A pril 27, 1998 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY

PROCEEDINGS Vol. XLIII No. 14

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER(Snow): Order, please!

Statements by Ministers

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce today the results

of the Call for Proposals for development of the former Baie Verte asbestos mine in Baie

Verte. Four proposals were submitted in response to the Call for Bids which closed on

March 6. They ranged from the purchase and removal of milling equipment to the development

of a new magnesium metal plant.

Mr. Speaker, I was pleased with the range and calibre of these

proposals received for the property. It was evident from these proposals that a lot of

time, effort and money was invested in each of them.

Upon a review of each of the proposals it was determined that two of

the projects were worthy of further consideration. The first proposal was submitted by

Geotech Surveys Inc. on behalf of the Canadian Magnesium Corporation. Mr. Speaker, a key

principal of this proposal is Mr. Christopher Verbiski, one of the co-discoverers of

Voisey's Bay. Canadian Magnesium Corporation intends to develop a commercial magnesium

plant to extract and produce magnesium metal or magnesium oxide from the large asbestos

tailings pile on the site, subject to a positive feasibility study and the development of

a pilot plant on site, to confirm the extraction process. This concept is very similar to

the ones proposed by Noranda and SNC Lavalin for the development of a commercial magnesium

plant at an asbestos mine site in eastern Quebec where the technology has been proven

through to the pilot plant stage.

Mr. Speaker, this proposal is well researched and presented, and the

proponents have identified many of the challenges to bringing their concept to fruition.

In the coming months, the company will be completing a full feasibility study and pilot

plant testing to determine the possibility of continuing with this proposal. If

successful, the project will result in several hundred millions of dollars being invested

in the area and could create in the range of 300-400 jobs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FUREY: Therefore, I have decided to award the mineral licence

for the 800 hectares of exempt mineral lands to the Canadian Magnesium Corporation.

Mr. Speaker, it is possible that a second project may be compatible on

this site. However, it does require some further study. Northco Forest Products Ltd. of

Baie Verte proposed to lease one of the large buildings at the site for the establishment

of a new modern integrated sawmill operation which the Minister of Forest Resources and

Agrifoods has been reviewing as well. The property was rated as a prime site for such an

operation given the existing infrastructure, strategic location, the opportunity for

expansion, and the reduced capital costs.

Therefore, I have asked senior officials of the Department of Mines and

Energy - and the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods will assign officials as well

- in conjunction with an independent consultant, to conduct a preliminary study to

determine the practical feasibility of approving a sawmill operation adjacent to a

magnesium plant at Baie Verte. If compatible with this magnesium proposal, the sawmill

project will proceed this summer. This project will bring together three small independent

sawmill operations on the Baie Verte Peninsula, to develop a new modern integrated sawmill

operation at the site. It would create fourteen new full-time positions.

Mr. Speaker, this a positive announcement for the Baie Verte area which

I hope will result in renewed economic activity for the area.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

First of all, I would like thank the minister for sending me a copy of

his statement today before I came to the House. Certainly it is good news for Baie Verte

and the Baie Verte area. Of course, Baie Verte is the centre of some twenty-one

communities on the Baie Verte Peninsula that rely on fishing, logging and mining.

Of course, Baie Verte itself has a long history of mining. It was a

very prosperous town at times, Mr. Speaker. If you want to see an example of boom and bust

in the Province, it was the community of Baie Verte, like Buchans and some other mining

towns, of course.

When we hear news like this, it is exciting. Of course, like the

minister said, there is some time here yet. There is a feasibility study and so on to be

done, and we are cautiously optimistic. Hopefully things will come to fruition at the end

of the day.

I hope, Mr. Speaker, that this can turn into something positive in the

near future, because right now times are pretty tough in rural parts of this Province and

we need to see developments like this happen in a lot of parts of this Province.

With the sawmill industry, Mr. Speaker, that is a bunch of loggers in

my district who have gotten together and put the initiation there to go forward and do

something in a modernized way with the sawmilling operation in this area. Along with the

Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods, they have been working on that. We hope that

it is compatible and that both of those operations will come through and put people back

to work, because that is what it is all about. If we can do that, then I guess parts of

rural Newfoundland that desperately need these jobs are going to see that.

Hopefully this is a good news announcement and at the end of the day we

will see jobs. That is the bottom line.

I thank you very much, and I would like to thank the minister for the

statement.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

he have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the minister for a copy of his statement. I am very

pleased, along with the people of Baie Verte, that these proposals are worthy of further

consideration. I think that is really what the minister is saying, that there are projects

that may come to fruition. I hope, along with the people of Baie Verte, that they will.

But what concerns me is that I do not want these proponents coming back to the government

and saying that the viability is depending on further concessions from this government.

Let us have in place proper amendments to the Mineral Tax Act and a proper royalty regime

so that these become the basis for development and not some concessions that are asked for

later on down the road.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to release the second Indicators Report

on post-secondary education in Newfoundland and Labrador, the most comprehensive review of

higher education ever produced by government. The first such report was released in

February of 1996. Newfoundland did then, and now continues, to lead the way in Canada by

being the only Province to regularly publish performance and accountability information at

the post-secondary level and it is our intention to continue this practice.

This 140-page document covers key aspects of higher education, graduate

outcomes, educational attainment, labour market success, student satisfaction and cost of

education. Where possible, the results of certain follow-up surveys of some aspects, such

as labour market success are intended to be released as they become available rather than

wait for another full comprehensive report. The following are some of the highlights: The

proportion of adults with a high school education and above nearly doubled between 1976

and 1996, while the proportion with less than Grade IX decreased by more than 50 per cent

and, as well, the rate of improvement was higher than in any other part of Canada.

In 1995-1996 there were 32,275 students enrolled in some form of

post-secondary education program in this Province, an increase of 59.1 per cent since ten

years earlier, 1986-1987. Sixteen months after graduation, two-thirds of the 1995

graduates of post-secondary programs had obtained full or part-time employment, and a

majority of those who graduated from post-secondary programs in 1995 were satisfied with

both the institution they had attended and the program they had chosen.

Mr. Speaker, Postsecondary Indicators '98 is part of the department's

response to the Auditor General's observation in 1995 that monitoring and reporting

mechanisms were inadequate. Since that time, the department has become a recognized leader

in educational accountability, both at the post-secondary and K-12 levels. In 1995, Mr.

Speaker, one of the components of the Postsecondary Indicators program was an

international award winner from the American Educational Research Association.

While we have made encouraging gains in both the numbers attending

post-secondary institutions and the education levels attained, particularly among female

students, there are still some concerns. Over the next ten to fifteen years, Mr. Speaker,

the extreme enrolment decline seen in the K-12 system will carry over to the

post-secondary sector. A projected 44 per cent decline in the number of K-12 graduates by

2010 is expected to have a significant effect on post-secondary enrolments, particularly

at the university level. The Department of Education is committed to tracking these

indicators over time to ensure that any areas of concern identified are monitored and

addressed accordingly.

Mr. Speaker, two issues: student loan default and labour market success

have received much attention in recent weeks. In this Province, the report shows that

default ratios are lower than the Canadian average for university students, for public

college students and for private institutions. As well, Mr. Speaker, the report shows that

there is no significant difference between graduation at public and private colleges in

comparable programs when it comes to obtaining employment.

Mr. Speaker, due to the unprecedented growth and expansion of private

sector training, and to ensure that student interests are properly served, I am announcing

today that government will undertake a review of the current Act, regulations and policies

governing private training institutions in the Province. The review will cover all

aspects, Mr. Speaker, but will pay particular attention to such issues as bonding of

private institutions, wind-up provisions for institutes that encounter difficulties and

access to student loans. As well, Mr. Speaker, additional staff will be put in place

immediately to enhance the department's monitoring capabilities of the private,

post-secondary institutions in the Province. These additional staff, Mr. Speaker, were

requested by both students and the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Career

Colleges.

I commend the report to everybody's attention.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If that was a Ministerial Statement, at least, I had a copy of one this

time, Mr. Speaker.

The first thing I can say is, if that was a Ministerial Statement, it

is an understatement that it is long overdue.

The truth is, Mr. Speaker, there are people in this Province, students

who have gone back to school, whom we should be encouraging every day to go back to

school, who have gone through a process with this department in which this government was

supposed to be responsible for protecting the student who goes to any institution in this

Province; that is number one.

Number two, Mr. Speaker, any other institution in this Province,

public, private or whatever - there are some great institutions in this Province that

provide a great opportunity for students to move on into post-secondary, Mr. Speaker, but

the shame of it and the truth is, that this department and this minister have been

incompetent in making sure, in the last several years especially, when we saw the

ballooning of institutions in this Province grow in numbers, when the numbers at Memorial

have gone down in the percentage of students attending, and the number in private

institutes has gone up, skyrocketed, popping up like flowers all over the place, that this

minister and this government have not put the right mechanism and system in place.

Now we are going to see a review of the regulations, we are going to

see a review of the policies. I wonder how many policies have been changed to date. The

shame of it is, as late as yesterday morning I spoke with students who have left

institutions in this Province, who have given up, who have been devastated by the process

they have gone through, and said they have not been protected. Now we have more

institutions. God knows who is going to announce an institution tomorrow, and what

regulations they have to go through.

The minister should admit - and that is what this is, an admission that

this minister and this department have not put a procedure in place, not put a system in

place, to protect the student, the ones we should be encouraging to go to an institution.

Like I said, as late as yesterday I talked to two students who have said they had given up

on the whole thing. They are going to try to go to work in Alberta somewhere. Like one of

the members in Ottawa told us: There are 100,000 jobs in Ontario, come up here.

I have an answer for that man. He should send 100,000 jobs down here

where they should be, in Newfoundland and Labrador. These institutions that are in this

Province, that this minister and this government - they have got a failing grade. The

Department of Education in Newfoundland and Labrador has an F, because they have not lived

up to what they should have done. They should have been listening to more of their own

review -

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave!

MR. SHELLEY: - their own regulations, Mr. Speaker, but they have

failed.

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

have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the minister for a copy

of his statement.

Finally we have some answers to the questions I have been raising since

last November in this House. It is pretty clear the issues that were raised have now been

revealed in this Postsecondary Indicators '98 , it is called now.

What the minister did not say about his report is that it also

indicates that there are very significant differences in income between people attending

private colleges and public colleges, and it is much lower for those with private

colleges, but the student loan debt is much higher. The default rate for student loans is

nearly twice the public colleges, closing in on 40 per cent. That gives you an indication

what kind of education they might be getting in many cases.

