November

20, 1991

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol.

XLI No. 74

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): Order, please!

Oral Questions

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

MR. SIMMS: During the last few days we have been hearing

the Premier and the acting Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, who

have both said that contracts awarded to Trans City Holdings to build and lease

these three health care facilities that we have been talking about will save the

Province millions of dollars over the terms of the lease. In fact, just to quote

from Hansard on November 15, the Government House Leader himself said, on the

bottom of Page 2553, 'this proposal we are now proceeding with will, in the long

run, save the Government tens of millions of dollars,' no less. Mr. Speaker, I

have a comparison of the bids between the low bidder and Trans City Holdings and

I also have the annual lease cost for each individual project as estimated by

officials in his own Department, the Department of Public Works. I want to ask

the Minister if he would confirm now that the cost of leasing the Burgeo

facility from Trans City will cost this Province over $5 million more than the

lease price quoted by the low bidder? Can he confirm that?

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Member's figures are

totally incorrect.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, we have the figures, and as I

said they are the figures estimated by his own Department, his own officials, so

he might want to be careful in answering the questions. Let me ask him this

then: Is it a fact that the cost of leasing the Port Saunders facility from

Trans City Holdings over the thirty year term of the lease will cost the

Province nearly $8 million more than the low bidder?

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

MR. BAKER: No, Mr. Speaker, the hon. Member's figures are

totally incorrect.

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

supplementary.

MR. SIMMS: We might as well ask the other one then: Can

he confirm that the cost of leasing the St. Lawrence facility from Trans City

Holdings over the course of the lease, assuming the lease is thirty years, which

we are told it was, will cost the Province over $6 million more than the lease

price quoted by the low bidder?

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I repeat again, as usual the hon.

Member's figures are totally incorrect.

MR. SIMMS: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

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

supplementary.

MR. SIMMS: Can the Government House Leader tell us what

the correct figures are?

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

That question requires a detailed answer, obviously. First of

all, we called for proposals that in some aspects were vague, and in the

specifications given out in each case, over 100 pages, there were generally what

is referred to as the functional plan for the facilities. We deliberately left

it vague to see what proposals we would get. We have been told by developers

that because of the nature of our proposals, this is why costs were escalating

on buildings that we did. This is why we would start off with an estimate of let

us say $2 million on a building, and it would end up costing $4 million and so

on, because of the way we went about it. Also we have been told: look, just give

us a chance; we can bring about cost-cutting measures. So we did. The tenders

were a bit more vague than usual in that they did not include the specific

details beyond the functional plans.

Mr. Speaker, we received a number of proposals. Some of them

were totally, completely, unsuited according to the functional plan, so they

were eliminated. They were examined in detail by officials in the Department of

Works, Services and Transportation as well as an outside consulting firm. After

this analysis was done a decision was made that, for a number of reasons, we

would give further consideration to the brick/steel proposals. We did our

analysis of the brick/steel proposals in more detail, and chose the bid that was

the least expensive. I believe, in terms of the two bids for brick/steel

structures, the bid we chose would save us about $14.6 million over the period

of the term.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I had to outline that process because it

was a process that involved three things. It involved design, it involved the

construction, and it involved financing - all three; all three in the one

package, and the ultimate cost of any of the packages depends upon the

financing. It is a very big factor in the ultimate cost of the proposal's

financing, and I would say to the hon. gentleman that if he is using figures

that are as the money market was two months ago, that these figures have changed

considerably in the last two months, as the Bank of Canada rate has gone down on

long term loans, so I would say to the hon. gentleman that his figures are

totally incorrect; they are out-of-date, they are totally incorrect as of this

present time. As a matter of fact, I suppose you could get an analysis done day

by day; every time the bank rate changes you could do another analysis as to how

much we saved with this particular proposal.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Government House

Leader has struck on another reason to re-tender this whole thing.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, he can try to cloud this as much

as he wishes. The fact of the matter is, the point that was raised is that the

low bidder, the low bidder's bid versus Trans City's bid, will mean in fact

substantial higher cost to the people of this Province. That is the point that I

was trying to make. We know all about the vagueness of the specifications, we

have been down that road. We know all about why they chose brick; everybody in

the Province knows why.

Mr. Speaker, what we have here on our hands is a major

scandal and the Government House Leader -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: - and the Government House Leader can try to

smile and laugh about it as much as he wants, but he knows darn well that we

have him on this particular one and The Evening Telegram editorial yesterday hit

the nail on the head, they were right on the money, Mr. Speaker.

Now, I want to ask the Government House Leader one last time,

is it not true that over the thirty year lease period, the Province will pay $90

million to Trans City Holdings, to lease those three health care facilities, and

if the Province had accepted the lowest bidder on all three projects, the cost

over that leased period would be approximately $71 million, and if that is true,

why did they proceed to award those contracts even though they have already

admitted that the specifications were flawed and now will cost the people of

this Province an additional $19 million?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BAKER: No, Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman is not

correct at all. Two of the bidders bid their costs on the basis of a spread

between -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: Does the hon. gentleman want to listen?

Two of the bidders, ultimately, the two that we looked at in

detail, made their financing proposal on the basis of a spread above the Bank of

Canada long-term borrowing rate. One company, their spread was 155 basis points

above the Bank of Canada borrowing rate; the second company was 120 basis points

above the Bank of Canada long-term borrowing rate. Also, one of the proposals

gave us the option, if we chose their proposal, of choosing any time between now

and the completion of construction to tie in the rate. In the last couple of

months, the Bank of Canada long-term borrowing rate has dropped considerably,

and projections are that it will continue to drop.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible) corruption, boy, give it up.

MR. BAKER: I am just telling the truth. If members don't

want to listen to the truth they don't have to.

At a certain point in time we decide when we tie into the

financing, and that financing will be at a rate that is extremely low. As a

matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, the Province of Newfoundland can borrow, and our

rate varies from 100 to 135 - the spread is anywhere from 100 to 135 basis

points above the Bank of Canada long-term borrowing rate, and that is what we

can do ourselves.

Also, built into these proposals was the possibility of

having very low rates up front escalating for the term. Government at that point

in time can choose options which would make some proposals very, very cheap for

the first ten years, escalating for the last twenty.

So, Mr. Speaker, all of these things had to be taken into

account because we wanted construction activity during the next year without any

outlay of Government money, and this is the proposal we went through. We did not

take the low bid because, although nobody did, I suppose somebody could put in a

bid on a pressed wood building, that being possible under the proposal. The hon.

gentleman would not suggest we take that building because, obviously, it would

be low bid.

We have indicated that we have followed The Public Tendering

Act and that any exceptions to The Public Tendering Act will be made public, as

they always are. We table documents in the House every month. All exceptions

will be made public, and that is what is called for under The Public Tendering

Act. Then it is open to everybody. Nothing has been done here, Mr. Speaker, that

is underhanded or that is done in secret, everything is open to public view.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, a final supplementary, because we

have some other questions to ask, and we will ask more questions on this as days

go by. Let me tell the hon. minister that. No matter which way you cut it, you

can try to cloud it with all the smoke and mirrors you want, the bottom line

here is: Number one, they have been caught in a scandal; and number two, Mr.

Speaker, he is trying to tell us now that we paid an extra $19 million for

brick. That is what he is trying to tell us.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, since the minister has not been

able to give us a direct answer to our question, let me ask him again: What will

we pay Trans City Holdings over the life of this lease, over the thirty years?

How much will the taxpayers of this Province pay them?

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, the Opposition Leader gets up and

makes all those broad statements. Maybe, in his own mind he did not see a

specific answer. I am sure other members and other people have seen a specific

answer. I explained in great detail the financing arrangement, the spread -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I just ask hon. members to my right, please, to stop the

interruptions. The question has been asked. Hon. members can ask other questions

but, while a minister is answering, it interferes if people keep asking this

question and that question. I ask for smooth operation, please, and that hon.

members wait until they are recognized.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. BAKER: I explained in great detail the specific

spread above the Bank of Canada rate.

MR. TOBIN: How much?

MR. BAKER: Now, if the hon. member does not understand

that, that is not my problem. If he understood it, he would realize - I also

explained that at a certain point in time we would tie in, depending on when we

thought the Bank of Canada rate was at its lowest point between now and the end

of construction.

So, if we put those things together - I am trying to go step

by step for the hon. gentleman. If the hon. gentleman would put those two things

together -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

If hon. members don't want the answer to the question I will

stop and recognize another member. I will just give the hon. member a short

period.

MR. BAKER: - he would realize that the final amount we

pay will not be obvious until we decide to tie in, at a certain point in time,

with the Bank of Canada rate. I do not know what the Bank of Canada rate will be

a year down the road. However, I can tell the hon. gentleman that since he has

had the figures he is using the Bank of Canada rate has dropped considerably.

Therefore, the cost will be considerably lower than what the hon. gentleman is

quoting, simply because of the changes in the Bank of Canada rate. Now, if the

hon. gentleman does not understand that, I suggest that is a problem he has, and

he had better get somebody to explain it to him.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Mary's - The

Capes.

MR. HEARN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question was for

the Premier, but, in his absence, I will ask the Minister of Education.

Yesterday, the Premier, much to the surprise of the minister, told the St.

John's Board of Trade that school tax authorities would be abolished. This

morning, on CBC radio, he said he was misunderstood, again, that they would

either be abolished or reformed. I wonder if the minister could tell us if the

Premier has told him whether or not school tax authorities and school taxes will

be abolished, or will the system be reformed?

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, the Government's position has

not changed. Very shortly, we hope to make a decision on this. The position of

the Government is that we will either abolish the system or reform it.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Mary's - The

Capes.

MR. HEARN: Mr. Speaker, this is thoroughly unbelievable.

The minister, himself, has admitted he does not know what is going on, and the

Minister of Finance is out telling everybody they have made the decision already

to abolish the school tax authorities. In public! Let me ask the minister: We

have around the Province several hundred people employed with school tax

authorities, who, from one day to the next, have no idea of their job status.

Will the minister tell these people when he is going to make a decision? When is

he going to stop inflicting pain and causing concern upon people who, from day

to day, do not know whether they are going to be working tomorrow or not?

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, thank you. I have heard a number

of

interpretations of the Premier's speech yesterday. I did not get to hear it

myself. I heard one

interpretation, Mr. Speaker, that the whole system was

abolished, the school tax system. I heard one

interpretation that school tax

authorities will be abolished, and I have heard another

interpretation where the

Premier indicated in this speech that the whole school tax system might be kept.

Then I heard the hon. Members

interpretation. I speak for the Government. The

Government is in the process of making the decision and when we make a decision

we will make a detailed statement, and, of course, we will treat all the

employees fairly. We are out to reform an inequitable, unfair, inefficient

school tax system, or abolish it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Mary's - The

Capes.

