November

15, 1995

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol.

XLII No. 55

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (L. Snow): Order, please!

Statements by Ministers

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and

Labour Relations.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

This morning, on behalf of the Government of Newfoundland and

Labrador, I signed two framework agreements with the Federal Government to offer

early retirement to older workers affected under The Atlantic Groundfish

Strategy (TAGS). The Atlantic Fishers Early Retirement Program (AFERP) will

provide assistance to fishers; the Fishplant Older Worker Adjustment Program

(FOWAP) provides assistance to plant workers and trawlerpersons.

Older workers must be aged 55 to 64 as of May 15, 1995, in

order to be eligible for assistance.

Benefits will be paid monthly and will range from $630 per

month to $1231 per month. Benefits will be calculated individually at 70 per

cent of the average UI rate used to establish the TAGS rate. Except for those at

the minimum or maximum levels, the early retirement benefit rate will be equal

to 74.5 per cent of the TAGS rate.

We are estimating that between 1300 to 1400 fisheries workers

will permanently leave the industry through this initiative. Of these,

approximately 900 will be plant workers and trawlerpersons, and 400 fish

harvesters.

The total cost of both programs is estimated at $100 million,

of which the Provinces' share is $30 million. The cost will be spread out over

the next nine-and-a-half years to May 2005.

The maximum annual cost to the Province is estimated to be $5

million which will occur in the first year; each year after, the annual cost

will decline as workers reach the age of 65 and are no longer eligible for

benefits.

We have established an office at Bally Rou Place, Torbay

Road, which will be staffed by provincial officials from the Department of

Employment and Labour Relations and the federal staff will be from Fisheries and

Oceans, and Human Resources Development Canada. Applications will be sent

directly to older workers the week of November 20, 1995.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

First of all, I want to thank the minister for sending this

statement over a couple of hours before the House opened. Mr. Speaker, this

certainly opens a window of opportunity for people who are in the age bracket of

55 to 65 but the shame of it is, the people who are going to be eligible for the

TAGS Program and will have reached the age of sixty-five while still being

eligible for that particular program, will be left on the outside, will be

kicked off the TAGS Program and will be entitled to nothing.

It is my understanding, Mr. Speaker, that the Federal

Government was willing to take

part in this program and include the people as

they reached age fifty-five, to be included in this early retirement, but the

Province in their wisdom, decided not to take

part in a program such as this and

leave the people by the wayside in the interim. So, Mr. Speaker, that's the

shame of this program. I think it could have included a lot more people and I

think a lot of other people not only could have been included, but could have

been allowed to retire in decency.

Mr. Speaker, the minister goes on to talk about a committee

that will be put together down in Bally Rou Place to formulate the program. I

hope it is not like a committee that was put forward for the Level III Appeals

Board where nobody knows who they are, nobody knows how to get in touch with

them and nobody can appear and put their case forward in an honest and decent

manner. Mr. Speaker, the program is a good program but I think there is a lot of

room for improvement.

Oral Questions

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

MS VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have questions for the Minister of Justice, the Government

House Leader.

The Wells Administration has been in office for almost seven

years now and has established certain patterns. The government is now carrying

out its annual Fall ritual of spreading doom and gloom, cutting spending and

raising taxes, all in an effort to make up for an incomplete and misleading

spring Budget.

Three years ago when the government was at this stage, the

government brought down a mini-Budget, a Fall mini-Budget, and in that document,

the Minister of Finance made the following announcement: `As a further

demonstration of our resolve to reduce the cost of governing the Province in the

future, we will be asking the House to direct a redistribution commission to

make recommendations for a House of Assembly consisting of the most appropriate

number of districts, between forty and forty-six.'

Will the Minister of Justice confirm that in March of 1993, a

few months after the mini-Budget, a five-member Electoral Boundaries Commission

was constituted under the law, that the five-member Electoral Boundaries

Commission proposed forty districts, a reduction of twelve, that the Minister of

Justice and the government tampered with the work of the Boundaries Commission

and then changed the law and that the Boundaries Commission -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I want to remind hon. members now of our own Standing Orders

regarding Question Period. I am quoting Standing Order 31(c): "In putting any

oral questions, no argument or opinion is to be offered nor any facts stated

except so far as may be necessary to explain the same; and in answering any such

question, the Minister is not to debate the matter to which it refers." Standing

Order 31(

d) says: "Oral questions must not be prefaced by the reading of

letters, telegrams, newspaper extracts or

preambles of any kind."

In the last little while, I know on a number of occasions in

both answering the question and in asking the questions, there have been long

extended statements. I want members to keep in mind that our own Standing Orders

do not allow for this.

MS VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To conclude: Will the Minister of Justice confirm that the

five-member commission made a final report recommending forty-four districts?

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon.

lady for the way in which she read the question. I think she read it very well.

I would congratulate as well the author of the question.

We are going to be debating this bill in this House beginning

on Friday. I hope the hon. lady will speak then. I shall speak then at some

length and deal with it.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible) too long.

MR. ROBERTS: It may be too long for some but it won't be

too long for others, I say to my friend, the Member for Grand Bank. I shall

speak for no longer than the rules allow me to speak. I will hear him for the

same length of time.

Now, Mr. Speaker -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, we didn't interrupt the hon.

lady reading her

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. ROBERTS: - speech. Let me make a brief answer to it.

Neither I nor any other member of the government `tampered',

to use the hon. lady's phrase, with the report of the Electoral Boundaries

Commission, or the work of the Commission. The report of the Commission which

was for forty-four seats, which was within their mandate, was tabled in the

House exactly as it was received by me in behalf of the government in accordance

with the legislation. There was no tampering. I did appear before the Commission

and read a statement on behalf of the Ministry. I was one, I suspect, of several

hundred people who appeared before the Commission from time to time in the

course of their hearings and made representations to them.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman may think

that is tampering, but if so, I can only say he doesn't read any dictionary of

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to conclude his remarks, quickly.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would be delighted

to conclude them. The hon. gentleman is simply letting his partisan

predilections take over from his reasoned analysis.

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

Opposition.

MS VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A supplementary to the Minister of Justice. The Minister of

Justice conveniently omitted to acknowledge that indeed the Electoral Boundaries

Commission did propose forty districts, a reduction of twelve. That was before

the minister interfered.

Mr. Speaker, the minister did admit that the boundaries

commission report calls for forty-four districts. I ask the minister: Is it not

a contempt of this House to have boundaries drawn, as the government is now

proposing under Bill 31, other than in conformity with the recommendations of

the commission that was constituted under the law with the chairperson appointed

by the Chief Justice of the Province and the other four commissioners appointed

by the Speaker?

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

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will make two

comments in response to the hon. lady.

First of all, this House is master of its own affairs. We

answer to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador for the way in which we

discharge that authority. We will, here in this House, create the boundaries.

Secondly, when she spoke to the contempt of the House, my

recollection, and those who were in the House with me before the '85 election,

the redistribution..... by the administration, of which the hon. lady was a

part, tampered - to use her word - with the boundaries of the commission, and

furthermore the original report brought into this House by the Moores'

Administration, of which the hon. lady slavishly followed and which to this day

she supports, the original motion brought in by that administration, if memory

serves me, of the fifty-one seats in that House of Assembly created immediately

before the '75 election, no less than thirty-seven of the boundaries were drawn

by some process other than that recommended by the commissioner. The bill before

the House now contains, word for word, the boundaries recommended by Mr. Justice

Noel in response to the report -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. ROBERTS: The bill contains the boundaries recommended

by Mr. Justice Noel in response to a commission issued to him by the Cabinet,

and we have tabled the commission and the details of it. I am proud of it, Sir.

It is the fairest, most principled redistribution ever brought into this House,

and I hope members on the other side will support it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

supplementary.

MS VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What a lot of malarkey. The Minister of Justice knows full

well that Mr. Justice Noel has no legal authority to recommend boundaries. He

was hand-picked by the minister.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister: The government promised, in

the mini-Budget three years ago, to have between forty and forty-six districts.

The amended act, the law of the land, authorizes a maximum of forty-six

districts. Are you not now proceeding to break your political promise and

violate the law?

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

MR. ROBERTS: The answer to each question, Mr. Speaker, is

simply `no'. There is neither the jot nor the tittle nor the suggestion nor the

substance nor even the suspicion of accuracy and truth in the statements the

hon. lady is making, and I say further she knows it full well.

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

supplementary.

MS VERGE: Will the Minister of Justice confirm that the

government paid $400,000 of scarce Newfoundland and Labradorian taxpayers'

dollars for the work of the legitimate Electoral Boundaries Commission? Will the

minister indicate that the government has totally ignored the work of that

commission and is proceeding with its own rigged version of boundaries? And will

the Minister of Justice and his Cabinet colleagues who are personally

responsible for this scandalous waste of $400,000 now personally repay that

amount to the provincial treasury instead of taking it from municipalities, the

sick, and the disabled?

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, the amount that government paid

is a matter of record. I do not have the figure here but it is a matter of

public record. I do not recollect it being $400,000 but it was substantial. In

response to the hon. lady's other question let me say we will repay the $400,000

when she repays the $24 million she and her colleagues spent on Sprung which was

never authorized by the House of Assembly first nor last in what has to be the

most shameful dereliction of responsibility by any ministry since Confederation.

She was part of it, Mr. Speaker. They never, ever came to the House, and not

only that when Mr. Rideout became Premier and she became Deputy Premier they

still refused to come to the House and authorize that expenditure. Every nickel

that has been spent in support of the Boundary Commission was, number one, well

spent and number two, lawfully spent, and she cannot say that about anything

spent on the Sprung commission.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the

Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. The minister yesterday admitted in

the House he did not consider any other options before he cut the municipal

operating grants by 22 per cent. I ask the minister, why he did not consider

selling the luxury apartment complex at Elizabeth Towers and using this money to

help offset the Province's budgetary shortfall? Why did he decide to continue to

offer accommodations for the rich elite before going ahead and forcing a form of

economic strangulation on the municipalities of this Province?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal and

Provincial Affairs.

MR. REID: Mr. Chairman, I thought the hon. member knew

that Elizabeth Towers is for sale. We have been trying to sell it now for two

years.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Waterford - Kenmount

on a supplementary.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, will the minister confirm that

his government was offered a very competitive price for the Churchill Square

apartment complex some time ago? Why would the Province want to hold on to this

real estate? Why did the minister not exercise that option before cutting the

MOGs?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal and

Provincial Affairs.

MR. REID: Don't be surprised, Mr. Speaker, if Churchill

Square as well as Elizabeth Towers may be up for sale in the next few weeks or

few months. Mr. Speaker, I dealt with the immediate problem that I had as it

related to municipalities. I had to deal with the question immediately because

municipalities do their budgets in December month for January 1. I had to

because we made a commitment, as a government, that we would let municipalities

know earlier -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. REID: I got two. The lowest department in the whole

of government, I got two.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. REID: I made the commitment to municipalities, Mr.