What he did not say as well is that this document reveals that nearly

60 per cent of the instructors in the private college system have less than a bachelor's

degree. I am concerned that when he does his review, which I have been asking for for some

months, that he also look at the quality of instruction. That is a very important factor

in the ability of students graduating from the private sector colleges, to be able to

guarantee that they have a good quality education and that they can get jobs with good

incomes.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the minister has finally released this

report and I hope that he will listen to the indicators that are there, that there must be

some drastic changes in the private sector system if it is going to be allowed to attract

students coming out of our high schools to that system and be able to guarantee them a

first quality education.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise all members of this House

and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador of the activities undertaken to date by the

All Party Committee of the House of Assembly on Post-TAGS and to outline its next actions.

The All Party Committee was formed with a mandate given to it by this

House to convey, in a non-partisan manner, the concerns of the people of Newfoundland and

Labrador on the importance of a meaningful post-TAGS program to the national political

parties in Ottawa.

The Committee travelled to Ottawa last week on short notice in response

to certain reports that the federal government was close to a final decision on a

post-TAGS program. While our intelligence indicated that the federal government was not at

the final stage of its decision-making process, we did not want to leave this to chance

and I thank all members of the Committee for their co-operation in responding accordingly.

Mr. Speaker, the Committee met with the national caucuses of the

Liberal, Progressive Conservative, New Democratic and Reform parties. It also met with

representatives of the national media in Ottawa. These forums provided the Committee with

an opportunity to convey, in a non-partisan manner, the key messages we all, I think,

agree upon, as follows: that the groundfish crisis represents one of the greatest

challenges ever faced by the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador; that the survival of

many of our rural communities is at stake; that the post-TAGS challenge remains a federal

responsibility; that the current TAGS program failed to meet its adjustment objectives;

that this is not, and I want to emphasize this, Mr. Speaker, that this is not the fault of

the individuals or communities concerned; that the TAGS challenge must be recognized as a

longer-term problem which requires a longer-term solution; that regular federal and

provincial programs are insufficient to deal with this problem and new approaches are

necessary; that an effective and adequately funded post-TAGS program is critically

important to the provincial economy as a whole.

I might say, Mr. Speaker, if I could add here, that I think it should

be recognized by every person in this Province and every person in this House, and I think

most people in this House do, but certainly by every person in this Province, that if

there is not a post-TAGS Program, the consequences of not having one will be far-reaching,

far more felt as well by people who are not or have not been on the TAGS Program, that the

devastation in this Province will be at levels that we have not seen; and the other thing,

Mr. Speaker, we pointed out, is that anxiety levels are building in the Province and that

timing is becoming critical, especially for those individuals whose TAGS benefits are

expiring in increasing numbers with each passing day.

Mr. Speaker, the Committee was particularly strong in its

representations that it is unacceptable for the federal government to simply leave those

individuals coming off TAGS to their own devices. It is for this reason that we urge the

federal government to bring in a new program immediately and not wait until the scheduled

expiry date of the end of August.

Mr. Speaker, while in Ottawa, I was assured by the hon. Pierre

Pettigrew and the hon. Fred Mifflin, that contrary to recent media reports, the federal

government had not yet reached any final decision on the post-TAGS issue. Accordingly, the

All Party Committee's representations to date can be considered timely and effective. The

All Party Committee intends to go back to Ottawa this week to meet with the Bloc Quebecois

caucus and to also meet with the special federal Cabinet Committee that has been

established to deal with the post-TAGS challenge.

Mr. Speaker, I might mention as well, that I would hope we would have

some meeting times by the end of the day and in any case, I would report whatever progress

is made to members on the Committee.

Mr. Speaker, by working together constructively in this manner, I am

confident we can make a difference on such a critically important issue to the future of

this Province. Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to respond to the Ministerial Statement and I thank the

minister for providing me with the statement prior to the opening of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know of any other issue that is more important to

this Province today than this particular issue. This is about survival of rural

Newfoundland and Labrador.

When I left last Wednesday - I think part of the Committee left on

Tuesday - Mr. Speaker, we were in a big rush. We were summoned to Ottawa because I

thought, and I understood, that there was going to be a pending announcement, there was

going to be an announcement made soon, and the reason for the big rush to get there, was

to try to protect the 2,000 people who were being taken off this program within two weeks

time. That, was what I thought, only to get to Ottawa, supposedly to meet with the Liberal

caucus, of which fourteen people showed up out of a count of 155, where we had our own

minister, our own federal minister, stand before the microphone and respond to a question

by saying: that the people who are slated to come off this program on May 9, are off,

there is nothing else for them; everybody who has been off the program up until now, is

off, gone, nothing else for them, Mr. Speaker.

We are used to having strong representation in Ottawa, I say to members

opposite; we are used to having people like Don Jamieson, Jack Pickersgill, John Crosbie,

our own Premier, strong representation in Ottawa. Now, all of a sudden, Mr. Speaker, we

have a representative up in Ottawa who accepts what the federal caucus tells him,

represents his Leader, represents his Party and forgets about Newfoundland and Labrador.

Well, I say that is unacceptable.

It is one thing for the minister to stand here in his place and read a

Ministerial Statement, but minister, it is time for you and your troops to be counted as

well. It is time for you to speak up and talk to your friends and your cousins in Ottawa.

It is time to speak up and demand a change and demand that the people of Newfoundland and

Labrador, the people who are entitled to this program continue to be supported by your

federal cousins.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. FITZGERALD: That is what we have to do here and to accept

anything less is totally unacceptable. Mr. Speaker, you can take it any way you want.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi. Does he have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the minister for a copy of the Ministerial Statement

today on our All Party Committee. I want to say I was pleased to be able to participate in

that Committee, and I want to tell all members of the House that it is a good thing we did

go to Ottawa. It is a good thing we did go.

When we were there - I agree with the minister - we acted in a very

non-partisan manner. Anyone who would hear us, we went to see. We went to the NDP caucus,

we visited with the Liberal caucus, and what a shock we got. We all got a big shock, and I

say this in a non-partisan way, but the minister responsible for this Province told us

that he was not working on a post-TAGS program for the 3,000 people - 2,700 in this

Province - who are coming off TAGS in May.

What we found out is that we have our work cut out for us in Ottawa,

all of us on both sides of this House have our work cut out for us in Ottawa, because we

have to convince the Parliament of Canada -

AN HON. MEMBER: Our own (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: - and our own minister, someone has said - that this is

a crucial and vital issue for all of the people of this Province.

I think that everybody in this House has agreed on that point, that we

have to go there again and talk to the ministers, as the minister has said, and talk to

the Bloc Quebeois, anyone who will listen to us, anyone who will support us, in making

sure that this is raised as a national issue that has to do with: What kind of respect -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. HARRIS: - does the Parliament of Canada, the Government of

Canada, have for the people of this Province?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright - L'Anse au Clair.

Does the hon. member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just want to respond to the minister's statement and first of all say

that I am pleased to be a part of the Select Committee that is dealing with this decision

in Ottawa, and to say that it is of crucial importance to all fisherpeople in all

communities within this Province. There is certainly no room, no room whatsoever, in this

issue to play politics on either side of this House. I think the message that we have to

send to Ottawa is one of solidarity. That is what we are out there saying.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JONES: We are out there saying to the fisherpeople in this

Province: Stand together. We are saying to people in the other industry sectors: Support

the people in this fishery, because if we are not united we are not going to conquer this.

I do not want to come into this House, Mr. Speaker, and hear the things

I am hearing here today. I want us to be unified. I want us to set an example for every

person in this Province, and go to Ottawa with an united front, all talking out of the

same side of our faces.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Oral Questions

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, my question today is to the Government

House Leader.

Mr. Speaker, we have recently seen a Committee of this House summoned

to Ottawa to respond, on brief notice, to the need to lobby the federal government on the

circumstances surrounding 20,000 residents of the Province who will soon see the

conclusion of the existing TAGS program. It now appears that another visit to Ottawa will

be necessary.

I find it strange, however, that such visits should be necessary at

all. After all, the present Premier was the author of the current program, and one would

expect - knows full well - the circumstances that have led to the need for TAGS in the

first place.

I ask the minister: Is this not a failure of the present government to

properly inform and convince the federal government of the obvious need for a successor

program?

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I ask if I could address this question

because it is a very important question. It is a question that transcends politics.

Mr. Speaker, let me say to the hon. gentleman that what is happening in

Ottawa today is not a fault of the present government, or the second-last government, or

the government before. It is a fault of successive national governments in this country,

and it is the result of being a Province on the periphery of Canada, that have attitudes

in Central Canada that do not accept that we have an ecosystem down here of which we

should have more control and management. Mr. Speaker, we see it in the sealing industry.

So I say to the hon. gentleman: Yes, this government has been after the

present government to put a TAGS program. We have had various meetings with various people

since last October. But, Mr. Speaker, the truth of the matter is that there exists in this

country - and, Mr. Speaker, I am not proud of this, and I was not proud when a national

reporter looked at me and said: How much more do we have to pay for you fellows down

there?

AN HON. MEMBER: What did you say to him?

MR. TULK: What did I say to him? I said to him: The national

government - and I used the word `national' because I don't want to get involved in saying

it was a PC government or a Liberal government. I used the term `national government'. The

national government has destroyed - and this is important - an ecosystem in this country,

and people live in ecosystems. They have destroyed an ocean, the greatest food basket in

the world, successive national governments, through their mismanagement.

Mr. Speaker, I say to the hon. gentleman that the problem and the

reason for an All Party Committee doing away with the partisan politics was to try to take

on an attitude that exists, that was shown by that national journalist.

I looked at him and said: What price do you think my people are paying?

What price do you think Newfoundland and Labrador is paying for the mismanagement of the

government of this country, successive governments? Don't ask me what price you have to

pay. There is no price. There are people in Newfoundland and Labrador who have to be

looked after and have to be helped out of a situation that has nothing to do with them.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I say to the hon. gentleman that I believe there will

be a post-TAGS program, but I think what is important for us is to influence the type of

program that is coming.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TULK: And to make sure that we, as a Province, all of us, have

a voice in how that is put together.

I want to say to him, that is not easy to do either. It was not easy

for the man who now occupies this chair when he was Minister of Fisheries; it was not easy

for the hon. John Crosbie when he was Minister of Fisheries. It is not easy to change the

attitudes of the people of Central Canada but, by God, we will give it our best try!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister, according to George Baker, the Minister of Fisheries and

Aquaculture and yourself met privately in Ottawa last Wednesday with a couple of Cabinet

ministers. Obviously, if you had met Wednesday with a couple of federal Cabinet ministers

I would assume it would be to discuss the TAGS program. Maybe the minister would like to

share with the House what came out of that particular meeting as it relates to the 20,000

people who are now on this particular program.

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

MR. TULK: First of all, Mr. Speaker, let me say to the hon.

gentleman that there were a couple of people in federal politics last week - and I am not

going to name them in this House but he knows who they are - who were announcing that the

decision was imminent; we had better get up there because the world was coming to an end

up there; we had better get up there immediately to do that.