MR. HEARN: Mr. Speaker, I hope everyone noted he said

they are out to reform the system. The Minister of Finance said the decision is

made and it has already been abolished, and that is what the Premier said. Let

me ask the Minister how he proposes to replace the revenues school boards will

lose if the school tax is abolished? Will the Minister guarantee that no board

will lose revenue because the school tax is abolished?

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, Government has already

guaranteed that, that if the tax is abolished the revenues will be forthcoming

to school boards. In fact, Mr. Speaker, this Government has to reform the grant

system that provides more monies to rural Newfoundland. We have the next two or

three years to undue or to change what that Government accepted for decades. For

decades they accepted a school system funded inequitably in that if you happen

to live in a certain part of the Province where you had wealth around you, and

your parents were wealthy you got one quality of education and if you lived in

another you did not, you got a much inferior, and we are not prepared to live

with that, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you, very much, Mr. Speaker.

In the Premier's absence I would like to ask the President of

Treasury Board if he is aware of the serious morale problem in the public

service, especially among the management personnel, and is Government planning

to take any steps to improve the morale in management, Mr. Speaker?

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon.

Member for his question. It was unlike the kind of question I was expecting when

he got up. I agree with him that there are perhaps morale problems in the public

service and this applies probably to management as well as to the union ranks.

We have gone through a very difficult time. People have lost jobs and there is

less money to spend now than there was before. This creates a lot of uncertainty

especially with the announcements that we are now talking to the unions in terms

of next year, so I can understand there is a problem. The Public Service

Commission has suggested that perhaps we open up more lines of communication

around the Province in terms of the public service and the management units

around the Province. We have initiated some steps whereby some of the senior

management travel around the Province and listen to the concerns of the managers

and others around the Province and brings that back. We are in the process of

doing that now.

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

supplementary.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you, very much, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister suggested that there is less money to spend now

than there was before but the Minister of Finance in his past two Budgets has

taken about $170 million extra in taxes, Mr. Speaker, so I cannot see how there

is less money to spend now than there was a couple of years ago. I have a copy

of a memo here from the Deputy Minister of Works, Services and Transportation to

all the directors, and the Deputy Minister does refer specifically to morale

problems in that Department and throughout the Government. Is the Minister aware

that the Department of Works, Services and Transportation has convened a retreat

for Departmental directors in Gander to be held on December 5, Mr. Speaker,

dealing with the morale problems in that Department? Are there similar retreats

planned for all the departments in Government to deal with this morale problem?

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

MR. BAKER: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am aware of that, and I am

also aware that this very week - and this has been happening over the last two

or three weeks - that there are senior Government officials have been travelling

all over the Province and having meetings with management and so on, in terms of

listening to them and hearing first hand from these people exactly what they

feel like in their jobs. Because we are attempting to perhaps allow the people

around the Province an opportunity to express first hand to these senior public

servants in St. John's - sometimes they are faceless and sometimes never get out

around the Province - to express to them exactly what their concerns are and why

they are felling perhaps not as good about their jobs as they should, and why

they are feeling perhaps a little insecure in their jobs.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. That is

not at all what this memo says the purpose of this retreat is. Managers are

going around the Province daily, I would suggest, talking to individuals. This

is a special retreat to try to boost the morale of the Department of Works,

Services and Transportation. The question that I ask: is this going to be for

every department? Obviously if it is for one, if one needs it, they probably all

need it.

What will it cost for all the management services to have

retreats in Gander or elsewhere? What is the cost to Government of trying to

build up the morale again so we can get some efficiency? Is this problem more

serious in the Department of Works, Services and Transportation than other

departments? And is it more serious in that Department because the Government

consistently ignores the professional advice of that Department, particularly on

contract awarding?

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

MR. BAKER: I knew the common sense could not last too

long, Mr. Speaker. The truth of the matter is that the Public Service Commission

has, in its regular budgetary allocation, funds having to do with this. It is

part of the work of the Public Service Commission. I would like to advise hon.

Members opposite that it is accepted, good management technique to open up these

lines of communication. I know that they are not familiar with it because

obviously they did not do it when they were in office, but it is good management

technique to get the best work from employees and to make them feel good, and

make them feel good about their jobs. To be able to influence and stimulate

others to do a good job for the people of the Province. So this is a very good

move and it is good from the point of view of management technique, and from the

point of view of the workers in the public service of the Province.

Now he makes special reference to the Department of Works,

Services and Transportation. This Department contains the greatest number of

employees that Government has directly. Most of them are outside St. John's and

scattered all around the Province, so we are talking about the bulk of our

employees here when we are talking about this one Department.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main.

MR. DOYLE: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the

Minister of Health. The Minister will be aware by now that there is a very

severe shortage of neurologists in the Province. There was a total of five, I

believe, in the Province, two at the Grace and three at the Health Sciences

Centre. Over the last number of months two have left. The Grace no longer has

one because that service was transferred to the Health Sciences Centre. The

three remaining doctors are severely overworked, and patients are waiting for

long periods of time for appointments. Now is the Minister aware of that, and

what plans does he have to solve that problem?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, some of the words the hon.

Member used to explain the situation I do not accept. The extreme emergency, the

overreaction, the fearmongering, I do not accept that. We need, in this

Province, about five or six neurologists. At the moment we have made some

changes where we were rationalizing the system in St. John's, where we were

taking one service from two hospitals and now putting it in the one. So we are

going through a period of some disruption, but I am not overly concerned. It is

a matter which is, by no means, insolvable; there is a solution for it. Over the

next few weeks and months the hospital boards, I am quite certain, will recruit

replacements for anyone who has left.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main on a

supplementary.

MR. DOYLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Another issue that has recently surfaced that the minister

should be aware of as well, involves the Burin Health Care Centre. Is the

minister aware that the Burin Regional Health Care Centre no longer has the

services of an ear, nose and throat specialist? That specialist is no longer

visiting that area of the Burin Peninsula. People have to travel all the way to

St. John's to avail of that service and, as the minister knows, at considerable

cost to the patient. Can the minister tell us what is happening in that area?

People are very, very upset on the Burin Peninsula that they do not have that

service, and they are wondering when it might be restored.

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

MR. DECKER: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am totally aware of the

situation there. My understanding was that they never did have an ear, nose and

throat specialist of staff, but they were receiving the visiting services. At

the moment that has stopped, and the reason is broader than the hon. member is

probably bringing to light, but the service has stopped right now. We are not

sure that the quality of care has been diminished all that much. It was a

convenient service which was being offered, Mr. Speaker, but by no means

essential. Officials in the department have been in close talks with the

hospital board who is responsible for that, and they are endeavouring to make

some further arrangements. When they do make those arrangements, Mr. Speaker, I

think they intend to change the method from what it used to be. I think their

intent is to improve the service that used to be delivered there.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main.

MR. DOYLE: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the minister

another question on psychiatric services in the Province, and it is probably a

timely question, given the program that CBC is doing on the Waterford right now.

The minister can correct me if I am wrong, but we are given to understand that

there is a severe shortage of psychiatric services in the Province. The average

for Canada, I am told, is one psychiatrist to every 10,000 people. We have about

570,000 people, which means we should have sixty doctors operating psychiatric

services in the Province, and the latest number that I am aware of is

thirty-four. We have thirty-four doctors in the Province. Now is that true, and

if it is, what is the Government doing to deal with that problem, because there

seems to be long lineups in that area of health care as well.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I am on record as saying many

times that psychiatric care is one of the areas in this Province where we are

lacking, and the hon. member is right. We should have about fifty psychiatrists

in the Province. I was not aware that we have thirty-four. I thought we had in

the high twenties, Mr. Speaker, and it is a problem. The solution is not as

simple as just recruiting psychiatrists, if that were possible. There is a

shortage of psychiatrists in the world, so even if we decided tomorrow morning

that we are going to pay every psychiatrist $1 million to come here, we could

not get the bodies, but there is more to the problem than getting the bodies.

There has to be a psychiatric program for the whole Province. You have to have a

back-up system in place. You have to have occupational therapists in place. You

have to have psychiatric trained nurses in place, Mr. Speaker. So the solution

is not as simple as recruiting bodies who are psychiatrists. The solution

involves a reorganization of the whole way that we deliver this particular

service. That is, among other things, one of the things that we have been doing

in the Province. We are trying to reorganize the way that we deliver psychiatric

services. It is an immense task, and it is a difficult task for us to perform,

but we are going with it. The hon. member is quite correct when he identified an

area of weakness in the health care system, and the department and Government

have been quite concerned about this for the last couple of years, Mr. Speaker,

and we are trying to deal with it.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has expired.

Orders of the day.

Private Member's Day

MR. SPEAKER: It being Wednesday, Private Member's

resolution.

The hon. the Member for St. John's East.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This resolution, Mr. Speaker, perhaps one of the most

important we have had, concerns all the people of this Province, and certainly,

should concern every member of this House. It is similar, I suppose, to a

Private Member's resolution by the hon. the Member for Bellevue, earlier this

year, concerning Bill C-69, a resolution of great importance, regarding the

health care of this Province, indeed, of this country.

Mr. Speaker, this is a resolution that I think all members of

this House can support, one that affirms the basic principles of the Medicare

system in this country. Further, it urges the Government to attempt to seek

appropriate amendments to the Constitution that would help to enshrine those

principles in the constitutional law of our country.

Mr. Speaker, the resolution begins by indicating the

consideration by Canadians that our Medicare program is the centerpiece of

social programs, central to our identity as a country, and is viewed world-wide

with respect and envy. Mr. Speaker, that is true. It is not a motherhood

statement when one compares the Canadian Medicare system to that of the United

States and to those of other countries. The Canadian Medicare system stands head

and shoulders above those systems, particularly in terms of its cost. It is

cheaper, for example, than the American system. It provides services at a

cheaper level, and to every citizen, as opposed to the United States, which does

not, or has a two-tier or a three-tier medical system. It ought to be well known

by now that more than thirty-seven million Americans have no form of health

insurance and are at second-class status with respect to receiving medical care

in the United States.

In this country, Mr. Speaker, we have a Medicare system with

a set of principles that have been recognized in the Canada Health Act and

acknowledged as the cornerstones of Medicare. They are, Mr. Speaker, the five

principles of Comprehensiveness, Universality, Portability, Public

they are contained in the Canada Health Act as norms of service.