Speaker, that I would let them know the bad news or the good news. It did not

matter to them as long as they knew prior to the end of the year so they could

do their budgets. I came out and did that.

Now in answer to the hon. member's question, I am taking care

of basically the shortfall that we have this year in our fiscal budget of that

$60 million to $80 million. If you look at my statement and see the amounts of

money that we did take from municipalities or are planning to take from

municipalities, the money that we are looking at as well, within that total

amount of $11 million to $12 million, will also offset our deficit reduction -

not our deficit our current account expenditures for 1996-97 as well. I am

telling the hon. member and I am telling you, Mr. Speaker, and all the members

of this House that I have not finished yet. There are a number of serious

reconsideration and considerations that I have to make in regards to my

department and what I have in my department in the next little while.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Waterford -

Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, the member could have gotten $3

million of his $4.1 million if he had agreed to the offered price for the

Churchill Square apartment complexes. Mr. Speaker, I say to the minister

following the same principle of divestiture and to continue the ownership that

the Province holds in facilities like Philip Place, the condominiums at Marble

Mountain, the Southlands land development, if these properties were privatized

and if the minister used the revenues properly the cuts to the MOGs could have

been substantially less and it could have been less now. Why not sell off some

of your government's real estate, Mr. Minister, and reduce the burdens faced by

our cities, our towns and our communities?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal and

Provincial Affairs.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I'm shocked. The hon. member, he

must be trying to help me here. Because Philip Place we tried to sell last year

and couldn't sell. He knows the government is not putting any money into Marble

Mountain. The only money that is going into the condominiums in Marble Mountain

are monies that will be invested by the would-be owners. The government is not

putting in a cent. Churchill Square was put up for sale two years ago when I

became minister. We had several offers for Churchill Square and at the end of

the day we owed more money on Churchill Square than we were going to make on it.

So we would have ended up in the hole. At the time the government decided that

it couldn't afford to lose money on Churchill Square.

The same thing applies to Elizabeth Towers. At the present

time - and I will tell the hon. member this if he wants to after - I expect to

get a bid for Elizabeth Towers at least $4 million less than what the building

is worth. Does the hon. member want me to give it away for $4 million less than

it is worth? If I give it away at the end of the day, I'm going to end up having

to put $4 million into the deal.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to

the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations. Today the minister announced a

joint federal-provincial early retirement program for fisheries workers between

the ages of fifty-five and sixty-four. Can the minister inform the House what

method his department will use to make sure all eligible TAGS recipients are

fully informed of this opportunity, and to ensure they are aware of all the

facts before making such an important decision to take

part in this program?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and

Labour Relations.

MR. MURPHY: Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The

Department of HRDC has now on file all the applicants and the ages of recipients

of TAGS. That particular subject is now in computer. Our department and their

department and DFO will ask the computer to tell us who is available to take

advantage of the program that we announced today. When that print-out is done

the department will send to those individuals an application and a booklet

outlining the early retirement program.

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

Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, the TAGS program will

continue until May of 1999. I would like to ask the minister if he has made

representation to his federal cousins in Ottawa to allow fisheries workers who

attain the age of fifty-five while still eligible for TAGS to become eligible

for part of this early retirement program.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and

Labour Relations.

MR. MURPHY: No, Mr. Speaker. That question is obviously a

deceptive question. Let me say to the hon. member, what the system as I

announced today - and he was there - is those people who are presently eligible

for TAGS who meet the age criteria on the early retirement program can take

advantage for nine and a half years of either the maximum of $1,231 a month or

$631 a month on the minimum, or some average in between depending on their age

presently. As the member knows, you can't have access to both ends of TAGS. You

can't have the early retirement program; you can't access that and as well

access TAGS.

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

Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, that is not what I asked. I

asked the minister if he had made representation to his cousins in Ottawa to see

if people, as they reached the age of fifty-five, could take

part in the

program. The minister skated around the answer.

Informed sources have told me that the federal government was

willing to participate in such a retirement program for those who are not now

fifty-five but will reach the age of fifty-five during their TAGS eligibility,

but this provincial government refused to take

part in that program. I ask the

minister: What are your plans to deal with those individuals when they are

kicked off the TAGS program in their late fifties with no opportunities for

employment?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and

Labour Relations.

MR. MURPHY: Mr. Speaker, let's put this in its right

perspective, okay? The provincial government - this provincial government or the

other provincial government - were not responsible for the closure of the

groundfish fishery. The federal government, totally, is responsible for the

funding of fishers and plant workers. This government, in negotiations, because

the older workers in the program could access some consistent funding, put

forward $30 million. The member knows that if you are fifty-five as of May 15,

1995, you are eligible. That is the eligibility criteria. Now, he can mix it

around. If you are sixty you can access Canada Pension. If you are sixty-five

you get your Old Age Pension, et cetera. No, it is a one-time program, I say to

the member. We wish we had the money to do a lot more. Now the member also knows

that.

The federal government, both departments, have sat and

negotiated with us. This government has picked up $30 million of that program, I

say to the member, and we can do no more. We would certainly like to include

people two years down the road who become fifty-five, but this government does

not have that capability. Yes, we have talked. I do not know that I have any

relations in Ottawa, but I certainly have people up there who we discussed a lot

of issues with, and we discussed that, I say to the member, well.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Falls.

MR. MACKEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the

Minister of Natural Resources.

Last week in the House I raised some questions with respect

to the hydroelectric development project on Northwest River, which begins in the

Bay du Nord wilderness and flows through Terra Nova National Park. It is an

established fact that the rate of consumption for hydroelectric power is

significantly reduced because of diminished industrial demands, more energy

efficient housing, and less need because of declining population. Hydro sales,

in fact, on the Island last year declined 3.4 per cent. My question to the

minister is this: Is there a need for extra power on the Island at the risk of

destroying a healthy, pristine and bountiful salmon river?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, the environmental aspects of

this particular project, like other projects, will be addressed through the

environmental assessment process. They are being addressed through the

environmental assessment process, and my hon. colleague from environment is

handling that at this time for four of these projects.

Now I will get back to the original part of your question: Do

we have an increasing demand? The answer is `yes', and the projection is that we

are going to need new sources of supply to add to our firm power, with the

emphasis on the firm power available to this Province, by the fall of 1998. In

response to the demand forecasted, a number of years ago Hydro put out a call

for proposals in the non-utility area, the non-utility generator area, for small

hydro developments. Four finally made the short list, and four are in the

environmental assessment process. I believe one of the four has gotten through

the environmental assessment process; the other three are still in it. If they

all succeed, then the power from these four will be purchased and go into the

grid as of the fall of 1998. They would then take care of the demand forecast

for this Province, for this Island, until about the year 2000 or the year 2001,

because our growth and demand has been rather flat.

As the hon. member said, we have not had a lot of growth

because of the economic conditions that we have had in the last few years. We

were quite flat and, as a matter of fact, we dipped a little bit, but the

overall long-term direction is upwards. The overall direction is upwards and

will continue to be upwards, so by 1998 we forecast that we need a small

increase in our firm power, and that is the thirty-eight megawatts that these

four non-utility generators will provide. They would take care of us, though,

for about three years, and we will have to get some more on by around 2000 or

2001, but the long-term trend is upward even though we have had some dips

through the economic recession we have had.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Falls on a

supplementary.

MR. MACKEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My next question,

still related to the project, is for the Minister of Environment.

Friday past was the deadline for public input from

individuals or groups to make their views known, either for or against this

project. Can the minister inform us today of the result of this public input?

Was it for or against this project?

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

MR. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his

question. We have not done a numerical calculation as to either for or against

this project.

AN HON. MEMBER: It is not a poll.

MR. AYLWARD: It is not a poll. What we have done is that

we have taken all of the expressions of interest on this project and we are

reviewing them. As a matter of fact, even though the deadline was Friday, I have

been meeting with a couple of groups this week, I am going to meet with a couple

more next week to get further input before we make any further decision on the

acceptability of the EIS because it is an open process, Mr. Speaker, in this

process of Environmental Assessment and we are going to assure that every person

who wants to have his say about it will have his say, and at the end of the day,

a decision will be rendered as to whether or not the project is acceptable or

not acceptable.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Falls, on a

supplementary.

MR. MACKEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Salmonid Association of Newfoundland and

Labrador, the Wildlife Division, the Natural History Society and the Co -alition

to save Northwest River and many other groups believe this project will do

irreparable damage to the river ecosystem and to the Bay du Nord wilderness

area.

From all sources, Mr. Speaker, it appears this development

will have a devastating effect on the salmon stock and other fish habitat. It is

believed also, it will have a negative impact on tourism potential and

recreational activities; as well, there is a deep concern for safety.

My question to the minister, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister

satisfied that this hydro-electric project will not negatively impact on the

migration of salmon, will not negatively impact on tourism and recreational

activities, and if he is not satisfied, is he prepared to convince his

colleagues in Cabinet that this project which could destroy a bountiful river,

should be stopped immediately?

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

MR. AYLWARD: You know, Mr. Speaker, I suppose we could

take the Environmental Assessment Act and throw it out the window. I mean, the

reason the Environmental Assessment Act is there, is to review projects and

allow for public input into the process. This is what we are doing in this

project; a decision is not rendered, there is no bias either way. We are looking

at the information our environmental assessment committee, which is comprised of

a number of government departments including the Department of Fisheries and

Oceans, which are giving us advice as to the no-net loss or no-net gain of

salmon in the Northwest River, will give us that advice in the near future and

then we will determine whether or not the project is acceptable environmentally

and all the other issues that the member has talked about.

We are meeting with a variety of groups, have met with a

variety of groups who are for this project or are against the project, and we

will be continuing to do so as we go through the process. The act is working

very well, it is a great example of how it works, the input is in, the

government, the Cabinet will make a final decision at the end of the day, to see

where we go with this project.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a question for the Minister of Health.

The new Labrador Health Care Board recently purchased a house

for $182,000 for its CEO in Happy Valley - Goose Bay. Now, two weeks ago in this

House, the minister referred to a government policy that was adopted in 1991,

and I quote the minister, He said: that be on normal pay or normal salaries that

are appropriate and applicable to positions, boards were directed not to enhance

or to provide additional benefits to employees of hospital boards, that is, CEOs

and the like.

Now, the minister said, in the House that day, that he is of

a comfort level, that the chairman, he said the chairman may not really have

known about the policy that was enunciated in 1991, because he wasn't working in

the system, and the minister said that he will see that the problem is

corrected.

I ask the minister, if the board's Chairman, Mr. Woodward,

violated government policy when he wrote that cheque for $182,000?

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

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The answer that I gave two weeks ago to the question remains

the answer today. Government directed hospital boards in 1991 that no monetary,

no additional monetary or non-monetary benefits would be made available to

employees who were over and above the pay

schedule that was in place for that

position and that policy remains.

