March 28,

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLI No. 18

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): Order, please!

Before calling the routine business of the day, I want to

inform hon. Members of the death of a long time servant of this House, Mr. Bert

Hemmens, who was the Sergeant-at-Arms here serving for, I think, approximately

nineteen years. I think the person who served the longest in that position, up

to this present time. He certainly served with honour and distinction and

pursued his duties in an exemplary fashion, dedicated, committed and devoted. I

am sure hon. Members would want me to send the appropriate condolences to his

family.

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to endorse the

remarks of Your Honour. Mr. Hemmens was the Sergeant-at-Arms when I first came

into the House in 1966. I remember his very military bearing and the very proper

way in which he carried out his duties as Sergeant-at-Arms with a great sense of

pride in what he was doing and a great sense of the importance of the task that

he undertook.

I join with Your Honour in extending the condolences of all

Members of the House to the Hemmens family.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Opposition House Leader.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, it is with a great deal of

sadness that I stand too to endorse the comments made by yourself and the

Premier. I had the rare privilege, I guess, of working very closely with Mr.

Hemmens when I was Speaker from 1979 to 1982. And all of the words that you have

used to describe him are accurate and there are some others as well. He was a

brilliant veteran, I believe, and he showed that in his performance in the House

of Assembly. I will never forget the moustache. And I say to Members, perhaps

who are new and did not know Burt, that they might want to take a dart out into

the Sergeant-at-Arms Office some time, because there is a wonderful photograph

there on the wall that will give you some idea of what he looked like. He also,

I believe, perhaps had a fair bit to do with the training of our present

Sergeant-at-Arms, and as a gentleman that I know, our present Sergeant-at-Arms

looked up to with great admiration. We are quite sad to hear of his passing and

we wish to be associated with the condolences expressed and hope the family

accepts our sympathy.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I too would share the views of the Speaker in wanting to send

condolences to the family of Mr. Hemmens. While I did not know him personally, I

was aware of him as Sergeant-at-Arms from my visits to the Legislature over the

last number of years, particularly in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As

officers of this House, we all share in the sorrow of his passing, and I would

concur in the condolences to be offered by the House.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, on another note with reference to

a former servant of this House, if you wish, I have heard over the last day or

so of the impending retirement of a gentleman whose well known down on Prescott

Street and Duckworth Street, Newfoundland's best known conductor, is probably a

good way to put it. Anybody who has ever been down there and seen him perform

his responsibilities know he has done it in an admirable fashion, and always

with a smile. But what a lot of hon. Members may not be aware of, is that at one

time he was the duty constable in our House of Assembly upstairs. I remember him

being there again during my tenure as Speaker, so I think its appropriate if we

offer him the very best in his retirement, he and his family, and acknowledge as

well the contribution he made as a servant of this House while being duty

constable.

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

MR. DICKS: On the last point briefly, I think we all know

the gentleman in question and as Minister responsible for the constabulary I

think it has often been mentioned to me by the public the efficiency with which

the constable executed his duties, and I shared the pleasure of the interview

this morning. My wife has been a big fan of his as she comes through that

intersection several times a day, as she works downtown. I would like to add my

sentiments to those expressed so well by the hon. Opposition House Leader.

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to also join in the

sentiments expressed by the hon. Opposition House Leader and the Minister of

Justice. Constable Miller has not only performed a duty to this House but also

to the people who use the intersection at Duckworth and Prescott Street. I think

he has also performed a great service to the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary by

presenting a very positive public image to the Constabulary, and I think brought

about a great deal of recognition to them for the work they do in a very

positive way. I think his work in that field as a public relations officer

almost of the Constabulary in the Province ought to be recognized.

Thank you.

Statements by Ministers

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

Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform the hon. Members of the

House of Assembly that my Department has approved a grant of $100,000 to the

Canadian Sealers Association. This is part of a joint program with the

Department of Fisheries, as was previously announced by my colleague, the hon.

Walter Carter, Minister of Fisheries.

Mr. Speaker, this grant will indirectly provide support to

the fur industry in this Province, by allowing them to utilize a local fisheries

product. Seal meat will be available in the form of ground meat, silage and meal

for fur farmers to use as part of their feeding program.

In addition, it will allow current research work on

utilization of seal meat as a viable alternative for fur feed to continue and be

broadened in scope.

This initiative has been brought together through the efforts

of my Department, the Department of Fisheries, the Newfoundland and Labrador Fur

Breeders Association, and Mr. Harold Small, President of the Northeast Coast

Sealers Cooperative Society, Ltd.

I am very pleased to announce this support to the local fur

industry. While there is a current down turn in pelt prices it is noteworthy

that at a recent auction in New York there was a small improvement in prices and

a significant improvement in inventory levels.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, this venture supports two local

industries and the initiative of the Department of Fisheries which is to

completely utilize all parts of the seals that are harvested.

Thank you.

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

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a very

positive statement, one of the more positive things that we have heard as of

late. I would like to just say to the Minister that especially - it is not only

the sealers in this case, and he made reference to it with regards to the fur

farmers and the total fur industry in the Province. To those people it is a very

positive statement, and they were looking forward to some funds this year.

Especially now where the fur industry is in such a down turn, and especially the

fox industry in the Province, and the sealers as well. But more specifically in

this case now, pertaining to the meal part of it, the fox farmers. They are in

very hard times and everything that comes along to help them would be

appreciated.

I do not know if this would be sort of the start of setting

up a food kitchen that they were talking about for years. The fox farmers

themselves. Maybe it is tied in with some other areas they were talking about

over the years, such as road kill and stuff like that, with the Department of

Wildlife.

Pertaining to the seal meat part of it, Mr. Speaker, I just

last fall attended a meeting of the Sealers Association in Deer Lake where they,

in conjunction with the Marine Institute, have come up with some excellent

recipes pertaining to seal. Seal stews, even seal meat done in a sweet and sour

sauce, and it was all ready for microwaving and hopefully within the next few

months they would probably have something like that on the market.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that it is a very

positive thing. The other question I would ask, is that maybe there are other

things we could be doing for the sealing industry in the Province. And if it is,

and they are identified, I hope the Minister and his officials will take that

into consideration, because, if nothing else, Mr. Speaker, of the strong

part it

plays in our ecology.

Thank you.

MR. HARRIS: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

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

a point of order.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that I and

my party are often heckled from one side about the sealing industry, I wonder if

leave could be granted to me to speak, in response to this Canadian Sealers

Association announcement, so that they may hear my views on that subject?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No Leave.

MR. SPEAKER: No leave.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

Oral Questions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a

question for the Minister of Education. From personal experience I know the

Minister of Education and the Cabinet are involved in Memorial University

spending choices. When I was Minister from 1979 to 1985, the University Regents

and administrators discussed with me and the Cabinet, the decisions they would

have to make if there were a shortfall in the Government's grant in aid. I put

it to the Minister that this year, when he and the Premier set the University's

budget, not only did they know full well, Memorial University Extension Service

would be extinguished, but they actively advocated that. Would the Minister

admit that the university is following the Wells Administration script?

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, the answer is no.

MR. SIMMS: The shortest answer he has ever given, there

must be people in the audience.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My supplementary is to

the Premier. Has the Premier been moved by the out-pouring of support for

Memorial University Extension Service and will he respond to the calls for

reinstatement?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I want to inform the people in the gallery that they are not

supposed to participate, show their reaction in any way by applauding, or in any

other way in the House of Assembly.

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Member for

Humber East has done today what she has done in the past, set up a fabricated

position designed to get the particular answer she wants and has staged this

performance for the benefit of the people in the gallery.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Education

stated the Government's position very clearly. The Government gave no such

direction, none whatsoever to the university. Now what the hon. Member did when

she was a Minister, I don't know. I am not answerable for her and I don't intend

to attempt to answer. The Minister has spoken clearly for the Government. The

Government's position is as the Minister has indicated.

MR. SIMMS: We don't believe you.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final supplementary

is to the Premier. Why has the Premier chosen to create an empire under his

personal thumb presided over by Doug House and Wayne Humphries to which he gave

a multi-million dollar budget increase this year while cutting the budget of the

university and extinguishing Memorial University extension services? Was it

because he wants to consolidate more power onto himself? Is it because he wants

to silence community workers? Is it because he wants to return to the days of

Smallwood?

MR. SPEAKER: Order please!

MR. SIMMS: Good question.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: The fact is the Budget this year is less

than it was last year, but apart from that misrepresentation, the ERC budget is

less this year than it was last year.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order please!

PREMIER WELLS: The purpose of the Economic Recovery

Commission is indeed to return to the times of Mr. Smallwood, the last five

years of which saw us with an unemployment rate 2.3 per cent higher than the

national average. That is all. That is what we want to turn to, job

opportunities for the people of our Province, and that is why it is created.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order please!

I am going to have to ask the people in the galleries - it is

quite unusual for any response to come from the people in the galleries, and I

have to warn you that I have to carry out the rules of the House. I ask the

people in the galleries to please refrain from responding by gestures in any

way.

The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS. VERGE: I would like the Premier to tell the House

whether he agrees with the end of Memorial University Extension Service. If he

does not agree, what is he going to do about it?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

MR. WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge the tremendous

contribution the Extension Service made to the people of this Province. I also

acknowledge that they are capable of making a further tremendous contribution to

the people of this Province. I acknowledge that. But, Mr. Speaker, we have to

run this Province within our means. The former Government did not realize that

or did not recognize it, and certainly did not behave as though they recognized

it, and put the Province into a God awful financial mess that we are trying to

correct.

MR. WINDSOR: (Inaudible)

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the Member for Mount Pearl to please restrain himself.

The Premier is trying to answer the question and I am sure the Member wants the

question answered.

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Now, Mr. Speaker, we have to live within

the financial means of the Province and within the limits of our ability. We are

not prepared to make life miserable for our children and our grandchildren

coming in the next ten, fifteen, or twenty years to have to pay off the

inordinate amounts that have been borrowed in the past by continuing to do

exactly the same thing. We do not want to make former Premier Peckford's

prediction come true when he stood in this House and said, 'Another few years

and it will be 1934 all over again.' Well, Mr. Speaker, we came along in time to

head that off and we intend to head that off.

Mr. Speaker, we made decisions as to the funds that were

available. We gave no direction to the University. The University made its

decision, as it must make its decision within its discretion. I would like to

see the Extension Service continued from a matter of personal choice but I will

not tell the University how to run the University.

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary.

MS. VERGE: Mr. Speaker, will the Premier give the

University another $1 million so they can reinstate MUN Extension Service?

PREMIER WELLS: If the former administration had not blown

$22 million on Sprung we would not have had to do it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. WOODFORD: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister

responsible for Treasury Board, concerning all the announcements in the budgets

pertaining to layoffs within the Government structure itself, directly

and indirectly, through hospital administrations and so on. I wonder if the

Minister could tell me now approximately how many people were laid off, in

total?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, we have announced that the

results of the Budget will be the elimination of approximately, in the vicinity

of, 2000 of these jobs which are currently in the system. That is all I can say

to the hon. gentleman. When the effects of the Budget finally work their way

through the systems, the various systems that have to deal with the limits of

the amounts they have been given, when that finally works itself out it will be

around that number.