These principles and, indeed, the Medicare Plan, itself, are

under attack. They are under attack by actions of the Federal Government, under

attack politically from certain political parties and political forces in this

country. I could give you some examples, Mr. Speaker, of the kinds of things

that are being said about Medicare, about what the Federal Government has been

doing and, indeed, the reaction of many provinces and some premiers to this. We

have a system that is supposed to be universal and available to all residents of

Canada. It is supposed to be operated on a non-profit basis, and access to the

services should not be inhibited by such practices as charging of fees.

Well, Mr. Speaker, not all Canadians support that particular

approach, and we have in this country now, a growing support for certain

political points of view.

There is some support in this Province - I don't imagine they

are going to get very much support, but the Reform Party is a big player in

Western Canadian politics. Let me give you a quote from Mr. Preston Manning,

made April 11, 1991, on CBC. Here is what he says: 'If a province wants to

re-allocate its health care resources differently, if they want to have a user

fee or insurance premium, or want to have a deductible or some method of

rationalizing their allocation of resources, they ought to be able to that, as

well, and the only responsibility the Federal Government has is in its transfer

payments to try and make it possible for an adequate level of health care within

the financial reach of every Canadian.'

Well, Mr. Speaker, what we are talking about here is a user

pay system in the hopes that the finances of every Canadian might make it

possible to have adequate health care. Well, that type of medical care is of the

kind we had in this Province prior to the availability of universal medical

care. That was the kind of medical services where people determined whether they

would go to a doctor or whether they would get medical services on the basis of

whether they could afford to pay, and that is not very long ago, Mr. Speaker. It

is only in the last thirty years, even in Canada. In fact, last Sunday was

celebrated as the thirtieth anniversary of the introduction of universal

hospital insurance in the Province of Saskatchewan, by a New Democratic Party

government, I might add, and that government introduced universal health care in

that province and was the beginning of the Medicare system in Canada, as we know

it.

But what we see happening, Mr. Speaker, is a tax on the

system, not only by people such as Preston Manning and the Reform Party who do

not support that system, but the Federal Tory party. The Federal Tory party, at

their national convention in August, voted in favour of the imposition of what

they called in their resolution, modest user fees.

Now, I know that our colleagues here on this side of the

House tend to disavow themselves with national Tory policies. I know they don't

support the Prime Minister in his efforts. When it is convenient for them to

disassociate themselves with his policies they do, and I fully expect they will

disassociate themselves from this policy. Not only them - to give credit where

credit is due - the Federal Health Minister, Benoit Bouchard, himself, has said

he does not support this policy, and he said that he, as the Federal minister,

would not consider user fees as an option. But, Mr. Speaker, his party and the

party of the hon. members on this side of the House, their national party, does

support that, which is a derogation from the principles of health care in this

country.

Mr. Speaker, we do have a serious problem, because the

Government of this Province does not seem to be fighting back with the degree of

force that is necessary. But the Premier has been quoted, in fact, he said it in

this House, reported in the March 5, 1991 "Evening Telegram", that 'The Federal

Government has washed its hands of responsibility for the growing cost and has

turned it over to the provinces, and, frankly, the provinces are not capable of

looking after it all.'

Mr. Speaker, the Premier also, around the same time, is

quoted as saying that 'It may well be that we will have to abandon the program,

that is Medicare, altogether.' It may be that we will have to abandon the

program altogether. That is the Premier of this Province, Mr. Speaker,

suggesting that the costs of Medicare will force us to abandon it. Well, Mr.

Speaker, we all know that the costs of Medicare are great, and they are

increasing rapidly, faster than the population growth, faster than the growth of

tax, faster than the GNP. They are increasing, Mr. Speaker, to the point where

something has to be done, and I agree that measures have to be taken to decrease

the cost. But what are we doing, Mr. Speaker? We are increasing the cost in

manners such as we have been debating in this House for the past few days, by

having more expensive services instead of less expensive services. We know, Mr.

Speaker, that the cost of these medical clinics that are being set up is greater

than it would be otherwise, and there is a great deal of suspicion as to why

that is the case. It is not the most cost-effective method, Mr. Speaker, and

extra cost could well be used to provide a more adequate medical service in this

Province.

Mr. Speaker, it is not just the Government that has been

saying things about the dangers of Medicare. The Newfoundland Medical

Association put out in its bulletin on April 17, 1991: 'What can we expect? What

will Bill C-69 mean for health services in Newfoundland and Labrador? We can

expect to see, amongst other things, patients paying directly for most of the

routine visits and procedures conducted in hospitals and doctors clinics, and an

increasing number of medical services are de-insured. That is what the Medical

Association is predicting, Mr. Speaker, and make no mistake about it, these are

the kinds of things that this Government seems to be prepared to countenance

because they have not taken measures to ensure that this will not happen.

Mr. Speaker, the coming constitutional situation that we have

calls for action by all governments across the country and all provinces, but

more particularly this Province. There is an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to

include in the Constitution, by means of what has been called in some quarters a

social charter, an affirmation of the basic principles of social programs, the

basic principles that we have, as citizens of this country, adopted in our

medical care system and in our social programs that we have expected and we want

to see available all across this country.

Mr. Speaker, make no mistake about it, if there is a

decentralization of Confederation, as is contemplated by the federal proposals,

and was contemplated by the Meech Lake proposals, as well, the losers will be

provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador. This is not just my view, Mr. Speaker.

In Halifax, just on Monday, Judith Maxwell of the Economic Council of Canada

told a business luncheon that massive tax increases in the Atlantic Provinces

will be required for governments trying to maintain services with fewer federal

dollars, with tax rates rising, Mr. Speaker, predicted as much as 68 per cent of

gross domestic product in Newfoundland from the current 35 per cent, since many

Atlantic Canadians and, in this case, Newfoundlanders, would leave this Province

to get cheaper taxes elsewhere. This Province, Mr. Speaker, is not going to be

able to afford to provide equal public services in health care, in education,

and in general social services as other provinces, unless we have some

constitutional guarantees that we will have the funding to be able to make it

possible.

Mr. Speaker, the Government of Ontario, through its Premier,

has issued a discussion paper on the social charter. I would urge all members to

read it. It is not a final document, it is a discussion paper. It proposes the

entrenchment and the enshrining of principles in the Constitution, and some

institutional mechanisms to enforce that. Mr. Speaker, I would urge you to

consider these measures as a method of affirming, for all-time in our

Constitution, the social programs and, in particular, medicare, that is so vital

to the needs of people in this Province.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about what we can do

here to eliminate some of the high costs of medicare, aside from having a more

responsive and responsible public tendering process. Aside from that, Mr.

Speaker, we can do things that will provide for the delivery of health care

services in a more efficient manner. We do need efficiencies, and we need to

have the control of the services a little bit closer to the people.

Mr. Speaker, there are methods of doing it. I understand the

Minister of Health made some comments recently indicating that he now sees the

wisdom in support for a program of using community-based, trained midwives as

part of the health care delivery system. It is something that he has come to

recently, but I give him credit for acknowledging that this could be a part of

the health care delivery system in this Province. It has been in the Labrador

part of this Province for many years, as part of the Grenfell Regional Health

Services and prior to that the Grenfell Mission. Mr. Speaker, it is a method of

delivery of health care services which more and more women are demanding and

want to be a part of, and can provide a level of services at a cheaper cost

because there is less need for high-priced medical intervention.

There are also community clinics, Mr. Speaker, as a way of

having health care delivered, preventive health care with education programs and

with community control of the delivery of this service. Studies have shown, Mr.

Speaker, that the costs are less in delivering quality health care with local

control at a less costly rate.

I want to quote from a recent Government of Saskatchewan

study, Mr. Speaker, which looked at co-operative and consumer sponsored health

care delivery systems in the Province of Saskatchewan. Looking at two clinics in

Prince Albert and in Saskatoon, it showed that the hospitalization rates for

patients at these clinics, or participating in these clinics, were 25 to 30 per

cent lower in patient days than the provincial average. There were lower drug

material and prescribing costs, and produced savings of between 11 and 21 per

cent. The costs per patient, Mr. Speaker, were lower by 13 to 17 per cent. This

was not in a second-rate system, Mr. Speaker, it was in a first-rate system

which had community control.

So, Mr. Speaker, there are examples, and we have some in our

Province. I know the Minister of Health talks about the experiment now being

conducted on the Southern Shore, the Trepassey area, on the delivery of health

care through a community clinic. We have the clinic operated by the medical

school at Memorial, the family practice unit on Shea Heights, the Shea Heights

community medical clinic, which is a separately incorporated body and has a

local community board. These are a couple of examples where there is some

community involvement in the delivery of health care services. This ought to be

regarded by the Minister of Health as a model for ways of delivering the

services, providing better service and care, at, in fact, what turns out to be,

better care at a cheaper cost and providing for a healthier population.

Mr. Speaker, there are ways of doing that that I am afraid

this Government has forgotten about or missed the boat on. One of them has to do

with the issue of research into health care. This Government and the previous

government were given by the Federal Government, as a result of Bill C-22,

access to an enormous amount of money from the federal treasury in the order of

$4.5 million, which was earmarked for research within this Province. It was held

in a separate account. But this year, the Government, instead of using it for

research, turned it over to general revenues and refused to use it to conduct

research in this Province.

There is a problem with research, not only in this Province,

but in the country. There is very little research being done into the

effectiveness and the delivery of health care systems. This has been recognized

by a national committee, a federal committee of the Federal House, which looked

at the health and welfare expenditures for research and made recommendations for

increases, as opposed to decreases, which are happening now in research and

health care management, health care delivery and organization, and health care

quality and standards and quality assurance.

These three areas are areas in which the quality of health

care can be tested, in which the delivery of health care and the effectiveness

of that delivery can be tested, and there is very little research in that area,

an area which I think can provide perhaps some of the greatest results for the

health of the population, and not only the health of the population, but the

ability of governments, such as Newfoundland, to deliver these expensive

programs. But what we really need is a national commitment from every

Canada in their Constitution, a commitment to these programs and to these

principles.

I know that some of the members care about this issue. Some

of them are even listening, many are not. But the people of this Province want

to have a guarantee that they will not suffer because they live in Newfoundland.

I know the Minister of Finance would not want any one of his constituents to

have less health care and less access to health care because he or she lives in

Newfoundland, than if they lived in Alberta or Ontario or British Columbia. The

way to do that, the way to guarantee that, is to see and find a way in this

constitutional process that we are on now, to seek amendments, whether they be

Section 36, as the Premier has indicated he might want to see changed, or

whether it be a separate document or a separate social charter. But we need to

find ways of providing in our Constitution some guarantee that Newfoundland will

be able to deliver these social programs, particularly Medicare, that our people

need and will be demanding.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank my

hon. colleagues for giving me the first opportunity to get up after the missing

Member for St. John's East spoke because I have a doctor's appointment at four

o'clock, and it is interesting I have a doctor's appointment when we are

speaking on Medicare this afternoon.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. EFFORD: I am not going in at 7:00 in the morning, I

am going to take my regular visit.