The issue of purchasing a house is really not the issue. The

issue is of course providing a benefit. There is no big deal if I might put it

that way, in purchasing a piece of property and renting it out because that

doesn't in and off itself add a cost to the health care system or an expense to

the operation of the health care board. If you buy a house and if you amortize

the mortgage, you collect rent so that the mortgage can be paid off then that

does not add anything to the cost of health care of the system. The issue of

whether or not the non-monetary benefit that was being provided was appropriate

is the issue. I clearly indicated it was not appropriate to provide such a

benefit and I have given direction to all boards to ensure that in cases where

these things are in place that cessation take place and that it be corrected,

and I expect that will happen. I have only heard back from one board in the two

weeks to say that nothing is in place in their jurisdiction. I am meeting with

all the boards this week and will have further clarification on that particular

issue.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Question Period has expired.

Petitions

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

Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to rise to present a petition today on behalf of

the residents of the Baie Verte - White Bay district.

We, the residents of the Baie Verte Peninsula, are very

concerned with recent cutbacks to the Department of Works, Services and

Transportation. We believe that these cutbacks will seriously affect the safety

as well as the overall quality of transportation on the Baie Verte Peninsula. We

urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to reconsider these reductions

in order to ensure that the safety and quality of road transportation is

retained at an acceptable and safe level.

Mr. Speaker, this is one of a number of petitions now that I

have presented to this House and to this minister. The bottom line is rural

Newfoundland. Again, this minister shirks off his responsibility and goes on

with cutbacks. Just a few days ago in this House he said there are no

reductions. Well, what does the minister consider reductions, I wonder, Mr.

Speaker? People in my district, for example - but I am sure the growing concerns

are throughout the Province, not just in my district, especially in rural parts

of Newfoundland, that as we see the snow coming on now, Mr. Speaker - it is in

Toronto today, it will be here tomorrow - then we are going to see more

concerns. Of course, the problem is going to be - again, Mr. Speaker, as I said

last week, the problem is again - it is too late when the minister stands in the

House and tries to weave his way around, Mr. Speaker, to try to justify these

cutbacks. He is not giving any attention to the real problem out there which is

the safety on the roads. He has not talked to the people in the industry that

are directly involved.

This weekend again, Mr. Speaker, while I was in my district,

I spoke to the wingmen who have worked as wingmen on these trucks for thirty

years and more. I wonder has the minister talked to these people instead of

going up to his office and talking to somebody in a shirt and tie who has no

idea what it is really like out there on those trucks and on the roads in the

wintertime and in rural Newfoundland. So I tell the minister don't talk to the

so-called experts up in your department, go talk to the men who worked in these

trucks for thirty years and they will tell you that you have a problem on your

hands and it is going to become a bigger problem as this winter goes on. There

is danger without that second man in the truck. When we find out, Mr. Speaker,

it is going to be too late - when somebody has to stand in this House and point

a finger at this minister again. When there are major problems with an accident

or, as we hope not, a fatality in this Province through a school bus accident or

involving a pedestrian on the side of the street, it will be too late to stand

then and point a finger at the minister. That doesn't get us anywhere then. The

problem has to be corrected now, Mr. Speaker.

With respect to rural Newfoundland, the minister should keep

in mind, that just, for example, in my district alone there are seventeen trunk

roads that lead off the main road, Mr. Speaker. With these reductions, it will

take a lot longer to clear the roads.

I will ask the minister this, too, Mr. Speaker, maybe he will

respond. Right now, with the reduction in mechanics at the Baie Verte depot they

have to put the equipment on a flatbed, send it to Grand Falls, two hours away,

and send it back again. Just a few days ago, they sent the equipment up there,

they had to be sent back again and back up for the second time. Now, I ask the

minister, where is the saving in that? Really there was no plan to this

whatsoever. It makes no logical sense whatsoever. The minister again has pushed

the panic button, not really having thought it out and he certainly didn't talk

to the people in the depots out there who do the work day after day.

MR. EFFORD: Did you?

MR. SHELLEY: Yes, I certainly did, I say to the minister.

You can go ask them, because I was there again this weekend and I visit them on

a regular basis, more than I can say for the minister responsible who sits up in

his office and asks the experts up there. Go ask the wingmen who were sitting in

this gallery here last week and listened to the minister. They were shocked to

hear his comments. A man who was sat here last week has worked for thirty years

on one of those trucks, and he said: This man down here doesn't know what he is

talking about. Because he hasn't come and talked to the people who work in this

industry, the wingmen on the trucks. Mr. Speaker, it is a serious, serious

problem. He is playing Russian roulette with the people of this Province when it

comes to safety and it is going to be too late when we have to call this

minister to stand here in this House of Assembly and explain when a snowstorm

hits and we see a wing clip a car or a bus on the roadside, or maybe a

pedestrian who walks along the side of the road.

So, Mr. Speaker, the advice to the minister - although he

will never take any because he knows it all - is that he should go back and talk

to the people who are working these depots year after year after year and keep

in mind also it is the people of rural Newfoundland who are going to suffer most

from these cutbacks. These are the people who are furthest off the main roads.

They need good, safe road clearing, Mr. Speaker, especially when the stormy

season comes upon us.

As it relates to health care, some of these people have to

drive for two hours, as it is now, to get to a hospital in Corner Brook or Grand

Falls. Now, Mr. Speaker, they are going to have to wait an extra length of time

so that roads are cleared and so that school kids who travel these buses every

morning - and especially with the education reform that is happening there will

be more school buses to rural Newfoundland. Now, Mr. Speaker, he does the

opposite, goes in the opposite direction, and now we have a reduction, of which

he says: There is no reduction.

The first thing that you have to say to the minister is:

Before you can fix a problem you have to acknowledge that there is a problem.

Until the minister gets out of his office up here and stops listening to his

experts - go out and talk to the people in rural Newfoundland, the people who

worked in these depots for years. Maybe, just maybe, the minister will come to

his senses before it is too late, before we have a snowstorm next week or the

week after, or soon. I know it is coming soon, as the minister knows, and it is

going to be too late.

Mr. Speaker, although the minister doesn't take advice from

anybody, it seems, he should really sit back and think about this one. Because

it is going to be too late when we have to stand in this House and point our

fingers at the minister when he gets all upset again like he did last year. He

is going to get all upset again, sit down in his chair and say: Don't point your

finger at me; I wasn't the cause of the snowstorm. No, we know you weren't the

cause of the weather, but the reductions now in the Department of Works,

Services and Transportation are really putting in jeopardy the safety of the

people of this Province, and especially as it relates to rural Newfoundland, Mr.

Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SHELLEY: So I ask the minister -

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. SHELLEY: - to use his senses, come to his senses, and

talk to someone who really knows about the situation.

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

Extern.

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

I am pleased to be able to stand today and support the

petition presented by the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay. I believe this is

the fourth petition that has been presented by the Member for Baie Verte - White

Bay on this issue, so obviously it is a very serious matter to him. Of course,

if it is a serious matter to him and he is presenting these petitions, he is

obviously receiving petitions from people within his district. These people have

to take this as a very serious matter also.

Not only is it serious in his district, it is serious in all

districts throughout this Province. We have the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation normally smirking, and shirking off his responsibility when this

issue is brought up, but it is a very serious issue. Staff reductions in the

Department of Works, Services and Transportation have been drastic over the past

number of years. This year, now, we see the wingmen being let go; the wingmen

who help operate the ploughs in the middle of storms in this Province during the

wintertime.

Roads in this Province in the past four or five years have

gotten into a deplorable condition. Most roads that you would travel over,

especially the trunk roads, are in very bad shape and this only adds to the

seriousness of the situation when we are letting people go and are having one

person operating this equipment. When I'm talking about the safety here, now we

have bumps in the roads, we have cracks in the pavement; we have shoulders being

washed out. If we have a plough in the middle of a snowstorm travelling down the

highway and it hits these bumps, it could quite conceivably bounce over in front

of an oncoming automobile with very serious results.

In the past number of years, in particular in St. John's East

Extern, in the district that I'm most familiar with, all I see being done in

that district is road maintenance, and not a lot of road maintenance at that.

The District of St. John's East Extern deserves some money. I

have been looking at the districts that had capital works spent on them last

year and in previous years, and when I can make the comparison with St. John's

East Extern there is very little money being spent in St. John's East Extern.

The minister himself would have to agree with that. He knows. He agreed to it

with me in a meeting with the councillors in Bauline a few weeks ago. He knows

there has been very little money spent in that district.

This government has been reduced to management by crisis.

They are jumping from crisis to crisis and that is how they are handling the

management of this Province. The Department of Works, Services and

Transportation last year was cut by $10 million, and quite conceivably, it could

be cut by monies again this year in capital expenditures. That is quite

accurate.

This government, at this point in time, in this very day,

now, is actually scrambling to cut services or to cut staff or try to save money

in this year's Budget, the so-called balanced Budget. They have already admitted

that they are out by $60 million so far this year - and how much more by the end

of the year? This government, last spring, got up and made a big deal out of a

balanced budget which they knew full well at that point in time was not a

balanced budget, is not a balanced budget. I would have to say that this

government and the ministers in it are running around like a bunch of hens with

their heads chopped off, and the one leading the flock is the Minister of Works,

Services and Transportation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation.

MR. EFFORD: I want to read just a couple of lines in a

Ministerial Statement. `With these lower than expected revenues we did not limit

our efforts to restraining wages. We reduced programs in government as well.

Here are some of the cuts in expenditure we made, reductions in hiring,

reductions in operating expenses, closure of institutions, including the cottage

hospitals at North West River and Markland, program reductions, elimination of

student allowances and the introduction of tuition fees in vocational schools,

reduction in financial assistance to municipalities and school boards, and

reduction in road and building maintenance cutbacks. The hon. Brian Peckford,

February 29, 1984.'

Now, Mr. Speaker, we have not cut back the operating

expenses, or the winter maintenance, or the road maintenance program in the

Department of Works, Services and Transportation. Last year we spent $23,498,800

on salt, sand and labour for the winter months. We will spend as much as that

again this year and probably it will be more if we get the same amount of

snowstorms this year as we did last year. If we get a worse winter this year we

will spend more money. We had 678 pieces of equipment on the road last winter

and we will have 678 pieces of equipment on the road this winter. The only

change we have made, because it can only happen in Newfoundland, where two

people must drive the same truck, only in Newfoundland. Nowhere else in Canada

does it take two people to drive the one vehicle, so what I have done is try and

put some sense in the department and have one driver on one truck. Now, when I

have to issue an order to the department that says when that truck goes out on

the road it requires two people to do it, then it is time for me to leave the

ministerial office of the department. It does not make any sense.

Mr. Speaker, we are not reducing the service in the

department. We are making some sense out of the organization of the department.

We are trying to spend the taxpayers' money wisely. We are trying to make sure

that the Minister of Health and the Minister of Education get the money where it

is needed more so than having two men on one truck. For the last time there are

no cutbacks in the operating services of the department. We will provide

whatever service is required to make sure that our winters are as safe as they

can possibly be. I am not God. I cannot stop the snow from falling.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. EFFORD: Yes, the snow fell in Toronto yesterday.

Maybe it is in New Brunswick today and possibly, if the wind does not change, it

will be here tomorrow. I cannot, Mr. Speaker, do anything about that, nor do I

intend to try.