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

MR. WOODFORD: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister

responsible for Employment and Labour Relations. Could the Minister tell the

House if she received written notice from the Minister responsible for Treasury

Board pertaining to the approximately 2000 people, in other words mass layoffs,

and is she aware that under the Labour Standards Act,

Section 51, that this is

required?

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

Labour Relations.

MS. COWAN: The Minister, Mr. Speaker, is well aware of

what is required under that legislation, as is the President of Treasury Board

and the officials of his Department. The legislation does not bind the Crown,

however it was looked at very carefully, as we do not wish to set a precedent

for other employers in the Province. All collective agreements and arrangements

with various employees were examined and it was found that they were all covered

by their collective agreements or by other arrangements made when they were

employed, and either fell within the Act or actually made for better severance

arrangements than the Act itself did.

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

MR. WOODFORD: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

How can the Minister and the Government bring in regulations

on how and when to terminate employment in the private sector in this Province,

and at the same time treat their own employees in a discriminatory way, in other

words, The Labour Standards Act for the private sector in this Province and

double standards for this Administration?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Labour Relations.

MS. COWAN: My answer again would only be repetitive, Mr.

Speaker, but I suppose I should repeat it because the hon. gentleman seems to

have trouble hearing. First of all, the Act is not by the Crown. However, we did

not -

AN HON. MEMBER: You said it.

MS. COWAN: That is right, I said it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS. COWAN: We looked very carefully, Mr. Speaker, at The

Labour Standards Act and at the collective agreements of the individuals

involved, and they were not in any way violated. The Act was not in any way

violated. In some ways what we have been able to award to employees is even

better than the Act would provide.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. POWER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is for the Minister of Health.

Mr. Speaker, ever since Budget Day we have been trying to

prove to the people of this Province that the Budget document is neither fair

nor balanced. We have certainly made many efforts to say that the Government has

put the whole responsibility for the fiscal solutions of this Province on to the

backs of our public sector workers.

Mr. Speaker, one of the methods used by our hospital boards

to save money, to be more efficient is to use contract services, to hire

contractors to supply some services to hospitals. On Monday, April 1, the

workers, several hundred workers in the hospital health care system are

scheduled to receive a 3 per cent wage increase, and another increase, I

believe, later on in October or November. Could the Minister please confirm if

this scheduled wage increase for the employees of contracted workers,

contractors in hospitals, if this wage increase is indeed going to go ahead on

Monday, April 1?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I know the answer to that

question, but it would be better to direct it to the President of Treasury

Board, that comes under his jurisdiction not mine.

MR. BAKER: The wage increase for contracted services?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The legislation that has been presented to the House, as the

hon. Member knows, is the legislation that we will be considering. There are a

couple of amendments to be made by Government to ensure that, first of all,

people who must get the minimum wage will still receive minimum wage, and

secondly, that the pay equity agreements can be implemented if they are reached

during the year. Contractors are, Mr. Speaker, not covered by that legislation.

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

MR. POWER: Mr. Speaker, just for the record, let it be

understood that the Minister of Health in his own very cynical and subversive

way tries to reduce the legitimacy of my question by saying I have a brother who

happens to manage the food service contract for Nova Services, which is one

contract of eight or ten or twelve or whatever is in the food service business.

That does not reduce the legitimacy of the question, the workers -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. POWER: - are scheduled to receive a 3 per cent

increase on Monday. I understand from the President of Treasury Board's response

that they will receive their 3 per cent increase on Monday. The question I would

like to ask, -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. POWER: I mean is that the Minister's answer? That

there is going to be a 3 per cent increase on Monday or there is not going to be

a 3 per cent increase on Monday? Could he tell me?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, this legislation does not purport

to control the private sectors of the Province.

MR. DECKER: Hear, hear!

MR. BAKER: So I have no idea what increases are due in

the private sector of the Province. If there are increases due in a private

sector contract then they will be due.

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

MR. POWER: Mr. Speaker, no idea is the operative answer.

In effect, there are health care workers who are employed by contractors in

hospitals in this Province who are going to receive a 3 per cent increase on

Monday. There are other health care workers who perform exactly the same

functions in other hospitals in this Province who are being penalized from their

legitimate, negotiated increases by this Government. Now will the Minister

confirm that the health boards, the hospital boards, are going to need

additional funding to pay this increase which is scheduled to begin on Monday?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: The answer to his last question is no, Mr.

Speaker. The answer to the first part of his question is, I will answer it with

a question. Am I to understand the Opposition is now asking us to extend the

wage freeze to the private sector of this Province?

MR. POWER: A final supplementary?

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

for Ferryland.

MR. POWER: Mr. Speaker, the Opposition is asking for no

such thing. The Opposition is asking, as we have done in our discussion on Bill

16, for you to give back to the workers of this Province their legitimate,

negotiated contract settlement. That is all we are asking.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. POWER: And I can ask this question to either the

Minister of Health or the President of Treasury Board. If the Government is not

going to make additional funds available to Hospital Boards to pay for a wage

increase to their contracted employees, then are there going to be more layoffs

in the health care systems than were announced in order for hospital boards to

find the money to pay for this increase?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, that will be worked out in due

course. It is a private sector arrangement. I would like to add, Mr. Speaker,

that the choice with which we were faced was another 2,000 or 2,500 layoffs or

institute a wage freeze in the public sector; we chose the wage freeze, we do

not want to throw another 2,000 people out of work.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question

for the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations. Can the Minister advise

this House what plans the Government has for student jobs and student employment

this summer, particularly in view of the increased tuition fees and residence

fees they face next fall?

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

Labour Relations.

MS. COWAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are two programs

available to the students in this Province for the summer. One is put out by the

Federal Government, the second one by my Department. I will be making an

announcement about that, Mr. Speaker, very shortly. It is a press release

actually, ready to go out and I have asked my office, in fact I handed in a memo

yesterday to my secretary, to make sure that the information will be circulated

to all MHAs, on both sides of the House, because it is a very, very important

thing that we have our students meaningfully employed and employed over the

summer.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister

tell us how much of the pathetic $1.5 million Employment Generation Program will

be dedicated to student employment only?

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

Labour Relations.

MS. COWAN: Mr. Speaker, the Employment Generation

Program, as the hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House well knows, is not

a program designed for students as is the summer program for students, or the

graduate employment program, or the Canada-Newfoundland Youth strategy. It is a

long-term arrangement, trying to encourage employers and employees to have a

long-time work attachment to the labour force. So no money from that particular

program is going into student employment, it is going into employment for

individuals who have much longer than the two or three months a student might

have to give.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Will

the Minister tell us so that the students of this Province who will be getting

out of the university within a couple of weeks will know, how much money her

Government is going to put into student employment programs so that they can

make some plans as to whether they can perhaps hope to get a job in this

Province for the summer, or whether they will all have to go to the mainland,

where their parents have gone over the past year or so?

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

Labour Relations.

MS. COWAN: The student program will be released shortly,

Mr. Speaker, as I said, and the funds available will also be made known at that

time. But let me assure the students of this Province that with the Federal

Government's monies and what the Provincial Government is going to put into the

summer program, most students in the Province should have an opportunity to be

employed. If they do not, I would implore any MHAs, either on my side of the

House, Mr. Speaker, or on the Opposition side of the House, to come to our

Department and bring it to our attention. This Government is extremely concerned

about youth, not only their summer employment, but their long-term employment

opportunities.

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

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

Minister of Education concerning the decision about MUN Extension. Despite the

formal relationship between the University and the Government, the Minister will

know that there are many meetings with Cabinet and with the Minister of

Education over the course of a year in determining priorities and decisions

about Memorial. Can the Minister confirm, or is he prepared to have us believe,

that the Government has absolutely no influence of any kind over the decisions

and the priorities at MUN? Can he seriously ask us to believe that he can

credibly wash his hands of this whole decision?

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Member must know that

universities throughout the world have an arm's length relationship with

government. He must be aware of that. The Government was not involved in

decisions which expanded the Extension Service over the years, and it was not

involved in this decision, Mr. Speaker.

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

supplementary.

MR. HARRIS: Is the Minister telling this House that

during the course of discussions between Memorial and the Government over the

past year there were no discussions about the consequences of the Budget on MUN

Extension? Is he telling the House that?

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the hon.

Member is suggesting. But as the Premier said, we have respected the legislative

rights of the University to make decisions in this area. We hold discussions

with the University, certainly. We held discussions with them, for example, on

this Government's plan - if I might use an example - to decentralize first year

programmes in Labrador City and in Burin, and to expand in other areas of this

Province. Sure we hold discussions on these matters, but we are not going to

tell Memorial University which physics programme to offer, which Physics Faculty

member to fire, or other such issues. Mr. Speaker, traditionally universities

have had an arm's length relationship with governments and we are going to

respect that tradition.

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is to the

Premier. Given the response and the concern that he has expressed about MUN

Extension personally, and the fact that people and communities all over this

Province share that view, can he tell the House whether or not he would be

prepared to listen and respond to the call of the people to have this Government

do what has to be done to restore MUN Extension?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I have listened and responded

to the call of the people to restore financial stability and competence of this

Province, and that is what we are doing. Now nobody wants to cut out MUN

Extension. We made a block of funds available to the University within the

maximum of our ability and the University made its decision. I could only wish

that MUN Extension was not cut out.

But I cannot tell the University that they have the

responsibility to run the University but they can only run it the way I dictate

to them. That is wrong. If I was doing that, the people on the other side of the

House would be standing in this House saying I am an absolute dictator. So, Mr.

Speaker, we did not do it. We have responded to the people of the Province to -

[Loud coughing in galleries]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: We have responded to the wishes of the

people of this Province, Mr. Speaker, to restore financial competence and

viability to this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

PREMIER WELLS: And no amount of coughing is going to

alter that.

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

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

the Minister responsible for Municipal and Provincial Affairs. Last night during

debate on Interim Supply, I made reference to the new municipal operating grants

system and the new formula pertaining to water and sewer subsidies.

The Minister stood on a point of order and said, Mr. Speaker,

and I quote: "The hon. Member has been repeating the same point over and over

again, and it is an error so I want to correct it. The three year period is the

grants. The phase-in of the new grants program is over a three year period, but

the actual repayment of existing debt, which is separate entirely from the

grants, you are quite right, is 40 per cent of the first $750 per household.

That is not capped at three years. Only the grant is capped." Does the Minister

still stand by this statement?

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

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Member for his

question. I was going to clarify that point under Answers to Questions, under

item (e), a little later on, but I am glad he raised it right now.

