November

24, 1997

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLIII No. 36

The House met at 2:00 a.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Dicks): Order, please!

Statements by Ministers

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, last evening the provincial

government took the unusual step of sending two ministers of the Crown to appear

before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. I am

today tabling a copy of hon. John Efford's and my comments to the committee.

As the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, the hon. John

Efford stated last night: "We felt it was necessary to do what we did because of

the urgency and the importance of the impending expiry of TAGS in May 1998." It

is the single most important issue facing this Province and the nation of Canada

today.

Mr. Speaker, it is to the credit of the federal government

and the standing committee, that they have come to this Province to listen to

the cries of anguish of our people, as they talk about the destruction of their

livelihoods, the stress on their families and the personal crisis all of them

are facing, as a result of the groundfish moratorium and the pending expiry of

TAGS in May 1998. They, the standing committee, cannot help but be affected by

what they heard last evening and what I am sure they will continue to hear

during their stay.

Mr. Speaker, last evening was an important night, it was not

a good night. I say it was not a good night because in the middle of the effort

to address this national crisis by the standing committee on fisheries - made up

of Liberals, Reforms, NDPers, Progressive Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois

members, there was, on Friday past, a shadow of cynicism, a shadow of mistrust

and a shadow of insidious manipulation cast upon the efforts of all of us, as

politicians, to serve our people.

Mr. Speaker, I refer to a memorandum circulated in the

managerial abyss of the federal Department of Human Resources Development

Canada. Mr. Speaker, this memo written for the managers of HRDC by MERX Limited,

and I think the word is appropriate, refers to the ending of the Atlantic

Groundfish Strategy (TAGS) in May 1998. It goes on to speak of the political

situation that may arise as a result of the expiry of TAGS in a manner

reminiscent of countries torn apart by civil strife.

Mr. Speaker, let me quote form the memo: "There have been a

number of very serious demonstrations and illegal occupations concerning the

program changes of HRDC. This has led to wide spread concern and fear from staff

that there is a perception the local offices are not fully prepared. For

example, staff have enunciated and demonstrated these fears by taking different

routes to offices, obtaining non-published telephone numbers, shopping for basic

necessities that is food and clothing in other towns rather than their local

businesses; refusing to use designated employee parking lots; leaving the

building in groups rather than fear the darkness alone, especially now that it

is getting darker earlier." The memo goes on to say: "Failure to meet these

requirements and fears will result in increased concerns, such as stress,

anxiety and will adversely affect staff's ability to perform their professional

duties."

Then it goes on to say again: "If management are not fully

trained and prepared we will encounter increased problems such as: management

will not be fully prepared to deal with local authorities (i.e. police, fire and

emergency); damage to government property; compromised safety of management,

staff and clients; increased stress levels resulting in personal time away from

their office; inability to provide ongoing quality service to our clients."

Mr. Speaker, it goes on to say: "Time frames to meet these

potentially serious, life-threatening situations is very limited. It is

important that the training be ready to deliver in January, 1998 in order to

avoid an explosion of dangerous situations. We must eliminate the very real

threat to our local management, staff and clients."

Mr. Speaker, the memo then goes on to say that $351,655.50

will be spent in the production of a video and management training to deal with

these "potential serious, life-threatening situations."

Mr. Speaker, this memo refers specifically to TAGS recipients

and since 70 per cent of those on TAGS are from Newfoundland and Labrador we can

only assume that the cynical managerial mandarins in Ottawa must regard us as a

somewhat uncivilized people who need to be subjected to mob control.

Mr. Speaker, words cannot describe the deep sense of hurt and

insult that all of us must feel.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TULK: We are a people who have seen the ecosystem of

which we are a part destroyed. We are a people who are seeing numerous homes

being boarded up, as our rural communities are decimated. We are a people whose

very culture and way of life is being threatened as we see our youngsters, the

brightest and the best, leave.

Mr. Speaker, when are these mandarins going to learn that we

are proud Canadians who need a helping hand to reach self-sufficiency?

Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe that this represents the

political will of the Prime Minister of Canada, the Federal Minister of

Fisheries and Oceans or the Federal Minister of Human Resources Development

Canada.

Mr. Speaker, these managerial mandarins - as I have referred

to them - need to be told to help people solve this national problem rather than

manipulate them in their poverty.

Consequently, on Friday when this diatribe was brought to my

attention an immediate contact was made with HRDC officials in Ottawa. This

morning they advised us that the context for this initiative was not accurately

reflected in the MERX memorandum and it was not intended to be directed at the

TAGS situation specifically. It was, they reported, intended to address the need

to enhance the capability of HRDC staff across the country in dealing with the

challenges of conflict resolution generally. HRDC officials indicated that the

current situation will be corrected and revisions will be made.

Mr. Speaker, these assurances are insufficient. Consequently,

this morning I wrote the hon. Pierre Pettigrew asking him to investigate this

matter fully and disown publicly the type of strategy outlined in the MERX

proposal.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I also asked him to confirm for

remains the development of an effective Post-TAGS Program, not improvements to

HRDC security. I am tabling a copy of that letter herewith.

Mr. Speaker, any other action on the part of the federal

minister is incomprehensible.

These people must realize the reality for fishers in this

Province is captured in the song performed by the Ennis Sisters, "I don't want

to leave but I can't live for free. I can't eat the air, can't drink the sea."

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I too attended that meeting in Tors Cove last night. I

listened to a fifteen minute presentation by government that did not offer any

solutions or suggestions on how to restructure a new TAGS program in the fishery

of the future. I also presented a ten minute presentation there to the people

that offered - I did offer suggestions. I recommended things to the committee

that we should be doing there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, Hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: I say to the minister, if he and the other

minister and his colleague had to stay around long after they presented their

presentation and heard the ordinary people when they came to the microphone -

they were gone long before it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: At 12:50 you were not. At ten minutes to

one I left that building last night. You were home and long in bed by that time,

I say to the minister. This video by HRDC, I am quite sure, fails to look at -

or the talks of a video - people to protect. What about the people out there

today? Who is fighting to protect the people who are affected by the news here

in the Province?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: It is you and your colleagues and the

Premier being a part of this entire process from the beginning.

I commented last night, too, I might add, and I asked him to

we are law-abiding and honest, and we are non-violent people; and we have the

department here that is focusing on people who are giving the good news, or the

bad news, whatever the case may be, not focusing on people on the other end.

I said, violence and confrontation only occur when people are

being trampled on, beaten to death, without an opportunity to fight back. Maybe

it is the same reason the two ministers got out of there last night before the

people got to the microphones and you heard from people. Maybe it is the same

reason the Premier was not there last night.

There are people who are hurt by this fishery. They are

devastated. They want solutions offered by this government, and we have not

heard any, I say to the Premier and to the ministers here. We have not heard any

recommendation or offer by this government to do something about it, and that is

a shame. It is a shame that you are not standing up and fighting for the people

who need help here in our Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. the Member for Signal Hill -

Quidi Vidi have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave, the hon. the Member for Signal

Hill - Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to say first of all that it is right and proper for

the minister to make this statement to the House, and to take the action that he

did, in quite properly taking to task the Federal Government in this particular

manner, but I do want to say this: more than appearing before a federal

parliamentary committee is required. We have a very, very desperate situation

here in this Province. The TAGS situation has come upon us. It is coming upon us

one year early because the Federal Government reneged on its promise, in some

cases with letters signed by this Premier promising people their TAGS until May

of 1999.

What has happened here is that the Federal Government has

reneged on that promise, and I have not heard this government take them to task

on that. They are not up in Ottawa fighting to make sure that the Government of

Canada and that the people of Canada do not regard Newfoundland as some sort of

cultural economic backwater where we are not entitled to government services,

where we are not entitled to government programs, where we are not entitled to

the same standard of living as is available in the rest of this country.

Mr. Speaker, I think all hon. members got a very

heart-rending letter the other day from the Trinity Economic Development

Association, telling of the desperate situation in that community and their

area, in Your Honour's district, and in almost every rural district in this

Province. It is a desperate crisis situation. I do not see the level of concern

altogether from this government. I do not see them in Ottawa demanding that

there be an extension of TAGS, a replacement of TAGS, that is going to do the

job that needs to be done here in this Province. It is all very well to react to

an insult, and it is an insult, and we should react to it, but we have to do

more and we have to expect more.

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

Aquaculture.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do not need to take a second seat to the Leader of the

Opposition or the Member for Signal Hill- Quidi Vidi. I attended that meeting

last evening, and many more meetings and I listened from 7:10 p.m. to 11:50 p.m.

I listened, I have heard, and I will be attending more meetings for the people

of this Province. We will represent the people of this Province in a manner

which is going to benefit the people.

Mr. Speaker, as hon. members are aware, I recently led a

delegation to Japan to investigate, among other things, our competitive market

position for snow crab. With me were Alistair O'Reilly of the Fisheries

Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, Reg Anstey of the Fish, Food and

Allied Workers Union, and David Vardy, chair of the task force that is reviewing

the way fish prices are negotiated.

Beyond the work of the task force, development of market

opportunities are vital to the future of the fishing industry if we are to

derive maximum benefits from our seafood. Product quality is a critical factor

in developing these opportunities. Both government and industry have

strengthened our quality assurance measures. Collectively we have made progress.

In Japan we met with senior officials of fifteen major

companies, including the largest crab importers. A few did acknowledge that

there was some improvement in crab that they imported from us this year,

compared to our 1996 product. However, every one of them told us in no uncertain

terms that we still have a long way to go. There is much that must be done if we

are to meet the exacting demands of Japanese importers and consumers for premium

products. Just to give some idea of how demanding their quality standards are, a

person hired to sell seafood in a supermarket is not permitted to have contact

with customers until after he or she undergoes many months of studying and

training.

Japan is the most lucrative seafood market in the world. The

country imports about $25 billion in seafood every year, with just $1 billion of

that from Canada. This also makes it one of the most competitive marketplaces in

the world. Newfoundland and Labrador is but a small competitor relative to some

others for a share of that very lucrative market.

This Province has long been supplying some seafood products

to Japan; however, we only became a supplier of Snow Crab in 1994, and only then

because Alaska, the main supplier, was having a crab resource crisis.

In 1996, the Province sold 11,000 metric tons of finished

product to Japan, the equivalent of 17,500 tons, or 39 million pounds of raw

material. We have not been able to retain that business. This year the Province

is supplying only 5,000 of the 90,000 tons of crab Japan is importing. The

decline is due in part to the fact that the Alaskan crab is not only back on the

market but its quota has doubled in 1997 and will double again in 1998. Another

reason is that crab from this Province lacks the freshness and quality of

Alaskan crab.