Orders of the Day

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, this is Private Members' Day

and we will be debating Motion 5, but may I first note that there is an error on

the Order Paper. There is a misspelling of the name of the gentleman for

Torngat, and nothing turns on it except I would like to note it, and as a

courtesy could we ensure that the printer spells my friend's name correctly from

here on in. In fact I believe it is Mr. William Andersen III.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Torngat.

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Today I feel very pleased to introduce a Private Members'

motion, and before I get into speaking to the motion I would like to once again

read it out:

WHEREAS federal fisheries policies in relation to groundfish

licence retirement are discriminatory to many fishermen and plant workers

throughout the Province and especially in the District of Torngat Mountains; and

WHEREAS federal policy states that the groundfish licence

holders eligible for TAGS are the only groundfish licence holders who will be

eligible for the retirement program; and

WHEREAS there are many fishermen and plant workers throughout

the Province who, for generations have relied on the fishery for a living and

are not recognized under the TAGS program; and

WHEREAS it can be proven that thousands of fishermen and

plant workers who just happened to be involved in the fishery at an arbitrary

date set by DEO and not because of their historical attachment to the groundfish

fishery, are on TAGS as opposed to those who fished thirty, forty, fifty years

or more and still do not qualify;

called upon to include those fishermen and plant workers who can demonstrate a

historical to, and activity in, the prosecution of the groundfish fishery.

In introducing this motion, Mr. Speaker, I would like to now

spend a few moments talking about the fishermen in the District of Torngat

Mountains who I personally feel have been very much discriminated against, not

discriminated against in terms of the fact that they are Aboriginal people or

anything like that. There are Newfoundlanders up in the Torngat Mountains

district who have been waylaid by this program as well, and even though I am

very pleased to see my hon. colleague, the Minister of Employment and Labour

Relations announce a new retirement program today, I can still envision these

fishermen in my district and those, I presume, around the Province who have been

turned down because they do not meet the eligibility criteria, will still suffer

the same fate.

Mr. Speaker, for about 100 years we had 300, 400 or 500

Newfoundland schooners coming into the Torngat Mountains district and sharing

the fisheries resource with the people of the Torngat Mountains district. Most

of those fishermen were from the Island of Newfoundland, and throughout that

period some of them have stayed in Labrador and continued their fishing

tradition.

In the late sixties, seventies and early eighties the inshore

groundfish fishery in my district was pretty much fished out by the lack of

control on one hand, and on the other hand too many fishermen coming into the

area, and the people in the district never once thought twice about sharing that

resource. One thing in hindsight they did not realize was the fate they would

suffer when the groundfish fishery was put to a halt a few years ago, and it is

pretty much seen as `out of sight, out of mind' because for centuries fishermen

up there fished the same as Newfoundlanders and Maritimers did.

A few years ago when TAGS came into effect, at the time

before it became HRDC, it was Manpower and Immigration. They had employees,

civil service people, going to my district and explaining the program to the

fishermen. The civil servant who went into Hopedale, for example, went into

Hopedale in the morning, spent three hours in the community, and was supposed to

have explained the whole TAGS program to the fishermen of Hopedale. I believe

there might be one or two fishermen in Hopedale who are under TAGS; the rest

never even had a look in.

I would like to go further into this, Mr. Speaker. We have

people like the Jararuse family, the Merkuratsuk family, the Ittulak family,

Inuit families who, perhaps by the majority of society would be considered

speak their own Mother tongue, the Inuktitut language - and yet they are told by

authorities language problems should not be an excuse; you should understand

what you are trying to get, even if you cannot read it.

There was one occasion about three years ago where, for the

first time, I believe, in Labrador's history, an Inuit man was found not guilty

by pleading ignorance of the law because he could not read it. The same thing

applies to these programs. I don't wish to have my fishermen in my district

become eligible for TAGS just because of the money that they will get. One of

the things we don't take into consideration, Mr. Speaker, is what they lose out

on by not being eligible. The training programs that are offered in terms of

economic diversification, retraining - if you are not eligible for TAGS, most of

those federal programs that are introduced today are based upon the fact that

you can only get it if you are eligible for TAGS.

That creates hardship for my district in two ways. There are

learning institutions which are willing to go into any given area, provided that

they have the demand for retraining. Under the present system only about 10 per

cent of the fishermen in my district are eligible for TAGS. That doesn't justify

the requirement that would be needed by, let's say, the Labrador Community

College, or the College of Trades and Technology, to introduce something up

there to retrain people. The numbers don't justify bringing in trainers. That is

one of the setbacks for the district.

There are also fishermen in my district who are settlers. I

will name one. We all know him in Labrador as Uncle George Sheppard from

Postville, Labrador. He fished for sixty-seven years. He is about eighty-seven

years old now. He trapped last year. He still had his own trap line last year.

He groundfished in the Makkovik area for sixty-seven years and the federal

government turned around and told him he wasn't eligible for their retirement

program.

AN HON. MEMBER: On what basis?

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: On the basis that he wasn't

groundfishing during those two years.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WILLIAM ANDERSEN III: Yes, 1991. Even though he

salmon fished and maintained his groundfish licence in the hope that the

groundfish will return he will have that opportunity again, he was refused by

DFO the opportunity of that retirement. I can name many fishermen who have

fished for more than fifty or sixty years in the same boat in my district. This

they who fished with Newfoundlanders in Ailik, Labrador, Strawberry, Ironbound

islands. They see their old fishing partners from the Island being compensated

for their loss and yet they are told: I'm sorry, you are not eligible.

Mr. Speaker, I believe it is time that governments and this

hon. House are called upon to do something. I must reiterate what the Premier

said in Sudbury yesterday: A citizen is a citizen is a citizen. Right now the

people in my district don't feel like they are citizens of this Province because

they are only considered when it is absolutely necessary.

It is rather sad to see. Newfoundlanders come to my area to

live. We have people from St. Anthony, we have people from this area, who suffer

the same brunt of neglect on the part of all governments. The Peckford

Administration, this Administration, the present federal Administration, the

former federal Administration, I feel are neglecting their commitment to a given

area because they are so few and far between up there. If we are going to be

citizens of Canada and treated as such, we pay taxes -

I heard earlier, the hon. the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation talking about the services they provide for on the roads. We

don't have roads in my district. Most of the children in my district don't know

what a paved road is, and yet, we are citizens of this Province.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I have tried very diligently and in

the most kindly way possible, if you will, approaching on three different

occasions since coming in here, the federal fisheries minister, Mr. Tobin, on

this very matter, and the answer I always get, is, the criteria has been set. I

call upon this hon. House, Mr. Speaker, to support my motion in stating that,

people who can demonstrate that long-term attachment to the fishery must be

included in that criteria and it shouldn't be the criteria that determines who

we are. I think enough people in Newfoundland and Labrador know who and what we

are, that we should be able to be fitted into that criteria.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am glad today to rise and speak in response to the

resolution of the hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains. Mr. Speaker, I think it

is a prime example of the frustrations - we just heard a prime example of the

frustrations that many of us are feeling in representing rural Newfoundland

communities, representing fishermen in fisheries communities who find themselves

in a situation where they fear every day; when they wake up in the morning they

don't know what's in store for them or whether they are going to put bread and

butter on the table come the end of the brown envelope that might be arriving on

a bi-monthly basis now.

They are fears, Mr. Speaker, that some of us find hard to

associate with, because we have this mentality, that if you are getting a

cheque, then you are okay, you are alright. But the member goes on to speak

about the people who were not included in the program and there are many, many

of them out there today. We all remember the NCARP Program and its inception

back in 1992. At that time, I think things were done in a rush; it was done

because a moratorium was announced pretty well one day and funding was announced

a few days after that; people were included in a program when they should never

have been included and other people were left by the wayside. But, Mr. Speaker,

one very important thing was done with that particular program, and what I am

referring to, was the point of having it put into the hands of people who had a

heart, the hands of people who dealt with people and dealt with the industry

every day - and I am referring to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

It seems like, in those days, when somebody came to you with

a problem, Mr. Speaker, you could go and you always had somebody to talk to and

you always had somebody to reason with and you could go and you could sit down

before an appeals board and you could put forward your case or the case of your

constituent and you had human ears there, Mr. Speaker, to listen to you, human

eyes to look at you and a human heart to deal with. Today, we find this is not

happening. It is not happening with the TAGS Program, it was taken from DFO and

was put in the hands of HRD, which is a completely different group of people,

Mr. Speaker, a group of people who are used to going by policy-making rules and

regulations, and black is black, white is white and they very seldom stray from

that, a completely different group of people and I don't think that it has been

given the attention or the heart that it deserves.

Then, Mr. Speaker, it was done in such a way that you could

go to an appeals board if you had somebody who didn't qualify for the TAGS

Program; there were three different levels of appeal, Level I, Level II and

Level III. The first level of appeal is when you would apply - and it escapes me

why everybody who was involved with the NCARP Program, at the very end of the

eighteen months of that program, still had to go and apply for TAGS. That has

always escaped me. I always thought that if they was involved and they had their

records - and God knows, there was enough attention paid to it, because the

unions sent representatives around, there were counsellors who went around,

there were people from DFO who went around and made sure that everybody who was

in that program deserved to be there.

Then, all of a sudden, in May, 1994, this new program TAGS

was created, Mr. Speaker. Everybody involved with the program had to go and

apply again, had to fill out an application and apply in order to continue to

get fisheries response money, fisheries moratorium money.

MR. WOODFORD: Playing tag ever since.

MR. FITZGERALD: Playing tag ever since, the member says,

and he is so right, Mr. Speaker.

They had to go - and first of all if you were deemed

ineligible for that program - there were some people taken off it. In fact,

there were thousands taken off it right from the very beginning and there were

thousands placed on it, another thousand people entered the program. Mr.

Speaker, the first thing they had to do was to appeal. Level No. I appeal meant

that you had to write and the people who made the decision to take you off the

program were the people who carried out the Level I appeal, the same people, the

same names, the same people. They were the ones who wrote back and said, `No, I

am sorry, you are ineligible for the program.'

So then, because there was so much of an uproar, they went

through a Level II appeal. A Level II appeal meant that now you could go and you

would go to some certain place in the area or in your district and you will

appear before an independent consultant put forward by the government. He always

made a decision that would go back again to HRD. In many times we feared - and I

believe that the fears were justified - that it was probably the same people who

made the decision that turned you down in the Level I appeal. I am sure, in many

cases, they were the same people. So you appear before this independent

consultant and then somehow, he or she - it was a gentleman in my particular

district; he always had a way of making people feel good when they left. He

could never understand the reason why they were refused. So they always left

with a feeling, well, this is great. At least I've talked to somebody and now I

am going to get this mess straightened out, but, Mr. Speaker, only to get a

letter a couple of months after that - and it was a couple of months I say to

the member - saying: I am sorry, but you have been deemed ineligible for the

TAGS program.