Last evening I think there was a slight misunderstanding in

that I thought the Member was implying that the amount of repayment on the debt

asked from the municipalities would stop after the three year period. But, in

fact, the three year period is indeed a phase in. In the first year the

Government will be covering 86.66 per cent of the amount of the debt, then

phasing down to 73.33 per cent, and finally to 60 per cent of the debt, with the

difference of course being paid by the municipalities.

So it is just a slight misunderstanding. I realize what you

meant, that in fact it is being phased in. After three years the municipalities

will continue to pay 40 per cent of the debt that is on the books right now,

capped at $750 per household, and that is all will be expected of them.

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

MR. WOODFORD: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Because of

the obvious confusion, Mr. Speaker, and it is evident from the Minister down and

his officials in his Department, in Municipal Affairs, pertaining to the new

system and more so to the hardships put on municipalities in this Province,

would the Minister consider deferring the new formula until his department and

the councils have a clear understanding of what it means?

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

Provincial Affairs.

MR. GULLAGE: No, Mr. Speaker. The municipalities have a

very clear understanding of what it means. In fact it is very reasonable, in the

sense that we are only asking in the current year 13.33 per cent of the debt, up

to $300 per household. I think that is very reasonable. So it is not an

unreasonable program; it is being phased in over three years; it is not being

implemented all at once, and municipalities understand quite clearly what it is

all about. It has been explained to them, some of them several times. It is a

new program, and as with any change, it does take explanation and discussion

over a period of time. That has been carried out, the system is in place, it is

very fair, and it is working well.

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

MR. WOODFORD: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Well,

if the councils understand it and his officials understand it, could the

Minister explain why certain councils in the District of Humber Valley have had

their budgets sent back to them five times, so far? Could the Minister explain

that to me?

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

Provincial Affairs.

MR. GULLAGE: I don't know, Mr. Speaker, why certain

councils are having difficulty and why they are all concentrated in one

particular district. The hon. Member could probably speak to that better than I

could. But certainly we have had ongoing discussion now over the last few

months. We have given extra time. I have not insisted as the Minister that

budgets be finalized at year end. In fact, I even said that we would not insist

on March 31st. Normally we give them three months anyway beyond the calendar

year, but we are not even insisting on that. So there has been lots of dialogue,

lots of time, and we have been very understanding. The amount that you are

speaking of, the repayment of the debt, the portion that we are asking for is a

very, very small portion of their budget and has not impacted to the extent the

hon. Member seems to imply.

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

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for

the Minister of Fisheries. The Minister is well aware that last year's salmon

management plan caused tremendous difficulties for commercial salmon fishermen

both in Newfoundland and Labrador. In fact, the management program, I think,

wasn't announced until hours before the fishery was due to start. Can the

Minister tell us what if any representation his department has made to DFO with

respect to this year's management plan?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I am not able at this time to

outline in the most minute detail what representations we have made, I can only

tell you that officials in my department are constantly in touch with Fisheries

and Oceans. If he wishes, I can probably provide a more definitive answer to his

question tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Fogo on a

supplementary.

MR. WINSOR: Has the Minister invited or accepted

submissions from the interest groups concerned about the salmon fishery as part

of this Government's submission to DFO?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, we are in constant touch and

dialogue with the Fishermen's Union and other user groups. It is an ongoing

thing, pretty well, within my department. But, again, if he wishes, tomorrow I

can give him an update as to where it stands right now.

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

MR. WINSOR: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Is the

Minister aware of the fact that a committee of fishermen in the Gander Bay area

have made representation to DFO for a buy-out of salmon licences because they

fear that under the present DFO guidelines and the ones being lobbied for, they

will eventually be forced out of the fishery, and does the Minister support such

a proposal?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I am aware that a number of

fishermen in the Gander Bay area have petitioned the Federal Department of

Fisheries and Oceans to enter into some kind of a buy-back arrangement. Again,

these are discussions that are ongoing. There has been no decision made yet as

to what will happen to the fishery. I can only say that we would have to be very

cautious and watch very closely what happens to the commercial salmon fishery,

because a lot of people in the Province depend on the commercial salmon fishery

to a considerable extent for their incomes.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has expired.

Answers to Questions

For which Notice has been Given

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

Transportation.

MR. GILBERT: Mr. Speaker, earlier in the week the Member

for Torngat Mountains asked me to table any correspondence I had had with the

Federal Government regarding Marine Atlantic and their rate increases in

Labrador. At this time, I would like to table a letter that was written by the

Premier on December 29, 1989 concerning Marine Atlantic intended rate increases.

This was written to Terry Ivany, Chief Executive officer, and it outlines the

concerns we had, that Labrador is an isolated area and is not serviced by

anything other than Marine Atlantic and we feel that any increases should not be

beyond the cost of living.

I also table at this time a letter I wrote to the Hon. Doug

Lewis. What I did was send a copy of the Premier's letter of the previous year -

this was written in November of last year - and I told him that this was still

our policy and I asked him to take this into consideration when he was

deliberating any further Marine Atlantic increases in the Labrador area. I would

like at this time to table this for the hon. Member's attention.

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

Labour Relations.

MS. COWAN: I would like to table information that was

requested from me by one of the hon. Members two days ago, Mr. Speaker.

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to present a

petition of 200 or 300 friends of MUN Extension who had lunch with Phil today.

They mounted the latest wave in their waves of protest against Government's

decision in complicity with the University to extinguish MUN Extension. I fully

support this petition, Mr. Speaker. The prayer is as follows: The friends of MUN

Extension state that

whereas MUN Extension has provided -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The noise level is a little high and I cannot hear the

petition. I ask hon. Members to please try and keep the noise level down.

The hon. Member may continue.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The friends of MUN Extension state,

Whereas MUN Extension has

provided and continues to provide an essential service to the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador, and

whereas no other agency is capable of providing

that service, MUN Extension should be re-instated. Your petitioners respectfully

request that the hon. House take such action as may be necessary to ensure that

Memorial University re-instates its Extension Service and that it be funded and

equipped to provide the services it has traditionally provided.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the Education Minister's defence to the

loss of Extension Service has varied. At first he indicated agreement with the

loss, saying other agencies would be able to replace it. He cited the community

colleges, but when we in the Opposition reminded him that he cut the budgets of

the community colleges and the institutes by $1.5 million, and when the

education critic got him to admit yesterday that he is going to be closing five

community college campuses, he denied he had ever made that suggestion. He said

Doug House's empire would be able to replace Extension. Today he is denying

that.

Certainly, Mr. Speaker, this Minister of Education and this

Premier agreed with the decision of the University to eliminate MUN Extension.

The University Regents and administration would have held extensive discussions

with them about the choices they faced with the shortfall in the Government's

grant in aid. And I submit they fully supported that choice because the Premier

is trying to stifle free speech and criticism, he is trying to intimidate the

way his original political mentor, Joey Smallwood, stifled descension in the

1960s and the 1950s. He is replacing Mun Extension with his pet project, under

his personal direction, the Economic Recovery Commission and Enterprise

Newfoundland and Labrador. He has his golden boy, Doug House, building an

empire. He and the Government are giving that empire a multimillion dollar

budget increase this year, the empire comprising both the Recovery Team and

Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador. They have hired some of their political

allies and defeated Liberal candidates to that empire. The Liberal candidate at

Humber East in 1985 election, who has sold insurance, is now working as an

economic development consultant with Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador in and

Corner Brook, in their swank, posh new offices. So there is a burgeoning empire,

controlled by the Premier, at the same time as he is eliminating the successful

Mun Extension Service which operated at arm's length, which operated

independently.

That service, Mr. Speaker, comprised a rural component. It

had field workers regionally based who provided invaluable catalyst support

resources to individuals, groups, municipalities in the rural regions of the

Province. They have given a voice to rural Newfoundland. And that service is

needed more now than at any time since the notorious Smallwood resettlement

days. Because now there is a Wells resettlement program that involves closing

rural hospitals, such as the hospital in Placentia, I say to the Member for

Placentia, the hospital in Port aux Basques, the hospital in Burgeo, the

hospital in Springdale, the hospital in Baie Verte.

Now the community college campuses at Bell Island and

Bonavista, Springdale and Baie Verte and St. Anthony. The Memorial Extension

Service has an arts component -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to support the

petition presented so ably by my colleague, the hon. the Member for Humber East.

The decision to wipe out and to eliminate Mun Extension is one, I think, that is

a very negative decision for the Province and for the future of people all

across this Province. We have heard from the hon. Member about some of the facts

of work of Mun Extension. I want to tell the House about another group that is

lamenting this decision, and that is the Youth for Social Justice Network.

Mr. Speaker, The Evening Telegram reported the other day that

the Youth for Social Justice Network, which is a Provincewide organization of

youth working on issues such as environment, development and other social

justice issues, is one of two groups nominated by the Canadian Government for

the 1991 Commonwealth Award. Now this group, Mr. Speaker, is nominated for an

international award of all Commonwealth nations for groups working on social

justice issues. This group was formed in 1987 with the support of organizations

such as Mun Extension, the Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Organization,

and Oxfam.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this is a group which has, on a

provincewide basis for the last three years, run what they have called social

justice camps for youth. The idea is that young people from all over this

Province come together for a period of, I think, two or three weeks and they

discuss social issues; they discuss issues such as the environment,

international development, and how they can participate in those issues, how

they can raise their own consciousness and that of their fellow students and, in

fact, the community at large, about issues of social justice. These are now

being recognized, Mr. Speaker, as young people who have a positive attitude. Not

the negative ones the Minister of Education was talking about the other day,

young people who do have a positive attitude, who are trying to bring about

change for the good in this Province. And not only in this Province, in this

country and throughout the world. These young people are there. They want to do

something to help their fellow human beings. They want to organize together and

work on that, and they give credit, Mr. Speaker, to Mun Extension for helping

them do that.

They are saying, however, that they are concerned about what

is going to happen to them when Mun Extension goes. One of the Members said they

are delighted to be nominated for the award, but they are worried about their

own future, whether they will be able to continue to exist without the support

of Mun Extension.

People say that MUN Extension is an essential guiding force

to the development of youth and their awareness of local and global issues.

These kinds of comments, Mr. Speaker, are - hopefully the Government will listen

if more of them come forth and say to this Government we need MUN Extension. In

order to be able to express our ideas about the environment, about justice

issues, about development, about our Province, about what we can do, we need

organizations such as MUN Extension to do that.

Hopefully, with more petitions presented to the House, more

groups advising this Government that they rely on MUN Extension, perhaps their

hearts will change, they will not express the kind of comments we have heard in

the House today about: it is not our fault, we wash our hands, there is nothing

we can do about it.

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, thank you very much. I want to

repeat something I said at the rally today. I did say that I have continued to

pay tribute to the work of MUN Extension in the development of this Province. In

fact, as the petition was being presented, the Minister of Finance and I

recalled our work with MUN Extension on a number of occasions over the years,

and I continue to pay tribute to them.