Japanese officials made it clear to us that if we do not meet

their stringent standards of quality, we put at risk not only our current share

of the market but any opportunity to increase that share. They identified for us

what issues must be addressed if we are to meet their exacting standards.

There has to be better on-board handling, fewer landing

sites, improvements in dockside procedures, and a reduction in trucking time. As

well, stricter attention must be given to product temperature at all stages: at

sea, in transit, and in processing plants. Officials recommended that landings

be spread over several months, instead of a situation where vessels rush to land

in a short time frame.

The Japanese also told us that harvesting must begin earlier,

in April or May, so as to avoid soft shell and temperature problems. To do this,

there must be an earlier settlement of prices by industry players so that the

industry is positioned to negotiate with Japanese buyers in a timely fashion.

Price disputes that delay harvesting, as was the case in

1997, have a negative impact in acquiring markets in the Japanese industry

because consistency of supply cannot be guaranteed in such cases.

Having said that, however, we do have certain strengths; our

Snow Crab, for instance. Japanese prefer the sweeter taste of our Snow Crab to

that of our competitors. As well, buyers like 3K crab because its size gives it

a good meat yield. They also like the colour of 3L crab; but while the colour is

acceptable, it is smaller in size. It is a limiting factor in penetrating the

Japanese market for crab sections. With the prime consumption period for crab in

Japan beginning the November to March period, this also gives us a competitive

edge over the Alaskan crab.

Clearly we do have certain strengths, but we also have many

challenges. I must emphasize that this issue is bigger than just crab. It is one

that has implications for all of our seafood products. Collectively, government

and industry must overcome these challenges for the future benefit of our

industry and the people who will depend upon it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to thank the minister for a copy of his

Statement prior to the opening of the House, and compliment him on his trip to

Japan and the people whom he took with him to look at trying to solve this very

serious problem in our crab fishery today.

I say to the minister: Maybe he should try to convince his

cousins up in Ottawa to try to change their criteria as it pertains to allowing

crab fishermen to use their larger boats when they go out and take

part in the

small-boat, crab fishery, the permit crab fishery, I say to the minister

opposite.

Mr. Speaker, right now, here today, we are talking about

producing a quality of crab that is going to depend on the high price in the

marketplaces of the world, but still, we will not let a fisherman, if he has two

boats, and if he has a small boat registered, a twenty-foot boat and has a

thirty-five foot boat tied up to the wharf, we are telling him that you have to

use your twenty-foot boat because that is the one you have registered, that is

the one you take your ice in, that is the one you carry your crab pots in and

that is the one that you have to fish and I cannot see, Mr. Speaker, where that

would do anything with I suppose, changing the situation as the crab fishery

exists today.

What we have to do is, look at what has happened in this

particular industry in the past. The minister talks about trucking crab; well,

it is no difference I say to the minister to truck crab than to have it sitting

in tractor-trailers for sometimes, days at a time at individual fish plants. So

those are some of the things that have to be changed.

Mr. Speaker, most fishermen today exist on (inaudible) as it

relates to the crab fishery. There is no reason why a

schedule cannot be set

where those fishermen will be able to go out, in consultation with the plant

manager scheduling production and land a good quality of crab. There is no

reason for a fishing boat to be tied up in the months of April and May, debating

and negotiating the crab price when those prices should be settled long before

then and then we will not be in the season whereby we have soft shell and we

have temperatures to deal with as it relates to the quality of this particular

species.

Thank you very much.

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Joint Committee of the House of Commons and

the Senate is today beginning its second and final week of hearings on the

resolution to amend Term 17 of the Canadian Constitution.

Last week when I attended the hearings in Ottawa, the

Conservative Senators on the Committee began suggesting possible amendments to

the new Term 17.

Apparently, Mr. Speaker, they want to eliminate the parts of

the Term that guarantee religious education and observances in the schools in

our Province. They argue that this has no place in the Constitution of Canada.

This is a major shift, Mr. Speaker, from a resolution which

was overwhelmingly supported in the Province by a referendum and unanimously

endorsed by all members of this House of Assembly.

The decision to amend Term 17 did not come lightly, and the

particular language used to express the will of the people of the Province in

the Constitution, was carefully considered. It was the result of consultation,

discussion and much debate.

Mr. Speaker, the resolution to amend Term 17 originates in

this Province. It has been developed as a result of events that have transpired

over many years.

The education system in Newfoundland and Labrador is unique

in our country. It always has been and it will continue to be so. While the

people of our Province strongly endorse the removal of churches from the

governance of education, Mr. Speaker, there is a strong desire to maintain

religious education and observances in our schools. I stressed these points

during my appearance before the Joint Committee last week.

Mr. Speaker, the language in the new Term 17 was chosen very

carefully in the context of the situation in Newfoundland and Labrador - a

situation best understood by those who actually live in our Province.

This government strongly urges both the House of Commons and

the Senate to approve the new Term, as endorsed by all the members of this

Legislature. We oppose any proposal put forward by Conservative Senators that

would remove a constitutionally guaranteed right to religious education and

observances from our schools.

I will be returning to Ottawa later this week, Mr. Speaker,

to make a concluding presentation to the Joint Committee and I will again stress

the position unanimously endorsed by this House of Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This is entitled, Term 17 Update . I congratulate the

minister on basically repeating an

article on page 1 of today's Evening

Telegram and this is Term 17 Update , as it is called. An honest

update, Mr. Speaker, would let the people of this Province know when the process

in Ottawa is being expected to be completed so that it can be dealt with in this

Legislative Assembly. That is an honest Term 17 Update , rather than this

petty politics and silliness and foolishness as is being discussed in this

Ministerial Statement.

The people of this Province have spoken, Mr. Speaker. This

caucus unanimously supported what the people of this Province have said. This

entire Legislature voted unanimously. What more does the minister want? I say,

get on with it and in fact, he says at the bottom that he is returning to

Ottawa. Mr. Speaker, if this is the kind of silliness the minster is going to

get on with, I suggest that he not come back.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Oral Questions

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions today are for the Premier.

Last night, I attended the first meeting of the Standing

Committee on Fisheries and Oceans in Tors Cove. There were more than 500 people

in attendance, many of whom came to voice their opinions, but many others who

came simply to listen and to seek answers.

There is one individual in this Province who had more to do

with the TAGS program than anyone else, that is the former federal fisheries

minister and the man who designed the program, the Premier of this Province.

Could the Premier explain to the House and to the people of

this Province, especially those who have been cut off TAGS and those who are

about to be cut off the program in the near future, why he was not at this very

important meeting last night to speak on their behalf?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I am quite pleased to say

that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and specifically those engaged in

the fishery in this Province and those fishermen and plant workers who are

anxious to know what follow-up programs will come to replace TAGS when it

expires, were well served last night by the representation of two gentlemen from

rural Newfoundland and Labrador who care deeply about the fishermen and plant

workers of Newfoundland and Labrador. I refer to the hon. Mr. Tulk and the hon.

Mr. Efford, who were there on behalf of the government of Newfoundland and

Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, the position of the Government of Newfoundland

and Labrador could not have been put more clearly, and that is, that there is a

responsibility on the part of the Federal Government, consistent with the

comments of the Prime Minster, consistent with the comments of the former

Minister of Fisheries, Mr. Mifflin, consistent with the comments of the current

Minister of Fisheries, Mr. Anderson, to endure that there are follow-up programs

to assist those who will be left high and dry, cut adrift at the end of the

current TAGS program.

Mr. Speaker, that is the position of the Province. We intend

to work responsibly towards such a result, and as for my own role, yes, Mr.

Speaker, I was the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans that brought in a $1.9

billion program, I was proud to do so and I hope there is a successor program to

assist our people in their time of need.

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

Opposition.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister Tulk said last night, that the pending expiry of

TAGS is undoubtedly the most serious issue that is facing this Province today

and Minister Efford added that the direction set over the next few years will

largely determine whether many rural areas in this Province have a viable

future. Yet, the Premier could not even take time out of his good news junket to

speak to the critical issues of rural Newfoundland and Labrador. I ask the

Premier, on behalf of the thousands of people who are devastated by the closure

of the fishery, why have you advocated responsibility and why did you not speak

in Tors Cove last night when you were personally invited to do so?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, of the 18,000 people in our

Province today who are listening, I hope listening in on this debate, they

should listen to the questions of the Leader of the Opposition. These are not

the questions of a Leader of the Opposition concerned about the fate and the

future and the circumstance of those who receive TAGS payments. These are the

questions of a politician concerned about his own fate and his own future.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, two very effective ministers

of the Crown on behalf of this government appeared last night at Tors Cove.

Other representatives of this government will appear at other locations. I have

raised this matter personally with senior members of the Federal Government,

including the Prime Minister, and I intend to continue to do so to ensure that

we have the successor programs we need to assist the people of this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Opposition.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, politics, I say, is a weird game. You have the Leader of

the New Democratic Party who wants to be Mayor of St. John's, we have the

Premier who wants to be Prime Minister of Canada, and I am the only leader here

who is looking out and standing up for Newfoundland and Labrador, I say to the

Premier!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: I say to the Premier, in your obvious

absence last night, your ministers in Tors Cove said that a new program could

include income replacement, not income support. I ask the Premier: What does

your government mean by income replacement?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition

says that politics is a strange game. It is indeed. He leads a party where every

member wants to be Leader of the Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, we wish every one of them a

measure of success.

As the Leader of the Opposition himself pointed out last

night during his own presentation - I took the trouble to read his presentation.

I think the issue is serious enough that we should put aside the political

bantering and reflect upon whether or not we can find common ground across this

floor to put a position to the national government that will assist those who

are affected and those who are at risk. The Leader of the Opposition last night

in his brief, which I read a moment ago, in which he welcomed people to the

historic community of Ferryland -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER TOBIN: I am reading in the brief that was

presented, at least the copy which was sent to me.

MR. TULK: He said this, anyway.

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible).

PREMIER TOBIN: Okay. But you make the point that at some

time, I believe you said, in the future, you wanted to present to the committee

a written submission, a more thoughtful submission, outlining some of the

elements of a program that should be part of any replacement for TAGS.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Development and Rural Renewal

made similar comments, as did the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, and

indicated that the Provincial Government, once the people of the Province had a

chance to be heard - indeed, we are monitoring all of these public meetings, we

are listening very closely to what is being said. We happen to believe it is

important that this time around, given the experience of the last six years,

both NCARP and TAGS, that the fishermen who have been on this program, the plant

workers who have taken advantage of this program, be heard prior to any final

conclusions being made about the make-up of a follow-up program.