Then there was another uproar. Some members from the opposite

side, from the government side, from what I understand, Mr. Speaker, went up and

met with Minister Tobin and his people up there. They said: We have a problem,

Mr. Minister, in that a lot of people we think are eligible are being denied

this program.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: The only one who got any results from

him was I got it for you, for a (inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: You're right, for a plant in my district.

Summerville fisheries.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: The only one who got any results from

Tobin - I got it for you.

MR. FITZGERALD: It wasn't deemed eligible and they went

and got it back.

The Member for Fogo, I think, is probably one of the people

who went up and met with Minister Tobin and came back - and the Member for Eagle

River - and they were shouting in the streets, `We were up and we met with the

minister, we finally got results.' What were the results, Mr. Speaker? What were

the results? The results were now we are going to go to Level III appeal. So,

Mr. Speaker, now we are going to have another level of appeal and this Level III

appeal people were phantoms, I say to the Member for Fogo. They were phantoms,

nobody knew who they were, nobody knows where they are located, they don't have

an address, they don't have a telephone number. It is impossible to get hold of

them. I asked a question of the minister here earlier -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: I know some of their names, too, but I am

not so sure that is the way it should work, I say to the member. I think if you

have an appeal board put in place and if those people are being paid, then the

least we can do is allow our people to go before them and plead their case,

because a lot of them - I know them, the Member for Fogo knows them, the Member

for Carbonear knows them and anybody else dealing with people in a rural

community knows many people who have been taken off this program and justifiably

should be there. They should be there, Mr. Speaker, but they're not. So what do

they do? They are told to write a letter. You write a letter, send it to HRD,

address it to Clarenville, in the case of my district, Bonavista South, and we

will make sure that those people get this piece of correspondence. They won't

answer you. Oh no, they won't answer the letter that you sent. They may have

some indication there that they will expose where they are or what they are all

about. Mr. Speaker, this is a farce, and I don't think the Member for Port de

Grave would agree with it, even though he may never admit it; I am sure that he

doesn't agree with it.

Today, we have many people out there who should be entitled

to this program who are not. There are many more people out there who are on the

program, who probably should be taken off it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: I say to the member, I don't know who

they are, but maybe; if there is, then this is a way to deal with it, through

the appeal board. There is nothing wrong with going and sitting before a group

of individuals, or an individual, and being able to express yourself. It is kind

of hard to put in writing, kind of hard to speak on the telephone, kind of hard

to appear on television. A lot of people don't like that. We may like it, as

politicians, because that is why we are here. We look for publicity, we look to

get our name out, and everything else, but there are a lot of people out there

today, our constituents, who don't like it, I say to the member. There are a lot

of people out there who don't like it, and they would like to be able to go and

sit down in front of somebody and express their views and opinions, and find out

a reason why.

The other option is to take somebody with them. That is

always an option, to be able to take somebody with them. I see our members here

doing it all the time. I do it; members over there do it. I have seen the member

- and I will say his name again - for Fogo, going to represent some of his

constituents on appeals, and that is important; that is why we are here, but we

are being deprived of it by dealing with this so-called TAGS program and the

Level III program, which is a farce, and I think the people who are taking part

as the appeal members should come forward and allow people to come before them.

I have an individual in my district who is a fisherman, and a

very good fisherman, I might add. He and his brother get up in the morning and

they get aboard the same truck; they drive to the same wharf; they get aboard

the same boat; they share the cost of gas; they share the cost of their fishing

gear, and when they make a sale everything is split right down the middle. In

this particular place, one brother was deemed SEC eligible, and the other

brother was not. What could he do? He called his TAGS counsellors, and he called

DFO, and the first thing they would say to him was: Why is it important for you

to be deemed SEC eligible?

Well, it is very important. It may not have been important

for them, but somewhere down the line, those three little letters may have a big

meaning. It has a big meaning now when you go and try to retire your licence. It

has a big meaning now, but the people in the TAGS program couldn't understand

why he was so determined to go and become SEC eligible, because they didn't have

a heart.

AN HON. MEMBER: Did not realize (inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: You are right, they didn't realize it.

The same individual, when he would get laid off - when the fishing season was

open, when he had fished lobster and he had fished salmon, and when he had

fished the groundfish and the squid, herring and mackerel - and everybody knows

when herring are in; it's weather like we have today. This is when you go

fishing herring, when the snow flies and the glitter and the rain; that is the

herring fishery season. He would take

part in all of this, and when he would get

laid off he would go to work on construction. He would look for another job. He

wouldn't rush in to file unemployment insurance. He would go to work with

somebody else, because he was like a lot of rural Newfoundlanders; he had a lot

of knowledge. He could fish in a fishing boat, he could build a house, he could

operate a truck or a tractor, and he used his talents, and because of that he

was deemed ineligible for the TAGS program -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: - and deemed ineligible for SEC,

whereas

his brother was entitled to both of them. Now, is this a fair program, I ask the

member?

Mr. Speaker, before I run out of time, I would like to say

that I am going to move an amendment to the resolution as put forward by my

friend, the Member for Torngat Mountains. It is going to be an addition. The

be called upon to include those fishermen and plant workers who can demonstrate

a historical attachment to an activity in the prosecution of the groundfish

fishery.' Mr. Speaker, I will go on and make an addition to that, and say, `Be

it further resolved that all fishermen and plant workers who can demonstrate

this historical attachment to the groundfish fishery be considered eligible for

early retirement if they attain the age of fifty-five years while still entitled

to the TAGS program.'

Mr. Speaker, that is put there for a really good reason. A

lot of people out there who took

part in the NCARP program -

MR. SPEAKER: I wonder if the hon. member could get a copy

of that for the Table and the Chair? I would like to see it before I make a

ruling on it.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, there is a very good reason

for that. A lot of people who took

part in the early retirement NCARP program -

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, a point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: My understanding is that Your Honour has not

yet ruled the amendment to be either in order or out of order, and that being

so, may I suggest that the debate cannot carry on, unless and until, Your Honour

makes a ruling. I understood Your Honour wanted to see it, a not unreasonable

proposition, in my - I would like to see a copy, too, if I may, member.

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

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, if the Speaker is so

determined that he needed time to determine whether or not it was in order - but

I guess on the basis of where he did not make any indication, it was only

appropriate for the member to continue to speak if it is not in order, assuming

it is incumbent on the Speaker to take the time to make that ruling.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair is waiting for some copies of the amendment to be

made, and we will recess briefly to have a look at the amendment to rule on it.

The hon. member's time has elapsed, anyway.

Recess

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

On the amendment put forward by the hon. the Member for

Bonavista South, the Chair has considered the addition to the original motion

and finds the amendment the hon. member made is in order. It meets all the

requirements of amendments, and I guess it makes it perhaps more acceptable to

all members of the House.

The hon. the Member for Fogo.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I want to rise this afternoon to

support the resolution as put forward by the Member for Torngat Mountains. I

think the resolution is very timely and I think it speaks to a problem that not

only, I say to him, concerns fishermen in Labrador, but concerns fishermen

throughout the Province as well.

I want, in particular, to speak to the third and the fourth

`whereases':

"AND

WHEREAS there are many fishermen and plant workers

throughout the province who, for generations, have relied on the fishery for a

living and are not recognized under the TAGS program; and

WHEREAS it can be proven that thousands of fishermen and

plant workers who just happened to be involved in the fishery at an arbitrary

date set by DFO and not because of their historical attachment to the groundfish

fishery, are on TAGS as opposed to those who fished for 30-40 or 50 years or

more and still do not qualify;

called upon to include those fishermen and plant workers who can demonstrate an

historical attachment" - and I think those are the important words - "to, and

activity in, the prosecution of the groundfish fishery."

Of course, the problem that the Member for Torngat Mountains

has with this are two years basically in the history of the fishery in this

Province, and the two years are 1990 and 1991. Before I go into that though, let

me say that in the same way as I praised John Crosbie and as I called him and

told him, even though I was out of politics, that I thought we were lucky to

have him in Ottawa pursuing this problem for us; in the same way as I despised

what happened to him - I believe it was at the Delta Hotel; I think we are also

very lucky to have Brian Tobin in the fisheries portfolio under the present

government.

I think the problem is that John Crosbie took the Federal

Government of the day farther than they wished to go at that time. I think he

pushed, and because of his position, was able to get us at least something for

the Newfoundland fishermen and fish plant workers, or fishers, I should say.

Brian Tobin, I suspect, finds himself in the same kind of position. I also want,

by the way, to say that in dealing with individual cases, I want to praise Brian

Tobin's office staff at the regional level, in particular, Max Short, Jim

Flight, and a former employee of John Crosbie, Rosalind Walsh. They are very

sensitive people, and I say to you that we are very lucky to have them in the

position that they are in.

This afternoon the provincial Minister of Employment and

Labour Relations announced an early retirement program for the fishers and fish

plant workers in this Province. We heard him announce that he was going to spend

$30 million. Just how much money has this program cost the Province? I say to

him that I laud what he has done today and I think he has done a marvellous job

to even find that $30 million. Besides that, this government is going to put in

place another $20 million for an economic diversification program for fisheries.

I believe, if memory serves me correctly, that under the old NCARP retirement

fisheries program it spent something like $27 million. So, in actual fact, the

Provincial Government has discharged its responsibilities very well, in that it

has spent some $80 million to deal with this crisis. And God knows how much more

it has had to deal with in make-work programs as a result of no fish being

around. But that is direct expenditure.

I fully agree with most of the things that the Member for

Bonavista South said. I fully agree with what the Member for Torngat Mountains

said that because you didn't fish a particular year, because you didn't fish a

particular two years, in this case, 1990-1991, many people who have done nothing

else in their lives have been cut off the TAGS Program. It is the biggest

shambles. The TAGS Program, I believe, is the biggest shambles that we have seen

in a long, long time in terms of helping people who should be eligible.

But, Mr. Speaker, I find it is part of a bigger problem. The

TAGS Program, to me, is a prime example of the unwillingness of the Federal

Government to pay for damages - and I don't care whether it is Federal-Liberal

or Federal-P.C - it is the central government, central bureaucracy, central

politicians, who are refusing to pay for the damages, who are refusing to accept

the responsibility, their responsibility, the responsibility of the central

government, for the damages that they have done to an environment, to an

ecological system - fish stocks are part of that ecological system. They

destroyed it, and in the process, they have allowed a way of life in this

Province to be destroyed as well, and they should pay for it.

In the same way, I say to the Member for Baie Verte, if I go

out this evening and beat up his car, burn down his house or destroy his land, I

am held responsible, at least partially responsible, for my share of it. I am

held responsible for my share of the damage that I did to his place. And I think

the Provincial Government has paid for its share, but I think the problem is

that central Canada is unwilling to pay for its share. And, Mr. Speaker, make no

mistake, let us not make any mistake in this Province today, that the people who

are responsible for the fact that Fogo Island is being resettled, the North East

Coast is being resettled, that most of rural Newfoundland is being resettled,

the people who are primarily responsible for that are, fisheries, federal

fisheries bureaucrats - make no mistake about that - part of that central

government in Ottawa.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: I say to my friend, the Member for Ferryland,

that the former federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, in this Province - I

said it to him earlier - I believe, fought the good fight and I believe he did

very well.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: Oh, I am not talking about the damage. The

damage was done, I say to him, by big fish companies and by politicians who

wanted more; it is called human greed. But there is another serious problem in

this country, and it is at the federal level.