I understand their disappointment. I understand, certainly,

the feelings and disappointment of those MUN Extension workers who are being

replaced or whose jobs are being lost. I understand the anger of some of the

leaders of the movement. But, Mr. Speaker, what I do not understand: I do not

understand the hypocrisy of the official Opposition knowing what I know about

what they tried to do to MUN Extension when I was a Member of that faculty. The

truth will come out eventually, Mr. Speaker. There are people who have it on

record. I do not have it on record, but there are people who have it on record

that if the University were not at arm's length, MUN Extension would have been

gone years ago.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Shame! Shame!

DR. WARREN: MUN Extension, Mr. Speaker, would have been

gone years ago if it had not been at arm's length from the official Opposition,

when they were in government. I do not understand the hypocrisy of their

position! Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: The evidence is out. The evidence is

out.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Prove it! Prove it!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) in the House and don't be

hiding behind (inaudible).

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

Extern.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hesitate to correct

the Speaker, but I represent St. John's East.

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

East.

MR. HARRIS: For the record of Hansard, Mr. Speaker, no

doubt at some point in time we will represent St. John's East Extern as well as

St. John's East.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: One seat at a time.

MR. HARRIS: One at a time.

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and privilege to rise and

present to the House a petition of 436 students of Memorial University. These

students also pray to the House:

Whereas MUN Extension has provided and

continues to provide an essential service to the people of Newfoundland and

Labrador; and

whereas no other agency is capable of providing that service, MUN

Extension should be re-instated. Your petitioners respectfully request that the

hon. House take such action as may be necessary to ensure that Memorial

University re-instates its Extension Service and that it be funded and equipped

to provide the services it has traditionally provided. That petition is signed

by students from all over this Province.

And just to give hon. Members an idea of how widespread the

support for MUN Extension is, I will read you some of the names of the

communities these students are from: St. John's, Paradise, Flat Bay, Marystown,

Appleton, Corner Brook, Burnt Islands, Portugal Cove, Botwood, Clarenville,

Gander, Coley's Point, Boyd's Cove, Harbour Main, Port de Grave, Old Perlican,

Logy Bay, Wabush, Avondale, Carbonear, Mount Pearl, Harbour Grace, Upper

Gullies, Grand Falls, St. Lawrence, Ferryland, Stephenville, Badger's Quay, Bay

of Islands, Cape Broyle, Georgetown Conception Bay, and Lewisporte.

The students from all these communities recognize the value

of Extension Service to all parts of Newfoundland. There are quite a few from

St. John's and there are quite a few who have not indicated what community they

are from, but, Mr. Speaker, the support for MUN Extension is very widespread

throughout this Province. And it is interesting that these are coming from

students of Memorial University, the ones Dr. May has said he wants to give

priority to; that he is going to give priority to the students and the academic

programme, and for that reason is getting rid of MUN Extension. But the students

at Memorial University, they recognize the priority of MUN Extension.

To my earlier comments about Youth for Social Justice I will

add a couple more, because my petition I present today from these students is

that of young people who are concerned about the future of this Province and

concerned about the kind of work MUN Extension has done. Another member of the

Youth for Social Justice Network said as part of the lamentation on the closing

of MUN Extension; one of the students says that MUN Extension has been heavily

involved in the formation stages of Youth for Social Justice and I know of no

other organization that could fill their role, a role they filled with

commitment and dedication.

Another young person said, `MUN Extension helps us with

everything, from the production of a news letter to learning video skills and

teaching us to be community leaders and organizers. We are angry that such a

valuable resource would be cut.' These, Mr. Speaker, are the kinds of sentiments

being expressed around this Province.

And I want to make one reflection on what the Minister of

Education has just said about the previous Government and the threat to

Extension. I, too, have heard from very, very reliable sources that one of the

things that every year would come up, and this is why I was so confident in

asking the Minister today - every year it would come up in discussions with the

Government, that they were constantly trying to justify decisions and actions of

MUN Extension to the Government when this party was in office. And I am

suggesting to this House and to the Government that the same thing applies, and

that they do have an influence over MUN Extension. Unfortunately, the university

has acceded to the kind of pressure it has been getting over the years and have

dropedp MUN Extension.

But it re-inforces the kinds of things I have been saying in

these speeches, Mr. Speaker, that MUN Extension is a thorn in the side of the

Government. But it is designed to be a thorn in the side of the Government; it

is designed to be the democratic expression of people throughout this community.

People who are fighting for social justice have to fight against Governments,

because Governments often act to repress those urges amongst people.

Mr. Speaker, this petition and the petitioners ought to be

supported. If the House can do something by legislation we would certainly

gladly do it. But this Government has control of that. So I ask, along with

those petitioners, that MUN Extension be re-instated, and be funded and equipped

to provide the service it has provided to the people of this Province. Thank

you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to support the

petition put forward by the Member for St. John's East, because of the vital

role MUN Extension has played in the development of rural Newfoundland.

I also have to make comment on remarks made by the Minister

of Education about the former Government intending to get rid of MUN Extension.

What is important in this is that the former Government did not do it. It was

this Government that got rid of MUN Extension. And the Minister can stand there

in his place all day and talk about arm's length and everything else, but

everyone knows the reality, that MUN was supported by the former Government and

if it had wanted, MUN Extension would still be there.

It is interesting to note that MUN Extension cost, I think,

something in the range of $1.4 million, and last year, through its bungling,

this same administration lost $1.5 or $1.6 million on a bridge contract in

Labrador. That amount of money could have saved MUN Extension, the kinds of

blunders this Administration makes, not to mention the protocol and other things

that are in this year's Budget.

But I want to get on to the role MUN Extension has played in

rural Newfoundland. I was intrigued by the remarks made by a Wilf Bartlett of

the Newfoundland Fishermen's Inshore Association today about the vital role MUN

Extension had played in helping their fishermen's committee go on to get a

marine centre; when they had given up, it was MUN Extension who was constantly

there providing them with the leadership, the drive and the initiative to go on

and get that facility.

Just last year, at a major forum in Gander I think, which the

Minister of Fisheries attended, Elaine Condon and her group put together a

fisheries forum out there where people were brought in from all over

Newfoundland. The Fishermen's Association could not find the money themselves to

do it, it was too costly. Where did they turn? They turned to MUN Extension and

MUN Extension brought in the expertise to be co-ordinators; they gave them a

measure of financing so that this forum could take place where fishermen, the

people who live outside the overpass, had a chance to express their views, their

opinions and their ideas on the developing of their resource. So MUN Extension

has played a very important role and the fishermen of this Province, the rural

Newfoundlanders, need the direction that MUN Extension can give.

They reflect back to the early 60s, when a former Liberal

Government decided that rural Newfoundland did not have the right to be. One of

the places they slated for closedown was Fogo Island. The people of Fogo Island,

with the help of MUN Extension, were able to save their community, and develop a

major industry through the Fogo Island Co-op. And to this day MUN Extension

still plays a vital and pivotal role in the Fogo Island Co-op being the viable,

economic base that is provided for Fogo Island. So, Mr. Speaker, MUN Extension

does have a role to play. It continues to play a vital role in Newfoundland, and

this administration should direct Memorial University: forget this arm's length

and everything else, find $1 million, give it to MUN Extension so it can get on

with doing the job it was intended to do.

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, there is not much else I can add

to the comments I made earlier, other than the fact that I was pleased yesterday

to announce to this House and to the Province that we were going to revitalize a

number of campuses in the post-secondary system so that they can become adult

learning centres for rural Newfoundland. It would have been easy in these tough

times to close some of these campuses, but we believe, and this is another

reflection of this Government's commitment to rural Newfoundland, that these

campuses can become viable, very vibrant adult learning centres. That is a

reflection of our commitment to rural Newfoundland, Mr. Speaker.

I would say there is some confusion in the mind of the

Opposition about this arm's length. The purpose of having the University at

Arm's length is to give them the freedom to criticize, to be critics. Once the

Government starts to interfere with the operation of the University, you

eliminate that freedom of the University to be a social critic. I see some of my

friends nodding. This is the very reason why we have this arm's length

relationship. We have it so that universities are free to criticize. And this

Government, no Government, will interfere in the ability of Memorial to be a

critic of Government, of industry, of business, of anything in this Province.

That is why we did not intervene and do not intend to intervene and tell the

University what to do in deciding on its programs - we have a Board of Regents.

There is one final point, Mr. Speaker. The Board of Regents

of Memorial University represents the whole Province. We have people on it from

all over the Province. Surely all these persons are not going to turn their

backs on rural Newfoundland. I will someday find out how many there are from all

parts of this Province. The Board of Regents makes these decisions with the

President, and that Board represents the whole of the Province. I have

confidence that they are doing what they had to do in the current financial

context, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much.

Orders of the Day

MR. BAKER: Motion 3, Mr. Speaker.

On motion, that the House resolve itself into Committee of

the Whole on Supply, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.

Committee of Supply

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order please!

The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Chairman, a few days ago the Minister of

Development, I believe it was speaking in this debate, spoke about the history

of the financial position of the Province, the borrowing power of the Province

and the impact that has on the bond markets. He talked a little bit about the

debt of the Province and he took trouble to list out the overall debt burden of

the Province going back to the Smallwood era. He pointed out, Mr. Chairman, that

there has been a growth in the overall debt from the first figure he quoted back

in the Smallwood era of a little under a billion dollars and at the end of the

Frank Moores era of about $2.2 billion, starting out at $2.5 billion in 1979 and

growing to about $5.5 billion or $5.3 billion today. All those figures he used

were accurate, Mr. Chairman, not to be denied. He did not point out that the

past two years this Government has borrowed a billion dollars, $1.1 billion

almost $1.2 billion has been the total borrowing program in the last two years

for this Government. The largest two years of borrowing in the history of this

Province. This year it's 573, last year was 605 or 615, a record borrowing.

So, Mr. Chairman, he did not point out that from 1982 to 1985

over a four year period, a period of the worst recession that this nation has

seen and that this Province has seen since the Great Depression, a total over

those four years of $1.1 billion was borrowed. Now this Government has borrowed

$1.2 billion in two years verses $1.1 billion growth in the total debt over that

four year period. So we can all play with numbers, Mr. Chairman, if we would

like to pull those numbers out.

In the Budget, Mr. Chairman, and I should say it is

interesting that I am responding to the Minister of Development on these issues,

it really should have been the Minister of Finance who should be debating the

issues as it relates to the bond market and the public debt. It is incredible

that we have now been debating for seven or eight days and nights in this House

on Interim Supply on Budget, and I don't believe the Minister of Finance has

rose in his place once, not to my recollection. I don't believe the Minister of

Finance has once entered into this debate.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. WINDSOR: He has been up once.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: He did the Budget Speech. He introduced

Supplementary Supply in 60 seconds or less. He managed to read the headings. He

didn't even read the whole Bill, thank goodness, he spared us that, but he read

the headings. I was not here when he introduced this Bill, but I am told he was

a minute or two. I was two or three minutes late getting into the House that

day, and it was all done by the time I got here. I was afraid I was going to

miss some great words of wisdom from the Minister of Finance, the Minister who

we now know as Dr. No. We ask him questions in Question Period and all we get is

no, no, no, no, so we now know him as Dr. No.