I, just to be frank with you, dropped in and said to Pierre Pettigrew:

Is there a decision forthcoming? The answer was: Not immediately. We hope to get it done

soon. But it is not coming in the manner in which (inaudible). That was the purpose of

just dropping in to see him.

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister, we are getting a lot of mixed signals coming from government

officials, particularly where the government stands and what it would support in a new

TAGS program. We are hearing of early retirement, we are hearing of license buy-back,

economic diversification. I would like to ask the minister two simple points: Where does

he and his government stand on: (

a) income replacement; and, (

b) early retirement for

those fifty years and older with a long-term attachment to the industry?

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I know he is trying to play a bit of

politics here today but let me just say to the hon. gentleman, he knows full well that

while we were in Ottawa we had a full discussion within the All Party Committee. And let

me just say to him that everything ...

I have made the point to the federal government, and I refuse to state

what we consider to be a figure. Because if I do, I will tell that national journalist in

Ottawa what I think the price tag is on the destruction of the North Atlantic

groundfishery, and I refuse to do it. My job and his job and everybody else's, is to say

to the federal government: Look, this is your responsibility. We are dealing with the

lives of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Live up to it. Once you have admitted that, do

you want after that to sit down with us and say: How do you think we should work?

Let me tell him, Mr. Speaker, how I think we should work. I think we

have to take each situation as it exists. That is a tremendous job, I say to him. I know

that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where do you stand on it?

MR. TULK: I am standing in the Legislature, if he wants to know.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) not a laughable matter.

MR. TULK: No, it is not a laughable matter and it is not a partisan

matter, and the hon. gentleman is trying to do that. We are prepared to -

AN HON. MEMBER: Put your proposal (inaudible).

MR. TULK: The proposal was put down at the hearing. We said: Yes,

we are prepared to participate in early retirement, we are prepared to look at each

individual situation on its own, whether that is fifty or fifty-five. Let's discuss it.

AN HON. MEMBER: We know that.

MR. TULK: You know that. We have told you that. For a gentleman to

stand in this House and ask me where we stand on income support or income replacement -

either one, because myself and his House Leader had a little discussion on the difference

between income support and income replacement - for him to ask me that question ... We say

to the federal government: You have to take care of our people, and you don't throw them

out.

The one thing that Harrigan said to us, that fellow who came down here

from Central Canada, was that the people of this Province want to work. They want to work

first in the industry to which they have been accustomed to working and, secondly, they

want to work in their community; but they will work anywhere they can, rather than take

anything from any government. I thank Mr. Harrigan for making that statement.

Where do we stand? We say to the federal government: You have to look

after our people and then we will start talking to them as to where they take their life.

Let me just say to the Member for Bonavista South that obviously that includes supporting

income support or income replacement, but helping people to move clear of that is also

part of the objective.

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

South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to remind the minister opposite that this member is not

playing partisan politics. When I ask a question, I say to the minister, I ask it because

it is a sincere question that needs to be answered.

Minister, the Premier of this Province portrays himself as the great

communicator. His theme in the last election was a brighter tomorrow. He often spoke about

his wonderful relationship with the Prime Minister and his federal Cabinet ministers.

Minister, why has the Premier of this Province not gotten directly involved in those

crucial negotiations that will lead to the life or death of rural Newfoundland and

Labrador?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) partisan.

MR. TULK: No, he is not being partisan. Of course he is not being

partisan.

Let me say to the hon. gentleman that first of all the Premier has

been, as you know, very supportive of the route we have taken with an All Party Committee

in this House. He has been very supportive of that process. He has also been very

supportive of the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture and myself doing our job and

making representation to the people in Ottawa. He also, I would remind the hon. gentleman,

met with the Prime Minister last Thursday night in Montreal. He did that.

Obviously, the next question that people would like to ask is: Where is

he today? Yes, he is on his way to a petroleum affair in Calgary, I believe it is. But in

the process there is a chairman of that committee, and he is called Mr. Ralph Goodale, who

heads up the EU Committee, which is very similar to the Economic Policy Committee of this

Cabinet, which in the final analysis will be the direct committee (inaudible). The Premier

has every intention of meeting with Mr. Goodale to discuss the issue of post-TAGS while

there, and to be in contact with any ministers he needs to be in contact with in Ottawa.

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

South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister, surely you, as a minister of this government, have an

open-door welcome with your cousins in Ottawa. Surely you are aware of Ottawa's

intentions.

I ask the minister: What degree of comfort can you offer the thousands

of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who are going to be booted off this program within two

weeks?

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, if I wanted to I could stand here today and

ask the hon. gentleman, and be as partisan as he is now being: What was the problem

between the cousins that he represents in this House called the PC Party of Newfoundland

and Mr. Crosbie when he was the federal fisheries minister?

MR. FITZGERALD: I was not here then!

MR. TULK: You were part - you were related to those cousins. Those

cousins that you talk about, you were related to them. When Mr. Crosbie was pushed by his

people here to go after foreign overfishing and laughed and said, "It cannot be

done" -

AN HON. MEMBER: (inaudible).

MR. TULK: I could bring up that - I could also ask the hon.

gentleman, has he read Mike Harris' book. Has he read Mike Harris' book which documents

very well that Mr. Crosbie made a political decision contrary to scientists -

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible) what Mr. Crosbie said.

MR. TULK: - I believe it was in 1988-1989, whatever, but I will not

do that to the hon. gentleman. What I will say to him is this: that successive

governments, provincial governments in this Province, have found it difficult to convince

- and since he wants an answer, I will wait until he is finished lining up questions.

The successive governments in this Province and successive unions and

successive people have had difficulties convincing - regardless of the partisan politics -

convincing national governments that indeed this is a tremendous problem. And two people

who could do that - two people who did that and did it very well, and I say this in

totally non-partisan fashion, were John Crosbie and Brian Tobin. But, I would say this to

them: that we have a tremendous job to do. We have had two programs, and people are

saying, the attitude that that national reporter exhibited, and it would turn your

stomach, that attitude is now set in even stronger. And I say to him: put aside the

partisanship, let us go after it and hopefully take care of those human problems that

exist in his district and in mine and other districts around this Province.

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

supplementary.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister, we are talking about real people here. We are talking about

people who get up in the morning. We are talking about people who have to pay hydro bills,

people who pay telephone bills, people, Mr. Speaker, with a commitment to raise their

families, people like you and me. Mr. Minister, moving to Ottawa or moving to Toronto or

moving to Alberta is not an option for a lot of those people.

Minister, what have your government done to prepare yourselves for the

financial implications that will surely result if we are set adrift by Ottawa?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, a minute ago, the hon. gentlemen was

standing there asking me why can I not convince my cousins in Ottawa to put in a post-TAGS

program. Now, he is up asking: What have you done in the event of them not doing? It seems

to me -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: We will deal with the problem if we have to - we have

dealt with other problems - but let me say to the honourable gentleman, I would not tell

you, I would not tell anybody else, for the very simple reason that I am not prepared, if

you are, to let Ottawa 'off the hook'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. FITZGERALD: A puppet to Ottawa.

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

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker

My questions today are for the Minister of Development and Rural

Renewal.

About five months ago, I drew to government's attention the huge

out-migration problem our Province is facing, and I made reference to Statistics Canada.

Six years ago the number was only 700 people; five years ago 1,600 people; then 3,000

people the following year. Three years ago it jumped to 4,900 people; two years ago, 6,900

people, not-at-all. All these years are years since Premier Wells took over the Government

of this Province, I might say.

One year ago it was 7,400 and up to last fall it was 9,200 and we all

know the recent statistics that show in the last quarter of last year there were 3,127

people, the net out-migration of this Province. And we have seen the government's own

economy document that we have, showing that they project a loss this year in the vicinity

of another 9,000 or 10,000 people. I ask the minister: How much longer will this

haemorrhaging have to go on before the provincial government and Ottawa announce a

concrete strategy to turn things around for Newfoundland and Labrador?

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, that is a very good and sensible question.

Mr. Speaker, let me say to the hon. gentleman opposite, that the

numbers are not what anybody in this Province wants to see, that they are not numbers

though - let me also add this to it - that they are not numbers that have been caused by

this present government. But what has really happened there - and if he wants to compare

what has happened in governments now with what happened with previous governments -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) fifteen years ago.

MR. TULK: Yes, we will. We will talk about the Peckford

Administration.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: I am giving a piece of facts and information. I happened

to sit over where he is, in Opposition. Let me just say to him that when you eliminate

what has happened to the groundfishery, when you take out that factor in out-migration,

the numbers under that Administration were greater than they are now. Now, Mr. Speaker,

that is not to say that -

MR. FITZGERALD: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: Well, you are his cousin, or maybe he is your uncle.

AN HON. MEMBER: I have never seen (inaudible) wash their hands of

the facts.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible) wash their hands of everything they can.

Mr. Speaker, let me say to the hon. gentleman that he knows as well as

I do, that one of the things we would hope to do under a post-TAGS Program is to get into

some economic diversification in this Province. I have told him this; and, by the way, I

want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I appreciate the non-partisan fashion in which that member

operated when he and I were interviewed by Don Newman. He was very, very good and I would

hope that the Member for Bonavista South would take a lesson from him. Mr. Speaker, let me

just say to him that what he is saying does not make a pretty picture. It is one that we

would hope we can help solve through an economic diversification program under a post-TAGS

Program and, Mr. Speaker, we would hope there is something forthcoming in that regard as

well.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am very well aware of statistics and they might be camouflaged with

increased birth rates in the 1980s. I am very much aware of statistics, but the

out-migration to which I am referring has occurred since 1990, I say to the minister, and

during the mandate of the government. Our biggest concern out there now is not really what

caused the out-migration, we all attribute that to various purposes. Since December, when

I raised this issue, and prior to that, this government has had an opportunity: they have

had a Throne Speech, they have had a Budget in which to lay out a strategy to address this

pressing issue here in our Province, but neither one addressed the out-migration crisis

and people are starting to believe in this Province, Minister, that the government really

does not care.

I ask the minister now, in light of your having had more than two years

under this mandate and under this Premier, to lay out opportunities to turn things around,

tell us minister: Where is the government's plan?

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I would be glad if the hon. gentleman wants

me to outline where the government's plan is, and if he wants a briefing, I will give him

one of those.

Mr. Speaker, this government has moved forward on various numbers of

issues and I will deal with the mega projects first.

We moved forward on the Churchill Falls issue and I think there is a

fairly good acceptance that if we can sign that deal -

AN HON. MEMBER: Where do they stand on it?

MR. TULK: Well, we are still waiting to hear where the hon.

gentleman stands on it. In spite of, I believe, all kinds of briefings, we are still

waiting to hear where they stand on it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, that project in itself, Hibernia, Terra

Nova, and we will go on to other oil fields which I am sure the minister could lay out.