It is interesting to know that the hon. Member is so greatly

concerned about Medicare and about the future of health in Canada, especially

here in Newfoundland and Labrador. It is important to every individual, not only

our great socialist friend over there who will be making some points later on,

but nobody would ever want us to be in a situation, or to even come close, to

eroding universality in Medicare in our health profession, to come down on it

like in the United States, because the possibilities of what could happen to the

health services is frightening, especially for people to get an opportunity to

receive a decent health care in the country of Canada and especially in the

Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Under the economic conditions we are facing now it is

difficult. It is difficult for people to get admitted to hospital when they need

elective surgery, and sometimes in the case of emergency, because with the taxes

we are receiving through our own revenues here in the Province, and the payments

from Ottawa, it is difficult to keep up with the demands on the health services.

That is difficult enough, but to try and imagine that we could be taking some of

those services away because of the economy in the country would be even more

frightening. I remember visiting Florida about two years ago, the first vacation

I had taken in five years. We were down there only two days and my wife took

sick and ended up in hospital in Florida for three and a half days. For those

three and a half days it cost nearly $9000. Now, that is something that as

Canadians, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, you could never imagine or believe

could happen. In the United States of American, with the system they have there,

unless you have some company insurance or you belong to a national insurance

plan it is devastating what happens when you get sick. I know of circumstances

where people needed to go in hospital and the only way they could get in was to

mortgage their home, it they had a home, or they had to put themselves in

financial ruin in order to get into the health system.

It is certainly a major concern to every Canadian that

anything in our health system could be tampered with to further deteriorate the

possibility of people getting the health services they need. Now, keep in mind

one thing, in order to provide health services you need money. You need taxes.

You cannot pay for the cost of health, whether the individual pays the cost or

some group pays the cost, or whether the Government pays it, the money has to

come from somewhere. My socialist friend should sit down and listen to what I am

going to say because you cannot collect money unless you can generate revenues,

and the one thing I found out from our friends over in the corner, leader number

one, and leader number two, is that they are mostly commonly against everything

that makes any commonsense. Every time you start to talk of a project, an

environmental study is the first thing that has to be done, and every stumbling

block that you could ever possibly imagine is put in the way. Leave it to the

hon. gentleman and the party to stop and undermine any possible project. Now,

they want universality, they want every opportunity and everything we can get in

health care, they want all the other social programmes, but they never seem to

imagine, or try to understand how we pay for those programmes. How do you pay

for programmes that we take for granted here in this country? Is health free?

Does anybody have any health costs? Does the doctor have to get paid? Do you

have to buy equipment? Do you have to pay a bill at the hospital for

renovations? Does that cost money? Not according to our socialist friends.

Somebody is suppose to wave their magic wand and flick in the money like the

hon. Minister of Finance will have to do this year to pay interest on the $6

billion debt.

AN HON. MEMBER: Pretty close.

MR. EFFORD: It is pretty close to $6 billion. Now, if I

could hear the hon. gentleman who spoke this afternoon speak about something

constructive which his party, or the one he represents, were going to be in

support of in this Province to turn around the economy and do something so that

we could gain extra revenue, then it would make some sense in what we are trying

to say about the Medicare system. At least we would have the money to pay for

it. I never hear him say anything constructive. I have never heard him make a

statement this year on the fishery and how important that is to the economy of

the Province, never once. Never once has he ever opened his mouth and said: well

the fishery is the mainstay of the economy of the Province and that we should do

something constructive; that we should protect our fishery; that every tax

dollar generated through the economy from the fishery creates an economy that

could help offset the cost of health care in our Province; that could improve

the health care in our Province. But how do you have time to talk about the

fishery, if 99 per cent of your time is spent in a law office with the doors

closed? How, Mr. Speaker, could you possibly have time to talk about the fishery

in this Province?

MR. SPEAKER: If I were the old schoolmarm, I would say

there are some members who have not heard a word of the last two speeches. The

Chair, of course, cannot force people to listen. It is the Chair's job to ensure

that there is order and decorum in the House so that the Member speaking can be

heard, and it is very important. This House is a bit different from the other

House. It is large, and members should know, when they are walking back and

forth, that they cannot talk to people. It does not do anything for the decorum

of the House. I notice members get up to leave, and on their way they will

casually talk to this person and that person. This is not at all in the interest

of promoting good decorum in the House. I have noticed that some members have

been out of their places since the period began, and they have been in

discussion the whole time. I would ask members if they want a meeting with

people, have it outside the House. Here we are supposed to listen to the debate,

and if we are going to allow this thing to go on, it is just going to

deteriorate, and it is not a very good spectacle. So I ask hon. members to

please keep these few words in mind.

The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, for an individual or a Member

of this House of Assembly to be interested in what is taking place in the

Province, and what the policies of governments are, and what the concerns for

the future economy of the Province are - because we must be concerned about the

future of the economy of this Province if we are going to be able to provide the

health care services that people need. The two go hand in hand. You cannot

provide health services if you do not have a good, strong base in the economy,

and that is what is happening now. The economy is falling down around our ears,

and the hon. Member over there is not saying one thing positive; not saying one

thing to his other colleagues across Canada to acknowledge the problems that we

are facing here in Newfoundland - and it is a national problem. It is a national

problem. The fishery here in this Province is a national problem.

The wheat fields of Saskatchewan and the Prairie Provinces

have become a national problem, and every government and every politician in the

country is concerned about it.

Every politician and every member of this country supports

the importance of the wheat fields and the farmers of all of Canada, and

especially western Canada, so much so that $800 million of our taxpayers money

was paid out just recently because of the problems they were experiencing this

year in the farming industry. What did Newfoundland get? Nine million dollars.

Nine million dollars. Did I hear you say anything? Not a word, Mr. Speaker. Not

a word. Why? He was locked away in his law office, too busy making money - too

busy making money. The great socialist attitude, concerned about the people of

this Province, concerned about the poor people of this Province, and was he

really concerned? - absolutely not, Mr. Speaker. He was absolutely not

concerned, because if he was sincere about bringing this resolution into the

House, he would be out there fighting for the poor people. He would be out there

fighting for the economy of this Province. He would be involving the Premier of

Ontario, and the Premier of British Columbia, and the Premier of Saskatchewan -

have you written them? Have you written them and asked them to support the

resolution that we are facing here in this House of Assembly? Have you written

them to support the fishery? If you have, table it, bring it to the House of

Assembly and show it to us. But I say, Mr. Speaker, that he has not written any

letter. He has not taken the interest to ask for support across Canada.

Last week I sent out 330 resolutions across this Province to

every municipality. What has the hon. Member done? Absolutely nothing, Mr.

Speaker, because he is spending half of his time out in Corner Brook on

arbitration hearings, plus collecting a full pay here in the House of Assembly.

That is what he is doing, Mr. Speaker. I wonder why? Let me ask him another

question about the Medicare problem. Is there a conflict when we bring in this

Medicare? Let me ask the hon. Member, is he the lawyer for the clinic on Shea

Heights? Is he the lawyer for the Medicare Institute at Memorial University? Is

he the lawyer for the doctor at the Medicare clinic on Shea Heights? I tell you,

Mr. Speaker, something has to be done with what is happening in this hon. House

of Assembly.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: Yes, I sure am, because I am bringing out the

truth.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: That is right.

MR. EFFORD: I am bringing out the waste of taxpayers

money. Every dollar wasted in this Province is a dollar that could go towards

improving health care; improving the lives of sick people; improving the lives

of our senior citizens and every dollar, or every hundred dollars or every

thousand dollars that is wasted by a politician, is taking those services away

from the sick of this Province, so let us not be hypocritical by what we are

saying; let us stand up and face the truth. The hon. Member can point his finger

and say I will get mine, probably I will, but I will get it honestly and fairly

and aboveboard. Make no mistake about that. But I am telling you that we need

dollars to pay for this health care system. What was it last year, $800 million

AN HON. MEMBER: Plus.

MR. EFFORD: $800 million plus to pay for the health care

system in this Province, and what are our friends in Ottawa taking away from us?

Every time you sit down and talk to them, every time the Minister of Finance or

the Minister of Health or any of the Ministers - cut, cut, cut!

AN HON. MEMBER: $500 million.

MR. EFFORD: Let the hon. Member for St. John's East, who

is concerned about the future of health care, table in this House one copy of

one letter that he has written to the Federal Minister of Health about his

concerns; table it, bring it to this House of Assembly. I tell you, Mr. Speaker,

he cannot because he has not written one letter. He is too busy to write

letters. So what is he doing? It is not enough.

When I presented a resolution last week on the fishery in

this Province, I did not just stand up in this House and present a resolution

and pay lip service to it and let it drop, I have spent the whole year on the

fisheries. I have browbeaten everybody in this Province on the fisheries. I have

hounded the Federal Minister of Fisheries on it. I have hounded the Prime

Minister of Canada and when the Prime Minister of Canada comes to Newfoundland

on December 9th, he is going to be hounded again. Let me assure you of that.

There are going to be an awful lot of fishermen and their wives and their

children in front of the Prime Minister when he comes here. That is doing

something about a problem. That is not being hypocritical, that is working for

the real answer to the problem and it is too bad that the hon. Member does not

take the same attitude; and if he calls this Member sleazy, as he just said

across there, he should remember what he did a couple of months ago.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. EFFORD: Talk about those sorts of things; tattle all,

Mr. Speaker. We are talking about the attitudes of people, we are talking about

the future of Medicare, we are talking about the things which will take place in

this Province in the future and it has to. Every individual in this Province

should be concerned about health care. Just imagine if you had to go to a

hospital, the Health Sciences, and you needed an operation. Just imagine the

thought of having to sell off your home or put another mortgage on your home or

to mortgage your car or whatever to get into hospital, or, as one relative of

mine who was in the United States and was in hospital and owed a bill, his wife

went down to check him out - this was several years ago, and when she saw the

bill it was $339, and they said 'no way'. She could not check her husband out of

the hospital until she went to the bank, got the money and returned to the

hospital; that was the condition. They would not release him from hospital

otherwise.

That is not uncommon. That is the way health care is provided

in the United States of America. So we should be concerned, but you cannot pay

it without money, you cannot have a health care system unless you collect the

revenues - it all goes hand in hand. And the fishery, Mr. Speaker, as I will

keep saying it and I will keep saying it and I will keep saying it until someone

does something about it. My hon. friend in the gallery is nodding his head, he

has the time to do something about it. I do not know what he has done. I have

never heard any comments about it, I have not read much in the press about it.