Anyway, it is incredible that it was the Minister of

Development who had to try to defend the Government's position and the

Government's claim that they had such a terrible financial situation. They are

having a great difficulty explaining how a $4 million surplus in their first

year, that Budget being, in fact, a Tory Budget because of very, very few

changes, if any, from the Budget document that was all but finalized when the

election was called, and so they can take no credit for that particular Budget.

They did not have time to do very much with it or could they have done much

about it. So we passed them a $4 million surplus and in two years they have

turned that into a $117 million deficit - in two years, yet they tried to blame

the Province's financial position on the Tory Government, talk about the public

debt being escalated so many times since the PC Party came to power, during the

period of the PC government. On page 7, Mr. Chairman, of the Budget document,

the Minister produced a graph - a bar chart - entitled Net Public Sector Debt

Per Capita. And one would not be surprised to see that the bar chart is growing

steadily. It levelled off a little bit in fact over the last few years, grew

fairly steadily from - it starts about 1982 - grew rather quickly from 1982 to

1985, the years of the previous national recession, levelled off a little bit in

the last few years, from 1986 to 1989, but in the last two years it started to

jump up again.

So there are no great surprises there and there is no great

surprise that even from 1982 to 1991 it has increased by about 50 per cent. That

is the Net Public Sector Debt Per Capita. Well, of course, if you look at

straight numbers the debt is going to grow per capita - in real dollars. But

what has happened, Mr. Speaker, in constant dollars - there is the question? So

I am suggesting to this House that this graph is very very misleading. It is

nothing more, nothing short, of being political propaganda. That is all it is.

Anybody who would not think that the per capita debt is growing steadily would

be being less than honest with themselves.

Well, Mr. Speaker, it is curious, when you look at the

Province's prospectus. A prospectus, for all those who are not familiar with it,

a prospectus is basically a statement of the financial position of the Province

which is produced each year by the Minister of Finance, and it is given to the

credit rating agencies and to the bond market to potential investors in

government bonds. I refer to a prospectus produced by the present Government,

November 15 of 1990, it is a relatively current prospectus.

Now this is the Government's own document and it is no

different from prospectuses that have been produced for a number of years. If

you look at Table 15, dealing with the public sector debt, the information that

is provided to the bond markets would list all of the actual figures of the

Provincial direct debt, total debt, Crown Corporation debt, all of these numbers

of what the debts are. But when you start comparing this debt with previous

years' debt to see how you are doing, you do not look at the per capita debt.

You look at two factors. Two factors alone that are expressed in terms of

percentages in a prospectus. Two things that the bond market agencies want to

see.

The total public sector debt as a percentage of personal

income. In other words, how has the debt grown in relation to the income of the

people of the Province? Not what is the actual debt. What is the debt in

relation to your ability to pay? That's one item. And the other one is a total

public sector debt as a percentage of gross domestic product. In other words,

what is your total debt burden in relation to the amount that you are producing

as a Province? Those are the two factors. Much more significant than simply

comparing each year per capita debt, because you are not talking constant

dollars.

Very interesting, Mr. Chairman, so I did some research. And I

produced a couple of graphs which I will table, because I am sure the Minister

of Finance has never seen anything like it. Not that he could read them if I

passed them to him, but the Newfoundland Public Sector Debt Per Capita as a

proportion of personal income per capita. Very interesting numbers. And I find

that in 1970, the Smallwood era, the debt to income ratio was 70.4 per cent. In

other words the per capita debt was 70.4 per cent of the average per capita

income, an interesting figure, and that was the Smallwood era. This was the

so-called stable financial situation that was passed to the first PC

Administration. So it averaged around 70 to 71 per cent in the early 1970s.

The next figure I have is 1975, and it had basically moved

slightly up to 71 per cent by 1975. Thereafter it starts coming down, relatively

slowly from 1975 to about 1979, an interesting figure, 1975 to 1979, a gradual

decline in the percentage. So in 1979, we were actually down to about 70 per

cent. It came down a couple of per cent. Then from 1979 to 1982, in 1982 we

dropped off to 67 per cent, in fact, 66 3/4 per cent. So our per capita debt is

really starting to come down in the first couple of years of the Peckford

Administration.

Then, of course, we hit the recession - when hon. gentlemen

get the graph they will see a few little ripples here where we hit the recession

from 1982 to 1986, where we actually came back up to about 68 per cent again,

almost 68, 67.89 per cent. Then, Mr. Chairman, in 1985-86, we came in with the

five year plan, my colleague, the Opposition House Leader will recall, and my

colleague for Ferryland, St. Mary's - The Capes -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. WINDSOR: By leave, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave!

MR. CHAIRMAN: By leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: There is no leave over there.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No leave?

MR. WINDSOR: Oh, oh, oh the House Leader is cracking the

whip.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please! Order,

please!

Does the hon. Member have leave or not?

MR. FUREY: Agreed.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the hon.

Minister for Development for overruling the House Leader.

MR. HEARN: And the Premier.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Chairman, I will not abuse that. But I

thank the hon. gentleman, because I am into a serious presentation here, and I

will not take ten minutes. The Minister of Finance may not think it serious, but

he is soon going to find out the difference.

Now, Mr. Chairman, in 1985 the previous Government announced

publicly a five year plan to deal with the financial situation of the Province,

a five year plan to reduce the deficit because we, at that time, if I recall, I

stand to be corrected, I believe we introduced a deficit in our Budget that year

of about $80 million or $82 million, the highest deficit that we had ever

introduced as a Government, $82 million. That was unacceptable to us, it was

unacceptable to the Province, it was unacceptable to the people it was

unacceptable to the credit rating agencies. We said, we do not have any choice,

we have just come through a depression, we do not have the resources. We could

have massive public service layoffs of $100 million, and come in with a $20

million surplus. We choose not to do that. We said we will borrow.

We went to New York and sat down with the credit rating

agencies. We planned to bring in an $80 million deficit, but we have a plan that

we are committed to, that we are announcing publicly, a plan for capital

construction, a plan for current account deficits, and a borrowing program, and

we intend to stand by it and by 1989 we will produce a balanced Budget.

Well, Mr. Chairman, what happened over that period of time?

The graph tells us very clearly the bottom falls right out of it, Mr. Chairman.

It comes right down. This is a graph of the public sector debt per capita as a

percentage of personal income per capita. In other words it is comparing the

debt burden per capita with the earning power per capita, and it just falls

right off, Mr. Chairman, falls right down. So from 71 per cent back in 1970, we

come down to 56 per cent by the end of 1989. A very, very significant

difference. In fact, Mr. Chairman, over the period 1970 to 1986 we had dropped

only 3 or 4 per cent. But from 1986 to 1989 we dropped 12 per cent. Because we

had a five year plan it was difficult. It made collective bargaining very

difficult. We all remember that and that is why collective bargaining was so

difficult, because we had a plan that we were committed to and that we had to

comply with if we were to reach our goal, and our goal, Mr. Chairman, at the end

of 1989 was a balanced Budget and we had in this Government a $4 million

surplus. There is the financial record of the Province, Mr. Chairman, up till

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Actually, yes. The budgeted figure was $4

million. We actually ended up, I think, with a $37 million surplus which in fact

was a $60 million surplus because there was a special payment of $20 million

that went into the pension fund and a special payment of $4 million which was

given the Marystown Shipyard to pay their interest in advance. I still have not

gotten an answer from the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Development as

to why the Supplementary Supply Bill that we passed last week had that $4

million back in it again. Some day I will get the answer, but it is not there

yet. Why did we make a special payment in 1989 and yet have to approve

Supplementary Supply of $4 million to pay the interest for the Marystown

Shipyard debt again for last year? Why twice? Neither the Minister of

Development nor the Minister of Finance has stood in his place yet and given us

the answer for that. Well, Mr. Chairman, that is where we were in 1989 at 56 per

cent, dropping almost a straight line in the last three or four years, coming

straight down the page. Well, Mr. Chairman, we bottomed out. We have levelled

off and started to come back up again. The public sector debt is now growing

more rapidly than the per capita income and we are going to find, Mr. Chairman,

that unless this Government takes immediate action we are going to see it go

back up again to the sad condition we were in at the end of the Smallwood era.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I could go through the same exercise exactly in comparing the

total public sector debt as a proportion of gross domestic product. It is very,

very similar, I will table both graphs, and I invite the Minister of Finance to

respond to these figures. He will see a similar thing with gross domestic

product, although we do not have the data, we do not have as many numbers from

1970 to 1981, we only have a couple of numbers, so the graph is not as

informative, but from 1980 onward we can see what happens with gross domestic

product. So, I think that indicates very clearly that we handed to this

Government a financial situation which was stable, which was headed in the right

direction, and which was drastically reducing the deficit. In fact we had come

to a surplus position and were greatly reducing the debt burden as a percentage

of personal income, and as a percentage of gross domestic product to the

Province, in both cases the two indicators that Government is asked to provide

in its prospectus when it goes to the bond market. That is why, Mr. Speaker,

this Government this year found itself, when it went speaking to the bond

market, they found that last year things had started to turn around and the

projections for this year were going to show an even more drastic negative

change. You are heading for disaster again and that is why this Government was

told by the bond market, you had better watch your borrowing, you had better

start reducing, and where is your plan? Mr. Chairman, where is this Government's

plan? They have told us all about the thousands of public servants that will be

laid off, the hospital beds that will be closed, the cutbacks in education and

social programs, the restraint in expenditure and capital works, and maintenance

programs of various departments, but where is the plan, Mr. Chairman? We see no

financial plan. We see no economic development plan. We are asked to believe

that an Economic Recovery Commission and Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador

will be the saviour of this Province. Well, Mr. Chairman, after two years the

Economic Recovery Commission is seen as an absolute dismal failure by the people

of this Province, an absolute dismal failure, having produced absolutely

nothing.

Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador is no more than

reshuffling the deck chairs. Reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic ,

I say to the Minister of Development, will not save his skin. He had better

steer a course for economic development that will create jobs in this Province,

and will create employment and economic activity, and will provide to the

Government the financial resources to continue with the social programmes that

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians demand and deserve.

But I do not see it coming from the hon. gentleman. I do not

see an economic plan. I do not see a financial plan from the Minister of

Finance. I do not see a plan for deficit reduction. I see a stab in the dark for

one year, saying we have to dismiss 3,500 public servants to save $100 million,

and we are still going to borrow in order to satisfy a $57 million deficit. But

I have no idea how I am going to reduce that deficit next year. In fact, the

President of Treasury Board told me two days ago in this House that we were

probably looking at a $400 million deficit next year, if action was not taken.