Voisey's Bay - it seems we are hung up a bit on whether we give it away, or we say, we are

going to develop this for Newfoundland and Labrador. Mr. Speaker, let there be no doubt -

and I see the Minister of Mines and Energy nodding his head - as the chief minister

leading the charge on that one, let there be no doubt that we will not give away one ounce

of that mine - if there is no smelter, no mine.

Mr. Speaker, those are the mega-projects. The problems that have been

created in rural Newfoundland have, by-and-large, been created, as the hon. gentleman

knows - the biggest part of them has been created by the shutdown of the groundfish

industry. While we have had a very good upturn in the shellfish industry, in the crab, and

we would hope, this summer in the shrimp industry - hopefully create 200 or 300 jobs down

in the Port Union-Catalina area, down in the Bonavista South area, hopefully create some

jobs in my area and so on - while we have had an upturn in those areas, the shellfish

industry does not provide the same kind of intensive employment as did the groundfish

industry. The Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture has stated that here on a number of

occasions.

Let me just say to the hon. gentleman that the Minister of Fisheries

and Aquaculture is out pushing to diversify the fishing industry in this Province, doing a

very good job of it -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to clue up his answer.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, the truth is that I cannot get through all

of the things that we have done and we are attempting to do in this Province in such a -

it is a really bad question to ask. Maybe you should save it for the Estimates Committee

or something like that, because it takes too much time to get through it.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

He scared all the media out of the gallery, his answer was so long and

boring, I might add. Thank God for John Crosbie; we would not have a gravity-base and

6,000 jobs. Thank God for Chris Verbiski and Albert Chislett; we would not have a Voisey's

Bay. I ask, what strategy? In recent years, I say to the minister, some influential -

MR. G. REID: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: The Member for Twillingate & Fogo is not being

questioned here today. The former Member for Fogo is being questioned here today.

In recent years many influential mainland economists have said, and

suggested, that the solution to this Province's economic woes, due to the centralization

of many rural areas of this Province, is a massive drop in population. I do not need to

mention names to know who they are. That is much the same kind of thinking that motivated

the resettlement program we had back in the 1960s.

I say to the minister, it is clear that the current federal policies

regarding EI, regarding transfers for health and social services, and TAGS, are starting

to accomplish the very down-sizing that these economists wanted to talk about, and did

talk about, and recommended.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that he is on a supplementary and I ask him to

get to his question.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will start my question again. Can the minister tell us what, if any,

arguments his government is putting forward to counter this mainland thinking? Why has the

government been absolutely unsuccessful at convincing the federal government and the

Canadian federation that what this Province needs is not down-sizing, but the kind of

investment that turned Ireland around?

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, let me just say to the hon. gentleman - I

hope I can continue where I left off, but let me say to him that with regard to the

Ireland model, I am as familiar with that as he is, and I know that the Minister of

Industry, Trade and Technology is as familiar with it as he is.

He asks: How successful have you been? Let me just say to him that over

the past two or three years there has been well over $600 million - and I can give him

those figures outside the House - that this Administration has managed to get out of the

federal government to undertake certain projects and to have them pushed well over $600

million towards the economic development of this Province.

Let me just say to him that with regard to our strategy, I am sure, as

much as he has been around this Province, that he must have heard talk of the regional

economic development boards that we have in place in this Province. He must have heard

talk of that. I am sure he must have heard talk of the fact that we have recently been out

asking them for 100 initiatives that we hope to work with them in the next year. He must

also be aware that we have been very active in promoting tourism. The Minister of Tourism,

Culture and Recreation and myself have been working like dogs on a project down in his

district, trying to get the feds on side to fund a project down in his district so that we

can develop that East Coast trail that he is such a proponent of - and he is - way right

down into his area to encourage the development of tourism in his area. He must know about

that, Mr. Speaker.

I promise the hon. gentleman, as I did his colleague, that on tomorrow

- I do not have it with me - I will bring in a list of stuff, this long, that we are

working on. I hope he does not do as the hon. member for Baie Verte did, leave it on the

table of the House and not even bother to read it.

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

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

My questions are for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

The minister is obviously aware of the investigation into AbbaCom Logic, and while I will

not get into the specifics of that particular company because of the investigation that is

ongoing, I have some questions about the policy that may have led to that particular

situation arising.

Mr. Speaker, a spokesperson for the industry department has said that

companies that apply for EDGE status are subject to a background check. However, those who

work for the company are not subject to a background check. For those companies which have

had a long standing tradition of service in the Province, Mr. Speaker, this policy may be

okay.

Will the minister agree that to conduct a background check on a new

company, one without a background, is perhaps a practice in futility?

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

Technology.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the hon. member realizes I

cannot speak to the particular case that is in the media, while it is under police

investigation. Certainly when any company applies to the Department of Industry, Trade and

Technology for EDGE status there are a number of things that they have to go through. In

terms of the types of background checks, one of the things that we do is a Dun &

Bradstreet on any company which is applying for EDGE status. That gives us all of the

financial information on that company. It also gives us background information on the

principals involved in that company. It also tells us about any writs that may be

outstanding or any issues that may be of concern to us.

So, there is a very thorough background check done on any company that

has a background to check, Mr. Speaker. If it is a new company it is very difficult to

find information about that company.

We work very closely with all of the funding agencies. Any company that

is applying for EDGE status must come in with a business plan with three-year projections.

Before any company gets any benefit from the EDGE status that they have acquired, that is

given to them by the EDGE Board and approved by Cabinet, they must submit on an annual

basis an audited financial statement before any benefits accrue in terms of tax breaks. If

that audited financial statement is not forthcoming, they do not get any of the benefits

that come with the legislation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has expired.

Notices of Motion

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, there is a Notice of Motion that I wish to

give on the make-up of the committee, but I understand that the Opposition House Leader

wishes to have a few minutes with regard to that motion before I put it. I would just ask

that we revert after we have had that discussion to put the motion. It is the make-up of

the committee.

Petitions

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition: Petition to the House of Assembly.

The petition reads, Mr. Speaker:

To the hon. the House of Assembly of Newfoundland, in Legislative

Session convened:

The petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland.

WHEREAS the TAGS program - whereby the federal government compensates

fisheries workers for its mismanagement of the fisheries resource - is due to expire in

August and many people entitled to funding have already been, or are about to be, taken

off this program prior to that date;

WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and

Labrador to take a lead role in convincing the federal government to announce and

implement, without further delay, a successor program to TAGS which includes income

replacement, license buy-backs, early retirement and economic diversification, and to give

immediate consideration to those who are entitled to compensation and are now or are about

to be taken off this program. As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, this is a petition that was circulated today with the

gathering of not only TAGS recipients, I say to members opposite, but concerned

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Mr. Speaker, what is happening here with this particular

program, I can assure you, will reach much further than the people who are presently

receiving income under the TAGS program. It is the life of rural Newfoundland and

Labrador, it is the life of the garage owner, it is the livelihood for the convenience

store, for the grocery store. Mr. Speaker, it is survival. That is what people see

happening here in this Province today.

When we hear people talk about the 52 per cent or the 51 per cent of

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who are against this particular program, I have to look

across the House with disgust, Mr. Speaker, to know who implemented that particular poll.

I have to look across the House, Mr. Speaker, with disgust when I see and when I hear who

paid, with the taxpayers' dollars of this Province, to put forward a poll and release it

to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians saying 51 per cent of the people in Newfoundland and

Labrador disagree with a program. That, Mr. Speaker, is unacceptable.

If the hon. member did a poll in his own riding and found out that he

was unpopular, would he go out and promote it? Would he shout it out? You know what I am

talking about, I say to the Government House Leader.

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

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

Leader.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman is on the other side

presenting a petition, and he has the right to do so, but first of all he should get his

facts straight. If he wants to name names of somebody doing something to harm

Newfoundlanders then I say to the hon. gentleman: Name the people. Name them, or otherwise

stick to the facts.

MR. FITZGERALD: I could name them, Mr. Speaker, but I won't go

through thirty-seven names.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Honourable members are well aware of the procedure during petitions.

The material of the petition has to be adhered to, and they are not permitted to involve

in debate in any other topic.

MR. FITZGERALD: I don't intend to name names, Mr. Speaker. I don't

intend to name names. It was a poll paid for by the Liberal Party. That is what it was, a

poll paid for by the Liberal Party.

Mr. Speaker, let us progress beyond that. I have to talk about the

Government House Leader. He was irritated today when we asked him questions. Well, Mr.

Speaker, that is what this House of Assembly is here for. That is why somebody sent me to

occupy this seat here, to ask questions on their behalf, to speak up for issues that

concern them.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not to use it (inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: It is not playing politics, Mr. Speaker. That is

why I am here, I am a politician. If I am accused of playing politics, I am sorry. That is

why I am here; I consider myself to be a politician. But when we question the government,

when we question members opposite about what they are doing, rather than saying it is

Ottawa's problem, blame it on Ottawa, come out and tell your story and we will bring

somebody else down for you to listen to. Mr. Speaker, I cannot accept that.

If we don't need a provincial government then I don't know why we are

costing the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador the salary of forty-eight people in

sitting here in this particular House, and the cost of running this building, if we are

going to slough it all off on Ottawa.

I fully agree, Mr. Speaker, that Ottawa's decisions led us to where we

are today. I fully agree that Ottawa should be the level of government that pays the

particular tab for the response program that is needed.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. FITZGERALD: But we have to be ever mindful, Mr. Speaker, of the

need to impress upon Ottawa what that obligation means. We have to be ever vigilant to

speak out for the people in this Province.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. FITZGERALD: By leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, leave has been withdrawn. I will have

a chance to rise again.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to support the petition presented by my colleague, the Member

for Bonavista South. It is calling upon the federal government to own up to its

responsibility and commitment to the people of this Province, people who put their trust

into elected representatives, the federal government, to carry out the proper management

and administration of a resource here in our Province.

It is asking in this petition for a successor program to TAGS, which

includes income replacement, licence buy-back, early retirement, economic diversification.

In other words, it is asking basically for a program that is going to address the needs,

that has to look at dealing once and for all with the closure of the fishery, and a basis

that is going to be able to allow the people to carry forward; not a program that is going

to have a very limited amount of money, unable to achieve its objectives.

The TAGS program failed. It set out certain goals in the TAGS program,

an adjustment program, to adjust people out of the fishery. They even eliminated mobility

dollars under TAGS for the last two years. They eliminated mobility in a program that was

looking at adjustment. They eliminated the opportunity for a licence buy-back in a program

that wanted to adjust people out of the fishery. When you want to get people out of a

fishery and you want to bring it down to a level that the fishery can support, you have to

put money into a buy-back program. It has to have sufficient dollars to achieve that.