There is a belief, Mr. Speaker, that our debt or deficits and

our debt which is our accumulated deficits, are being caused by poor people and

the working people. And there is also another belief that - You can see it in

The Evening Telegram , too, if you want to look. If you look in The

Evening Telegram , once in a while you will see an editorial which says that

Newfoundlanders are somehow lazy because they are on unemployment insurance. You

will see that the Globe and Mail says the same kinds of things, and I

suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that that's part of the problem that John Crosbie

and Brian Tobin are experiencing in this situation.

It is the big lie, Mr. Speaker, it is the big lie. The person

who is unemployed today on Fogo Island, the person who is unemployed today in

Musgrave Harbour, the person who lost TAGS, a Mr. Abbott in Musgrave Harbour,

his name sits in a file on my desk, who fished for forty-five years, and because

of an accident, was out of the fishery in 1991, is not responsible for the debt

of this country, is not responsible for what has happened to this country.

The Royal Bank of Canada last year - my friend, the Member

for Pleasantville, put out a news release yesterday, very informative, in which

he pointed out that it is really corporations in this country are making record

profits. The Royal Bank of Canada, last year, made a profit of $1.8 billion. The

six chartered banks in this country, last year, made profits of $4.5 billion,

and somehow or another, this country can't afford to pay for the destruction of

outport Newfoundland? What a joke! It is the big lie. If you tell it often

enough, somebody will believe you.

Mr. Speaker, my ancestors - and I suspect most of the people

in this House - lived in this Province and fished here for hundreds of years.

Mr. Speaker, let me say this, that times are hard, sometimes, but my parents and

my ancestors never ever had to go to a government for what my father called `the

dole', never ever, but I am not sure today - now, Mr. Speaker, if you take away

unemployment insurance and if you take away such things as the TAGS program that

the people, the same kinds of people who still live in Fogo, would not have to

go for the dole or starve to death and all because, Mr. Speaker, some scientist

and maybe as the Member for Ferryland says, some politician, said we must have a

bit more fish. To satisfy whom? Maybe to satisfy the weak farmer on the

prairies, maybe to satisfy somebody who was going to give them a donation to get

elected, some big fish company, maybe.

Mr. Speaker, there is a right wing agenda in this country.

Well, it is gradually going to the top, and we are paying the price for it. It

is numbers, I say to members in this House, that count in the case of the

fishery. There is a determination by federal fisheries bureaucrats, the same

crew who destroyed our fish stocks, destroyed that system, there is a

determination by them that in five years they are going to reduce the number of

people involved in the fishery, in Atlantic Canada, to 6,700 people. That is the

number, and there is a group of fish companies in Atlantic Canada who would love

nothing better than to see seven or eight major growth centres in this Province

with the rest of the communities resettled either close or into them.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the result is resettlement, no odds how you

look at it. You can't look at it in any other way. The worst, Mr. Speaker, is

the tremendous hardship, that people that you have known all your life - I just

picked out five or six files; I can't name the individuals, I wish I could, but

I just picked out, this afternoon, five or six files that I have had to deal

with. I have dealt with hundreds in the last two years, I don't know why. It is

really a federal problem, but it is a people problem so you have to deal with

it. This gentleman here, as I said to you, spent forty-five years fishing and he

spent forty-five years fishing. Don't anybody doubt - I wish I could use his

name, but I never got a chance to call him.

AN HON. MEMBER: Your time is up.

MR. TULK: One minute.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. TULK: This woman from Seldom, because she is a woman

somebody said she doesn't go on a boat. This fellow here lost an income because

somebody said the groundfish plant that you sold your fish - that you collected

out of 2J, 3KL fish, is not a designated plant, and on it goes, Mr. Speaker. Who

is this guy - this is a guy who lost a boat and the next year couldn't - lost

his boat in 1990, I say to the Member for Torngat Mountains, and in 1991 could

not find a berth with another fishing boat, no longer eligible for TAGS, and on

it goes.

Now, the appeal process: yes, we went to Ottawa; and yes,

Brian Tobin put in place the appeal process. I say to the Member for Bonavista

South, I am not going to make any apologies to anybody for this, that the fish

plant side of that committee worked fairly well - about 25 per cent of the

people who appealed got through it. The fisheries committee, on the other hand,

I believe as he does, that all they did was took the word of HRD, whatever the

report was from HRD, and basically rubber-stamped it. I believe that is the

process.

Mr. Speaker, I say to the Member for Bonavista South that

there is very little wrong with his amendment, and I believe that over time this

government will push for it. I say then, the Federal Government should pay, not

70 per cent of early retirement, but all of it, and if that be the case, I have

no problem standing here this evening and supporting it, but I have to say also

that I cannot see how a provincial government, that has already put $100 million

into this one way or another, can afford to come up with the rest of the cash. I

find that a bit difficult, but other than that I would have to support it.

Mr. Speaker, let me say that I support this resolution. Let

me say that I believe that the TAGS program is a program of social engineering

that we, in this Legislature, have to be against. I support the resolution

because I think we as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians - not somebody sitting in

an office in Ottawa, I am not talking about a politician, I am talking about

bureaucrats.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, if I could, just for a minute?

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. TULK: I believe that we, as Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians, have to decide on the type of Newfoundland we want. It is we who

have to decide. We haven't had that debate. I can remember the Government House

Leader, I believe it was 1972, some twenty-three years ago, I can remember the

Government House Leader who was then, I believe, the Leader of the Opposition,

or certainly, the leader of the Liberal Party, saying that one of the

discussions that will have to be held in this Province is on the type of society

we want. I don't believe we have had that, but I think we are fast coming to the

place where we are going to have to.

I will say one other thing, Mr. Speaker, and then I am going

to sit down. I think it is time, as a Province, as a Legislature, that we hold

the Federal Government - regardless of their political stripe - that we hold

them responsible for the greatest ecological cultural devastation that has ever

occurred in this world, pure genocide.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LUSH: This government, for example, is just about to

spend $1.5 million, roughly, on a stadium for Fogo Island, something that should

have been there ten or fifteen years ago. We all know that, but seriously, do

you realize something? that by the time the doors open, there may not be anybody

there to get on the ice. Next year, we may have to close that because there will

not be enough revenue coming in to pay for the operating cost, but that is not

the point. The point is that the young people are leaving Fogo Island in droves,

and I say to hon. members, it has very little to do with the policy of the

former government or the policy of this government. It has to do with the

destruction of the resource off our coast that the Federal Government has to be

held responsible for. So, Mr. Speaker, I have no trouble in supporting the

resolution.

Thank you very much.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to support the resolution presented by the Member for

Torngat Mountans, and also the amendment introduced by the Member for Bonavista

South. I say to the Member for Fogo that the responsibility for this fishery

rests with almost every single Newfoundlander, and bureaucrats and politicians

in Ottawa, because there were people over on that side, too, that clamoured for

increased quotas. Members of community councils all over this Province fought to

have the fish plant keep open in their community. Let us balance nature and what

it can support with the social repercussions that would occur by closing the

fish plant in a community.

People fought to keep their fish plants open to balance

between what nature could support, the cycle in nature, and the total allowable

catch and what would be a devastating social impact on communities. We erred,

not on the side of caution, I say, but on the side of destruction and a lack of

long-term foresight in the fishery. That is where mistakes were made. People

shouted they wanted higher quotas when we couldn't sustain them. People who were

fishing twenty years ago on trawlers, and in my district, told me when I went

door-to-door - I was out there back in 1992 before the moratorium, and I went to

every door in the district - twenty-five year trawlermen told me: It is lit up

out there. They were hauling up nets, and they could see flounder, there wasn't

one longer than three inches in length and almost every mesh in the net was

filled. And there were boats and factory-freezer trawlers out there.

We ignored the experts in the industry, the fisherpeople who

were out there. Those are the people who got ignored there, and politicians

wanted to balance the social impact. Community leaders and everybody else wanted

to balance the social impact. Companies wanted to get more, and greed played an

important part. And we are just as much to blame as bureaucrats and politicians

in Ottawa. We are all part of the problem now and it is important that we all be

part of the solution to the problem.

Now, I went to an appeal board with a person who was

sixty-four years of age, who left the fishery at the age of thirteen, who spent

fifty-one years of his life working. Out of those fifty-one years, he spent

forty-six years in the fishery. He left for a period in the 1960s and went

north, Greenland I think, for two years. He came back. He was out of the fishery

in 1990 because he worked at some community project there with a council. Back

in in 1991, the moratorium in 1992 - and he was in back in the late 1980s also.

That person reached sixty-five in June of this year. In

December he was dropped from TAGS - didn't meet it. He went through an appeal

board. With forty-six years out of fifty-one working years in the fishery, that

person went on social assistance in January of this year until he reached the

old age pension age of sixty-five in June of this year. I went through an NCARP

appeal with that man who got approved; I went to a TAGS appeal, he got denied.

The member made reference to per cent - as of roughly a month

ago only a little over 19 per cent - between 19 per cent and 20 per cent of

decisions made by then, on plant workers, were successful: 110 approved, 457

rejected, denied. Of the same date, there were only thirty-one fishers approved,

and 1,061 denied.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, much higher. No, I would agree. It was

very close. It was a little over 19 per cent. In fact, way more. Three-tenths of

1 per cent of fishers got approved, compared to between 19 per cent or so, or 20

per cent. Which is about seventy times as many people got approved, had a chance

of getting approved if you were a plant worker than a fisher. So, the statistics

there certainly bear out.

I have a big problem with the system under TAGS, what

happened; because I went through many TAGS appeals and NCARP. There were 200

NCARP appeals that I sat in on, and a fair number of TAGS appeals. I've noticed

big differences, and one of the biggest problems arose: number one, the first

step in the process, your Level I appeal that was held under NCARP was internal;

Level I under HRD was internal. Well, that is a normal first step and I agree

with that. What they did under NCARP was they put up an independent board of

three people. Here is what they did under TAGS, which was wrong.

They appointed individual, independent people at Level II.

These people, the one I dealt with, did an excellent job, here in this region.

That person did an excellent job. He made recommendations, he was an independent

consultant. I compliment that person. He knew the fishery. That person was a

fisherperson at one time himself and is now a consultant and he did a

commendable job. I'm sure he made many positive recommendations based on his

knowledge of the fishery. That person had the power to make recommendations back

to HRD; the same people that the Member for Bonavista South said turned him down

in the first place.