Indeed, income support is important, income replacement is

important. I believe the Leader of the Opposition raised the possibility of

mobility assistance as a measure of last resort. We think that economic

development and diversification is also important. All of these things are

important elements of a successor program.

We would be happy to have the advice and the collaboration of

members on all sides of the House in forming a position paper which surely, if

we work together, is bound to be of benefit to the Province.

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

Opposition.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If the Premier was there he certainly would have heard what I

said. When you were in Ottawa you supported an early retirement program for

people over the age of fifty who had a long-standing attachment to the fishery.

I now ask the Premier: Now that you are Premier of this Province, do you support

such a program?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I would be quite willing

to engage in a dialogue and discussion about putting in place such a program. As

a matter of fact, I not only supported such a program, I administered an early

retirement program, and I administered a licence buy-out. Those were the only

programs that I was able to directly administer. I notice that the Auditor

General of Canada said they were good programs and more money ought to have been

spent on licence buy-out. I agree quite clearly with the Auditor General. That

is one of the elements, an early retirement program, that we in this Province

are prepared to look at. Yes, we are prepared to look at it insofar as the

possibility exists with the Federal Government of going below the age of

fifty-five.

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

Opposition.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Premier, you have a habit of taking short-term chunks of

money from the Federal Government up front, without looking at the long-term

viability to meet the needs in the future. We have seen the HST, a chunk of

$340,000 up front. We have seen the ferry service here in our Province with no

end in sight to meet ongoing costs that are projected there. I ask the Premier,

will he confirm today that Ottawa is considering giving the Province another up

front chunk of money, another photo opportunity fund I might add, to relieve

them of the responsibility for management of the fishery and the devastation

that has occurred in our Province?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. Leader

of the Opposition, nobody has ever raised that possibility with me or to the

best of my knowledge, with any one of the ministers. We have no such proposal

ourselves to make and certainly no such proposal has been made to us.

Our position, Mr. Speaker - a position which I articulated

when I was a member of the federal Cabinet - is that it is the national

government that has the responsibility to assist those who have been displaced

from the fishery because of mismanagement by national governments of our

fishery. Now, Mr. Speaker, why would the people of Newfoundland and Labrador

take up the responsibility for a policy failure on the part of the national

government? If the member opposite wants me to refresh him as to who was in

office when the fishery was mismanaged I would be glad to do so but it was not

the current Liberal government.

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

of the Opposition.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask the Premier, if you believe so much in licence buy-back

that I support, early retirement I support, why, when you were minister, did you

permit that $300 million fund to be terminated in the fall of 1995? I ask the

Premier, why did you permit money to be taken out of those programs if you felt

it was so important on rationalizing the size of our industry?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Well, Mr. Speaker, I terminated the $300

million fund by spending all the money on buying out licenses.

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

Opposition.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Premier does not understand that only $70-plus million

was spent out of $300 million. If it was such a priority why did you take $230

million out of the program and not permit it to do the job that it was intended

to do?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, it is very

clear the Leader of the Opposition's intention here is to try and play politics.

The reality is that adjustments were made to the TAGS program because more

people, in due course, came on to that program and more people had a requirement

for income, bread and butter on the table and that is where much of the money

was diverted. It would have been preferable that more money was made available.

Mr. Speaker, I tried that one as a member of the federal Cabinet, I was not

successful. The Leader of the Opposition can sit across the floor and play

childish games with this until the cows come home but that will not put a

paycheque in the pockets of those who are affected. It is the more reasonable,

thoughtful, well constructed approach of the Minister of Fisheries and the

Minister of Development and Rural Renewal which are going to assist the people

of this Province. We would accept the advice and the assistance of the Leader of

the Opposition if he would come forward with the interest of fishermen at heart.

Worry about the lost jobs of the fishermen of this Province and worry less about

your own job and you might hang on to it.

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is to the Premier. I would like to continue with

a topic raised by the Government House Leader during a ministerial statement.

Premier, a weekend

article in the Evening Telegram states that a contract

proposal has been put forward by Human Resource Development to spend $350,000

training officials to deal with closure of the TAGS program. The department

cites an urgent need for this training and proposals to bypass public tendering

and award an immediate contract to a Quebec firm to carry out this

confrontational training. It goes on to say "Timeframes to meet these

potentially serious, life-threatening situations is very limited. It is

important that the training be ready to deliver in January 1998 in order to

avoid an explosion of dangerous situations." Not very kind words. Premier, don't

you think that HRDC should be more concerned about the people who are receiving

the bad news rather than the people who are giving it?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I think we answered that about

fifteen or sixteen minutes ago, but just in case the hon. gentleman missed it in

a statement, I will read him a paragraph from a letter that I just sent to the

hon. Pierre Pettigrew.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are not allowed to read letters

(inaudible).

MR. TULK: Well, Mr. Speaker, if he doesn't want me to

read the letter, let me just tell him what we said. Here is what we said to the

minister: that this whole episode is insulting to the people of this Province,

it is insulting on the part of the managers of HRDC, and we are demanding that

they pay more attention to the crisis that has developed in Newfoundland, to the

hurt that is going on, to the stress that is being caused to families, and not

bother about the security of HRDC.

I do not know where the hon. gentleman was. I do not know

where we messed up his Question Period by standing up here with a Ministerial

Statement and answering the questions that he had laboriously written down this

morning.

The truth of the matter is that we are four square on the

side of the -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, he wanted the question answered.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. TULK: We are four square on the side of the people of

this Province who are suffering through this crisis, and I say to the hon.

gentleman that rather than getting up and trying to score points on questions

that have already been answered, he should get up and put forward some

suggestions, or maybe suggest a structure whereby we can help this standing

committee do its job.

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

supplementary.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Premier, if HRDC proposes to train its personnel for

self-protection to deal with the end of the TAGS program, then that, to me,

obviously means that your cousins in Ottawa are considering greatly reducing the

program as we know it or, worse still, to eliminate the program altogether,

allowing the thousands of workers to sink or swim.

Will the Premier confirm to the people of this Province right

here today if there will be another program put in place after May, 1998? And,

if so, maybe the Premier would like to share the details of that particular

program.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, one can only hope that the

people of Newfoundland and Labrador, in particular those who are most concerned

about the future of this program, are listening carefully to Question Period.

Not more than three or four minutes ago, the Leader of the

Opposition asked me to confirm - to confirm - a report that we were about to

have a cash-out or a buy-out of the TAGS program with a large cash payment to

the provincial government to administer a new program, and we now have a

question from one of his colleagues, a few minutes later, asking me to confirm

that there is going to be no TAGS program in the future, and will I confirm that

now.

Mr. Speaker, this is not a game.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, this is not a game to the

families, the 18,000 families who are affected by this program. This is not some

competition, to throw spit balls back and forth across the floor of the House of

Assembly. Mr. Speaker, this is the game of life for those who are affected, and

if members opposite want to take seriously their responsibility they will work

with this government to devise a position to put to the national government.

They will cease this game of partisan politics in the search for some political

points.

Mr. Speaker, the only points any of us should try to gain out

of this is a measure of security for those families right now who do not know

whether they are going to have an income in a few months' time. Let's work for

them, instead of working against each other trying to score cheap political

points.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

supplementary.

MR. FITZGERALD: I will lay it out in as simple terms as I

know how. After May of 1998, will there be another program for the 18,000 people

who are now on the TAGS program? Yes or no? It is a simple question.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I will lay it out in as

simple terms as - I hope so simple that the member opposite will understand it.

This government will spare no expense, will avoid no

exercise, will leave no stone unturned, in its efforts not only to ensure that

there is a successor program but one that is suitable to the circumstance.

I say to the member opposite, who comes from Bonavista - the

great, historic community of Bonavista - who represents it in the House of

Assembly, that the people of Bonavista, I say to the member, are not going to be

looked after by somebody trying to play a political game. They might be assisted

if we stand together and try to build a constituency in the House of Commons for

the national government, for the people of Canada, to do what they should do and

to assist Newfoundland and Labrador in its time of need.

I'm making an appeal to Bloc Qubcois, to NDPs, to

Conservatives, to Liberals, to people of every stripe in the House of Commons to

recognize that these are Canadians in a time of great need and they have a

responsibility to stand with us, stand for us, and ensure an assistance program.

That won't be done, I say to the member opposite, by playing foolish political

games. Work with us, not against us, in this important cause.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Premier, Newfoundlanders are not violent

people. Newfoundlanders for the most part are hard-working, dedicated,

family-oriented people, Mr. Speaker. But rest assured, I don't think we will sit

back and watch Ottawa rip the very lifeblood from Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians. I ask the Premier: If he isn't willing to commit today to a

program that will be put in place after the TAGS program, maybe he can let this

House know the proposals that his government has put forward, the proposals that

he himself has put forward to his cousins up in Ottawa after May 1998.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I warn the member opposite to

remember this, that these words being spoken in this place are not being heard

just in this place. The eyes and the ears of the people of all of Newfoundland

and Labrador are focused on this discussion, and they can recognize those who

are interested in making progress on a difficult file and those who are

interested in making politics on a difficult file.

For the member to stand opposite and say to the Premier of

Newfoundland: Can you announce today what the national government's response is

going to be, can you tell us today how much Ottawa is going to spend in two or

three months -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Order, please!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, every single person listening

knows the game that is being played here.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)!

PREMIER TOBIN: Let me say to the member -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER TOBIN: - let me say this to the member -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Bonavista South on a point of order.

MR. FITZGERALD: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. What I asked

the Premier was to put forward the proposals that his government has put

forward. Not the government in Ottawa.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

No point of order.

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, that was a point of disorder,

like the entire question that he has asked.

I make a serious proposition to the member. The member comes

from a part of this Province that is affected by what happens in the future. I

say to the member that if the member, and indeed if the Leader of the Opposition

or any member of this House, wants to work with the government to devise a

strategy, because clearly it will take more than one thread in a series of

programs to have a comprehensive response, if that is the wish of members

opposite, we will accept the advice that is forthcoming. Our interest is not

here to see this as an exercise in who wins or who loses. There is only one

loser if we don't get the job done properly, and that is the people in the

Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I say to the member opposite, the Member for Bonavista South,

work with us. I assure him that we will put forward a comprehensive response.