It also has to have sufficient dollars to allow people to have an early

retirement from the program. Under the basic program the reverse bidding process, or

reverse auction process, that program eliminated or moved out of the fishery a certain

number of individuals that was far short of what was needed. There are people out there

today in their forties and fifties. I spoke with people in the last three days, since I

came back from Ottawa, who are willing and want to move out of the fishery, provided the

buy-back is sufficient to allow them to retire their debts. They have debts.

The last year before the moratorium some people went out and spent tens

of thousands of dollars because the fishery in my district, in the last three years before

the moratorium, were three of the best years in the fishery in some time. They invested

heavily in the last year, in the spring of 1992, only to find out that on July 2 they shut

it down, costing people tens of thousands of dollars of investment. They want to be able

to get out of the fishery without a debt and with a sufficient amount to be able to carry

them through a retirement under the program. There are people who want that.

There are other people out there today who also want to be able to

continue in the fishery of the future, and we need these people. That fishery, a primary

aspect of our resources, creates tremendous jobs in our economy. We are seeing movement

into other particular fisheries. They have picked up some of the slack, but there are too

many people out there today who need a program of post-TAGS.

There is 71 per cent, almost, with less than a Grade XII education;

Grade XI or less, 71 per cent almost. Forty-one per cent of the people have less than a

Grade IX education. People who trained and worked in the fishery for thirty years, there

has to be a program that allows that bridging to retirement for these people.

It happened with Marine Atlantic. Marine Atlantic shut down its service

from Yarmouth to Bar Harbour; from Digby to St. John, New Brunswick; from Prince Edward

Island, Borden, on to Cape Tormentine in New Brunswick; and what did they do for these

people? They gave them a certain retirement severance package, a bridging to carry them.

People who were under the age, they gave them a bridging to carry them to a retirement

age.

We need some form of program in some way that is going to allow people

to be able to get out of the fishery at a certain age. What that age is, is negotiable. I

would say it has to look at people in the fifty age bracket for the simple reason that

many people aged fifty to fifty-five have thirty years or more in the industry, they have

a Grade VIII education or less -

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, there has to be a factor. If you are fifty-four

and spent only five years in industry, it is a lot different from someone who is even

fifty-one and has spent thirty years in industry. There has to be a recognition of people

who have spent their lives in an industry. I know people who are in their early fifties,

whose sons qualify for this program for the full duration because they have been in it

five years when their parents have been in it -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. SULLIVAN: - for over thirty years and cannot qualify now, they

are being dropped off, because one of those years they were sick. That is wrong. The

program has to be able to look at individuals historically.

By leave, Mr. Speaker, just to finish up?

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. SULLIVAN: It has to be able to look at - and the one size does

not fit all, I agree. There has to be a recognition of the basis of someone's livelihood

around a particular industry. They cannot be thrown to the wolves now to be devoured when

they spent their lives in it. They do not have the education to pursue other training

outside the fishery and there has to be, I say, as a last resort, some form of mobility

for people who want, of their own volition, to get out and to seek greener pastures

elsewhere. That option for people who want to do so, I think should be provided for people

who have been a part of this program from the beginning.

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, let me say to the Member for Bonavista South

and the Opposition House Leader that we support this petition. There is no earthly reason

in the world why we should not support the petition. Let me just say to the Opposition

House Leader - and I want him to hear this, I really do want him to hear this - Let me say

to the Opposition House Leader as opposed to the Member for Bonavista South, that the

manner in which he is conducting this thing is purely in keeping with the kind of attitude

that I think we must have as a Province and as a Legislature.

He illustrates very well, a point that I think we have been making and

we have made as an All Party Committee at our meetings in Ottawa, and as we have been

making throughout this whole session, and that is that one size does not fit all. Yes, we

have no problem in a general sense of saying that we support income replacement; we

support licence buy-back; we support early retirement, we support economic diversification

and we want immediate consideration. And we say to the federal government that you cannot

dump those people; they are entitled to compensation and are now about to be taken off the

program, you just cannot dump them.

But, let me just say to him that this petition and the speech just made

by the Opposition House Leader, very well illustrates, I believe, what has to happen here.

This concept of one size does not fit all, that you have to deal with communities, you

have to deal with individuals where they are, and there are people - I mean, he is

absolutely right when he says that there are people who have been in the fishing industry

for fifteen, sixteen, twenty, twenty-five years, and there are some people, I recognize

them today, from the Member for Bonavista South's district; I met with them two weeks ago,

and they are still in the gallery - who have been involved in the fishing industry, were

involved in a year-round fishing industry and they are different from somebody just down

the shore in my district in Bonavista North where you had a seasonal fishery. Because

those people were used to a level of income that was twelve-months around. Then they

suddenly found themselves on TAGS and now, they find themselves to the place where they

are getting nothing.

So that is a community of people whom you have to deal with on a

different basis from say, Fogo Island, where you have a seasonal fishery, where people

were not used to that same level of income. There was a difference. And you have to deal

with the fact that there are people who spend a certain amount of time in the industry and

now find themselves being dropped off TAGS - and I accept the hon. gentleman's word for

that - that they find themselves being dropped off TAGS and somebody who was on the

harvesting side of the industry for maybe ten or twelve years or even less, is still on. I

mean, that is the type of thing that I think has to be dealt with by everybody concerned

with this problem, the unions, provincial government, federal government, and that is the

kind of thing where we have to convince people in Ottawa, of the approach. I say to him

honestly, that is the approach we have been taking over the last five to six months, to

say to them first of all: this is your responsibility and you cannot do it by regular

programming, and there is an arrogance - you deal with it on a community and individual

basis; and one size does not fit all.

Once you accept those principles then you can work with almost

anything. I say to the hon, gentleman and to everybody else in this Province, it will be a

tremendous task, because you will have to deal with so many other different kinds of

situations.

I am not sure - I am scared of the fact, to be frank with you, that if

we just say: alright, it will be income support, buy-out of licences, mobility allowances

and take a blanket statement, five or six elements of the program and try to enforce that

on everybody, I am not sure that will do the job that we want done. While those are broad

components of the program, I think we have to give much more detail and much more on an

individual and community level. That will take a tremendous amount of work. But I support

the petition, the government support the petition, and we are taking a lead, we hope, and

we will continue to take a lead on this whole issue to try to ensure that all people get

what they deserve and not be regarded as people taking a handout - support the fishermen.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to present a similar petition, signed by a number of residents

of the Province of Newfoundland, who are here protesting today, asking the Government of

Newfoundland and Labrador to take a lead role in convincing the federal government to

announce and implement, without further delay, a successor program to TAGS which includes

income replacement, licence buy-backs, early retirement plus economic diversification and

to give immediate consideration to those who are entitled to compensation and are now or

are about to be taking off this program.

Mr. Speaker, this House, based on an all-party resolution or unanimous

resolution of April 1, decided to endorse a program for a post-TAGS Program and outline

the elements that are required to make the post-TAGS Program effective. We need a

substantial program, not just a program - a substantial program - that is going to be

effective in dealing with the problem. Now, we know, Mr. Speaker, what has happened. What

has happened is that the program that was announced for TAGS had some of the elements that

we are talking about here today but the reality was, that instead of 25,000 people

qualifying for the program, there are 40,000 people who qualify for the program.

All of the money that was designed to provide assistance to people

other than income support ended up going into income support. Not because that was all

prepared to ensure the funds were adequate to do the job that had to be done. So, we are

now faced with a situation, as the previous speakers have said, that there are anomalies -

there are anomalies in the existing program for sure. I spoke to a woman this afternoon

who is being cut off TAGS in two weeks time who has had twenty-two years working in the

fish plant - probably still in the gallery - being cut off on May 7.

When we were in Ottawa, we found out that up until now, there appears

this Province, to fight for or even contemplate the inclusion of that lady and the 2,700

others in this Province who are in the same situation in any Post-TAGS Program. Now that,

Mr. Speaker, is an abomination.

I think all hon. members in this House have to know what this was like,

where we were up in Ottawa looking for support for this Province. We went to the full

national caucus of the New Democratic Party, and I want to assure you that we were

welcomed with open-arms. On less than twenty-four hours notice, we went in on the national

caucus during their meeting - the full caucus - and after a few minutes by me and the

Government House Leader and the Minister of Fisheries, we were stopped by the Caucus

Chair, MP Nelson Riis. He said: You do not need to tell us more. We know the problem that

you are in. Peter Stoffer, our member from Nova Scotia who sits on the committee, our

eight MPs from the Atlantic Provinces, have kept us informed on this issue. We have a

question for you: What can we do to help? How can we help you convince the Government of

Canada that they have to help Newfoundland?

This was an All Party Committee. This was members of this House in the

Liberal Party, in the Liberal Cabinet, in the Conservative Opposition and the NDP,

visiting, in this case, the NDP Caucus looking for support to convince the Liberal

Government of Ottawa to listen to our people.

I want to tell you that we have our work cut out for us, because the

to other voices. I am not convinced that they are listening to us, I am not convinced that

they are listening to the Cabinet, I am not convinced that the Liberal Government is

listening to the people of this Province, I think they are listening to other voices.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. HARRIS: We have got to work together to convince them to be on

our side.

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

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am glad to rise today to support my colleague on his petition. I am

going to talk about this whole issue as it relates to our trip and the trip we are going

to take next, Mr. Speaker.

You talk about partisan and non-partisan: If you have a bunch of

politicians travelling together you are going to find different things and different

opinions. It is guaranteed to happen.

I can say this, Mr. Speaker, I am certainly going to report what I saw,

because that is our job. When we go as a committee to Ottawa, if somebody asks me what

happened in Ottawa, I am going to tell them.

Here is the reality of what happened - you can stick any label on it

you want - I was disgusted by the minister who is representing Newfoundland. I would not

know any other way to phrase it. Everybody was. We were totally, totally disgusted to sit

in that room, Mr. Speaker, with a delegation there and have the minister come up to the

microphone and make the announcement that nobody knew about it. I do not think his own

colleagues knew about it. I mean his own colleagues in Ottawa, the people who were sitting

next to me. That is what we have to report. I will not stick to that issue, but the point

I am making is that things happen and you report what happened.

The other thing I was disgusted with, Mr. Speaker -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: No, I am just making the points, legit points. As I

said - I do not know if you heard the first part - I am reporting like any other member

would report. When people in my district asked me the weekend what happened in Ottawa, I

told them. If I had a problem with a Tory up there or a Reformer who said something to me,

I told them. I had some problems with the Reformers and I had my say about the Reform

Party, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: Okay. I am just making a point here.

The other thing I reported on, Mr. Speaker - and I will use this as

another example. I just used a Liberal story as an example and now I will use a Reform

Party example.

We were in there sitting down, Mr. Speaker, and what they know about

the seal industry -

MR. TULK: (Inaudible) the seal industry.

MR. SHELLEY: Yes, that might be a good idea, I say to the

Government House Leader, because we were starting to get through to some of them.

