed there from the federal government to put a mini-hydro plant in Roddickton. Also, Mr. Speaker, during the last federal election, the hon. the Minister of Transportation (Mr. Dawe) took it upon himself to come all the way down to the towns of Roddickton and Englee specifically for the purpose of promising these towns that he would pave the

section of highways which belong L302 6 May 1985 to the Department of Highways in these towns. This would make it possible for the towns to also do their own roads while paving equipment _ is in the area. I am sure that the people of Roddickton and the people of Englee and the people of Boyd Arm are anxiously awaiting for the paving equipment to move in, because it is going to increase the quality of their lives. The hon. member for Bonavista South (Mr.

Morgan) was one of the key factors in cutting through various levels of red tape and making a protesting licence available so that a crab plant could be established in Roddick ton. There were a lot of disappointed people in Roddickton I tell you, Mr. Speaker, when the hon. member was cut from the Cabinet. I should also like to say, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Rideout) is no stranger to me. THe first time we met was in the early 1970s when we were both contest