First we want to do, as the Leader of the Opposition said last night, which is

to hear the comments, to hear the voice, of the people of Newfoundland and

Labrador through the series of meetings being conducted by George Baker, who is

to be commended for doing such. At the end of that process -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER TOBIN: - we will put a comprehensive brief

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay

South.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today

are for the Minister of Health. In recent days, minister, the minister seems to

be grasping at straws and searching in vain for something even remotely positive

to justify the pain and the suffering inflicted on the people of this Province

because of hospital stays, which are much shorter than would be required for

their treatment. She has even gone as far as to say that hospitals certainly

have a higher rate of infection than anyone's home would, so it makes perfect

sense to move people out of the hospital and into their home or into the

community health as soon as possible for a number of reasons.

I ask the minister: Could one of the other reasons be the

need to empty our hospital beds, government's plan to avoid a cost overrun by

reducing the number of beds to 768 from the 1,100 acute care beds which were

available in 1989 as referenced by the Auditor General in her report on the

Health Care Corporations?

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

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

In response to the

preamble as well as to the question, I

will say what I have said last week as well, that the whole shift across this

country has been moving to one of day-care surgery, same-day surgery, more

ambulatory care. Every province in this country and even following the European

models, are all doing the same sorts of practices. It makes obvious sense, Mr.

Speaker, that if you have any number of people who are sick in a hospital, it is

quite obvious that with the various types of infection in one place, there is a

higher incidence of the likelihood of infection than in a person's own home.

This is not false information; this just makes reasonable, logical sense that if

you have people who are extremely sick and ill with infections, there is a

higher likelihood for the transfer of that to happen in a place where you have

many more nosocomial infections than you do in your own home. It is a statement

of fact, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay

South, a supplementary.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it appears that the government is more concerned

with the bottom line than providing quality health care. In fact, the Auditor

General indicated that, head officials are planning to reduce the length of a

patient's stay by over two full days to reduce capital costs.

Does the minister believe that this is appropriate, given the

lack of support that is available in the community?

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

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

I recognize change is very difficult for all, and

particularly when we move from one system, for example, Mr. Speaker, a system

that has been traditionally focused on hospital-based care. A system that the

Canada Health Act rewards with hospital-based care, but in fact, the way we have

continued to provide new changes in our health care system is on things like:

better technologies, better anaesthesia, short hospital stays, and, Mr. Speaker,

I have to count on the skill and expertise of physicians, of nurses and other

health professionals who plan the day's surgeries, who plan the length of stay

and make the decisions based on those abilities, Mr. Speaker. I have good

confidence in our health professionals and in our doctors and nurses.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay

South, a supplementary.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, given that there are no adequate supports

available in the community to help patients affect the speed of recovery, does

the minister consider it acceptable to force patients to leave hospital

prematurely thereby running the risk of further complications and slower

recovery rates, simply because of financial reasons associated with health care

restructuring? In fact, does the minister realize that such an approach may end

up costing the government more in dealing with patients who are sicker and have

to be re-admitted because of being released prematurely due to government

cutbacks and a lack of adequate community health supports?

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

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

I think we have been on record, any number of times, Mr.

Speaker, talking about the advances and the changes we have made in our home

support program and, Mr. Speaker, we have moved from a home support program of

$500,000 to one of almost $40 million, a good component that incorporates

after-care, Mr. Speaker, for people who leave hospital and also for other types

of home support. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the home support program we have in this

Province is one of the more generous ones in all the country. We do provide

extra care for when somebody goes home and, Mr. Speaker, as I said, we will

always try to build in our community resources.

We have made it quite clear that the Canada Health Act

recognizes institutional-based care. We as a Province, have supplemented the

community base care and in fact, over the last three years in particular, we

have taken dedicated funding out of our institutions to put into the community

to try to build up the resources for community services. We recognize, Mr.

Speaker, that we still have a ways to go but we have put dedicated funding there

and we will continue to build with the support of the community boards, a

stronger community-based system to allow those types of services to be conducted

in the community.

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

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

We asked the Minister of Environment and Labour, with respect

to recommendations contained in the Statutory Review Committee Workers'

Compensation Act, when those recommendations will be implemented and he

countered by saying, that the cost associated with implementing those

recommendations would be $60 million. Are those his figures or are they the

Workers' Compensation Commission figures and whichever assessments they are,

could he table those in the House?

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, could the minister say publicly or

acknowledge that 70 per cent of the recommendations in this report can be

implemented now without delay and do not require

an Act or amendments to the Act

in this House?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Labour.

MR LANGDON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are presently doing the actuarial studies from our own

department and also from WCC, to see what it would cost to implement the

recommendations from the report. The report is just about finished and

basically, over the next couple of weeks, that report will be ready to go to

Cabinet. I am not going to make any prediction today, as to how many of the

recommendations will be brought forth at all, or some, or whatever. Once a

thorough evaluation has been done, we will bring it to Cabinet and the decision

will be made, but at the end of the day we want to make sure we do what is fair

for the injured workers and that the integrity of the plan is maintained.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Kilbride, time for

one quick question.

MR. E. BYRNE: Let me get it straight, Mr. Speaker. Last

week he said it was going to cost $60 million to implement and this week he is

saying they have not completed their studies. Which is it, Minister? Could you

answer that when you get to your feet?

Let me draw your attention to one recommendation with respect

to deeming. Deeming requires that injured workers can be deemed if essential or

if they find another occupation off the system. The Statutory Review Committee

found serious problems with the deeming process. I would like to ask the

minister this, an example: injured worker Mr. Ron Jesso was deemed - the

minister knows what I am talking about -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member has time for a quick question. I ask him to

get to his question.

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

An injured worker by the name of Ron Jesso was deemed as

being eligible to be rehabilitative councillor at a $34,000 salary, yet he does

not even have the academic qualifications, as a matter of fact he has fourteen

courses. Can the minister tell us about his discussions with Workers'

Compensation Commission with respect to deeming, it is not a cost-associated

factor, it does not require amendments to the Act. Can he tell about the

discussions -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to take his seat.

MR. E. BYRNE: - what they were and what his

recommendations were to the Commission.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Labour.

MR LANGDON: The first part of the question, these figures

no doubt came from Workers' Compensation and that is why, in a sense, we want to

re-check to see if indeed the - to implement all of the recommendations in the

report would be exactly the amount as they suggested.

Deeming is a real problem, I agree with the member. In fact,

I met with Workers' Compensation and agreed with them that there would be a

committee in place of workers and employers and the WCC to look at it. It is a

real problem, people are deeming for jobs that do not even exist, therefore, in

that sense it is a major problem. We will address it through a committee and

hopefully in the near future to do that.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has ended.

Order, please!

The Chair would like to welcome to the gallery today,

Councillors, Gerald Byrne and Bert Anderson, along with Town Manager, Melvin

King and other local representatives from the Town of Channel - Port aux

Basques.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Notices of Motion

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on

tomorrow ask leave to introduce the following resolution:

WHEREAS the collapse of the ground fishery has had a

devastating impact on individual communities in the Province of Newfoundland and

Labrador as a whole; and

and obligation to address this national crisis with the introduction of the

Atlantic Groundfish Strategy, otherwise known as TAGS; and

WHEREAS the responsibility to address this crisis continues

WHEREAS TAGS is presently scheduled to end in May of 1998;

and

WHEREAS the Federal Government has recently indicated that a

recovery of the commercial ground fishery is expected to be very limited over

the foreseeable future; and

WHEREAS a successor program to TAGS is essential to address

the continuing crisis in the ground fishery and the effects of that crisis on

families and communities in Newfoundland and Labrador; and

WHEREAS the House of Commons Fisheries Committee has come to

Newfoundland and Labrador to hear the views of those whose livelihoods have been

devastated; and

WHEREAS the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has taken

the unusual step of appearing before the committee to underline the critical

importance of an effective successor program to TAGS; and

WHEREAS the media has reported that Human Resources and

Development Canada is planning to engage a security consultant to assist its

field staff in dealing with fish harvesters and processors leading up to and

following the expiry of TAGS; and

WHEREAS this news represents an insult to the honest

law-abiding people of Newfoundland and Labrador;

THEREFORE

BE IT RESOLVED that this House call upon the hon.

Pierre Pettigrew, Minister of Human Resources and Development to disown publicly

the type of security strategy reported by the media, to listen to the views

expressed to the Commons Fisheries Committee on the essential elements of a

remains the development of an effective post-TAGS program and not improvements

to HRDC security.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Terra Nova.

MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on

tomorrow ask leave to introduce the following resolution:

WHEREAS the present Canada Student Loan Program is manifestly

inadequate, making the successful pursuit of a post-secondary education

critically less accessible and affordable to thousands of students throughout

this Province and indeed throughout Canada;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that this House of Assembly request

both levels of government, federal and provincial, to continue expeditiously

with their joint effort to immediately initiate major reform of the Canada

Student Loan Program with specific attention directed toward solving Canada's

single, most pressing problem, student indebtedness, by having reform of the

present Student Loan Program designated as a high priority item at the upcoming

First Ministers' Conference.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce

a bill entitled, "An Act to amend the Registered Nurses' Act." I give further

notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act

to amend the Public Health Act."

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the hon. the Government

House Leader.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, the resolution that we have just

put down here is a government order. It is of some urgency, though, I think that

we get at least a vote and the consensus of this House on it.

The question is, Mr. Speaker, I am asking for leave to have

the motion put. I don't think we need to debate all afternoon, but to have maybe

one or two speakers from each side and to put the resolution so that the

mandarins, as I call them in Ottawa, the managerial mandarins, will know that we

are serious about this matter, that all of Newfoundland feels deeply hurt about

this matter. So I am asking if we could very quickly deal with it and put it

forward to the House of Commons today.

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

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

In brief consultation with my colleague, we agree on this

side that this matter needs to be addressed with some urgency. If it is the will

of the Government House Leader to bring this forward today then I think we, on

this side, will precipitate it. We would like to have copies made available for

everybody as quickly as possible, and maybe we can address the issue after we

finish with petitions, before we start the regular Orders of the Day.

MR. SPEAKER: Agreed?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

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

a petition, I believe.

MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am honoured to present this petition to the House of

Assembly. I will read the prayer of the petition:

We, the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador, wish to

petition the House of Assembly regarding the rate increase at the Newfoundland

and Labrador Housing Corporation on a sliding scale from 25 per cent to 30 per

cent.

We are opposed to this increase because of the hardships that

may be endured by tenants, and we therefore ask that this decision be

reconsidered.