Well, the action taken was a $100 million savings on salaries for public

servants, so one would assume that we are looking at $300 million next year now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. WINDSOR: By leave again, if hon. Members are

(Inaudible)?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Does the hon. Member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: By leave.

MR. WINDSOR: I am waiting for the answers, I have the

questions. It is the answers that we are waiting to hear. We are waiting to hear

the Premier, and the Minister of Finance and Development tell us what they are

going to do about the financial mess that this Province is now in!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: My colleague from Kilbride may give me some

answers. So, Mr. Chairman, where is the plan?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I ask the Premier to rise in his place and

tell me. Because his Ministers of Finance and Development refuse to do so, the

Minister of Finance will not even answer the questions. When we showed to him

that the information that we have been given - I have the copy of Hansards here,

the words of the President of Treasury Board and the Minister of Finance -

indicating that we are now to believe that this Government is faced with a $300

million deficit next year unless further action is taken. And the Premier was

not here yesterday, but when I asked the Minister of Finance what action does he

propose: does he propose thousands of more Public Service layoffs, or does he

propose another massive borrowing programme to increase our debt more, or does

he propose increased taxation? He stood in his place and he said: no, no, no.

The famous "Dr. No." We will get no information from the Minister of Finance.

So I ask the Premier - since the Minister of Finance is

either unwilling or incapable of giving us the information - perhaps the Premier

would stand in his place and tell us what is the plan of this Government.

Because we do not see it in the Throne Speech and we do not see it in the Budget

documents. Somebody said to me yesterday - my colleague from Menihek, I believe

it was - related a statement somebody made, and I recall now what it was. It was

a statement that somebody made in reference to the Premier's position on Meech

Lake. He said the Premier responded to a snapshot in time but he was not capable

of looking at the moving picture. Very, very astute observation. The Premier

responded to a snapshot but was not capable of looking at the whole moving

picture.

And that is exactly what this Budget is, Mr. Chairman. It is

a snapshot in time without any reference to the moving picture. Without any

plan, goal, objectives, or answers, as to how the financial situation that this

Province is now in is going to be resolved.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I will take a little break, Mr. Chairman. I

can go on for hours and hours and hours, and I am delighted to sit down. I thank

hon. gentlemen for leaving. I look forward to the comments of my colleague, the

Minister of Development.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Minister of Development.

MR. FUREY: Mr. Chairman, just to carry on with the hon.

Member's metaphor, the previous government went to the movies for seventeen

years and never came back. That was the real problem. It was not a question of a

snapshot in time and looking at the larger picture. This Government has seen the

larger picture. In fact, when the Premier took over as Leader of the Opposition,

one of the things that he did was commission all Members and the whole research

staff to take a good look at some of the problems and some of the positions that

the Province had found itself in because of the previous tenures. I think it was

the previous tenures that the Premier wanted to have a good look at.

Now, some of us went back the seventeen years, but the

preceding ten years, the Peckford years. And from 1979 onward it was not a happy

picture, it was not a very good picture, and if you wanted to make it a movie it

was a pretty poor movie, a Grade-B movie.

Well, we can challenge each other politically back and forth

all day long, but that does not resolve why we are here and what bill we are

discussing. We are talking about Interim Supply, and we have been talking about

it day and night for the last week and a half or two weeks. The speeches have

been political, the rhetoric has been flying, but I have not heard any questions

that dealt with the Interim Supply bill. I am asking hon. Members as the

Minister of Development for $52.8 million - not one question.

MR. WINDSOR: That is not true.

MR. FUREY: Now, the hon. Members want to filibuster and

play games with the Treasury of the Province and possibly delay payment to

people who are good, hard-working people in this Province. If they want to

stymie our ability to pay out monies, let me tell them what they want to stymie.

From my Department, Marystown Shipyard enhancement

fabrication yard, $31.5 million. I need $8 million in Interim Supply. Why can't

I have it? Why can't I have that $8 million to carry forward with calling the

tenders to build this fabrication yard to put those people on the Burin

Peninsula to work? Why can't I have it? That is a legitimate question.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FUREY: Mr. Chairman, I am asking for $950,000 under

Ocean Industry Development. This amount is required as a result of current

commitments and anticipated takeup as a result of the Hibernia project

establishments. I do not want all of it. But I need $450,000 of it real quick.

Is it wrong for me to ask, after we have identified in the Budget process, in

our estimate documents, laid out for everybody to see, why can't I have that for

the people who need it to carry forward the Hibernia project? Is it wrong to ask

for that $400,000? I do not think it is wrong. I have not heard anybody over

there ask me: Minister of Development, why do you want that $400,000? I will

give a full, comprehensive explanation if they want it.

Mr. Chairman, under the Hibernia project which this

Government signed, we put the boxing gloves away eighteen months ago. We sat

down and dealt with people rationally and reasonably, we signed that agreement,

and we gave full credit for the spadework of the past to people who were

motivated properly and wanted to do this deal. We gave full credit. Well, in

this Interim Supply bill, we need $53.8 million for the whole thing, but I am

asking for $14 million, so that we can carry on under that Federal-Provincial

agreement with the site development work at Bull Arm and Great Mosquito Cove, so

that the gravity based system can carry forward. Is it wrong to ask for $14

million to put Newfoundlanders to work at Bull Arm? I do not think it is wrong.

Mr. Chairman, under this bill we have set aside $24 million

for Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador, our new flagship corporation, which is

delivering in the five regions out there. I am asking for $6 million. Now that

is not $24 million for grants. That is not $24 million to pass out to your

buddies. It is $24 million of pooled capital to sit there for loans. Reduced

rates, venture capital programme, investment in small businesses, equity in

small businesses, reduced loans, loans for Members' districts. And I need $6

million of it to create jobs in rural Newfoundland. Is it wrong to ask for that?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No, no!

MR. FUREY: That is what we have been asking for as they

filibustered and philosophized and got on with their highfalutin rhetoric, and

did not ask one single, solitary, sensible, intelligent question. Now, my hon.

friend from Mount Pearl is the brightest one over there.

AN HON. MEMBER: No doubt about it.

MR. FUREY: Make no

Make no mistake about that. Make no mistake about that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FUREY: If you took all the intelligence of all the

Opposition and stacked it up, they still would not reach the intelligence of my

good friend from Mount Pearl. And even with all his intelligence, stack all that

intelligence up, he still has not asked me one single question about development

and why I need that money to create jobs in Newfoundland. Not one.

Mr. Chairman, I need $740,000 under the Tourism Facilities

Capital Expenditure Program. Why do I need it? I need it so that I can make the

renovations in Deer Lake, to fix that chalet in the hon. Member for Humber

Valley's District. I would not ask for it, but I need it. And I need it, I am

proud to say, to put a brand new chalet in Argentia, the gateway to the east

coast of Newfoundland, for the hon. the Member for Placentia. That is why I need

it.

Mr. Speaker, I need it in the event - in the event, pray to

God - that I can get a third generation tourism agreement. And I think I can get

one. They did not think it was possible, but I am that close, Mr. Chairman. I am

inches away. And I need money in there, in the Interim Supply, that if I ink

that deal and the Premier signs it with Mr. Crosbie, we can flow that money into

the tourism industry right away. That is why I need it, Mr. Chairman.

And, Mr. Chairman, I can deal with the details of every

single cent I require. I require $52.8 million for what? For me? Not for me, for

the Hibernia site, to put hundreds of Newfoundlanders to work, for the tourism

agreement which is inches away, for the fabrication yard down in Marystown. The

hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West jumps up and says, `What are you doing

for Marystown?' Well, I am trying to build a fabrication yard in Marystown to

put hundreds of people to work. That is what I am trying to do.

So, Mr. Chairman, I will gladly take my place and let that

tower of intellect from Mount Pearl stand up, or whomever on the other side, and

ask specific question and, more to the point, tell us why in the last two weeks,

afternoon after afternoon, night after night, they did not ask one single,

solitary question of one single Minister on this side about their particular

estimates and why we need the money. We need the money to create jobs. That is

why we need the money. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, first of all the hon. gentleman

can say there were no questions asked, but he can't make it truthful. Because he

knows what he is saying is not true. He knows it is absolutely untrue. Why are

we here filibustering? We are not filibustering, Mr. Chairman, we are here

seeking some answers. And if we ever get some answers from this Government, then

they will, indeed, get their Interim Supply.

The Minister of Development has no concept of what we are

doing, I suspect. Interim Supply is a portion of the Budget Debate. The Budget

debate, Mr. Chairman, is a very general debate in which Members address two

things: they address the specific policies and principles espoused by the

Minister of Finance in his Budget Address and as reflected estimates in the

Province; it is also a very general and wide-ranging debate because financial

implications of the Budget really impact on every aspect of day-to-day life in

this Province, so that there is absolutely nothing that is irrelevant to the

debate. And so hon. Members on both sides, Mr. Chairman, take the opportunity to

discuss their district problems or any particular problems of any aspect of

society. And, I say to the hon. the Minister of Development, we have heard

exactly the same type of thing coming from the opposite side of the House as has

come from this side with one exception, the questions have come from here, but

no answers have come from over there, none what so ever. And, Mr. Chairman,

Question Period in this House is not much different. We are continually asking

questions and not getting any answers.

The Minister of Development says, `Why can't I have $8

million to proceed with the development of Cowhead and Marystown?' I say to the

Minister of Development, why can't I have the answer to where that $4 million

went last year in interest for Marystown shipyard? The Minister of Finance stood

in this House a year ago and said, here is the situation at the end of the year.

It would have been even better, but we made a special $4 million payment toward

the interest of Marystown shipyard. Yet last week we put through in co-operation

with this Government, to be co-operative, a Supplementary Supply Bill that gave

the Minister another $4 million for last year. I asked the question very

clearly, why did the Minister need that $4 million? I did not get the answer. I

had to leave the House that afternoon, and when I came back the bill was passed.

Had I been here I would have asked the question again, and we would still be

here. And I would like the answer now. And if the Minister of Development is not

prepared to give it to me, let the Minister of Finance or the Premier or the

President of Treasury Board give it to me. But this Interim Supply Bill will not

pass until I get that answer, I can assure you of that. So you can decide when

this bill goes through on that point.

I say to the Minister of Development, yes he will have his $8

million. Why has he not requested $24 million to build the Fogo Island ferry

that had been announced in Marystown, if he wants to create jobs? We would have

given him that, too, and gladly. Because it would be a wise expenditure: A ferry

that is badly needed by the people of Fogo, $24 million dollars of employment at

Marystown which is sorely needed, which would ensure that the expertise we have

built up in Marystown over the years would be retained on the eve of the

Hibernia development. The Minister wants to spend $8 million building facilities

while the expertise disappears. That is what will happen. That is called being

penny-wise and pound-foolish, Mr. Chairman. Put $800 million to expand the Cow

Head facility that we started a number of years ago, a good project,

federal/provincial money under the Offshore Development fund, but there will be

nobody left to work if you do not put that money into that ferry. I think there

are less than one hundred men working in a yard that has had up to 700 at peak

time - less than one hundred now employed at Marystown shipyard, or thereabouts.