Probably he is doing something behind the scenes the way they usually do things;

but, Mr. Speaker, it is going to be interesting to see what happens behind the

scenes -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I have just noticed the hon. Member talking to somebody in

the gallery and I would advise hon. members that nobody in the galleries is

supposed to be making any gestures to anybody in the House or any place else,

and I would ask hon. members to also refrain from inviting that kind of gesture.

The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

MR. EFFORD: I do apologise, Mr. Speaker. I do not

normally do that, but the hon. member was nodding to me and I guess he just

caught my attention, so I will make sure it does not happen in the future, if

the hon. member stops nodding his head, or the hon. visitor I should say stops

nodding his head to the gallery. But, Mr. Speaker, it is serious. It is

something that we are going to have to face the consequences of in the future. I

do not know where the money is going to continue to come from to provide the

health care system that we need in this Province.

I listened to the demographics that were supplied by the

Federal Government about the future of this Province, and what the population is

going to be in, I think, 2001 or 2005, and it is going to be something over 65

per cent seniors in this Province. I mean that is going to be a tremendous cost

and drain on the health care system. In most cases you need more health care

services as a senior than you do at a younger age. I would think those would be

statistics that wouldn't be very difficult to back up. So, when you look at ten

years down the road and you get the economy of the Province deteriorating the

way it is, and you get a lot of the youth of the Province leaving - and they

will have to leave for one reason or another, especially to find employment if

we allow our fishery to disappear right from underneath us - and if you have the

greater portion of the population over the age of sixty-five in the Province,

then there is no contributing factor to the tax revenues of the Province. Again

the revenues, the taxes, and the health needs go hand in hand. One cannot

survive without the other.

So, while we have got to be concerned about what the

Government's policy is going to be in the future on Medicare, we have got to be

equally as concerned about where the dollars and cents are going to come from to

take care of the Medicare costs. That is where I am coming from, Mr. Speaker,

and I am sure my colleagues, when they get up, will give many other examples and

make other references to other things we will have to do. So I am telling you,

it is just not enough to have a socialist attitude and stand up in the House of

Assembly demanding that we keep the services. We have got to provide the

alternatives and the ways and means of supporting those services. I don't think

there is anybody in this House of Assembly or anywhere in the Province of

Newfoundland and Labrador who would ever think about voting against a motion

such as this. I mean, you have to totally support -

AN HON. MEMBER: We are not going to be hypocrites.

MR. EFFORD: Exactly. We are not going to be hypocritical

or hypocrites about the whole mess -

AN HON. MEMBER: You cannot vote in the House of Assembly

and do nothing else about it.

MR. EFFORD: Exactly. We have to keep in mind that you

just cannot bring in a motion, sit down on your laurels, put your hand under

your chin and say: Well, that is it, I have done my job. I am satisfied medicare

is here to stay. It is not that simple.

Now, we have got to be serious about what we are doing and we

have got to work towards creating a positive economy for the future of this

Province, and the only way we can do that is get control off and demand and

protect our resources. When we have the opportunity to get a major industry or

major development in this Province, let us be practical, let's use some common

sense. I know we have to protect our environment and we have to make sure of all

aspects in the fishery, in the oil industry, in the lumber woods, or in the

hydro development, and we have to look at all concerns. But let's not just do it

for the sake of doing it to promote the policies of someone in our party. That

is what most commonly happens in a lot of cases, Mr. Speaker.

So, our socialist friends in the Province and our socialist

friends across Canada would do a lot to contribute towards Medicare in the

Province if they changed their attitude and were more co-operative in developing

a good basis for the economy across the country, and instead of always being

negative and picking at little things be a little more supportive of what

matters most. When you build that basis for the economy and you build the

revenues, then you have no worries about our Medicare staying in place, and the

people of Newfoundland and Labrador and the people of Canada getting the good

health care system that they deserve.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DOYLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am very pleased today to rise and support this resolution

being presented by the Member for St. John's East. It is a very, very good

resolution. It is a resolution that I would suppose could be described as a

motherhood resolution. I find it very, very difficult, I will say to the Member

for St. John's East, to disagree with any part of that resolution. It is a very

good one indeed. When you read part of it, the Member is saying that the

Medicare programme, the Medicare system that we have here in this country, is

the centerpiece of our social programmes and it is one that the whole world,

well the western world, views with a great deal of respect and a great deal of

envy indeed. I would agree with that totally and completely. Because there is

not a Medicare system in the Western world that can be compared to the one we

have here in Canada. We should all be very concerned, indeed, that we don't lose

any part of that good health care system we have, and we should not, under any

circumstances, ever take for granted what we have in the health care system, not

only here in Newfoundland, but all across Canada.

We are very fortunate in this country to have this type of

Medicare system, a free Medicare system. When you compare it, as the Member for

St. John's East did a few minutes ago, to what they have in the United States,

then it is probably time that we looked at our health care system from the point

of view of entrenching it in the Constitution of Canada. The fact that it is

portable, the fact that every citizen in our country has equal and free access

to health care, the fact that we have a universality of health care in Canada,

is something that we possibly should, at this point in time, look at entrenching

in the Constitution of Canada. Because we are very fortunate to have that type

of solid social program that we have in Canada.

As the Member for Port de Grave said a few minutes ago, we

have an aging population in Canada, so it is going to become even more necessary

as time goes on to ensure that citizens in the whole country have access to good

quality health care. Because, as people get older, naturally, they have to avail

more frequently of the health care system that we have.

So we should be proud of it, because it guarantees - well, it

may not guarantee, but at least it provides quality health care to people

regardless of what their individual circumstances might be in life. When we talk

about health care in Canada, we always think of the U.S.A., where millions of

people cannot have access to good quality health care. Why? Simply because they

may not have the type of insurance program necessary for them to avail of that

type of health care; maybe because they do not qualify under the limited health

care system that they have in the United States. In the United States, they have

to qualify for health care. We just take it for granted; one can go into a

hospital or a doctor's office any time at all and just demand good quality

health care, and for the most part, I guess, one will receive it. Whether you

happen to be a millionaire or a beggar, you can receive the type of health care

you are looking for.

Now, our system, of course, has a few flaws. It is not a

perfect system but, for the most part, we can be fairly sure that if we are

wheeled up to a hospital door we are going to be taken in. It is not like that

in the United States. There, you might be wheeled up to a hospital door and the

first thing you would be asked is: Where is your insurance card? Do you qualify

for the type of health care that we provide here at this particular hospital?

So, I guess, availing of health care in a country like that is comparable to

buying a house. If you have to go in for surgery, if you must have some kind of

serious operation, or a stay in a hospital, it could turn into a very big

investment, indeed.

So we very often take our health care system for granted. We

have always had a reasonably good health care system and we can only hope that

it will continue to be that way. We have to be on our guard to ensure that it

does stay that way. So maybe it is time we face that reality and look at the

of Canada. Because, after all, we, here in this country, consider health care to

be a right in the very same way that we consider it to be a right to earn a

living, a right to have access to good quality education, to have equality of

the sexes, and what have you. High on that priority list, as well, should be the

right to good quality health care when we need it.

So maybe it is time to consider health care to be a basic

right, worthy of Constitutional entrenchment, as the Member for St. John's East

has said. Of course, that has to be done through a partnership between the

Federal and the Provincial Governments. Because health care in this country is

becoming seriously underfunded, not only by the Federal Government, but by the

Provincial Government, as well. One level of government, we find over the last

year, is continually blaming the underfunding of health care on the other. Now

the Province makes the point almost on a continual basis that, well, we have a

reduction now, in established program funding, and this is causing a decline in

our health care system, and the Federal Government will counter by saying that

EPF is increasing every year.

Now EPF is increasing every year, incidentally, but it is not

increasing at the same rate that it previously increased. The Province, of

course, by the same token, makes the point that they are spending more money

every single year on health care. Well, the Province is spending more money

every single year on health care, but while the Province is spending more money

on health care, they are not increasing, they are spending at the same rate that

they previously did. So, you can make the point that EPF is decreasing each year

when it is actually increasing, but not increasing at the same rate; and the

Province, of course, is spending more money on health care each year, but they

are not increasing their spending at the same rate as was previously done over

the years. So it depends on how you view it. Generally, Mr. Speaker, whether you

are spending it at the same rate or not, the people who generally have to bear

the brunt of it are the people who are sick, and the Province is not funding the

health care system in the same way as it used to, either.

Maybe it is time now that we looked at a different way of

funding the health care system in the country. I believe, the way the health

care system is funded now through established program funding is in a two-part

package. You have a cash payment that is made by the Federal Government, and you

also have a system of tax points or tax transfers that comes to the Province

each year by the Federal Government. Maybe it is time that the Federal and the

Provincial Governments right across the country got together and looked at what

has become an antiquated system, and maybe it is time that the whole health care

system of funding was thoroughly reviewed with a view to making it more

efficient.

As I said a moment ago, the Province, each year, is

drastically reducing its health care funding. If my memory serves me correctly,

if I remember the Minister of Health's budget back five or six months ago, I

believe health care in the Province took a dip of anywhere between $20 million

or $25 million, and that is very, very serious. In a Province like Newfoundland,

with a population of 500,000 people, when there is a dip of $20 million to $25

million in health care funding, then that becomes a source of concern.

If we had the guarantee of good quality health care and the

five principles that have been outlined by the member entrenched in the

Constitution of Canada, maybe the Province would not be allowed to do that.

Maybe they would have to look at their priorities a little bit more seriously

before taking a dip of $25 million in the health care system.

What we have had in Newfoundland over the last six-month

period since the minister's budget came down, is a lot of bad news for the

health care system in this Province. Continually, day after day, we are getting

bad news in the Province on health care. We have twelve rural hospitals in

Newfoundland and Labrador that have been either closed or seriously downgraded

over the last six-month period.

are closing down hospitals and seriously downgrading the health care system the

way the Government seems to be doing, with brutal cuts in virtually every single

sector of the health care system, 900 jobs, I believe, eliminated throughout the

system right across Newfoundland and Labrador; 300 nursing positions gone over

the last year; a $25 million shortfall in the 1991-1992 Budget; hundreds of

acute care beds gone, I believe, 360 in all, and patients being charged for

services now, in Newfoundland, under MCP. I never thought we would ever come to

that in Newfoundland, where people would actually be charged for health care

services under MCP.

Everyone takes the MCP system for granted, and here in

Newfoundland now, we are being charged for certain health care services, all in

the name of downsizing the health care system. Emergency patients - we are

hearing horror stories day after day, patients having to wait many, many hours

in hospital waiting rooms before they can get in to see a doctor. For what is

sometimes considered to be emergency surgery, people are having to wait for days

and weeks, sometimes running into months, before they can avail of hospital

services.