Mr. Speaker, the minister has already announced that he is

going to reconsider this decision. He has already given me some assurances in

the House that he will ensure that tenants of Newfoundland and Labrador Housing,

the working poor, are not worse off than if they were subsidized by government,

and I am satisfied that the minister will take into consideration these

petitions and give full consideration to what he said in the House, and

hopefully at the end of the reconsideration of the policy we can go back to the

tenants of Newfoundland and Labrador Housing and tell them with pride that we,

the Members of the House of Assembly, have done what we should have done, and

that they will not be put through unnecessary or undue hardship because of the

rental rate increase.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

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

I want to rise in my place today and say a few words in

support of this petition presented by the Member for St. John's South. I know

the minister has already stood in his place and agreed that he would have

another look at the rate increase for Newfoundland and Labrador subsidized

housing.

Just in passing, a short while ago when this was in the media

for a bit, I got a call from a senior in my district, a lady and her husband who

are living in one of those units, and she was quite concerned that basically she

would not be able to stay in the unit they had if there was an increase; and the

increase she was referring to, for her, would be $87 a month, and that was a

major, major increase in her -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: No.

AN HON. MEMBER: Husband and wife.

MR. J. BYRNE: Husband and wife, seniors, two together. I

think it was $87, and it would be a major increase for those people.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: I say to the Minister of Municipal and

Provincial Affairs, are you laughing at the situation?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Yes, I am asking you a question. Mr.

Speaker, I ask the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs to get up. Is he

making fun of this situation, or is he genuinely concerned? I thought he was

genuinely concerned when he agreed to review the rate increase and bring it

back, and see if there was... He made a statement in the House that there would

be no one living in the Newfoundland and Labrador units who would be worse off

than if they were on social assistance, but that does not alter the fact that

two individuals, a married couple, two seniors, who paid taxes all of their

lives, end up in one of these units, and they are genuinely concerned that for

$87 a month they will have to move out. For me, to say that they won't be any

worse off in there on social assistance is no great relief in my mind.

All I wanted to say is that I appreciate that the minister

will review the rate increase, and hopefully the concerns of the general public

out there living in these units will be reduced and will not be a concern in the

near future.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Provincial Affairs.

MR. A. REID: I'm in the process, Mr. Speaker, of

reviewing the policy. In reviewing the policy last week I found that over 80 per

cent of the people who live in social housing in the Province have already

re-signed leases and there haven't been any complaints from about 80 per cent.

With the ones who are left, there have been some complaints, but most

complaints, 99.9 per cent of them are coming from senior citizens. Senior

citizens who are making in excess of $20,000 a year income.

With that, and I look back and I see the numbers of

applications from single-parent families and from families with two or more

children, and we look at their income, the only conclusion you can come to is

that we are servicing the wrong people. We are servicing people who can well

more afford to live in private accommodations, and the poor - the working poor

in particular, because no social service recipient is affected, not one, and the

vast majority of people living in our social units are on social assistance.

What I've come to the conclusion is that we are servicing people who can well

afford to live in private accommodations, and those who we can't look after, and

that is the working poor, the husband-and-wife team that is making under $10,000

a year, we have to say to those people: No, we can't provide you with social

housing.

There is something wrong with the whole idea of providing

social housing to people who can better afford - notice I said better afford.

Because if you are two single people getting over $20,000 a year income, and

then you are looking at a man and a wife with three kids who are making less

than $10,000, the obvious answer would be it is better for us to provide social

housing to that family with three kids than we would be to provide it to the

senior citizen.

We do have a problem. I have a problem of dealing with the

questions of increases to senior citizens. I also have a serious problem in

trying to deal with some of the senior citizens who we have living in our

accommodations who could well afford to live in private accommodations, and

because they have been there over a certain period of time they have accustomed

themselves to living there. Those people I have problems with.

There are exceptions to the rule. I heard a friend of my hon.

friend across the way there the other day on Open Line talking about his

pension he was getting from the City Council, his pension he was getting from

Canada Pension, his pension he was getting from Old Age Pension, plus another

pension he was getting for some disability he had. I said to myself: If you

added that up, I would say that would come to a lot more than if there was a

family of two or three out there, with a parent trying to feed them on $8,000 or

$10,000 a year.

I finish in saying that yes, the review will take place. I'm

not sure at this point in time what I will do. I'm leaning more towards handling

it on an individual basis, doing an assessment based something on like we do

with social services. I'm leaning that way, and a lot of my people and my

advisors, and some senior citizens group, and some social groups who are

representing not the seniors but those low-income people, are suggesting that

maybe we should take a second look at social housing in the Province. Mr.

Speaker, that is exactly what I'm going to do.

Orders of the Day

MR. SPEAKER: I believe by agreement we will now move to a

debate on the resolution by the Government House Leader. This notice was given

during the Notices of Motion today. The hon. minister when he rose to ask leave

indicated that there would be some limit on the debate. I'm just wondering what

the rules are, if there are any particular restrictions. Are we going to go with

the regular rules of the House for debate? Members speak for one half-hour,

fifteen minutes, or whatever. We need some agreement on that.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I think we have a general

agreement that there will be a couple of speakers on each side, but that they

will say what they want to say. Is that the understanding we have? That they

will say what they have to say and that we will not take an extraordinary amount

of time but we will say what needs to be said. Is that correct?

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

MR. H. HODDER: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we agree on this side to

participate in debate this afternoon. We agree that we will limit the number of

speakers that we will put forward on this resolution. However, I do not want to

be tied down to whether it is ten, twelve or fifteen minutes, but within reason,

we expect to be able to deal with this resolution expeditiously this afternoon.

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

Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Yes, Mr. Speaker, that is certainly

agreeable. My caucus will not put forth more than one speaker on this matter.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Okay, by agreement, then, we will go to

debate and let the debate take place. When members have concluded we will call a

vote. I guess there is no restriction on the time but in a debate, as I

understand it, members can speak for ten, fifteen or twenty minutes if they so

desire.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, let me first of all start off by

saying that I appreciate the co-operation of the Opposition on such short

notice. As a matter of fact, I have to say to them that I was not at all sure,

to be frank, that the resolution was going to be ready for today but in actual

fact, it is a matter that concerns all of us.

I say this in all sincerity, Mr. Speaker, last evening in

Tors Cove was a very worthwhile evening. It was an evening in which we had

people from the New Democratic Party of Canada, from the Progressive

Conservative Party of Canada, from the Reformers, from the Bloc and from the

Liberal Party of Canada in our Province to look at our situation, to look for

solutions to problems, to hear people give their solutions to a problem that is

going to be, has been, but threatens to be even worse. It threatens to be

something that we have not seen the like of in this Province, I suspect, since

what was more commonly known, by a great many of us, as the "dirty '30s".

Mr. Speaker, that has to do with the expiration of the TAGS

program in May of 1998. There will be thousands of people, tens of thousands of

people affected by the expiration of that program in May. Mr. Speaker, this is a

federal responsibility, regardless of whether that government happens to be NDP,

whether it happens to be Liberal or PC, Reform or Bloc. The devastation that

occurred off the Northeast Coast of this Province, off the East Coast and off

the Coast of Labrador, in particular, and in the Gulf -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: - cannot be put into words, I say to the

member. No, it is true. And it cannot be laid at the door of any particular

party, but it can be laid squarely at the door of the national government in

terms of its management regime for the groundfish industry in Atlantic Canada,

regardless of who was in power or what party was in power. Last night, we had an

indication from the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries that indeed

they were concerned. As politicians from across this country, they were

concerned, and as you looked at their faces when you were doing the

presentation, and in particular when the people of this Province spoke, and the

people of the area that they were hearing last night, it was not hard to see

that they were having an effect. The people of this Province were having an

effect through what they were telling the people on that Standing Committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to describe, too, how you feel as a

Newfoundlander and a Labradorian and as a human being, when on Friday when you

are about to go home to enjoy your weekend, you suddenly run upon a memo from

some group of individuals in the bowels of the Federal Government of this

country, the bowels of HRD, that says that you are a little less than civilized,

and that, Mr. Speaker, is what that memo implied.

There is no evidence of any of that, the hon. gentleman is

right. There is no evidence in this Province that our people are anything but

civilized. As a matter of fact, I think they are to be commended. In many parts

of this world today, if people had to undergo the kinds of stresses and the

kinds of strains that some of our people have had to undergo as a result of the

shutdown of the groundfish industry in this Province, I am not sure that HRD

would not have been right in trying to put in place the kinds of security

measures they are talking about, but they are not those kinds of people. Our

people are not those kinds of people.

We have suffered adversity for some 500 years and we have

risen above it and we have dealt, primarily, through civilized means, we are a

civilized people. When I read such statements as I read in that memo from Merx,

Merx almost sounds like something out of science fiction. I read that there was

a memo written for the managers of HRD by Merx Limited, referring to him of the

Atlantic Groundfish Strategy, and telling them that they had to produce a video

and they had to carry out certain training, so that some 800 to 1000 managers

would be able to control the people of this country and to be able to prevent

life-threatening situations, to be able to prevent the destruction of government

property.

Mr. Speaker, the feeling was not even one of insult; it was a

feeling of deep hurt that comes right down to the bottom of your gut.

Particularly, Mr. Speaker, when we, in this Province, are the youngest members

of Confederation, are the youngest members of Canada and are the best Canadians

this country has ever seen. When we have produced people that has increasingly

and incessantly called for the straightening of Canadian unity; and to have some

person, somebody somewhere, and I would not want to know the name, to be frank

with you, although I have asked the federal minister to investigate it, I really

would not want to know the name of another Canadian that looks at us here in

Newfoundland and Labrador and says, we have to train managers so that you do not

create potentially life-threatening situations and that you do not destroy

government property.

Mr. Speaker, that is the ultimate in insults, and then to

have the audacity to take $351,000 of taxpayers' money - $351,655.50 - to take

the money that should be used for the very people whom they are threatening to

control, that they are accusing of being hoodlums, to take that very money,

their money, and use it against them, Mr. Speaker, that is the most insulting

cut of all.

Mr. Speaker, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: What do you mean, is the statement true?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: It was a proposal put forward by a company

which was being - by some official in HRD, and I am told now -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: Yes, I contacted him. I have not been able to

get the minister, he is on the move somewhere but he is supposed to call me

later on today. But I have written him. I would not let the day go by, to be

frank with you, without writing to tell him that he has to disown this kind of

stuff; that rather than having people in that department look at our people as

people who have to be controlled, treated like common criminals, what he should

be doing is taking that money and making whatever effort is possible to help the

people of this Province through a crisis that they did not create themselves.

Anything less, anything less, Mr. Speaker - and I cannot stand there as a

Liberal or as a PC or as an NDP, none of us should do that when our own people

are being hurt and insulted; and I do not think it is even politicians, to be

frank with you. Because I think most politicians in this country, to be frank

with you, are more sensitive to people; otherwise, a great many of us would not

be serving in the capacities we are in. There are not many people, I say to the

Opposition House Leader, who would agree that maybe we are sensitive, but we

are. We are a sensitive group of people, otherwise, we would not be where we

are.