And if some work is not given to that yard in the next number of months, there

will be nobody left, their expertise will be gone.

And the Minister tells us his tourism agreement is only

inches away. What has that got to do with Interim Supply? I read an

article

yesterday, August of 1990, where the Minister said, I will soon be signing a

tourism agreement. And he is still inches away. What has that got to do with

Interim Supply? I have asked many questions during this Budget Debate. The

Minister of Development is not being truthful.

We asked what the $20,000 Allowance and Assistance was in the

Premier's Office? Have we gotten an answer on that, Mr. Chairman? Of course not.

Oh, I got the Premier's attention for once - $20,000 Allowance and Assistance,

Premier's Office. The 1990 Budget, zero; 1990 Budget revised, $20,000.

Unexplained.

PREMIER WELLS: I will find (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you. I hope the Premier will find it.

We have asked the question before.

PREMIER WELLS: I will tell you what it is, it is the

housing allowance I announced about a month or so ago.

MR. WINDSOR: I suspect it is the Premier's housing

allowance.

PREMIER WELLS: That is what I believe, but I (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: We have been asking this question, I say to

the Premier, for three weeks and have not gotten an answer.

PREMIER WELLS: You did not ask it of me.

MR. WINDSOR: Well I asked whomever was here. I say to the

Premier, if we could get the Minister of Finance on his feet, maybe he would

answer something. Or maybe he is not allowed to get on his feet because he is

going to make a fool of himself again. He opens his mouth to change feet.

PREMIER WELLS: Unless I confirm it for you, then it is

not that. But I assume that is what it is.

MR. WINDSOR: I thank the Premier for that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: We asked a number of questions. I asked the

Minister of Development, what is the additional $500,000 in Purchased Services

under Tourism Promotion? I asked the Minister of Development if that was another

$500,000 for his buddies in APPA, and I have not gotten an answer for that

either. It is interesting. There are 3500 public servants being laid off, but

another $500,000 on top of what was there last year for the boys in APPA. Then

the Minister says we are not asking any questions. We are not getting any

answers. I asked two days ago why the Liquor Licencing Board and the

Newfoundland Liquor Corporation are being joined together, and on whose advice.

I am not getting any answers.

AN HON. MEMBER: Read the paper (inaudible)

MR. WINDSOR: Today's paper? We would like to get some

answers, and there are more questions we will ask before that one is over.

Mr. Chairman, I went through this Budget over the last number

of days and I will give another couple of examples. But having said all that, I

say to the Minister of Development - he is not here anymore but I will say to

him anyway - that this is the Budget Debate. This is not the Estimates

Committee. We have Standing Committees of this House that will sit down with the

Minister and his officials, because he is entitled to bring his advisors in, and

we will sit there for however long it takes and ask questions of the Minister,

detailed questions about his Estimates. This is not the place for going through

the Estimates in detail, this is the place for trying to find out what direction

this Government proposes to take and how it proposes to get us out of the

economic mess they have gotten us into in two years. That is what Interim Supply

is all about. The Minister of Development may be a little testy because he

wanted to get out of here for Easter vacation a bit early.

AN HON. MEMBER: You do not have far to go, anyway.

MR. WINDSOR: I do not have far to go. I am not going very

far at all. I am going home to spend the weekend with my family.

AN HON. MEMBER: All the rest of the boys are gone.

MR. WINDSOR: A few of the boys are gone. Some of the boys

over there were scheduled to go to Florida and had to cancel it, because we were

told by the House Leader that we were going to take a two week Easter recess. He

changed his mind on that after Members over there had bought and paid for

tickets to Florida. I have a close friend of mine who has gone to Florida on one

of your tickets. He picked up the tickets that were returned and he got a good

price on them.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where is the Opposition Leader? Where is

the Member for Harbour Main? Where is the Member for St. John's East Extern?

MR. WINDSOR: The Minister of Development is testy now

because he wants to get out of here today. But, I say to the President of

Treasury Board, he will not get this bill this day. I do not care if we are here

all night. Maybe he would like to call us back tomorrow, Good Friday. We do not

call the House together. The Government House Leader decides which days we sit.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. WINDSOR: The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Pleasantville.

MR. NOEL: Now do not create too great a buildup, because

the letdown will be all the worst.

Mr. Chairman, I want to respond to a few of the comments that

were made yesterday - expand on a few of my own, and respond to a few that were

made in response to some of the things I was saying. The Member for St. John's

South wants me to make clear to the House that in perhaps not everything, but a

number of the things I was saying yesterday, at any rate, I spoke on his behalf

as well. I might have been wrong in some people's minds on some things, and that

is why I will try to expand a bit today in order to clarify what I mean.

What I started speaking about primarily yesterday was the

need to amalgamate municipalities in this Province so that we can create a more

cost effective municipal system, so that we will minimize expenses and maximize

the services that we can deliver, and so that we will equalize the price paid

for services in so far as possible.

Now unfortunately some Members took that opportunity to try

and drive a wedge between myself as a representative of one of the urban

districts and some of the representatives of rural districts in this House. That

was not my intention. What I am trying to do is persuade this House to support

Government measures to create a more efficient and effective system, and we have

to make some serious changes in order to do that. That way, we will be able to

deliver the maximum services. Now we cannot provide whatever kind of services

people want wherever they want them in the Province. We cannot mislead people

into believing that. As the Minister for Municipal Affairs said last night, if

you are going to provide municipal services to every household in the Province,

it would cost $1,000 per year per household - another $2.5 billion. So we cannot

do that. But if we say that people have a right to municipal services, then

those people who do not have it now have as much right as the people who have it

now. So if you are going to say that people have a right, then you have to

provide that. But we cannot provide that. All we can do is provide what we have

the financial capacity to provide. And that is the point I was making.

I think the previous Government really mislead this Province.

AN HON. MEMBER: When?

MR. NOEL: When? In an effort to retain office and buy

votes, they went throughout the Province installing municipal services and

leading people to believe that they could have whatever municipal services they

wanted without ensuring that the proper financing capacity was there. Now a lot

of municipalities have services that they cannot afford to maintain, and it is

going to get worse in years to come. We have to realize that that was a very

serious albatross the previous Government tied around the neck of this Province,

and now we have to try to deal with it. And we are only going to deal with it as

effectively as possible by being as businesslike as we can. In order to do that

we have to organize the delivery of municipal services so that it is done in the

most cost effective manner, and that means consolidation of municipalities.

Everybody agrees it is the thing to do, but we are having trouble getting people

on the other side of the House to agree on specific things to do.

One specific thing we have to do, and I think we should take

the leadership in doing, is reorganize the northeast Avalon. How can we persuade

other parts of the Province that we have to rationalize municipal affairs if we

are to leave Wedgewood Park as an independent community, if we are to leave

Mount Pearl as an independent community, as a community that has access to

tremendous resources to look after its own needs but does not want to share

those resources with surrounding communities. And this is what I am talking

about. The St. John's region: We have to ensure that all of the revenues

available in the St. John's region are collected within the St. John's region,

so that Provincial monies do not have to go out to these St. John's region

communities but instead go out to communities in more rural parts of the

Province. And that is what is going to happen.

Mount Pearl is talking about a cost of $58 million in order

to amalgamate the super city concept. Now I do not happen to support the super

city concept. I think you should put Mount Pearl, Wedgewood Park, St. John's and

perhaps Paradise and Elizabeth Park, some of these that are really the core,

together. I do not agree with putting Conception Bay South, for instance, in

with St. John's. But the cost of dealing with the service problems in Conception

Bay South has to be met. Now we have to try to meet it through the revenue

capacities of the St. John's region, or else people from other parts of the

Province are going to have to contribute to it.

So, this so called cost of amalgamation is not money that the

Province would be giving to St. John's. It is going to cost something like $30

million, I think it is, to provide services for Conception Bay South. Now we

have to get the maximum revenues we can out of the St. John's region in order to

finance that. We are not getting maximum possible revenues out of Mount Pearl

because they are not charging as much commercial taxation as they should charge,

and they are not charging as much residential taxation as they should charge.

Two million dollars less per year they are paying this year than they should be

paying in order to help pay their fair share of the cost of running this region.

Wedgewood Park, for instance; householders are paying half of

what they should pay. My constituent who has a $100,000 house is paying $1,100 a

year in municipal taxes, and a person who has the same house over in Wedgewood

Park is paying $650 a year, and he is enjoying the same services as the resident

in my district. The problem is that St. John's City is having to pick up a lot

of the regional costs and we have to equalize them within this region. I am not

looking to get money from other parts of the Province to help pay the cost of

St. John's and the St. John's region, but we have to get those revenues

equitably out of the St. John's area.

Now I have been making the case about how little Mount Pearl

has been contributing, and the Member for Mount Pearl last night -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. NOEL: Yes, where is he? I guess he saw I was getting

up to speak this time. But he mislead the House last night, and I think he may

have deliberately mislead the House last night, and we will wait until I can see

Hansard to know if that was the case. But he said that St. John's receives a

grant in lieu of taxes of $4.5 million a year. Now that is certainly not the

case because I have a copy of the St. John's budget for this year right here. He

said that we received a grant in lieu of taxes, and the implication was from the

Province. Now the fact is that we will receive a grant in lieu of taxes of about

$4.5 million from the Province and the Federal Government, $4 million it is this

not the $4.5 million that he led us to believe last year. I think he was quoting

from the brief put out by the City of Mount Pearl yesterday -

AN HON. MEMBER: The Dead Sea scrolls.

MR. NOEL: - which is another exercise in the kind of

misleading case that Mount Pearl keeps making. They talk about things that are

not real. I remember councillor Simms from Mount Pearl wrote to the Evening

Telegram on December 5th and he was criticizing our efforts to get Mount Pearl

to pay a greater share of taxes in this region, and one of the points he made

was that hospitals, provincial buildings, and Federal Government buildings are

not city property: the city did not build them and the city does not pay for

them. This constant whine about how much it takes to keep them all up and

running is ridiculous and your editorial position should be to state it. But we

are not looking for the cost of keeping these buildings up and running, we are

are not looking for operating cost to finance these buildings, we are looking

for costs to service them, and that is where Mount Pearl is not paying its fair

share. You have the person who lives in Mount Pearl, comes out to work at the

Confederation Building, he is paying a fair share for the municipal services he

is getting in Mount Pearl, but he is not paying his fair share for the services

of St. John's he uses to come and go back to work; he is not paying a fair share

for the cost of maintaining the Confederation Building.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order please! Order please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Green Bay.