So, Mr. Speaker, we do have a very serious situation here in

the Province. I can remember a comment that the minister made some time ago. He

said: 'It was lucky we came along when we did, as a government, and rescued the

health care system from what it was getting into. Doctors and nurses are leaving

the Province at an alarming rate, and there seems to be very little attention

paid by Government to what is an alarming problem. I mentioned to the minister

today about psychiatric services in Newfoundland. Twenty per cent of the

psychiatrists that had been operating in the Province have left. We should have

a ratio of about one for every 10,000 patients in the Province. We should have

at least sixty in the Province, and I believe we have anywhere between

twenty-five and thirty. And on it goes.

I had intended to speak for twenty minutes when I got up but

I am just learning that the vocal cords are not back in the shape I thought they

were in. So, Mr. Speaker, I will just say, in closing, that this is a good

resolution that the Member for St. John's East has brought before the House

today, and one that I take great pleasure in supporting.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, thank you. I am very

pleased, today, to speak on this resolution concerning health care, and to

discuss the many problems that exist with it, but also the good things about it.

The Government and the members on this side don't have any

problem in supporting the resolution. The resolution, itself, is somewhat vague

in some areas but, other than that, the overall thrust of it is something that

I, and I am sure, the rest of the members, pretty well, over here on this side,

support. It speaks of putting into the Constitution the five principles

underlying the health care system in Canada and maintaining those principles

forever and a day for the Canadian society. I believe that, as much as we can

and as best we can, we should devote our resources, both human and financial to

doing that.

I find that the resolution, itself, in one of the

'whereases', refers to the 'financial and political support from the Government

of Canada and some Provincial Governments'. Mr. Speaker, I for one am somewhat

happy that an NDP government was elected in a couple of the provinces because I

believe that an NDP government in a couple of the provinces is going to be able

now to face some of the real issues that a government has to tackle. As we in

Canada now watch what is occurring across Canada, especially in Ontario and in

British Columbia, and I believe they are now going to face the same thing in

Saskatchewan, we are seeing some rapid changes taking place in health care. In

Newfoundland the former Leader of the NDP, Mr. Fenwick, commented recently that

the Minister of Health in Newfoundland and Labrador is one of the great reform

Ministers in Canada when it comes to health care. The former NDP Leader, Mr.

Fenwick, said that the hon. Chris Decker, the Minister of Health is one of the

great -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. K. AYLWARD: That is a fact. I do not always agree

with Mr. Fenwick but on this one I do. As a matter of fact it is probably the

first time I ever agreed with him, but I have to say he was right on the money.

Our Minister of Health is a reformer, he is a person who is trying to get the

health care system in this Province ready for the future. I believe that some of

the things he has tackled, some of the major problems he has tackled are

problems that, thank God, are being tackled now for the future and are going to

make our health care system in this Province better. We have some troubles in

between but we have to go at these things in order to resolve the problem. The

problem is not just financial, the problem is also structural. There have been a

number of changes in the demographics that have to be addressed in the type of

health care we have been offering in the Province and across Canada. Our

population is aging and therefore different requirements are needed in the

health care system for our aging population. Therefore we as Governments in

Canada, and the Federal Government, have to address those problems and the type

of services that are needed, not only the financial problems but the type of

services that are needed. The Minister of Health in Newfoundland and Labrador is

attempting to do that by implementing some of the recommendations of the 1984

Royal Commission Report which was done under the mandate of the former

Government before we took office. Unfortunately some of the changes which they

had mandated, which were suggested by the Royal Commission and which they

decided not to tackle at the time we are now trying to deal with. They are not

easy. Bringing changes in the health care, or bringing changes anywhere, is not

easy. It is tough business, but if you are going to do it, if you are going to

do it for the right reasons, and you are going to do it for the future, then you

carry on. This Government has done that and is doing it, despite the Opposition,

even thought they know, and I know this, and the Opposition knows, thank God,

this Government is undertaking to do what should have been done a long time ago.

They know that some of the changes have to be made and if we do not do it

somebody is going to have to do it. We have the responsibility that is entrusted

into our Government right now to do that, and we have to think of the future.

The deficit that this Government has now is enormous. It has been passed onto us

and our hands are tied.

MR. HODDER: We passed a surplus on.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Was a $4 billion debt a surplus? Let me

tell the Member for Port au Port, who is piping up here, who is abusing me as I

speak, Mr. Speaker, he has now crossed over to the Tory Party, the PC Government

in Ottawa is a great Government for Medicare now. They have been great to

Newfoundland and Labrador. Mr. Mulroney cares about Medicare, I know, in this

Province and in Canada. We have lost $500 million over three and a half, or four

years at the most, to health care and education. Every dollar that now goes into

increased health care, 80 per cent of that is provincial dollars. Eighty cents

of every dollar we have to come up with because the Federal Government has

decided to give up on it. They just decided to give up on it. Bill C-69 which

has now been passed by the Federal Government is now legislation and they are

gearing towards getting out of it. Now, Benoit Bouchard, the Federal Minister

would say, oh, no, we are not doing that. We want you to maintain Medicare

standards. You cannot do this. We have a Canada Health Act you have to follow.

We are not going to give you the money to do it but you have to follow it, and

if you try to do anything else we are going to clean your clock and you are not

getting anything else. It is time that we all got on the same track, the same

bandwagon and tried to deal with the problems in a serious vein and in a serious

manner. So the Opposition is going to lay blame on the Provincial Government for

bringing in some needed changes, which have to be brought in, one way or the

other they have to be brought in. If we do not do it, somebody else is going to

do it. Now they would love to be over here doing it, that is the problem, but

unfortunately they cannot do that right now.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) over here, but they would not

do it.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Well maybe that is the case, but the

politics of it in the future is going to be great for Newfoundland because in

politics you are supposed to do the right things for the people, and this

Government is trying to do that. Now we are going to take the short-term pain,

but we have to try to do that and address the problem. It is not easy, but some

of the changes that have been made in offering new services that have never been

there before, and in replacing acute care beds in some cases with chronic care,

which is definitely needed - I mean every expert in every hospital and nursing

home will tell you the changes that they want to see, and most of the people in

the administrations in the health care system are saying that some of the things

that are occurring are long overdue.

Now mind you, it is unfortunate that the pain of having some

people moved out of the system - that is very unfortunate, and I, for one, do

not like to see it, and I am sure that nobody else in this House does either.

But it is not just the Liberal Government of Newfoundland and Labrador that is

doing these things. The NDP Government in Ontario, Mr. Floyd Laughren, the

Ontario Treasurer, is now faced with a dilemma. He is a socialist politician

helping head up a socialist government, and he has a certain principle that he

wants to maintain, and Mr. Rae, who is Premier, has a Social Charter put into

the Constitution about protecting the rights of individuals and so on. That is

great! I am a Liberal, I am left of Liberal, I suppose. I think that is number

one. But Mr. Laughren - who is the Treasurer of Ontario - is now saying that

hospitals are going to have to face the fact that the days of large government

grants are over, even if layoffs, bed closings, and hospital closings may be the

result.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that what he said?

MR. K. AYLWARD: That is what he is saying. He only said

it four or five days ago. You know what else he is saying? He is also saying

there is no money left anymore and that these changes should have been made a

long time ago: We have to deal with our aging population, but changes were not

made because governments had a lot of money and they did not want to deal with

it. Now that we do not have any money - this is what he is saying - we have to

deal with it now.

They are also saying in Ontario that they are now faced with

another $600 million deficit, which was a result of transfer cuts. They just

tried to tackle the $620 million deficit over the $9.7 billion deficit that they

went with this year, and he is also talking now about further cuts and layoffs

in the health care system amounting possibly to 7,000 people in the health care

system that may be coming out of it in the short term. He has already told the

Ontario Hospital Association that there is no way they are going to get what

they want in their increase next year, that they are going to have to face

reality, and that these are reality times, and that health care has to face the

reality and become more effective.

Now, you know, I think he is getting all of this from the

hon. Chris Decker, Minister of Health for Newfoundland and Labrador. He is not

getting all of it, he is only getting some of the good thoughts, because the NDP

Government in Ontario, the one in B.C., and the one that is coming in in

Saskatchewan are going to realize that when you get in government in these

times, in the 1990s, especially in a recession which we have no - I mean we are

not to blame for it. But when you get in these times and you try to deal with

putting forward the services that are needed for the people, especially in

health care, then you have to deal with reality. Reality is less dollars, an

aging population. You need a change in services, and you have to try and find a

way to maintain the needed services that are required.

So while I would support the resolution that the Member for

St. John's East puts forward, I would ask him to also consider that when he

starts laying blame on this Government for bringing in things that have to be

done, when he says these things he should say to himself: my colleagues across

Canada are doing the same thing. Not only that, they may do worse things, God

knows, than we have done, and we have not done worse things; we have not done

bad things. What we have had to do is face reality, and this Government has the

courage to do that.

So if you want to criticize, that is fine, but let's be

constructive in doing that, and let's offer decent suggestions. The Member for

St. John's East says that we should - the couple of suggestions that he makes -

is that we should open more community clinics. Government has undertaken to do

that. Home care: I think the Department of Health is really into that. As a

matter of fact, we are probably leading Canada in home care efforts.

So we are leading the nation in trying to deal with health

care, especially in rural areas. So when I hear the Opposition - they should

make constructive suggestions, and if they are going to talk about brutal health

care cuts they should refer to Mr. Mulroney and Benot Bouchard instead of this

Provincial Government. Because we are trying to deal with a crisis that we are

now facing because of their counterparts in Ottawa who have decided that we in

this Province, and Atlantic Canada, and other have-not provinces, are going to

have to face the fact that we are going to have to deal with less funding

arrangements to deal with health care requirements in the future.

So if you are going to criticize let's do it right. Let's

make some positive suggestions about how to go about this and making the

changes. Don't just get up and criticize for the sake of criticizing. If you are

going to make suggestions, the Government will listen. I as a Member will

listen. The Members for Carbonear and Eagle River will listen. We are listeners,

we like to listen, and then we like to do. We will try to do what we think is

best. But we are here taking the shellacking and we are caught right in the

middle. Here we are delivering the service, supposedly, and the Federal

Government is saying: we are not giving you any more money. Alright? You are

having less money to deal with this fact. But go ahead, because you are to blame

now. The Opposition Party in Newfoundland is down blaming us for what the

Federal Government is not giving us.