So, Mr. Speaker, I brought forward this resolution. I wrote

the minister, and I would like to read the letter that I wrote to the minister,

into the record. It says: November 24, 1997, to the Hon. Pierre Pettigrew,

Minister of Human Resources and Development Canada, and the address: "Dear

Minister: I was shocked and amazed on Friday past to hear media reports

indicating that Human Resources Development Canada, HRDC, is planning to engage

a security consultant to assist its field staff in dealing with angry fish

harvesters and processors following the expiry of TAGS. I have since obtained

the attached abstract prepared for HRDC by Merx Limited, which proposes the

development of a security video and related training for HRDC staff.

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are showing the stress and

fear caused by the fisheries crisis and the profound disruption this crisis has

created in their lives, communities and their way of life. Nevertheless, we are

honest, law-abiding citizens, and the development of the proposed video

represents a fundamental insult to the people of this Province. The attention of

the Federal Government's managers should be focused on developing an effective

post-TAGS program which helps TAGS clients keep bread on their tables, not on

the development of a video on how to keep people in check; people who have seen

their lives and those of their families severely threatened by the destruction

of a fishery that sustained this place for 500 years.

HRDC officials, instead of placing priority on security

matters should be working on how to fulfil the commitments made by the Prime

Minister and Minister Anderson. This kind of wrong, edict, bureaucratic

response, is a source of concern and it underscores the need for elective

representatives to speak directly to the people to air their fears, concerns and

aspirations and reflect them in an effective post-TAGS response. In this

context, I applaud the efforts of the Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries

and Oceans which is travelling through rural Newfoundland and Labrador speaking

directly to the people. The Commons Standing Committee, through its conclusions

and recommendations, can provide important insight into the design of an

effective post-TAGS program.

In this context, I ask you to investigate this matter fully

and disown publicly the type of security strategy outlined in the Merx proposal.

I also call on you to confirm for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that

post-TAGS program, not improvements to HRD security.

Sincerely, Beaton Tulk, Minister."

Mr. Speaker, I can do no other, and I am not going to

belabour the point anymore. I think it behooves all of us to call upon the

minister through this resolution to disown - which is an apology - this memo, to

disown this action, not to play political games with the lives of people, but as

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, one and all, to ask them to pass this

resolution and forward it today to the Minister of HRDC. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER (Oldford): The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I, too, rise to support this resolution proposed by the

Government House Leader, calling upon the federal minister, Pierre Pettigrew, to

disown publicly the statements we have heard on security strategies employed.

I would just like to start by reading into the record also

just the brief message that I gave to the Standing Committee last night on this

particular topic, a fairly brief one. I said:

The first message you should bring to Ottawa immediately,

tomorrow, on behalf of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, is that we are a

peaceful people. We are law-abiding and honest and non-violent. We have the

Department of Human Resources Development Canada which is developing videos and

material to help those who are giving people the bad news rather than focusing

on those who are receiving the bad news. This is a misrepresentation of the

nature of the people of this Province, and in Atlantic Canada, and I know that

you, as Chairperson, Mr. Baker, will pass that message along to your colleagues

in Ottawa in the strongest possible terms. Violence and confrontation are only

the result of promises broken, of being ignored and abandoned. It can only occur

if the Federal Government does not respond to the needs of those on TAGS, and

the needs of the communities in which they live.

Mr. Speaker, the federal department is more concerned with

the protection of people than the people who are devastated, I might add, by the

TAGS program and the impact it has had on rural communities in Newfoundland and

Labrador. In my presentation last night I touched on three specific areas we

should be concerned with. Others will be in a more formal presentation. One was:

What do you do for the people who are affected by the moratorium? What do you do

for communities that have been devastated? Third, what do we do for resource

conservation? These are three specific areas, and recommendations, I might add,

wherein I have indicated we need to make changes within the Department of

Fisheries and Oceans, and I outlined the specific area that we need to approach.

Also, we need recommendations on dealing with the specific program, how do we

assist people and how do we assist communities.

What do you tell a person who has spent thirty years fishing

and from 1987 to 1991, got sick one year and could not fish, or had to undergo

surgery, or maybe battle cancer or heart attack, and got back in the boat a year

or two years later, and after thirty-some years of toiling in the fishery in

this Province is kicked off a program - after thirty-some years? We have people

thirty-seven years in the fishery who do not qualify for TAGS because during

that five-year window period, they happened to be sick, they happened to be on

Workers' Compensation.

I know one individual who was one week short of qualifying in

1989 for EI, when six weeks would have got you into the program if you were

working and four somewhere else, at nine weeks. I went right to the federal

Treasury Board, through the department, to get something done. That person came

back into the workforce after one year, the first year missed in twenty, lost

1989, one year short of qualifying, lost 1990, only qualified for three years,

was kicked off the program this year, after twenty-some years of working in an

industry, when somebody could have come into an industry and worked for five

years and could be on for the duration of a program.

There is something wrong with a program that does not

consider long-term attachment. This program brought in by this Premier did not

address that. The program brought in under NCARP, prior to that, did address

that. For the year that you were sick, or on Workers' Compensation, and were

injured, they went back a previous year and considered that; but this program

showed no human element whatsoever.

The very same people you see at HRD offices protesting are

some of the same people who have been kicked off this program, people who have

been damaged by a program that was brought in that did not concern the human

element, and that is wrong. For the federal minister to prepare a video, and to

be involved in talking about people who are showing up at those offices -

I visited a protest on three occasions at the HRD office here

in St. John's. On three occasions I went down there. I spoke to the people, I

mingled, and I never once saw any evidence of anybody whose life was in danger,

who was in danger of being physically hurt in the process. In fact, as one

member indicated last night in Tors Cove, we even cleaned up the building before

we left. A bit of mess was made around with fires and so on, and we cleaned it

up before we left.

The only time that anyone protested, they said, was when we

were being handcuffed and being yanked out of there. Somebody might start

kicking a little, or lashing a little, and that was the only time there was any

form of violence whatsoever.

That is not what we need to do. We do not have to drive

people into the ground to incite people. That in inciting people. The federal

Department of HRD is inciting people to become violent, by their actions, and it

is not an acceptable action whatsoever.

A gentleman who spoke last night, and there were many

passionate people who spoke last night, about how their life savings evaporated.

One individual, I think, said he spent almost thirty years in the industry, and

I know people out there who fell through those cracks. Anybody who is spending

thirty years or more in the fishery and got sick one year should not be kicked

off the program because the year happened to come between 1987 and 1991.

I know people, I spoke with people, who called me from

Labrador, Southern Labrador, and all over the Province. One individual who spent

thirty-some years - he is in his mid-fifties - spent thirty-seven years fishing

- one year, the season was nearly over and he had not gotten enough to eat, not

say qualify for employment insurance, left and got a job with a construction

company.

I know people who left their fishing boats in the middle of

July, on July 20, and the last of July they did not have $400 worth of fish for

the year, and managed to get a job to feed their family for the Fall, went out

of the Province to get work, and they are kicked off it after thirty years?

Traditionally, we have people here in this Province who have

gone through periods of time when the fisheries have failed during certain

years. I know people very close to me who left and worked during the Fall and

Winter and came back and fished the next year, not because they wanted to but

because they had to, and there are people to whom it happened in this instance.

These are the people, by the way, that this video and this

expenditure of money is supposed to shackle even further, the very same

individuals. I deal with them. I know some of them on a personal basis out

there, and I have dealt with many of them in almost every single community

around this Province. I visited many of the communities around this Province. I

spoke to them out in La Scie and out on the South Coast, and all over the

Province. I have talked to many people in here, particularly in my district and

around the Avalon Peninsula, who are victims of federal mismanagement, victims

of federal harassment, I call it. Federal harassment is what it is, continuously

kicking people when they are down, and people who have been victimized.

We should be out looking at avenues to go back and revisit,

and that is why this program on TAGS was inadequate. It did not look at the

human element. It did not allow for people who were injured on the job and

missed time. It did not have a human element in it, and that was wrong. The

program was done wrong from the beginning, I say to the Premier, who was the

minister at the time, they didn't have a human element in it and that was wrong.

The program was done wrong from the beginning. I say to the Premier, who was a

minister at the time, you had an independent person who looked at those cases,

who had no power. The independent person heard the appeals, and I must say, did

a good job. The independent person did a good job. I know the one in my area did

an excellent job and he forwarded to HRDC and said no, we don't follow it. We

are not going to listen. We are going to make our own decision.

Then, after pressure, they appointed a three person committee

whom you could do a written submission to. You could not see three people. There

were three layers of bureaucracy in it when the NCARP was more efficient. If you

were turned down by the department it went to a three member panel. You could

sit down in front and make your case and that's the way it should have been this

time. The person could show up in person and you saw a human face, you saw a

human element. You saw a person of fifty years of age and fifty-five who know

that with less than a Grade 8 education, who has spent thirty-five years in the

fishery, you knew that person was serious. You knew there was no attempt to beat

the system. It happened in instances, it always happens in instances. There is

no system foolproof and we don't have any particular sympathy for that but we

have to look at the human side.

I am calling on this government too and the federal

government, Pierre Pettigrew, the federal minister, that any program that picks

up in May does not just take the people who are on the program in May. It has to

go back and revisit people that have been kicked off the program, that have been

in the industry far before we ever went to work, long before we ever started

working in the majority of instances here. People who have twenty, thirty and

thirty-seven years - I know an individual with thirty-seven years and I know an

individual with forty years. The Premier of this Province wrote a letter - that

I have a copy of - to people saying, `...when you turn fifty-five during this

program you can retire at fifty-five.' But when he turned fifty-five he changed

it and said you cannot.

I have letters from people on the South Coast of the Province

and other parts of the Province. I have spoken with individuals there. I went to

visit someone at home when I was down in Burgeo who fits into that, who called.

When I went there I went to visit, to find him and speak to him to get the human

picture to it. These types of individuals were misled. They were misled in

writing and I still feel the union, in taking up the case, has a strong legal

basis. A letter giving you a definite period of time and a definite income is a

contract. When you mortgage your house on that contract, when you go out and

make commitments on that it should be honoured. These people should not be

subjected and have to go through what they are going through today. Then to see

in a newspaper the insult of the highest degree on what is being done to protect

the people who are working there. I have respect for the people who are working

there. I have a lot less respect for the people in Ottawa making decisions and

the politicians that are allowing this to happen. They are the people I have no

sympathy for. These people are doing what they are told to do.