I will say this, Mr. Speaker, that once we started talking to the

Reform Party I wish we had had some more time. Because the Minister of Fisheries and

Aquaculture, myself and the Member for Twillingate & Fogo, we all spoke about

something with them that they knew hardly anything about, which was the seal industry.

The Member for Twillingate & Fogo had to get up, Mr. Speaker, after

the minister had left - he had gone to another meeting - to explain to them that the

reason they do not find all the bones and the full fish in the seals is because a lot of

the time, as of course we all know, the seals eat the stomach of the fish. That is what

happens. That is why you do not see them all the time, but you do see them sometimes, Mr.

Speaker.

The point I am making is that the mentality of Ottawa and how it

relates to Newfoundland is a shameful sight. We ran in and out of meeting, not having

enough time to say what you wanted to say. It was almost like they were sort of: Okay,

come in and say your two cents worth and get the heck out of there. I have no time for

that, Mr. Speaker. As a matter of fact, we are going back this time - and I have already

said it to the Government House Leader - as a group. We were rushed the last time. We are

going to go in and sit down and have sufficient time for any of us who want to speak.

I will give another example, Mr. Speaker. The Member for Torngat

Mountains who had a tremendous story to tell - I have to tell you, of all the people who

said their piece, his was one of the ones that I really listened to closely. Do you know

what the shame of it is? He only had a chance to say it to one group. He (inaudible),

because there was not enough there. I don't want to say what group that was because for

sure you would say -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: We were.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: No, no, I duly respect that. In our caucus here we

have groups come in and there are certain time limits and everything else. That is why I

am saying - and I will get to the point of it - that we are all going up again together.

Now I don't want to be rushed into a room where they say, `Okay, you have three minutes

now.' And you don't get a chance to speak.

I want to be able to say we have sufficient time to give the story, to

give our side of it, as an All Party Committee who has gone there to convey to them ...

Because after seeing the minister, and after seeing - well, I will show you how

non-partisan I will be - one group of caucus show up with such small numbers, that was

devastating to me, Mr. Speaker, to go up there and see such small numbers of MPs who want

to listen to Newfoundland's concerns.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) if you name them.

MR. SHELLEY: Well, I won't at this stage.

AN HON. MEMBER: And I will tell you why. (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: Yes, I know, but I am not going to do that. I am still

not going to do that because I am going to get to my point in my few minutes on this

particular petition.

I went up there first and foremost as a Newfoundlander and Labradorian

and secondly as a politician, but first of all as somebody who lives here. I don't bloody

well want anybody up in Ottawa rushing me and saying, `Get your two cents in and get the

hell out of there.' Because it is not like every day we go up there.

What really bothered me, Mr. Speaker, is the psyche of the way they

were thinking. And for this Dennis Mills - I don't mind naming him in this Legislature, I

think he is the MP for Mississauga if I am not mistaken - to come up there at the

microphone and say there are 100,000 jobs up here. Boy, you are going to have to look at

moving them all up. Well, Mr. Speaker, there are people who live in Ming's Bight, Fleur de

Lys, and everybody else around this Province, who are not too fussy about that answer.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. SHELLEY: I will clue up by saying this, Mr. Speaker: We will go

up as an All Party Committee to present that we are going there not for a hand-out, or for

a job loss in this Province. We are going up there because of a way of life that was

changed in this Province. We are representing people in this Province, and we are not

going to be rushed through any doors for anybody, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much.

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

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I just had the opportunity to read the prayer of this

petition. I have no problem supporting the prayer of the petition, but I think we should

go a little further. Standing here in the House of Assembly and talking about what we

should be doing, I think each member on each side of the House, the All Party Committee,

knows full well what we should be doing. All we are doing now is playing politics, talking

in the House of Assembly, and just making points back and forth across the House. Who is

listening?

The truth of the matter, Mr. Speaker, is that we were in Ottawa last

week. Whether we went there on a rushed mission or whatever, we were there. We made our

presence known, and we raised the issue that every minister and every MP in Ottawa, on all

sides of the House, is talking about a post-TAGS program.

Here is where I have the concern. As I said out in the foyer of the

Confederation Building today, it is not enough just to talk about finances about a

post-TAGS program. We have to go the next step. You are not going to get compensation for

people displaced in Newfoundland forever and ever. What you have to do, and what we have

to do, is change the mentality and the attitude of the bureaucrats in Ottawa to put in a

proper management program for the fishery of the future.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. EFFORD: That is the responsibility of everybody in

Newfoundland, and it is not going to be easy. It is not going to be easy. It has been

there since Confederation, it has been there since I have been in politics in 1985,

regardless of who was there, and I don't see a whole lot of change today.

Let me tell you what I just had to do, Mr. Speaker. I just had to go in

and make a phone call to the Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in Canada and say:

Why are you closing down the personal seal hunt in Newfoundland? Well, we don't know if

the numbers are all taken. I said: Who gives a you-know-what about the numbers? There are

6 million seals out there eating the fish, and we have 20,000 people who cannot go

fishing. Where did you get your brains? Two thousand miles away, doesn't understand the

issue, has no understanding of what takes place in rural Newfoundland, has no

understanding of the logistics and what is going on here.

It is time, Mr. Speaker, that we stopped talking about it, and passing

pieces of paper back and forth, and going out and commenting on it, and being partisan

about what we should .... As the Member for Labrador said, let's all here in this Province

say the one message. It is not enough just for money alone. It is not enough for the

10,000, 15,000, 20,000 or 25,000 or whatever. We need a management plan. We need decisions

made here in this Province. We need to understand the coastal communities.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: He is taking care of that himself, Sir. We (inaudible).

He is a good man at taking care of that himself. If I was as good at (inaudible) as Mr.

Mifflin is, then we wouldn't have a problem.

Mr. Speaker, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians need an opportunity to

work in their communities. This issue here on TAGS and income for people is only a small

part of the problem. I heard an MP say this morning: What about the grocery store worker?

What about the truck driver? What about all the spin-off people? Don't those people

matter? Well, those people are not going to get jobs unless people get back in the fishing

boats, unless people get back into a means of earning a living from the sea, whether it be

cod or caplin or seaweed or any species from the ocean. There are lots of resources in

that ocean. When we learn to utilize it, when we learn to use it to our advantage, then we

will earn a living from the sea.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. TULK: Just now I asked the Opposition House Leader if he would

give me leave to re-introduce this motion at a later date after we had a conversation.

Mr. Speaker, I give notice and by leave move that the following

committees be composed of the following members:

That the Striking Committee be made up of: the hon. Beaton Tulk, Member

for Bonavista North; Mr. Percy Barrett, Member for Bellevue; Mr. Bill Ramsay, Member for

Burgeo & LaPoile; Mr. Loyola Sullivan, Member for Ferryland; Mr. Roger Fitzgerald,

Member for Bonavista South.

That the Government Services Committee be made up of: the Member for

Topsail, Mr. Ralph Wiseman; the Member for Cape St. Francis, Mr. Jack Byrne; the Member

for Trinity North, Mr. Doug Oldford; the Member for Port au Port, Mr. Gerald Smith; the

Member for Placentia & St. Mary's, Mr. Anthony Sparrow; the Member for Conception Bay

South, Mr. Bob French; and the Member for St. John's East, Mr. John Ottenheimer.

That the Resource Committee be made up of: the Member for Labrador

West, Mr. Perry Canning, Chair; the Member for Baie Verte, Mr. Paul Shelley; the Member

for Humber Valley, Mr. Rick Woodford; the Member for Bellevue, Mr. Percy Barrett; the

Member for Grand Falls - Buchans, Ms Anna Thistle; the Member for Bonavista South, Mr.

Roger Fitzgerald; and the Member for St. John's South, Mr. Tom Osborne.

That the Social Services Committee be made up of: the Member for Humber

East, Mr. Bob Mercer, Chair; the Member for Ferryland, Mr. Loyola Sullivan; the Member for

Burin - Placentia West, Ms Mary Hodder; the Member for Harbour Main - Whitbourne, Mr.

Donald Whelan; the Member for Twillingate & Fogo, Mr. Gerald Reid; the Member for

Torngat Mountains, Mr. Wally Andersen; the Member for Waterford Valley, Mr. Harvey Hodder;

and the Member for St. John's West, Ms Sheila Osborne.

Mr. Speaker, I would move that those Committees be composed of those

members.

MR. SPEAKER: Honourable members have heard the motion. All in

favour.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye!

MR. SPEAKER: Opposed.

Motion carried.

MR. TULK: If I could, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. TULK: I have asked the people who are the Chairs of those

Committees - the Member for Topsail, the Member for Labrador West, and the Member for

Humber East - to have a

schedule ready for us, because their life starts today by the

previous motion that we made, I think it was April 7, that the

schedule be ready to go

tomorrow. I would expect -

AN HON. MEMBER: Tomorrow is day one.

MR. TULK: Yes. Well, we will do what we have to do.

Orders of the Day

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, before moving to the Budget Speech, I would

call Motions 3, 4 and 5, if I could, which is first reading of some bills.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Government Services and Lands to

introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Credit Union Act," carried. (Bill No. 7)

On motion, Bill No. 7 read a first time, ordered read a second time on

tomorrow.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Environment and Labour Relations to

introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Environment Act," carried. (Bill No. 6)

On motion, Bill No. 6, read a first time, ordered read a second time on

tomorrow.

Motion, the hon, the Minister of Education to introduce a bill,

"An Act To Revise The Law Respecting Apprenticeship And Occupational

Certification". (Bill No. 5)

On motion, Bill No. 5 read a first time, ordered read a second time on

tomorrow.

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 1.

I move that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole on

Ways and Means to Consider the Raising of Supply to be Granted to Her Majesty, otherwise

known as the Budget Speech, and we are looking forward to hearing the words from the hon.

members opposite again.

I think it is the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. SPEAKER: Motion 1, the hon. the Minister of Finance and

Treasury Board to move that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole on Ways

and Means to consider the raising of Supply be granted to Her Majesty, otherwise known as

the Budget Speech.

The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am not certain how much time I have left on the Budget Speech because

I know that I concluded debate back before Easter. I think there are about ten or eleven

minutes.

Mr. Speaker, most of today we have been talking about a very important

issue here in this Province and that is the TAGS debate, and the need to continue income

support and to continue to look after fish plant workers and fisherpeople who have

contributed so much to the economy of this particular Province. The first thing we hear

people talk about is funding, where does the funding come from, we cannot afford to do

this or we cannot afford to do something else. Before I move on to another topic dealing

with the Budget, Mr. Speaker, I remind members opposite that we have an account up in

Ottawa with $14 billion to $16 billion sitting in it, an account that has been built, Mr.