MR. HEWLETT: Do you want a couple of minutes to finish?

AN HON. MEMBER: Alright, you go ahead.

MR. HEWLETT: Longer than that. Ten minutes?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Green Bay.

MR. HEWLETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Following on from -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please! Order,

please!

I wonder if, before the hon. Member speaks, I could announce

the questions for the Late Show.

Question No.1. I am not satisfied with the answer from the

Minister of Employment and Labour Relations concerning student jobs - the hon.

Member for Kilbride.

MR. R. AYLWARD: The Member for Humber Valley would like

the first question as he has to leave early, I do not mind getting mine second

or third, if that is acceptable?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I do not have a question here from the hon. Member for Humber

Valley.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Okay.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I am not satisfied with the answer that I

received today from the Minister responsible for Treasury Board, re the health

care workers - the hon. Member for Ferryland.

Question No. 3. I am dissatisfied with the answer given by

the President of Treasury Board in reference to the elimination of the Liquor

Licensing Board - the hon. Member for Mount Pearl.

The hon. the Member for Green Bay.

MR. HEWLETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If one followed on

from the logic of what the hon. Member for Pleasantville said a few moments ago,

then the residents of Green Bay should be connected in with Grand Falls or

Gander or other service centres that they have to deal with, it would be very

impossible I would say to properly - you would need an entire bureaucracy to

police the brown baggers of the world as the former Mayor of St. John's referred

to these people, but, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make a couple comments.

The hon. Minister responsible for Tourism mentioned a few

minutes ago that the Tourism Agreement is inches away; I wish him well in that

regard and I certainly hope it is so. I happened to receive in my mail today a

letter from the Beothic Trail Tourism Committee, a committee which has been

trying fruitlessly for the last number of years to promote tourism on the -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEWLETT: No, I am afraid they are not Liberal, Sir,

some of them are, but there was a Provincial Park started in the area of

Robert's Arm. The Tourism Committee is centred around the Robert's Arm area,

south shore, Green Bay; a Provincial Park was started under the previous

Administration, playing on the tourist potential of the fact that the lake that

the Park was on, is renowned to have a lake monster and knowing full well that

North American tourists really get into this sort of thing, they have been

really trying to make a tourism go of that particular situation, but

unfortunately the Park was abandoned by the new Liberal Administration and the

roads are growing in with all - there are camp sites overgrown, etcetera. They

even took down the signs on the side of the road which are normal for a

Provincial Park; Provincial Park - No cutting - that sort of thing. They

basically extinguished a Park before it really had a chance to get off the

ground.

We have our own equivalent of a Loch Ness Monster in that

particular area and unfortunately the Government has seen fit to stifle tourism

development rather than encourage it in that particular area, however, the local

committee continues to soldier on, they have asked me to attend one of their

meetings in April, which I hope to do, and I shall of course continue to bring

their concerns before the floor of the House. I sincerely hope that, like the

hon. Minister's Tourism Agreement, some progress with regard to tourism

developments on the Beothic Trail is literally inches away.

Mr. Speaker, with regard to something that has been in the

news and in the papers and what not, being inches or minutes or weeks or

whatever away relating to the field which I have shadow responsibility and that

is Energy, one wonders when the turbines are going to start turning on the Lower

Churchill River. For a while there, when the news was coming out strong and

certain that we are in a recession and that this Provincial Government was going

to have a very heavy Budget, there was, I would say, very dutiful and continuous

chatter from the hon. Minister of Energy with regard to imminent possibilities

of the Lower Churchill development.

Mr. Chairman, if my memory serves me correctly, from paper

traffic I saw over my desk in my years in the Premier's office, one of the

presuppositions for such a development was a significant federal contribution to

such a project, and here we have the Federal Government now into the Hibernia

project to the tune of $2.7 billion. The Federal Government stated on a number

of occasions of not being overly keen on multi-billion dollar investments in

mega projects in the energy field of late. One wonders how such a project can

actually get going without federal assistance, and considerable federal

assistance. My sources tell me that this administration has explored this matter

with the federal administration but to date the required billions from the

federal side of things have not been forthcoming, and based on a recent

newspaper

article in one of last weekend's papers, I think, Mr. Crosbie, the

Federal Minister, indicated that billions to assist development of such a

project probably would not be forthcoming in the near or immediate future, which

sort of contradicted the continuous positive chatter that was coming from my

colleague, the Minister of Mines and Energy for quite some time. So, one wonders

if he was trying to put up a positive smoke screen, in light of the negativity

abounding in this Province because of this Provincial Budget. Mr. Chairman, what

is inches away, what is miles away, minutes away or hours away, or years away,

one wonders. Indeed a major energy project of this sort in Labrador now has the

entire complicating factor of native land claims and the environmental process,

things which are not taken lightly any more in this day and age, and in order to

bring a transmission line down to the Island, which the Minister has told me

will cost in excess of $1 billion, one cannot possible see such a project going

ahead without the backing of the Federal Government, either through equity

investment, and/or loan guarantees, significant loan guarantees. Mr. Chairman,

the phraseology of the Minister responsible for Tourism about an agreement being

inches away, I hope he is right, because the numbers of dollars would probably

be in the tens of millions with regard to such an agreement and that may well be

within the realm of possibility. Once we start getting into agreements that

require monies in the order of billions I do believe that there would probably

be a degree of reluctance, if not inability on the part of Ottawa these days to

pay. The other problem coming from this, of course, is that the stand that the

hon. Premier took during the Constitutional talks some time ago has done

absolutely nothing to sweeten, I should say, the relationship between St. John's

and Ottawa, or for that matter St. John's and Quebec City. We see, for the first

time ever on national television a major constitutional debate and the only

player not really on the stage, and really strangely so striking by his absence,

is the hon. the Premier of this Province. It would appear that having broken his

word with regard to a vote in this Assembly on the earlier Constitutional

arrangement, even the Maritime Premiers, it would appear, do not wish to see him

at the Constitutional table any more. Certainly his behaviour in the

Constitutional area has done nothing to help this Province in getting cost

shared arrangements with the Federal Government and certainly nothing to help

get some cash from the Federal Government of the magnitude that would be

required to finance a project like the Lower Churchill River.

AN HON. MEMBER: What are you doing now, making a

(inaudible)

MR. HEWLETT: I am saying, Mr. Chairman, that out where I

come from in my district the one thing that this Government is not giving

people, apart from taking away the obvious jobs of civil servants and so on,

this Government is providing no vision, this Government is providing no hope.

People out my way have nothing to do but leave. Unfortunately, we have had

tremendous numbers of enquiries. It is amazing once the word gets out, Kuwait, I

mentioned it a couple of times in the House and I have had a number of calls to

my office from constituents: if you know of a company that has a contact in

Kuwait let me know and I will have my bags packed tomorrow. Tell me where to go

to get my passport, etc. People are desperate for work. On the northeast coast

of Newfoundland the forest industry is in decline, we have not opened a mine

since I was a teenager, people are desperate and this Government is offering

absolutely nothing in the way of hope. It is not even producing any short-term

job creation measures. The only program they have on the go requires a

commitment for a businessman of sixty weeks which in a seasonal economy is

utterly and totally useless, a program that for the most

part is not even drawn

down upon fully by the business community because they know they cannot use it.

A businessman in Springdale a while ago, said he was approved for such a

programme and had to back out of it, because given the state of the economy

there was no way on earth he could commit to a sixty week programme.

There is absolutely nothing in the Budget for northeast

Newfoundland whatsoever. No hope for the future. If I was in the moving business

maybe I would set up a sub-office or a regional office out there because I think

in due course I would have a lot of clients. Because unfortunately I think my

district is about to be continuously depopulated over the next few years,

because of inaction on the part of this Government. As I said, we have a tourism

committee trying to get something going to diversify the local economy, this

Government has been doing absolutely nothing to help and actually is really

stifling their efforts.

We have no more trees, we have run out of trees. We do not

seem to be able to open any more mines. We have a secondary wood processing

plant in Springdale which is really, I guess, a diversification of the economy.

It is hanging on by its fingernails. We have got a fish plant at Triton that is

hanging on by its fingernails. A fish plant in Little Bay Islands is hanging on

by its fingernails, its viability is jeopardized even further lately by a change

in the ferry

schedule in the area. So this particular Government, for the

residents of Green Bay, is offering absolutely nothing. And I do not know - I

mean, the hon. gentleman from Pleasantville can get up and talk about the St.

John's region and I am sure he has legitimate concerns with regard to his

regions, but with regard to my region, Mr. Chairman, there is no hope -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time has elapsed.

MR. HEWLETT: This Government offers no hope.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would

first of all like to make a few brief comments on what is transpiring in the

House.

We are into a debate on Interim Supply which is a normal

routine process of government getting money to carry on the business of the

Province after the end of the fiscal year so that the full debate on the Budget

can take place. This is the normal thing that happens in every Legislature.

Budgets normally are not brought in in January or early February. Therefore

budgets do not get through by the end of March. So budgets are brought in

sometime later than that, hopefully - in most provinces sometime early in March,

the end of February, early in March, in other provinces it is not until May or

June or whatever. But Interim Supply always has to be obtained before the end of

the fiscal year. So it is a normal process to allow a certain amount of money to

be provided to government to carry it through the process where there is a

complete and full Budget debate.

Mr. Chairman, normally Interim Supply does not take a lot of

time. Not a lot of debate time is used up on Interim Supply. It is a normal

process. The full Budget debate takes place through the Budget debate itself,

and we have already had a couple of days of that. It takes place in the

estimates committees where the details of each Department are examined.

Headings that are voted for each department are examined in

detail and each department is assigned to three hours of examination where the

Minister and the department officials are available to answer the detailed

questions, that is where most of the work in terms of the Budget information is

done because of the nature of the occasion, with the officials there ready to

provide information as well as the Minister. So most of the information about

the Budget is obtained during these committees.

Mr. Chairman, we have indicated that we need this bill before

the end of the month. Government has to have money to pay its bills. The

Opposition has been using up time, an awful lot of time on this routine motion

forcing us to the limit. Forcing us to the very last day when they feel that we

will then have to take some drastic measures. So, Mr. Chairman, what has been

going on is a game, as you are well aware. It has been a game of Opposition

Members killing time, saying nothing, with the exception of two or three ten

minute segments in the last two weeks, there has been very little said about the

Budget, about the Interim Supply and Headings under Interim Supply, very little

has been said. And, Mr. Chairman, it is a process of killing time.

So, Mr. Chairman, we are at the point in time where money has

to be obtained, in spite of the silly little games that are being played,

killing time, saying nothing, wasting the time of the taxpayers of the Province,

wasting the money of the taxpayers of the Province and simply killing time. In

spite of all of that -

MR. R. AYLWARD: (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: - and, Mr. Chairman, I should add in response

to interjections by the Member for Kilbride that when they were in Government

normally they would bring in Interim Supply with maybe two or three days left

before the end of the