It is incumbent on the Premier of this Province - whose

colleagues are in Ottawa, he was a part of that government, a part of the

process that brought it in - I urge him and urge the government of the day, with

their counterparts in Ottawa, to act to stop this utter nonsense that is going

on there. It can be done. The power is there to do it. They have a very small

majority in the House of Commons. They are very vulnerable there. They have to

listen to the people. They are in a position where they cannot afford to become

too arrogant in the process. We have the press on it.

I am delighted the Minister of Development and Rural Renewal

wrote a letter to the minister condemning that. It was an appropriate thing to

do on behalf of the government of this Province and on behalf of the people of

the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, particularly the people out there.

Most are in rural areas of the Province but there people too, I might add, in

urban areas of this Province, here in the city of St. John's too who I have

spoken with last night up there and I have spoken with over the last few weeks

on the fishery and they have been so disgusted with what is happening. If they

could walk out of there into a job today people would never look back at the

fishery again but people know they are not going to have that opportunity, when

you have 72 per cent or 73 per cent of the people with a very low level of

education, who did not even get beyond Grade 9. What are the options for a

fifty-five year old today with a grade six education getting retrained out in

the market place?

So, Mr. Speaker, I endorse fully the resolution here today,

without any qualifications whatsoever and it is time to take serious our

responsibility and our commitment to the people affected and to stop this

particular utter nonsense because when you build up an expectation there is

going to be problems or violence, you are almost inviting the people to do it.

You are challenging them to do it and that is something that should never have

happened and these people know fully that the people who occupied offices around

here in this Province did it in a very peaceful manner and it did not need the

provocation that we are seeing today.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Aquaculture.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to begin first, by congratulating my colleague, the

hon. Minister Tulk for putting this resolution before the House.

I do not think, as we said last evening, I know for a fact,

there is no other issue that could be before this Province, could be so serious

and so upsetting to the people of rural Newfoundland and Labrador as the one

that is presently facing people. Families in despair, families' not knowing what

tomorrow is going to bring forth. Stories like the hon. the Leader of the

Opposition just mentioned of testimonies that were given last evening and each

one of us have heard them time and time and time again over the last number of

months. One women got to the microphone last evening and said, as of November

22nd she is cut off the TAGS program, she will be fifty years old in December,

just on the eve of Christmas and to face that kind of unfortunate set of

circumstances, it is pretty disturbing to hundreds and hundreds of people like

her.

But I want to go back for a while, because the issue we are

talking about here this afternoon is the

article that was in The Evening

Telegram on the weekend, TAGS Cops, $351,000 going to be spent by HRD to

train people to take on the people in Newfoundland and Labrador, what an

impression.

There are two things that that tells me: one is that they see

us as barbarians. Two, are they sending us a message? Is there a message in

there that probably we are not reading? That is the question that we have to

ask. Is there not a message in that? That is what really concerned me when I

read the

article and that is the reason, Mr. Tulk and myself discussed this at

great length and that is the reason he went to the steps that he did to put the

message to the hon. Minister Pettigrew of how we deem this and how we see this

type of action.

But I have been around the fishery, as long as pretty well

anyone here in this House of Assembly. I have been here since 1985, as an

elected member. In 1989, after being appointed Minister of Social Services for

two short years, after that for two years I was the head of a fisheries group

called: United Fisherpersons of Newfoundland and Labrador, a local association

of individual people who got together because of the frustration they were

experiencing in trying to earn a living from the fishery. Telling the government

of the day that the fish were gone and the mismanagement was there in all

aspects and nobody was listening. Frustrated people who knew that the only way

they could earn a living was from the sea, knowing the devastation that was

taking place in all of the fish stocks and nobody was listening. We formed that

organization made up of a number of people from around the Province to deliver a

message.

Let me give you some indication of the type of frustration

that these so called barbarians, being portrayed by HRD, displayed at those

particular times.

They use to go out on the Grand Banks, in an area where they

fished most of their life in a division called 3No. 3No where the cod was so

plentiful and so large that they could not get down the halibut long lines

because there was too much cod there; but every time they put a hook overboard

and they hauled up the halibut long lines, what did they have to do? They had to

take forty-pound cods, what we call steak cod, and throw them away. Let them

float off in the ocean while they were trying to earn a living and make payments

and feel their families. They had to take those huge fish and let them float

away. They asked a simple question: What sense does it make? We did not

intentionally fish for cod. We put down the halibut long lines, for which we

have a licence to fish in this area, but the cod are so plentiful that before

the line gets down to the deep water where the halibut is swimming, they grab

the bait on the hook and you haul them up.

It did not make any sense. Yet these people accepted, against

everything they believed, that this was a fact, this was a law, and they had to

abide by the law. Frustration, throwing away tens of thousands of pounds of

fish, and the only thing it was good for was for the sea lice and crabs to eat

it. It did not make any sense.

You would go to a meeting and talk to the people in DFO, and

day after day you would demonstrate. It got to the point where they led

demonstration after demonstration down to the White Hills, on the waterfront in

St. John's, on the South Side in St. John's, and not on one occasion, of all of

the demonstrations that had taken place during those two years, did I see at any

time - and I led the demonstrations for two years - not at one time did anybody

ever use any vulgar language, or cause in any way any harm to any individual in

fisheries -

AN HON. MEMBER: Or property.

MR. EFFORD: Or property, and lot of times they had good

reason. Lots of times they had good reason.

They had a boat demonstration to prove their point, down in

St. John's Harbour. They got arrested because one boat went too close to another

boat, and they got charged and had to go to court. Still they did not damage any

property or they did not cause any harm. They were telling the Minister of

Fisheries and Oceans of the day, `If you don't do something about the fishery,

it is going to disappear'. They were right. They demonstrated about that, and

again they didn't do any damage to property or hurt anybody, and still nothing

was done about it.

I remember the night down at the Delta Hotel when the hon.

John Crosbie - it was then the Raddison - came down to make the announcement on

the NCARP, to start the moratorium, and immediately - the place was blocked that

night; I was there - he would not let the people in where he was having the big

press conference. He would not let the fishermen in. It was their livelihood. It

meant everything to their families. We are talking about TAGS today. These

Newfoundlanders wanted to work. The plant workers wanted to work. They were not

even allowed in the room. He locked the doors. Then he made the announcement

that all the fishermen were going to get was $225 a week - people who had boats

with insurance of $25,000 a year, payments to the bank, and mortgages - and

still they did not do any harm. Still they did not do any damage to property;

but they let their anger be known, and they got an increase in the NCARP

program. Still, these were people whose very livelihoods were taken away from

them. Look back over the years and you will see the desperation and the

frustration in those people's lives. Those people, like all of us, want to work.

They do not want hand-outs.

They try to get the message through to governments: We did

not cause the problem. Our small inshore boats were not the ones who destroyed

all of the fish stocks. We were not the people who went out there and fished 365

days a year, through the spawning grounds, when the fish schooled together to

spawn, and raped and raped and raped. We did not do that. We sat there and tried

to earn a living in the way in which we were always used to. We told you of all

the things you were doing wrong, and nobody listened. Now, after the greed of

the large companies, your mismanagement by the federal administration in Ottawa

in causing this problem to happen, now, after all of this, after you took away

my right to earn a living, now you are going to take away my right to have food

on the table for my hungry children; and you expect that to be okay?

The best response you can get out of it, that somebody in

HRD, some official, some manager, sits down in his office in Ottawa, and because

of the emergency, and because of the lapse of time, we have to train people to

protect us from those barbarian Newfoundlanders. What an insult to the people of

this Province. What an insult to the intelligence of the people in rural

Newfoundland and Labrador. All they want to do, and all they have ever asked,

is: Give me what is fairly mine. Give me my fair share of that resource.

They are even now telling the scientists: You aren't doing

enough research, you aren't giving us the answers we require in knowing where

our future is going to go. Still the doors are closed to them.

If a fisherman or a plant worker makes a phone call to an

officer, it is weeks sometimes before they get back. If they can get through the

(inaudible), probably they won't even get back because they don't even get

through the message managers. Still the people don't get angry. I don't know

where the display is coming from that the people in HRD expect. I just wonder in

amazement how people can be so complacent, how people can be so passive, and not

be more angry than they are.

We were there last night at the meeting, several hundred

people in that town hall up in Tors Cove. Yes, there was anger displayed there

when people got to the microphone, anger in their tone of voice when they tried

to express their feelings, but that was the full extent of it. It didn't go

beyond that. When they sat down in their seat they listened as well as

everybody. This was not a disorderly meeting. Except for the emotions of people

going to the microphone.

We have to, as the Premier said today, and the Minister of

Development and Rural Renewal, we all have to work together on this issue. It

means the survival of rural Newfoundland and Labrador. It means the very

survival of families, of individuals. I know what it is like, and I suspect a

lot more people around here know what it is like, to not have money in your

pocket, to not be able to go to a grocery store. We all didn't grow up with a

silver spoon in our mouth. Most all of us lived in fishing communities when

times were good and when times were bad.

I remember the day when we had to fish and caught lots of

fish but didn't get any money, a cent, a cent and a half a pound. I know what it

is like with a large family to know what it is like (inaudible) your mother and

father got to do without things to help you. The cost of goods wasn't so great

then, and you could live off the land and you could live off the ocean. Today

the way of life is different. You can't do that today. The cost of material

things today is greater than they have been for decades, and it is increasing

all the time.

For one of those sons or daughters to have to go to

university or post-secondary education, it is the same cost as my son or my

daughter. That is what people are forgetting. People are forgetting that these

people have the same day-to-day costs as you and I have, and those people who

are making those decisions in Ottawa. Keep in mind what I've already said, they

did not cause the problem. You cannot blame even one of these plant workers and

even one of these fisherpeople for causing any of the problems in the fishing

stocks today. They did not do it. The small inshore boats could fish for 10

million years and would not destroy the cod stock, or any stock. It is

impossible because of the time they have to fish, of weather conditions, and

their ability to fish. It is absolutely impossible.

But pointing the finger today? When the finger is pointed it

is pointed at those people, and that is what really bothers me. The finger is

pointed at those individuals today who are on TAGS. They are fishermen, or they

are plant workers. They want to get everything free from government? They don't

want to get everything free. They don't want TAGS, by the way. They said that

last night, they don't want TAGS. They want to go fishing. They want to go back

to work. Give me a job and keep your TAGS. But you took my job away from me, and

until I have my job back then you have to do something about it. That is a

simple message. That is the message we here in Newfoundland must relay to the

federal government in Ottawa. It is its responsibility, and it is its

fulfilment. It must fulfil that obligation.