Speaker, and contributed to by every working man and woman in this Province. It is an

account, Mr. Speaker, actually, that has been built by the poorest of the people in this

Province. It is a situation whereby people who presently collect Unemployment Insurance,

number one, pay more and number two, collect benefits for a shorter period of time and are

denied programs that were once offered through the Unemployment Insurance Act.

So now, we have built up that particular kitty, that particular slush

fund to about $16 billion and all we are saying to the federal government, if you are

honest and sincere in looking after the needs of the people in Newfoundland and Labrador,

then maybe it is time to give a little something back. Maybe it is time, Mr. Speaker, to

show that we are getting away from regional diversification; maybe it is time, Mr.

Speaker, to show that every region of this great country should be treated alike. Mr.

Ottawa, if you are not going to share your employment with us, maybe you can share your

wealth with us. We are all Canadians.

When we joined this country back in 1949, one of the areas where I

suppose we should have been more vigilant and should have paid greater attention, was to

the fact that we signed over control of our most important industry to Ottawa, and when

you hear of the mentality of people in Central Canada, the people in Western Canada, those

people who cannot comprehend what we are going through here in this Province, I say to

them very quickly: one way to bring it to reality, Mr. Speaker, is to compare it to your

own province, compare it to Saskatchewan, compare it to Alberta, compare it to when you

people joined Confederation, that if you decided you were going to allow the central

government to control your agricultural industry; compared to Alberta, if you were going

to allow the central government to control your forestry industry; or in B.C., Mr.

Speaker, a similar situation. And because of rules and regulations, and because of

decisions made by the federal government of this country, that the wheat farmers were not

allowed to grow wheat anymore; or the loggers out in British Colombia were not allowed to

log anymore - compared to that, and then, Mr. Speaker, the thought strikes home. Then, Mr.

Speaker, the reality of it hits home. They may not be able to comprehend what is happening

in our fishery, but if they were faced with the situation where their major resource was

controlled by the central government and they were not allowed to do what they normally

did to earn a living and to earn a profit, Mr. Speaker, I would say that you would see a

lot more than the demonstration in the provincial buildings of their legislature.

Mr. Speaker, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have become very patient

upon till now. Almost, like divide and conquer, we separate them and we take a few off of

programs today, and we take another few off tomorrow in the central part, and we move out

west and take a few more off. We have a lay-off here, a lay-off there, Mr. Speaker, and

because of the geography of our Province and because there are only a few coming off a

particular program, whether it is EI or the TAGS program or whatever, we do not always get

the big outcry, Mr. Speaker. I compare it to somebody's insurance been renewed. Many times

we hear talk of people paying a high premium for their insurance cost, and I venture to

say, Mr. Speaker, that if everybody's insurance came due at one time here in this Province

- if your fire insurance premium and your auto insurance premium became due on the same

day, everybody in this Province, you would see the biggest outcry, you would see the

biggest demonstration that you ever saw in your life.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to move a little bit away from the TAGS

problems right now, and a little bit away from the fishery, and talk about some of the

other things that have been included in this particular Budget; or what has not been

included. That is what is important, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the first thing I have to look at is the condition of our

roads - not only the Trans-Canada, in fact, the Trans-Canada, for the most part, is not a

bad highway, I say to you, Mr. Speaker. The Trans-Canada is not a bad highway. There are

certain areas now that we are concentrating on, that need to be upgraded and need to be

recapped and, for the most part, a lot of that is being done. It is being done because of

a Roads for Rail Agreement, an agreement whereby, the federal government reached out again

and took our mode of transportation, the railway, away from us, and said: In turn, we will

give you some money to upgrade your roads. I do not know what is going to happen when that

pot of money is spent. I do not know who is going to maintain the roads, or who is going

to maintain the infrastructure that is left behind after that, Mr. Speaker. But at least

up until, I do not know, probably the next eight or ten years, we have an income; we have

an income from the federal government to look after our Trans-Canada Highway and our

regional trunk roads.

Mr. Speaker, the roads in my particular district - the roads in

Bonavista South, for the most part, were paved and constructed or reconstructed, I

suppose, before the pavement, about twenty-eight or thirty years ago. It was done at a

time, Mr. Speaker, when everybody was after pavement, everybody was after some blacktop.

That was the secret to getting elected. Mr. Speaker, that was the secret.

The member who could provide the most pavement was the member who came

here and was re-elected in this House of Assembly. That was the secret. And for the most

part, Mr. Speaker, there was great competition as to who could get the most paving done,

who could provide the most pavement, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: That was not the case (inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: No, it may not have been the case, I can only speak

for my area, but I am sure it was. You probably got no pavement at that times because your

area was always represented by a Liberal member, so, you probably got very little

pavement.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that I have little time left, so in order to

give me more time I will move an amendment to the Budget motion. It is seconded by the

Member for Baie Verte. That amendment reads:

That all the words after the word "that" be struck and

replaced with the following: this House acknowledge and condemn the government's failure

to manage competently the Province's finances, its failure to live up to its duty or its

promise to provide adequate direction and funding for social programs such as health and

social services, its failure to secure the future of our Province by investing

appropriately in education and students, and its failure to discharge effectively its

responsibility to plan for and invest in economic recovery and employment growth in a

province, in particular, in rural areas so desperately in need of development and jobs.

So, Mr. Speaker, I move an amendment to the Budget motion, seconded by

the Member for Baie Verte. Is that motion in order?

MR. RAMSAY: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Could we have a copy

of the amendment?

AN HON. MEMBER: Sure you can.

MR. RAMSAY: (Inaudible) the Speaker rule on the amendment as to its

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Is the hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs rising on

a point of order?

MR. A. REID: No I am not. I am rising right now, Sir, as House

Leader, if you do not mind - not on a point of order. I would like to see the amendment,

if you do not mind.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Speaker has not seen the written copy of the amendment. I do not

know if the Table has received it.

MR. A. REID: Well, I am assuming that we can proceed with the

debate, then. If the Speaker has not received the amendment, then the House is still open

for debate, and we are debating. Am I correct, Mr. Speaker? May I ask a question, please?

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

Affairs.

MR. A. REID: I am assuming you are going to get the amendment, you

are going to rule on the amendment at a later time? Am I correct in saying that? So then,

are we -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

What I said was I have not seen the amendment yet.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, we provided three copies of the

amendment to the Page upon his moving the amendment. If the Chair has not received one, or

others have not received it, three copies were passed. I have a further copy, if Your

Honour would like to see it and rule on the legality of that amendment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DECKER: I have it now, Mr. Speaker, but maybe you, Sir, should

determine whether or not it is in order. You might even like to take a brief recess to see

if it is in order.

MR. SPEAKER: We will recess for a few minutes to have a look at the

amendment. We will come back in about five minutes.

Recess

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair rules that the amendment is in order. We are now debating the

amendment.

The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Whether the amendment carries or not is not an issue, I say to the

Minister of Justice. It at least gives us an opportunity to highlight the things that are

not in this particular Budget, and the needs of our people out there in Newfoundland and

Labrador.

What I was talking about before the amendment was presented was roads.

As I stated at that particular time, that was your ticket to the House of Assembly. If you

got a fair amount of pavement, a fair amount of blacktop in your district, then you were

coming back here to the House of Assembly. That was the way, Mr. Speaker.

MR. TULK: Roger, did you copy that off me?

MR. FITZGERALD: I would never copy anything off you, I say to the

Government House Leader.

That was your ticket here to the House, and in order for that to happen

.... Many times the allotment of funds that was put forward was enough money to pave eight

and ten kilometres but it was always stretched to pave fifteen to twenty kilometres. It

was always stretched to the limit. Where you should have two inches of asphalt, you were

probably left with an inch of asphalt or half an inch of asphalt. Where you should have

upgraded the roads and put in culverts, that was all forgotten.

It was not uncommon to see a group of people in rural communities come

out and gather around the asphalt spreader as it came in their community, if they were not

getting the road done to their particular driveway or to their particular house, or

through their town. That was a regular occurrence. When the asphalt crew would move in,

the people would come out to find out how much road work was being done, how much pavement

was being done, and if it was not to their liking they would gather around and picket the

asphalt spreader, stop the construction crew from moving on, and in most cases they were

successful.

A lot of the roads that were built were certainly inferior and not

built to the specifications that we see roads constructed today. I would venture to say, I

say to the Member for Twillingate & Fogo, that a bottle of rum may have gone a long

ways back in those days in order to have your driveway paved, or a few feet of pavement

put in somebody's driveway. Now we are paying the price.

A lot of those roads now have deteriorated to such a condition that it

is almost better for the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation to send in the

grader and take up the pavement. It is almost better for him -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: In the community of Lethbridge, I say to the hon.

member.

AN HON. MEMBER: I will make note (inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: You should make note because I brought it to your

attention many times, but it seems that nobody is listening. We have had petitions. I have

had letters from students attending school in Lethbridge.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: I do not know what the word on the street is, but I

will tell you one thing: I am not hearing that the minister is a pretty good minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are not?

MR. FITZGERALD: I am not hearing that in the particular area

(inaudible), and it does not come from me, I say to the minister.

The minister who was very kind and responded to a condition in my

district is the lady sitting behind the Premier's chair here today. I commend that lady,

as a Minister of the Crown, who met with every member here and said: Where are your

priorities? I commend the minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: She is not a partisan person. She does what she was

elected to do. She will come here and play her politics in this House, which is meant to

happen, but after she leaves here she is the Minister of the Crown and a Minister of

Newfoundland and Labrador, and I commend the minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: I am serious. She responded to a need in the

district, Mr. Speaker. She responded to a need whereby not only the parents but students

as well who were travelling on the bus were complaining about not being able to eat their

breakfast in the morning, not being able to eat and get aboard the bus and go over the

bumpy road on the way to their school.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about school reform, and in school reform

we are talking about closing schools, and we are talking about providing opportunities, I

say to members opposite, for people to be able to attend school and have all the means of

competing with their peers in other areas.

Somebody going to school down in King's Cove should have just as much

opportunity as somebody attending school right here on the Prince Philip Parkway, I say to

members opposite. If we are going to believe that, and that is what members opposite

continue to preach, if we are going to really believe that, then we have to start paying

attention not only to the number of computers that are in that particular school, not only

to having it well maintained and making sure we have clean air - very, very important -

but we have to take control and we have to be responsible for making sure that our

students not only learn in a friendly environment but are able to be transported over a

decent road in order to go to school.

Mr. Speaker, I have students in my district who probably travel from

three-quarters of an hour to an hour on the bus. They have to get up in the morning at

6:30 to prepare for school. I do not hear them complaining about it. I do not hear them

complaining about having to get up early, but I hear them complaining about the condition

of the road that they have to drive over. I hear them complaining about the condition of

some of the buses. I hear them complaining about a fourteen-year-old bus that has been

taken from another province in this country that we call Canada, where everybody is

supposed to be treated alike. I hear them complaining about having to get aboard a

fourteen-year-old bus to take their children to school. That is what I hear.