Now I mean, you know, the time has come to tell. The day is

over. We should be collaborating and trying to find effective ways to deliver

health care in the Province. The recommendations that are being implemented now

by this Government in health care are the same recommendations that the former

government had to deal with. In some cases they brought them in, I think - in a

few cases. But they just decided I suppose at the time that they did not need to

do it. But the fact is, it is not only because they needed to be done but also

because of the difficult financial situation that this Government finds itself

in, not due to its own dealings, because of the fact that we have inherited

quite a large debt, and also because of the recession, which we did not create.

We did not create the national recession. It was created by somebody else who

will remain unknown to all of us. That was created by somebody else and that has

caused a downturn. A lot of our resource industries have suffered and our

revenues have declined.

So let's be real when we are going to talk about how we deal

with Medicare and how we deal with the services to be provided by people. We

have to try to do our best with what we have right now. But we also have to make

known to the Federal Government, as the motion put forward by the Member for St.

John's East states, we have to make the Federal Government understand that

Medicare and health care is a large issue with the people of Canada and that

they want to see it maintained. They want to see it improved. They also want to

see changes that will address the future demographics of Canada and especially

of this Province.

So we support the resolution, even though it is vague and it

does not really say how we get there. But the resolution itself we support and I

believe that it is a positive resolution. I hope the Federal Government will

start to understand that instead of doing some of the things that they are

doing, that they should concentrate more on finding a new financial arrangement

to deliver funds to the have-not provinces. I believe right now that

negotiations are under way with the provincial governments, trying to come up

with new fiscal transfer arrangements, so that the provinces which are having

troubles in meeting their budgets will be able to get hopefully more funds to

deal with the problems that they have to deal with.

But if we are going to keep this on an even keel we should

understand that the NDP Party or the PC Party have no sole right to government,

and as to how they would deal with it. They are in other governments, and we

know how they are dealing with it. So all of us should understand that. They

have not done as good a job as they say they would like to do, or they said they

could do. We are trying to do our best. I think, as Peter Fenwick, the former

NDP leader, has said, that we have a great Minister of health care. I think he

deserves a thump (Inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. K. AYLWARD: The changes, while they are tough, are

needed. The Opposition is green with envy, I think, because they see a Minister

of Health who has the guts to face the reality, to bring in the changes that

they were told they should make, but they did not make. We know that down the

road people will say that this Government and this Minister of Health did the

tough things, in the tough times, for the people, and they are roughing it out

with us. In Baie Verte - White Bay they decided that they think we are doing the

right thing. I think Harold Small is - by the way, welcome to the House of

Assembly, I do not know if I welcomed you before - the hon. Member is working

very hard. I know that people had a chance out there to say what they thought,

and I think they spoke quite highly of what they think we are trying to do. At

least they know, Mr. Speaker, that we are being up front, and we are trying our

best in difficult, trying times. I would say that the resolution itself, I

believe, is a good one. On the overall we support it, but let us all keep in

mind what we have to deal with, and hopefully we will see a better day in the

future as we take the right measures for now.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Government House Leader.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much.

AN HON. MEMBER: Soon to be the Government House Leader,

Mr. Speaker.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, soon to be.

MR. SPEAKER: I am sorry, the hon. the Opposition House

Leader.

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

No, there are going to be enough competitions across the way,

Mr. Speaker, I say with all due respect, for the Government House Leader in a

short while, if Mr. Roberts is successful in getting a seat. I say my good

friend from Gander may just have to move over and let Eddie sit next to the

Premier, because they will be two peas in a pod, there is no question, when he

gets here.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to rise to

support the resolution - Private Members' Day - put forward by the Member for

St. John's East about a very important issue; a matter that affects all of our

lives; a matter that we all have grave concern about, particularly I guess about

the future, where are we really headed in this country, and in this Province

particularly, with the Medicare programme? I say that in a very sincere note,

because it is, regardless of political stripe, a programme that we all value

very highly and are very proud of, as a province of Canada, to have this very,

very good Medicare programme.

I want to react to the Member for Stephenville who talked

about the Provincial Government leading the nation. There is no doubt, Mr.

Speaker, that the present Government is leading the nation in a number of ways.

They are leading it with the unemployment rate in the Province. That has

steadily increased since they came to power. They are leading the way nationally

with the number of ministers that resigned from the Administration in the period

of time that they have been in office. They are leading the nation in the number

of civil servants who have been laid off-

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, because it is all true. It is very

serious stuff, Mr. Speaker, I say to Doctor Death over there. I say to Doctor

Death, it is very serious stuff.

They are leading the way with the lay offs of civil servants;

leading the nation in political patronage appointments, and I would say leading

the nation these days in the number of political patronage appointments who have

resigned. Of course now, within the last week or so, leading the nation in

scandals, Mr. Speaker.

I would have to say now that this Government is leading the

nation, for any government in Canada, in scandals. I say to the Member for

Stephenville, when he talks about his Government leading the nation, there is no

doubt they are leading the nation.

AN HON. MEMBER: Does that include the Federal Government

too?

MR. MATTHEWS: Including the Federal Government, and I

tell you that is saying something. That is saying something. When you lead the

Mulroney Tories in some of the things that I have alluded to here then you are

really, really leading the nation, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Scandal, corruption, paying off the bag

men.

MR. MATTHEWS: Now I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that we are

talking here and the debate has been pretty wide-ranging. We have heard from the

Member who introduced the resolution. Then we heard from the Member for Port de

Grave who spoke briefly to the resolution, and spoke about other matters that

seemed to be very, very important to him these days; then the Member for Harbour

Main; the Member for Stephenville, and now myself. To me, what we are talking

about today is health care in Newfoundland and Labrador - in Canada - but most

importantly, in Newfoundland and Labrador. I go down to the third

whereas: "AND

WHEREAS the national medical care program is under threat through deteriorating

Provincial Governments." I think the hon. Member put this in there for a very

good reason. He is talking about some provincial governments, and I am not

trying to second guess the hon. Member, but I would think that he is certainly

questioning the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador in this particular area,

of political support for this very, very worthwhile Medicare programme. I am

sure that the hon. Member could probably allude to it when he stands, but I do

not think the hon. Member really thinks that the Provincial Government of the

day in Newfoundland and Labrador, is that supportive of the Medicare programme

as it should be, and I am really not sure sometimes when I stand in this

Legislature and listen to the Premier react to questions on Medicare from the

hon. Member particularly, and from others, and hear him take

part in debates, I

am really not sure how sincere the Premier is about being strong and supporting

very strongly the Medicare programme in this country. Sometimes I really wonder

how sincere he is, when we see some of the actions that his own Government has

taken over the last two years particularly with health care in this Province, it

makes you really wonder where we are headed in health care in Newfoundland and

Labrador.

Now last year, we had a very, very serious Budget brought

down in this Province with serious implications for the health care system. The

system in Newfoundland and Labrador has really gone down hill in the last twelve

months, I say to the Minister of Health. All of us out and about our own regions

of the Province with our hospitals, particularly in our regional hospitals, know

the pressure that they are under; patients are lined up trying to see doctors,

waiting weeks and sometimes months trying to get a hospital bed, I say to the

Minister, and it is very, very serious.

I know in my own area of the Province where we have seen the

in-patients services phased out at Grand Bank and St. Lawrence and the shut-down

of the old Burin Cottage Hospital, that the pressure on the Burin Regional

Health Care Centre is tremendous. My colleague from Harbour Main alluded to some

of the problems today in his questions to the Minister of Health, when he talked

about the ear, nose and throat specialist, and of the services which we were so

proud to get out and about rural Newfoundland, who would come down to the Burin

Peninsula, hold their clinics, see patients who wanted to see them in their own

region of the Province, even though they may have had to drive for thirty or

forty-five minutes to get to see them, at least the service was offered in their

part of the Province where they were, and now, what do we see? We see going back

to the old days.

Now the people of the Burin Peninsula have to come to St.

John's, they will now be referred to St. John's to see the ear, nose and throat

specialist. It is a backward regressive step and most of that, Mr. Speaker - you

can blame it on Mulroney, you can blame it on whomever you want, but most of the

blame has to be laid at the doorstep of the Province's Minister of Health, the

Premier and the Administration for the cutbacks that they have imposed on the

health care system in this Province over the last couple of years, but

particularly in their last provincial Budget. What we are gradually seeing

again, is that what we thought was a very successful regional health care system

in Port aux Basques, Grand Falls, Gander, Clarenville and Salt Pond, what we

thought or what was, by the way, a very successful and improved system, we now

see a shrinking and a withdrawing into the larger urban centres again of Corner

Brook, Grand Falls and St. John's with all the other smaller communities and

regional health care centres sort of being downplayed, being squeezed by the

Minister of Health and the Provincial Administration.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I want to go on record and say

that there are some very serious problems that have been created because of what

is happening with the Federal Government, with -

MR. TOBIN: And this clique.

MR. MATTHEWS: What is that?

MR. TOBIN: And this clique.

MR. MATTHEWS: Oh I have just finished talking about them

and I will talk about them again. But there are some very serious problems-

MR. TOBIN: Murphy in particular.

MR. MATTHEWS: - with the transfer payments and so on to

the Province. The thing is we are not getting less money, we are getting less

money than anticipated, that is where the problem lies; it is less money than

anticipated. Almost every week we hear the Minister of Finance and the Premier

getting up and talking about the cuts and the slashes and so on to transfer

payments; EPF funding and so on in the Province, but what it is, is that we are

not getting as much as we expected to get. It is not that we are getting less

than we had last year, because we are getting more money that we did last year

and I guess, if you want to compare, it comes back to comparing it with the

school tax issue that we are going through in the Province, that if the Minister

of Education and the Minister of Finance tomorrow, guarantees school boards that

they will get their $30 million or $35 million, what will it be worth in five

years time if it stays at $35 million? That is the same thing that is happening

with the national programmes and with the transfer to provinces, the growth is

not keeping pace with the demands. The dollar value is not maintaining or not

staying steady, so that the value of 1990 dollars is reducing, and consequently

the Province can't do as much with it. I mean, that is what we are into.

As the Member for Stephenville said - and I am glad to see he

done. Every government does what it thinks it has to do. I mean, if you were to

DR. KITCHEN: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: We were too chicken to do it, the Minister

of Finance says. Now, the Minister likes to talk about chicken a lot. He loves

to talk about chicken. I do not know what it is, but he loves to talk about

chicken. I say to the Minister of Finance, it is not that you are too chicken to

do something. We are talking health care here and we are talking education. We

are talking about compassion for people, and the needs of people that need to be

looked after, that have serious medical needs in the Province.