What did they do, after many months? I stood in this House in

May, and the Member for Eagle River said I wasn't telling the truth, and this is

November, and you will see that I was telling the truth back in May, and I said:

We will not know decisions on people until the end of this year. He said: No, we

will know in a couple of months. What they did in May, they put in place a third

level, an independent panel. Here is what happens. All the Level II appeals then

got fast-routed through the Level III. If you were recommended for approval it

is supposed to come up more quickly. That didn't happen. They did each region in

terms of priorities. Next region, priority one, two, and the next region - as of

today there are people in my district with no income since the end of December,

had their case heard in February or March, and haven't heard back yet.

I told the Member for Eagle River that day, and I told this

House -I think I asked a question in Question Period - I said: There are 1,800

people out there now waiting for appeal. He said: No. He checked it himself and

came back the next day and came over and said to me: There are 1,782 people.

Now, that goes - I was speaking to people on statistics. I

know how many are going through the system. And I said in the House back in May,

it is going to be next year, probably 1996, before we know.

I have people in my district - not very many - and I have

some people who are now living here in St. John's that I am waiting to be heard

at Level II. Last month there were fifty who had not gone through Level I. I

spoke with people in HRD, who acknowledged that and I discussed it with them,

and they can't do any more than they can physically put in the time. They are

not given the resources to be able to deal with these. Can you imagine somebody

who has been without an income since December? somebody who probably spent, in

some cases, forty years out of forty-five years of their working life in the

fishery, and they don't have the courtesy to deal with them on a fast basis.

We didn't know NCARP was coming; it came fast, and they got

retirement and everything dealt with in a year-and-a-half, everything dealt with

in a year-and-a-half. We knew this program was coming. We knew it was coming in

the fall of 1993, two years ago, and they are still only at the stage now where

they are announcing a retirement program today.

The Member for Bonavista South proposed that if you turn

fifty-five during the life of the program, you should qualify, and you should.

If a person is fifty-four today, who is going to stay on this program for four

more years, until 1999, that person will be fifty-eight. What do you do to that

person at fifty-eight years of age, who you kick off the program in 1999 with no

income? He will go on the social welfare lines of this Province at a full cost,

at 50 per cent now; what is it going to be in the future? The Province is going

to have to pick up a bigger chunk with the cutbacks under CAP.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Here is what I am going to say. I will get

to that. I am saying it would cost this Province, and actuarials have shown,

about twelve cents on the dollar to carry these people for the government's 30

per cent. The people who are now, as of May 15 - that is four years on the

program - while you are on the program there is not a very large number of

people, between fifty-five and sixty-four, I think, the minister said 1,300 to

1,400. If you are looking at people within four years, from May until 1999,

assuming they are going to stay on it for four years, assuming the full amount,

of which all people are not eligible, we are only going to have about one-third,

300 to 400 people who are going to be eligible to fall within this rolling age

limit. Three hundred to 400 people, I say, at 30 per cent of the cost of these,

is equivalent to this Province of carrying a little over 100 people on that

program when they hit fifty-five until sixty-four. Work out the cost of carrying

them when some at fifty-eight are going to be dropped, some at fifty-seven, a

person who is only good for two years, until 1996, which everybody is, and they

are not yet fifty-five - I know people who turned fifty-five in June and missed

it, July - these people are going to be fifty-seven, and for eight years before

they are sixty-five. Where is a fifty-seven-year-old person with a Grade IV, V

or VI education, who left school at the age of thirteen, going to get employed?

Let's be realistic. They are not going to get work. They are going to go on the

social welfare lines of this Province. So by having the few dollars to carry

them and their families through now will save dollars in the long term at a net

cost of twelve cents to this Province when it is factored in.

There were actuarial reviews done under the NCARP proposal,

and with age, and I was told, and informed sources told me that the Federal

Government was prepared to carry these people who are going to turn fifty-five

while they are still on the program, but this Province wouldn't go along with

it. This Province wasn't prepared to make that sacrifice.

Now, I can see a fundamental difference in not accepting a

fifty age retirement. Yes, the Province has come out on record before, and the

Premier has said between fifty and fifty-five we cannot give you retirement; we

didn't do it for other workers in other areas, and so on. Well, I can buy that

as being a logical explanation, but I can't buy turning fifty-five and being

fifty-nine, some people, fifty-eight, almost fifty-nine... I know an individual

who will be almost fifty-nine a month after this program ends, who is going to

be dropped from this program now without any form of income for his family.

AN HON. MEMBER: What are you saying (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I am saying we, this Province, should have

gone along with having somebody who turns fifty-five while they are still

eligible to receive TAGS, during the duration of benefits to be carried on the

program. And I do not think that is fair - maybe the Province didn't push for

the feds to pick up a portion. I can't see the feds picking up 100 per cent.

Most retirement programs are on a shared basis of 70/30 on those other programs

there. The Province didn't go along with it, and the feds had given express

intent to go along with it and the Province did not go along with that. Now, we

talk about the Member from Torngat Mountains historical attachment, I agree with

the Member for Torngat Mountain. You have to look at something in its totality.

I cannot speak for other regions of the Province, I can speak

for the individual who was in this region, a Mr. Melendy is his name who handled

the appeals in this region, I can speak for him, the person who I dealt with who

did an excellent job and understood it. He understood the industry and did a

tremendous job. I don't know of other regions in the Province. His

recommendation should have been final. We did not have to need three other

people appointed. We did not have to wait eight more months to get a result and

still waiting for results. We should have taken that gentleman's recommendation

whether it was positive or whether it wasn't and accepted that recommendation

because he understood the industry. He knew what it was like to own fishing gear

and have a licensed boat. He knew what it is - what you do in the fall of the

year when you have a bad year, when you have barely enough - not enough to

qualify for UI.

What have people traditionally done in this Province? They

have left to get work in the wintertime. If you fished during the summer and

your wife is not working, you have three or four kids and you only made $4,000

or $5,000, maybe enough to get low UI - many people won't leave and go to work

and take a job in construction. They go out of the Province and elsewhere.

Because they did that, here is what happened, more than 25 per cent of their

income came outside the fishery therefore they are not SEC eligible now.

Therefore they are not eligible to qualify for licenses and quotas and things in

the future because they were ambitious and wanted to work and raise extra money

to put - not extra money, probably necessities there and that is the tradition.

It has happened during the course of our history.

During the course of our history. I know my father raised

twelve children. He fished his entire life. He left in November, December, he

climbed poles with CN, he worked as a nets and gear instructor with the

Fisheries College. He went wherever he got work involved in the wintertime and

back again in the spring to pursue fishing, that he pursued for sixty years. He

fished for sixty years. He retired in his seventies when he got out of the

fishing boat. We had to force him out of the fishing boat and he is not the only

one. There are many people around, I have seen during my life, who had big

families then in Newfoundland. They had to depend on other sources of income

during bad years in the fishery. Everybody knows during the dying years of the

fishery in this Province, especially down off Labrador, 2J, 3K and more so then

3L, the fishery was starting to die earlier. People could not make a living from

the ground fishery. They had to pursue other things, whatever job they could get

and because they did that they jeopardized their entitlement as full fledged

people in the fishing industry under this program and I say that is wrong.

I have one example of a person, he called me yesterday. I

went to an appeal with this person just last month. He was in the fishery his

entire life, sixteen years. He went on banker boats and then he came home and

fished his own license for three or four years. In 1991 - because 1990 was not a

good year he got a job on another boat with somebody else - he did not fish his

own license in '91. He went back and he has fished it since in '92, '93, '94,

'95 and was ruled ineligible for SEC. He received word yesterday, cannot get

SEC. One year out of eight that he did not fish his own enterprise. He met the

requirements on income, 75 per cent of your income from the fishery. One hundred

percent was from the fishery and he was denied on that basis of SEC which

deprives that person from opportunities in the future fishery in this Province

because somebody did not look at those factors. They did not understand those

factors there, people who are close to the industry and I think that is wrong.

Now this Province has a strong responsibility to at least be

able to provide an income or some type of retirement for people who are

fifty-five years of age or over who have worked in the fishery all their lives.

That is not too much to ask, I say. If we look at the numbers of people, just to

give you an indication about this process, how much money is spent on this

review process? There were -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: No, not yet.

There were 1275 fishers up to October 10 of this year -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. SULLIVAN: Now it is up, I say to the member.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I did not see my colleague. The Chair looks after me.

Mr. Speaker, I want to take a couple of minutes because it is

important that we get the right understanding of what is taking place in this

Province. I speak from the point of view of representing, I would go so far as

to say, the largest fishing district in all of Newfoundland and Labrador.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: I understand that. The largest concentration

of fishing vessels in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. I'm not going

to talk specifically about how a person qualifies for the TAGS on the criteria

at first. I want to go back to the early 1980s, when there was an agenda set in

Ottawa by the federal bureaucrats of the day to do away with the Newfoundland

fishery. That is exactly how this unfolded over the years. There was a very

clear agenda set.

They started that agenda, the bureaucrats, and they started

it slowly, how to unfold it. The one thing that they could not do was point the

finger and say: Get out of the fishing boat. The next thing they couldn't do was

to legislate people out of the fishing boat. Nor could they say: We are going to

force resettlement. It wasn't politically wise to do it. But if you frustrate

and you confuse and you make it so difficult for people, eventually the numbers

will unfold that way.

Newfoundland and Labrador is paying a price. The fishing

industry and the communities along the Newfoundland and Labrador coast are

paying a price for an agenda set back in the early 1980s. That is what I said

when I first became an Opposition member in this House, I very clearly said on

numerous occasions, as printed verbatim in Hansard, the exact words that I said:

There is an agenda to do away with the Newfoundland fishery as we've known it

for some 500 years.

I want to say very clearly that I support my colleague the

Member for Torngat Mountains in his resolution. I support all the speakers today

in what they've said about the criteria being set forth by the federal

government on how a person first of all applied for NCARP. Secondly came the

TAGS program. I would say that the federal government is totally responsible for

everything that has happened in the fishery of Newfoundland and Labrador and the

federal government should pay the total price, as they did for many other

industries, as they have done on many occasions for the farming industry out in

the western provinces. How many billions of dollars have they put into the

farming industry when there was a crop failure or some other problem that

happened in the industry? They immediately came in with the money.

AN HON. MEMBER: John. Crow, $500 million a year.

MR. EFFORD: Five hundred-plus million dollars each year

for the Crow, for the freight subsidies, the grain subsidies to the farming

industry. But never until the fishery failed in the Province and the federal

government had to put in some monies to compensate for the loss of the fishery,

which they caused to happen, did we hear them cry out about monies, and there

isn't going to be enough money to do it. I don't listen to those excuses. There

should be the monies to do that because they caused the problem to happen.

The criteria that you need to get into an NCARP or a TAGS

program? Let me tell you about some of the things that are happening in the

NCARP, the application of anybody getting in NCARP, and now the TAGS program. I

can give you examples of people who have fished every single day of their

working life, have drawn not a cent of income from any other thing, only the

fishery, have never worked on a make-work program, have never drawn a cent of

income in any manner whatsoever outside of the fishing industry, and today did

not get the NCARP and cannot receive the TAGS program.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: Yes. They fished groundfish all their life.