How many people in this room drive a fourteen-year-old car? Not very

many. How many people in this room drive a fourteen-year-old car?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: A fourteen-year-old Jaguar, I say to the minister,

that is only used for a couple of months of the year, is not a prime example. I know what

the minister drives. I walk by his house every day. How many people sitting in this

Chamber would go and put their children aboard a fourteen-year-old car, five days a week,

to make a jaunt to school? Not very many, Mr. Speaker. Still, that is what we are allowing

to happen in this Province today. We are allowing our students to be - sixty-nine,

seventy, seventy-two, whatever the bus can hold, pile them aboard. It does not matter what

the road is like. We will beg to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation and we

will probably demonstrate. We will keep the children out of school for a couple of days.

The problem never seems to get solved.

If we are serious in this House about attending to the needs of our

students out there, if we are serious about allowing them to go into the classroom and

arrive with a mentality that they can learn and they can absorb what is being taught, then

that road from their driveway to their school is very important. It is not being done.

I have six schools in my district. We have three high schools and three

elementary schools. In one elementary school that was built back in about 1965 or 1966,

that school is in so bad a shape, the structure of the school is so bad, that the

repairmen would not take a chance on crawling up underneath the school to attend to a

problem they had there. You know what they had to do? This is no secret. I will tell you

what the problem was. The problem was, the school was infested with rats!

What did they do? They put out the rat bait. They put out the Warfarin.

That is the proper name for it. They put out the rat bait. All of a sudden there was an

awful stench in the school, something smelled. We all know what it was, it was dead rats.

The maintenance people from the school board were summoned then to attend to the problem.

They decided they were going to look up underneath the school. That is where the smell was

coming from. They followed their noses. The structure of that school was so bad they had

to cut holes in the floor. They closed the school, they cut holes in the floor, and got

down underneath the school in order to retrieve the dead rats.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where was that?

MR. FITZGERALD: That was in Lethbridge, I say to members opposite,

and it only happened last year. That school is still occupied. That is shameful, I say to

members opposite, to allow that to happen in 1998 here in Newfoundland and Labrador. It is

a shameful thing to happen. That is how bad the school is.

The high school in Musgravetown, in the Member for Terra Nova's

district, although about thirteen or fourteen communities I represent attend the high

school in Musgravetown, you go into that school today when it is raining and you cannot

find a garbage container, you cannot find a wastepaper basket. It is not because they are

not at the school; there are lots of them, an ample supply. When it rains they are all

distributed over the school in order to catch the leaks coming from the roof. It was only

the other day one of the schoolteachers told me that one large garbage bucket that holds

fifteen gallons of water was dumped three times; filled, and dumped three times one day.

We are saying we expect the people in rural Newfoundland and Labrador

to be able to compete in that kind of an environment? Is that what we should be saying,

that this Budget is such a wonderful document? Is it any wonder why we pass an amendment

here of non-confidence in the Budget?

I fully realize we cannot go out and build all new schools, I fully

realize we cannot go out and pave all of the streets, but I think we can attend to a lot

of those needs.

I think back to the other day when the Minister of Justice was up and

went on with what a wonderful Budget this was, what a wonderful document, how happy

everybody would be, dancing in the streets. Wherever he was going to go in his boat he was

going to take the document with him and shout it from the rooftop, the former Minister of

Education who was reminded of this many times. If that makes him happy, to know that is

happening in our Province today and we should be proud of it, I am not certain where he is

coming from, not certain how in touch he is with the reality of it all.

That reminds me of the people we met up in Ottawa the other day. We

heard a fellow get up and say: There are 100,000 jobs here in Toronto, and he did not say

any more than that. It went without saying what he was referring to. What he meant was:

Tell 100,000 of your people, or 20,000, to come on up here. We have a place where we can

put them to work.

I was very quick to point out to him, Mr. Speaker, that moving to

Toronto is not an alternative for a lot of people. Moving to Central Canada, when you have

less than a Grade IX education, which 41 per cent of our people presently on the fisheries

program have -fifty, fifty-five years old, have their worldly belongings right there in

their homes which cost every dollar that they have made for the most part; well kept, well

maintained. What is it worth? What is a house worth today down in Port Union? What is a

house worth today down in Trepassey? Talk to people with $50,000 and $60,000 homes,

selling them for $8,000.

So you are saying that I should go down and tell my people, or you

should go down and tell yours, there is a job up in Toronto, boy, go there and take it.

Mr. Speaker, it is not an option for a lot of those people, to board up their homes. That

is what they would have to do. There is nobody rushing in to buy their property. There is

nobody rushing in to rent their property.

If you are going to Toronto to go to work, the price you are going to

have to pay for rent, board and lodging, is certainly going to be very expensive. You will

not be able to keep the heat on in your house down in Duntara or Open Hall or Red Cliff.

You will not be able to do that and afford to pay your $900 or $1000 rent up on O'Connor

Drive somewhere. You will not be able to do that. You will have to board it up and move

away. People do not understand that.

Mr. Speaker, I spoke the other day here in this House about a

constituent of mine where I went one day to make a donation to the local fire department.

I gave my credit card to buy gas. He looked down at the credit card and he looked up at me

and said: I am sorry, I cannot use it - because I was trying to get it for a couple of

weeks time - I am closing tonight. The bank is closing my business tonight, a business

that I have been in since 1967, one of fifty-three businesses. He was number fifty-three

in an area where the population, I suppose, of the three communities is about 2,000

people, Port Union, Catalina and Melrose. There are about 2,000 people there, maximum, Mr.

Speaker. Fifty-three businesses have closed.

I talked to his neighbour today to enquire how he was doing. His

conversation with me was: I do not know what is going to happen to me tomorrow. I have

been in this business since 1967. It is the only job I know, it is the only business I

have ever had. I have my car and my house up as collateral against this business. I have

borrowed on it in order to keep it afloat hoping something better would happen. Mr.

Speaker, I spoke to his neighbour today, I called him to see how he made out, to see what

he was doing. His neighbour said: His car is gone. His wife's father who was living with

him put into a home, put into Shirley's Haven down in Catalina, a beautiful home. He is

going to be well cared for, I can guarantee you that. Mr. Speaker, that is what they had

to do. He has gone to Toronto to look for a job, fifty-five years old, and she is trying

to arrange to do something with her furniture - not a very nice way, I say to members

opposite, to find yourself at that stage in life.

That is what it means out there today. The minister can say that we are

not paving this road or we are not paving that road because it is a dying community, it is

at the end of the line. No wonder it is at the end of the line.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: Those are words from your people, I say to the

Government House Leader. You know what I am talking about, you have them in your district.

You have them in your district, the Member for Bonavista North. I know his district.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: I know his district very well. There are a lot of

good people there, there are a lot of sincere people and there are a lot of people there

who get up every morning and go to work, but there are a lot more people there who would

like to get up every morning and go to work.

I do not get any satisfaction from getting up in the morning and going

to work and seeing my neighbour looking out the window with nowhere to go; I do not get

any satisfaction from that, Mr. Speaker. I do not get any satisfaction from being able to

go and take my wife out the odd time for supper and know that my next-door neighbour

cannot do that; that does not give me any satisfaction whatsoever. One thing we have to

remember is that we cannot go through this world alone, we have to help ourselves and we

have to help those who are less fortunate. But, Mr. Speaker, that is what is happening out

in rural Newfoundland and Labrador; and that, is just one example. And as I tell it and as

I say it, I am sure there are other members here who can relate to similar stories and

probably tell stories that would have even a more negative sound to them.

Health care, Mr. Speaker, down in my district - and I will talk about

my district because that is the one I know best, but I think it is representative of the

whole area, all of rural Newfoundland and Labrador. There were always five doctors working

out of the hospital, five physicians working out of the hospital, and there were two fee

for service in private practice, that is seven, and there were two more in Catalina, that

is nine, there was one in Trinity, is ten, and another one up in King's Cove, that is

eleven. There were eleven doctors serving that particular area, and I am only talking

about a few years ago - eleven doctors; right now, there is one doctor in Bonavista in

private practice; two doctors in Catalina, one just returned to work but there was only

one there for at least a year, there is nobody in Trinity, nobody in King's Cove and one

doctor in the hospital in Bonavista, Mr. Speaker.

He just recently returned, he was there and because of the workload,

because of the unfairness whereby he could not have time to spend with his family, he

moved away, and you cannot blame him. After that, every time a doctor came to Bonavista,

he came as a locum and every patient, every resident of the Golden Heights Manor,

everybody who entered that hospital through Emergency, had to go and tell his story. You

know, there is something about a doctor-patient relationship where people would like to be

able to visit the same doctor on a regular basis; there is something about a

doctor-patient relationship, Mr. Speaker, where you can go forward and the doctor will

know who you are, why you are there that day, and with a brief question, will be able to

respond and look after your needs. I tell you, it is not a very comfortable way or an

assuring way for people in that particular area to find themselves.

That is not the exception to the rule, Mr. Speaker, it is the same

thing on the Northern Peninsula, the same thing in most parts of rural Newfoundland and

Labrador, but, what did the government do? The government said: We have a problem here in

Newfoundland and Labrador, we have a real problem with doctors serving out in rural areas

and we have to do something. So they had this giant brain thrust and said what we are

going to do is, we are going to cut back what doctors can charge in St. John's. What we

are going to do, Mr. Speaker, is say that a doctor today practising in St. John's, we will

only give him half of what he can charge on MCP, so what did they do? They drove them out

of St. John's to the mainland; they drove them out of the Province altogether and this was

the people over there, the decision-makers of Newfoundland and Labrador.

These are the people over there, Mr. Speaker, who say: Trust us,

because we are doing the right things. Those are the people who go out and brag about the

wonderful job they are doing. Shame! Shame, I say, to people opposite, Mr. Speaker.

There is nobody who expects anybody to solve all the problems of this

Province. There is nobody who expects to solve the economy of this Province overnight but

we can go out and listen to the people. We can listen to the stakeholders and respond to

some of the needs. If you have a problem in health care, go out and talk to the people in

health care. Talk to the doctors, talk to the nurses, talk to the janitors and they will

tell you how you can save some money. You do not have to do it by laying people off. The

mentality of this government today is that the only way to save money is to give somebody

the pink slip - send them home.

MR. EFFORD: Are they Tories? They should go.

MR. FITZGERALD: It does not make any difference who they are, I say

to the member opposite, because everybody's life is important. Every child and every

senior in this Province today has a right to those services, whether he is a Tory or a

Liberal and for the likes of you to sit over there and get on with that silliness,

somebody will clean your whistle for you one of these days.

MR. EFFORD: Yes, but not you.

MR. FITZGERALD: No, because I would not waste my time on you. I

would not waste my time with you but somebody will.

AN HON. MEMBER: Don't go getting ma