Mr. Speaker, when my colleague, the Minister of Development

and Rural Renewal, sends off this to the minister in Ottawa, he should

immediately look into it and find out who masterminded this insult to the

population of Newfoundland and Labrador. Because it isn't only the people in the

plants and it isn't only the fishermen who are insulted here. We are all

insulted. Every last citizen of this Province is insulted with that kind of an

attitude across the headlines of the local paper. Naturally, when it follows

there, it goes right across this country of ours.

I'm proud to stand here this afternoon and represent the

people of this Province as my colleagues have. The people of this Province are

very proud people. They are a people who deserve a lot better than this kind of

thinking. We are going to ensure that they get more respect in the future than

is being displayed in an

article like that. So as another voice in support of

to look after these people until the fish stocks are so that they could go back

and earn a living, the responsibility lies on their shoulders and we will not

stop until that responsibility is fulfilled.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to support the resolution presented by the Government

House Leader and Minister of Development and Rural Renewal, on this issue which

is one that I think all members of this House and indeed every Newfoundlander

and Labradorian will agree. We have been grossly insulted by the actions of the

people in the department who were responsible for this outrage, but more than

that, we have been taken to be a people who need to be controlled, manipulated,

put down and this is being done by the government and the department who is

supposed to have the responsibility for looking after the needs of the people of

this Province and of this country in the area of employment.

But what we have here, Mr. Speaker, is an attitude which says

that people need to be `dealt with not looked after'. We have an attitude that

says and is a new approach I guess, to crisis management. We always hear about

governments involved in crisis management, well the idea of the crisis

management here is not to deal with the crisis, not to deal with the problem but

to in fact, treat the victims of the problem as if they themselves are the ones

who need to be dealt with and controlled.

To talk about the situation as potentially serious,

life-threatening situations - I cannot believe what I am reading here, that this

is the way that they take on this problem.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Obviously, the people who are responsible for

this, the people who allowed it to happen, the people who commissioned this

study obviously have no understanding or interest in the problems of the people

of this Province. You know, anybody in this Province, anybody in this

Legislature who has been to Ottawa to speak to government officials, to speak in

Parliament as I had the honour of doing for a period in 1987 and 1988, as I did

last week, along with the Minister of Education to a parliamentary committee,

realizes pretty quickly that there is very, very little understanding in Ottawa,

in the national government of what goes on in the Province of Newfoundland and

Labrador. They do not understand the conditions, they do not understand the

history, they do not understand the culture and they regard, in many ways, the

people of this Province as being people who want to be dependent on government,

want nothing more than a hand-out and there is a very cynical, hard-hearted

attitude about the needs of rural communities in Newfoundland, the needs of

fishermen, the seriousness with which to be taken in Ottawa, all of these

problems are manifest when you start talking about problems of Newfoundland or

of the Atlantic in general. I will give an example, going back to the mid-1980s

when the Federal Government took an interest in the Atlantic fishery and had a

task force, the Kirby Task Force.

At the end of two years, two years of study, a recommendation

was made to spend a couple of hundred million dollars to look after the needs of

the fishing industry in the four Atlantic Provinces, supporting some

150,000-plus families. Three hundred million dollars was the Federal Government

response, and I remember it because a few weeks after the government had decided

that they would put forth this so-called rescue plan for the Atlantic fishery

where the livelihood of 150,000 families was at stake, there was a problem with

an airplane factory in Montreal - Canadair, I think, or De Havilland, one of

them, was having some difficulties. They were in serious, financial difficulty.

There was a potential of 1,200 to 1,400 workers being laid off, and within a

resolve the problem of 1,400 workers in an aircraft factory in Montreal.

Now, I have no difficulty with supporting the aircraft

industry; in fact, we should have done more about it. Canada should have done

more about it twenty-five or thirty years ago when they destroyed the aerospace

industry in this country with the destruction of the Avco Arrow but, the point

being this: to get the attention of the Federal Government for $300 million to

help with the Atlantic fishing industry in the mid-1980s through the Kirby

Report, took two years of a report and produced a $300-million response from

Ottawa and in a matter of three weeks, the 1,400 workers in Montreal had a

The level of understanding -

MR. TULK: I will tell you something (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: The extent of this problem is not understood

in Ottawa, the numbers mean nothing, to say that 40,000 people are out of work,

it almost means nothing. You have to use examples such as the minister said,

talking about the shut-down of the automobile industry in Ontario, still they do

not understand; yet you see in Ottawa historically, the support at the

government level, the national level for farmers out west, taken for granted,

automatic, a very important part of the political framework in Ottawa.

So after fifty years of Confederation, we are still trying to

what we want is very simple: We want to have respect and dignity and we want to

be able to get that respect and dignity through an opportunity to work, to have

a livelihood, to be able to have what most Canadians take for granted, a working

life, an opportunity to support our families, to raise and educate our children

and have a decent lifestyle - very simple, not to have a hand-out. The last

thing any Newfoundlander wants, the last choice of any Newfoundlander is to have

a hand-out from government, the first choice is to have a job that they can work

at to support themselves and their families.

That is the simple reality of life in this Province, and the

people who are responsible for these decisions had better start understanding

that soon because people are angry. One thing about this report is right, they

must recognize that people are angry, and they are angry because the government

of Canada has failed to understand the problem and has failed to take seriously

the need for a solution.

The demonstrations that started last year, started as a

one year earlier than was planned and one year earlier than was specified in

letters written by the Minister of Fisheries then, the Premier of Newfoundland

and Labrador now, telling them that their qualifications for TAGS extended to

May 1999; and their anger was aroused when that was taken from them one year

early. They were told that all of this programming was going to end in May 1998,

with no recovery of the fishery in sight, with no opportunity to go back to

their boats and plants, with no real job done on what sometimes is referred to

as the fishery of the future, no real decisions made - as the Auditor General

has pointed out, no real labour adjustment having being accomplished and

insufficient program to deal with the problems that they encountered.

Now, Mr. Speaker, none of the attention of the Government of

Canada needs to be spent to figure out how to train the TAGS workers to deal

with the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. All their attention needs to be

placed on how to devise a program that takes into account the needs of the

people, that understands the criticisms that have been validly made by the

people of this Province, by the fishermen, some of them mentioned by the Leader

of the Opposition today, as to how people with a lifetime attachment to the

fishery were ignored by TAGS, treated as if they did not exist, how people were

not properly considered for early retirement. I think the former government of

this Province had a part to play in that, they did not want the TAGS program to

deal with early retirement for people fifty years and older. I hope that has

changed. From some of the Premier's comments today it may be that it has changed

- we will see. But some of these problems have to be addressed and they have to

listen to what the people have to say. There have to be solutions for people who

do not have any other alternative to the fishery, people whose level of

education and training does not allow them to be retrained, people whose

commitment to the fishery has been their only means of livelihood for all of

their lives. Early retirement packages have to start at age fifty, not at age

fifty-five.

There have to be ideas that have been presented from time to

time to perhaps give people a grub stake, let them take their money up front, if

that is what they want, if they have an idea what they want to do with that.

That is an interesting one, Mr. Speaker, one that has to be given careful

consideration. Careful consideration has to be given to that because sometimes

it is not always a solution to do that sort of thing, that has to be carefully

considered. But there has to be a new program, and I would like to commend the

fisheries committee for its extended tour in this Province, and I think that the

new Chair of that committee deserves credit for that. He is providing strong

leadership to that committee. Mr. George Baker, the Member for Gander-Grand

Falls, is certainly providing able leadership to that committee and is, by

taking that committee around to rural Newfoundland, exposing members from all

parties of the House of Commons to the realities of rural life in this Province,

which is a very, very important and very necessary thing. The more members of

the House of Commons who travel to this Province and see the realities of life

faced by people in this Province as a result of the collapse of the fishery, the

more understanding they will have and the more understanding they can share with

their colleagues in their own individual caucuses, and the more we should hear

about these problems from all parties in the House of Commons in Ottawa.

It is a very positive step, and I know from talking to my

colleagues in the New Democratic Party that this trip to Newfoundland was

regarded as being of very significant importance to the caucus and to our Party

to be here and to hear firsthand what the individuals who are affected by the

TAGS program, who are affected by this fisheries crisis, have to say.

As one person said last night, and I think it has been said

before, this is a crisis of biblical proportions. It is very difficult to

describe so that people who do not previously know about it understand. It is

very difficult to describe the extent of the devastation that this has caused

not just to the fishery and the fish stocks but to whole communities, ways of

life, families, and a very significant part of rural Newfoundland.

It has to be addressed. It has to be addressed in a serious

manner, not in a cynical manner. It has to be addressed with the full input of

the people of this Province; and hopefully, the early ending of TAGS may turn

out to be a blessing if it is replaced by a better program equally well-funded

but responding to the faults of TAGS, responding to the issues that are raised

by individuals who come forward during this hearing, responding to the

deficiencies of the previous two programs, and devising a program that is going

to provide some real assistance to the people in the fishery who have been hurt

by this devastating situation, so that they can have a meaningful future for

themselves, whether that future is in the fishery or whether that future is in

some other aspect of Canadian life.

I support the resolution wholeheartedly. It is very important

that we respond directly, swiftly, and succinctly to the insult, and to the

attitude that is behind the insult. The insult is one thing, but we must respond

and must try to correct the attitude that allows this type of insult to take

place. The unanimous resolution of this House sent immediately to the House of

Commons and to Minister Pettigrew is an appropriate way of dealing with that,

and I support it wholeheartedly.

MR. SPEAKER: Is the House ready for the question?

The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to say a few words on this private member's

resolution as put forward by the Government House Leader, and I compliment the

Government House Leader for bringing forward this particular resolution.

After attending the meeting down in Tors Cove last night, I

think the message came through loud and clear, both to the Minister of Fisheries

and Aquaculture and to the Government House Leader, of what people think of this

particular

article that appeared in The Evening Telegram .

Mr. Speaker, we continually talk about the bureaucrat who put

this forward, but I am not convinced that Minister Pettigrew did not know that

this was about to happen. I am not convinced that somebody in the Department of

Human Resource Development can go out and propose or ask for a contract worth

$352,000 without the minister of that particular department knowing it. I think

it was known by the minister of the department. In fact, last night after the

meeting, I talked with the gentleman who released the report. I talked with a

member of the Standing Committee on Fisheries that is presently touring the

Province, Mr. Speaker, the NDP member who released this particular report. The

memo was pushed under his door in a brown envelope. He said: I am going to

release this, people have