But, Mr. Speaker, when the groundfish was available, what happened was simply

this. As the codfish started to decline in numbers and less became available for

an individual fisherman to catch sufficient numbers enough of fish to have

indeed a reasonable season for he and his crew, he diversified into other

species, he had no choice but to diversify because of the over fishing on the

Grand Banks and the FPIs and the National Seas caused the stocks to decline that

he had to diversify. But because he diversified and because a certain year he

didn't meet a certain percentage of that certain species of fish, he is not now

allowed to draw on the TAGS Program. He did not choose by choice, to give up

fishing that part of the fishery, he was forced to do it because of the

mismanagement by the federal system of the day to cause the stocks to deplete.

So it is not a matter of choice that he chose to get out of the fishery or to go

into another fishery, it was forced upon him.

Now, when they call in a total moratorium, a total closure of

the fishery all around the Province, he is not allowed to catch any of the

groundfish stocks, he has no income so he says I will go and apply for the TAGS

Program or the NCARP Program. When he applied, he was refused on the basis that

in 1989 and 1990 he didn't catch any cod. Well, my God Almighty, the reason he

didn't catch cod was because there was no cod to catch. There was no cod to

catch so how could he catch the cod if there were none swimming in the water,

that's the very reason why they called the moratorium, there was no fish,

otherwise we wouldn't have a moratorium, otherwise we wouldn't have a TAGS

Program, otherwise there would never have been an NCARP Program, otherwise there

would never have been any reason to retrain people. The very reason why they

closed it is the reason why he or she applied but yet he was refused because he

didn't catch it. That doesn't make any sense.

My little, thick head cannot understand the logic except to

be believe what I said in 1985, '86, '87, '88 and '89, that their agenda is

simply to do away with the inshore fishery in Newfoundland as we have known it

for 500 years, to allow the larger, national companies to have total control

over the catching of fish, what odds about Fogo, what odds about Port de Grave,

what odds about Grand Bruit, what odds about Franois and all those people who

have lived in all those coastal communities, by choice, quite capable, quite

capable, Mr. Speaker, of earning a living.

I will never forget the day I was in MacCallum, just last

year, and a man and his wife who pursued the fishery all of their lives told me

that the last week, the last day of the moratorium, that at the end of that

week, their cheque was $1,000. They earned $1,000 from the fishery the day the

federal government closed it down. They are quite capable of earning a living.

Newfoundlanders are quite capable of surviving; give them a chance. As one

fisherman said at a meeting in Port de Grave just recently: I don't want the

TAGS, I don't want any of the programs, I don't want the retraining; I want

what's rightfully my right, to go out and catch fish. That's what I know best,

that's what my great grandfather, my grandfather and my father passed on to me,

the knowledge and the expertise and the ability to go out and fish in the ocean

that God put there when he created the world. Simply that, the right to do what

I was born on this Island and what my ancestors came across from the many

different countries to come to this Province to do.

What other reason would we move here? What other reason did

they come here? It wasn't because of the weather, it wasn't because of all the

other opportunities but it was because of the geography, the location of an

Island in the Atlantic Ocean with all its vast resources, but that was caused.

The failure of the fishery was caused to happen by the mismanagement of other

forces outside of this Province, and they have no choice but to be totally,

financially responsible to pay the cost of those people until the stocks return.

All of those people, who derived a living from the fishing industry, whether

they are fisherpeople or plant workers, should be paid that compensation

package. Historical attachments should be maintained. Because somebody didn't

catch a percentage of cod in a given year should not be a factor in it because

the stocks were not there to catch, very simple. Very simple, Mr. Speaker.

How do you get before a people? I agree with what the hon.

members are saying. There is nothing more confusing to an individual in this

world today, in this Province today, when he or she has a problem and have

nobody to present his problem to, only a piece of machinery; or sit down and

write a letter. I do not agree with the process. I think an individual should

have a chance to go and present his or her case but if the decisions are already

made on the criteria before you go to an appeal, what is the purpose of having

an appeal anyway? The criteria is already set. People who did not demonstrate or

catch a certain percentage of fish, they don't think about the fact that there

were no fish there to catch, just because they did not catch a certain

percentage of fish in a given number of years, then they were not allowed to

receive programs.

I tell you, it is worth our while sometimes to sit down and

listen to people who have been involved in the fishing industry the whole of

their life; they know nothing else. You can name them, and I can name them,

real, honest, what we call the real experts in the fishing industry.

AN HON. MEMBER: The salt of the earth.

MR. EFFORD: The salt of the earth, and today they are not

allowed to receive money because they went out and caught another fish. They did

not want to sit down and do nothing. They did not want to go on welfare. They

wanted to go and explore other fisheries. They did that.

I will give you an example. People from Port de Grave today,

as we are here talking, are out 300 miles on the Grand Banks in the sixty-four

foot, eleven-and-a-half inch boat, catching sword fish, catching shark, catching

monk fish, catching skate, because they are industrious people. All they are

asking for is to be given the opportunity and the ability to go out and do what

they know best.

Can you imagine taking a friend of mine, who I went to school

with - he dropped out of school and went into the fishing industry, a Grade IV

or Grade V education. He spent two months last winter being retrained into the

computerization program. He cannot even read his own name, but he had to spend

two months - he was told: You have to spend two months going and taking and

learning how to operate computers, a person who will never do anything in his

life except fish. He knows nothing else, and at fifty-one or fifty-two years

old, what is the point of retraining? What are you going to retrain him for? It

doesn't make any sense, but the agenda is near completion. The agenda of Ottawa

is near completion, and discouraging and getting several thousand people out of

the fishery, the scheme is in full flight, the scheme is in high gear, and it is

now near completion. And what they have set out to do is what they are

accomplishing and we, as a Province, must hold the federal government totally

responsible for the lives that are being destroyed through the mismanagement

they have done all through the years. It must not be allowed to be shoved off as

the responsibility of the government of this Province, or the responsibility of

the people of this Province. We have to stand collectively together, and we have

to send a message, but unfortunately the question I ask is: Who is listening? In

Ottawa, who really cares what happens to Twillingate, what happens to Blow Me

Down, what happens to Fogo, what happens to Grand Bruit, what happens to all of

those other little communities? Who really cares?

Mr. Speaker, what has happened to this Province over the last

ten or fifteen years - five years - will never be forgotten in history. It will

be repeated over and over again as my colleague, the Member for Fogo said. There

is no excuse for allowing it to happen. There is no excuse for the devastation

that is being put on people's lives, for a way of life that started here some

550 years ago. It is total destruction of a tradition, a way of life, a culture,

and everything, and we are guilty for allowing it to happen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Placentia.

MR. CAREEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am delighted to be able to get up to support the resolution

as put forward by the Member for Torngat Mountains, and the amendment that was

put forward by my friend from Bonavista South - two good men, two different

parts of the Province.

It was nice to hear the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation show a bit of emotion, because everybody else in this Province is

going to be subject to some of the decisions that were made by him. He was

talking about us as being human, while he wants to make robots out of his own

department, machinery. Probably he will take all of the operators out of her yet

and he will have them operated by robots.

MR. EFFORD: For the love of God, sit down boy.

MR. CAREEN: Anyway, that was you, you were going on for

years, but where is the fight? You are the government. The federal government at

one time offered to lower the retirement age down to fifty but who turned it

down? Did they not talk about turning it down to fifty? It was the Province that

did not bother to buy into fifty. What were all the reasons?

AN HON. MEMBER: Money.

MR. CAREEN: Money, that is the big reason, and I have to

concur with the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation about Ottawa and

the bureaucrats. It is an old story but you have to keep on harping, and

harping, and harping. The only reason they probably wanted us in Canada was

because they wanted Labrador, a big reason, they wanted the resources of

Labrador. We have 2 per cent of the population. It is an orphan's fight and

always has been with Ottawa. You can all imagine what an orphan's fight is at a

table trying to get a few crumbs.

Our fish, we all know, have been bargained off by different

federal governments, for wheat out of Saskatchewan and manufactured goods out of

Ontario. They say we are a drag on the system. They give us unemployment while

they maintain their big structures in the province of Quebec and Ontario, tens

of thousands of working bureaucrats, and they give us unemployment.

We have heard before about license buy back and the people

who were eligible were the people who were already geared up to retire. People

had put in what they figured was a good price, a fair price, to be bought out

and they never even touched them. We hear today about the retirement but it is

not going to affect other people who have come of age before the end of the

program, other people that will become of age before the program runs out in

1999. They are going to be left out in the cold. We were told that on the 70/30

federal/provincial retirement it could cost about twelve cents on the dollar

instead of thirty cents because right now on social services you pay 50/50 on

every dollar and with the cutbacks coming from Ottawa we are told that next year

we are going to be paying dollar for dollar here so would it not be cheaper for

us to adopt the 30 per cent now?

This Bally Rou Place that other members have echoed. Are we

going to see ghostly trios, ghostly boards that people cannot to? It was this

provincial government that threw out the Ombudsman because hundreds of people in

this Province cannot get to Level three TAGS to find out who they are. The

Ombudsperson, to be politically correct, could be a person who people could go

to. Still and all we are here bawling and wailing at ourselves, but there is

also a great plot, and I must add to what the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation said, I always thought it was a great plot to have

Newfoundlanders fight with Newfoundlanders, inshore and offshore, but also with

those UIC changes.

Some people on TAGS are saying that other people should not

be on TAGS, and other people of long standing cannot get on it. I know a man

from Ship Harbour, Placentia Bay who fished for thirty-five years and because he

had some stuff stolen one year and did not have the money to replace it so it

took him two years to get back into the fishery adequately, and after

thirty-five years he cannot get TAGS.

Another man down in Southern Harbour, twenty-seven years

fishing. The fish was scarce, the boat he was on he was laid off. Got some of

his stamps through the land, and some of them... and he's not eligible. It is

wrong. I mean, they never looked at the historical attachment for a lot of these

people in the fishery. Who do we get at? Each other here?

I got a quick list here in the District of Placentia next

spring. From Southern Harbour through to Point Verde there are some sixty-one

people who are going to be dropped off TAGS next spring. How many of these

people could be eligible to retire tomorrow, or since May 15, I say to the

Minister of Employment and Labour Relations? Right?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CAREEN: We don't know. I can guess at a couple of

them. If this was a rolling program where more people could be eligible. It is a

shame that anybody can't be eligible when they should be eligible. I think that

with the $0.30 on the dollar, and what is coming, what is looming out after -

and I know the ministers know better than me, as an Opposition member, some of

the stuff that we are about to face. Because we are going to be 50-50 on social

services next year and the year after with more transfer cuts. Could be a

dollar. Our dollar and nobody else's dollar. So wouldn't it be cheaper for us to

go 70-30 now, I say to the minister?

I was asked by the Member for Port de Grave, the fishing

district - I have fishermen in Placentia too, and Southern Harbour right on

through - but I will bow down to the member for the Western.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Lapoile.

MR. RAMSAY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This has to be an

issue I suppose that is one of the most frustrating issues we as members of the

House of Assembly have dealt with. I know in my six ye