MR. K. AYLWARD: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: 'The Government did what should have been

done.' - I think the Member for Stephenville said, 'We had to do what had to be

done.' Well, if you went and sat down at a Cabinet meeting with Brian Mulroney

and his ministers, I am sure they would try to convince you that they are doing

what has to be done. Right? If you sat in the Smallwood Cabinet or the Moores

Cabinet or the Peckford Cabinet or the Wells Cabinet or any Cabinet, the

government would say, 'We are doing what has to be done.' That is an easy way

out, an easy argument for the hon. Member.

I do not think you had to lay off the people you laid off in

the Province last year. I do not think you did. I do not think you had to do

with the health care system in this Province what you did in your last budget.

And I say to the hon. Member -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) froze wages.

MR. MATTHEWS: Froze wages. We didn't lay anybody off, I

tell the hon. Member.

DR. KITCHEN: Hold on until next week and we will tell

you.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, well you can tell us all you want. I

say to the hon. Member that the Government's policies and the actions they took

in the Budget have certainly proven counterproductive. Because the more people

there are out of work, the less dollars there are to spend, and the less money

there is coming into the Minister of Finance's coffers.

DR. KITCHEN: We should hire everybody.

MR. MATTHEWS: No. Let me say to the Minister, that is

another easy way out, 'Hire everybody'. Two weeks ago, I say to the Minister of

Finance, he had to admit his deficit was gone again. His deficit had doubled, I

say to the Minister of Finance, again this year.

DR. KITCHEN: That is a (inaudible) theory.

MR. MATTHEWS: A double theory? Well, let me say to the

Minister, he can try to slough it off all he likes because he thought when he

brought down his Budget last Spring, Mr. Speaker -

DR. KITCHEN: Now, I've I heard it all. (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: I would have more confidence in that than

the Kitchen -

MR. MATTHEWS: Let me say to the Minister of Finance, when

he brought down his Budget last spring here in this Legislature, he said, 'We

are doing what has to be done. It is a tough budget.' Quite a contrast from the

Budget before when he said it was the common man's Budget. Remember? The Budget

for the common man. This year it was a severe, tough economic statement, but it

had to be done. It had to be done because it was done to improve the economic

position and performance of the Province. What do we see now? The economic

position of the Province has worsened again, I say to the Minister of Finance.

Laid people off and increased taxes, that is what he did. Now, he has a $100

million deficit again this year. He has a perfect record going, Mr. Speaker.

There has not been a year yet he has not had a deficit, and there has not been a

year yet his deficit has not been double what he predicted. 'Old Double Double

Herbie', I think we are going to call him from now on. That is what we have.

MR. TOBIN: I am half tempted to call a quorum.

MR. MATTHEWS: Getting back to the resolution, Mr.

Speaker, the Member for St. John's East is calling upon the members of this

House to affirm the principles of the National Medicare Programme, and these

principles are public administration, comprehensiveness, universality,

portability and accessability. I say to the hon. Member, that I would be very,

very surprised if there is anyone who stands in this Legislature who does not

support the principles of the National Medicare Programme.

DR. KITCHEN: We need to be sure.

MR. MATTHEWS: We need to be sure. But having said that I

want to say to the Member that I am sure amongst Members of the Legislature

there are those who within themselves may find the debate, particularly about

universality - I cannot speak for anyone else, Mr. Speaker, but I am sure there

is a debate within a lot of Members here. They wrestle within themselves about

the principle of universality. There are a lot of people in this country and a

lot of people within this Province, not enough, but there are a lot, that wonder

Newfoundland should be paying for the wealthy. There is debate about that. I do

not know if the hon. Member knows but I would say that perhaps public opinion on

universality, I would say, has probably moderated somewhat. I would think it

has. I do not know. I am just guessing myself.

A few short years ago there was tremendous support for

universality and I am wondering if perhaps that has not moderated somewhat as

the economic position of the country is more particularly in the forefront, as

economic matters are uppermost in people's minds, maybe more and more people in

the country are saying: I do not know if everyone should be taken care of, those

that can afford to take care of themselves, that are wealthy and so on. But

having said that if you entertain the thought of doing away with universality

where do you draw the line?

DR. KITCHEN: Should we charge premiums?

MR. MATTHEWS: I say to the Minister of Finance that there

is not much left that he has not charged a premium for. No matter how many

premiums he charges or how many taxes he increases his deficits get bigger. Mr.

Speaker, we found out this last week where some of the extra premiums go, and

where some of the taxes go.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where? Where?

MR. MATTHEWS: We know where they are going. I suppose he

will have to up his premiums by another $19 or $20 million now.

MR. MURPHY: To Grand Bank.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, there are a lot of millions gone down

to Grand Bank, I say to the Member for St. John's South. The millions that are

going into Grand Bank, Mr. Speaker, are coming from two sources.

MR. TOBIN: Not the Province.

MR. MATTHEWS: No, not the Province. We will not get into

that. I am talking about health care. Mr. Speaker, we all know we are going

through some very difficult times in this country. We all know that, but I think

it is very, very worrisome, particularly for the elderly in the country and in

our Province, when we see that Medicare may be threatened in the country. It is

a very, very serious concern. It is a concern for all of us but when we are

younger we do not worry as much about these things as the elderly in society.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, getting up there. I am starting to get

a few aches and pains now in places. It is a big, big concern and I say the

bottom-line is we have just got to find a way to keep our Medicare programme. As

the Member says it is the centrepiece of the social programmes. I do not know if

the hon. Member has touched on it, but, I suppose, he will be talking about the

Social Charter and so on. He goes on, of course, in his

BE IT RESOLVED he talks

about the promotion of appropriate amendments to the Constitution of Canada that

would guarantee the five principles referenced in the resolution and to which I

have referred. If that is really what it takes to ensure and to guarantee our

Medicare programme then I say sobeit. Let us promote that. I would be very

interested in hearing the Premier, of course he is not here today, in hearing

the Premier's reaction to the Member's resolution and particularly on the issue

of the promotion of appropriate amendments to the Constitution of Canada that

would guarantee the -now, I do not think I have heard the Premier talk anything

like this. In all the debate over the last twelve months in particular I cannot

remember hearing the Premier espouse any position, or promote the inclusion of

these five principles in the Constitution.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. MATTHEWS: So I say, Mr. Speaker, I would be very

interested, really, in hearing some day from the Premier, or the Minister of

Health, if he has any strong feelings on the inclusion in the Constitution of

the five principles of Medicare. I am really not sure. We know how the Premier

feels about the - sorry, I apologize to the Member for Fortune - Hermitage

there, I think I just about blew his eardrum out - how he feels about the

elected Senate, the reformed Senate, the Triple E Senate. We know how he feels

about that. We thought we knew how he felt about the distinct society clause

with Quebec. I am not so sure I know anymore. He sort of changed and softened a

bit on that. But it is most interesting, and I think this is what the Member for

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

The hon. Member's time has elapsed.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave?

MR. MATTHEWS: By leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Eagle River.

MR. DUMARESQUE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to

rise in this hon. House today, to support the resolution put forward by the

Member for St. John's East. Over the next few minutes I would like to outline

why I support the resolution and talk about some of the principles involved. I

want, particularly, to mention the social charter and how that could be

incorporated in the Constitution in this constitutional round, and give some

idea of where I would be coming from in that particular area. But first of all,

I would like to talk about the resolution, itself.

As all speakers have indicated, and some, specifically, no

one in this hon. House, I don't think, would quarrel with the principles that

are put forward under the Medicare program. Nobody, certainly, in the Liberal

Party, would be able to quarrel with them. To be fair, I do not believe that

anybody in this House would quarrel with the NDP's commitment to health care. We

all have followed the debate from the early years of Tommy Douglas and his

contribution to the health care program in the Province of Saskatchewan. We have

seen that program and its elements enunciated positively by other members of

that party - Mr. Blakeney and Howard Pawley, and others. So there is no doubt

about the commitment to health care that the New Democratic Party has brought to

this country on this issue. Certainly, we, in this House, would never question

the commitment to having the standards kept in place, as set out in this

resolution.

However, I guess we just can't look at the commitment to

health care and forget everything else. That is one of the things that happens

to the NDP all too often, they get parochial, and from our viewpoint here in

Newfoundland and Labrador, we would have to question their commitment to

employment, meaningful job opportunities for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

You have to wonder what commitment there is to economic growth when you have the

NDP, federally, standing up and saying no to the Hibernia agreement. When we had

a chance to see prosperity in Newfoundland and Labrador through the Hibernia

agreement, with tremendous long-term meaningful jobs for Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians, and certainly, a very beneficial boost to the economy of this

Province, the NDP of the day got up and questioned, debated and tried to stall

and hinder the passage of that legislation through the House of Commons. That

was the record of the day.

Being a Labradorian, I remember also, all too well, the NDP

demonstrations and opposition to the NATO base in Labrador. I well remember the

demonstrations in Ottawa, Toronto and other places, and, indeed, in this House

of Assembly. The former Member for St. John's East, I believe, was very loud and

unequivocal in his opposition to the NATO base in Labrador when there was an

opportunity for Labrador to gain good, solid, meaningful jobs in the defence of

our country, and in compliance with our NATO obligations, our commitment to

NATO, another commitment that the New Democratic Party so flagrantly avoids

supporting.

This is the record we have to watch, and now, lately, we have

to look at the Lower Churchill development. A prominent member of the New

Democratic party in Labrador is saying no to the Lower Churchill development,

Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that so? Who?

MR. DUMARESQUE: Oh yes - not necessarily a male member of

the New Democratic party in Labrador - speaking out loudly against the

development of the Lower Churchill because of the long-standing opposition to

macro development in our economy.

So, we have to be careful, Mr. Speaker, that we do not all

the time be pushed by a social conscience to the point of bankruptcy. We can

have all the idealism in the world, but we must be able to pay for it, we have

to see economic growth, with meaningful jobs for people in other sectors of the

economy. These are things that we have to make sure our party is supporting.

Mr. Speaker, that brings me to the next issue, I guess, of

the established principles of Medicare, and how that correlates with Liberalism.

How does that correlate with Liberalism?

Now, Mr. Speaker, I gave honourable mention to Mr. Douglas.

He did well in his early years in provincial politics, but the record is clear,

it was the Liberal party of Canada that brought in Medicare in this country! It

was the great Liberals under King, Pearson, Trudeau! That was the kind of social

conscience and commitment to health care in this country that is on the books of

this country, Mr. Speaker!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DUMARESQUE: That is right. We have seen the Canada

Health Act, which is specifically pointed out in this resolution. The main

proponent of that, Mr. Speaker, was the hon. Monique Begin, a prominent Liberal,

a very solid, committed Liberal, a Liberal who has enunciated to this day the

Mr. Speaker! She was the one who brought that to the floor of the House of

Commons and saw that Health Care Act go into place in this country! We cannot,

for one second, allow the people of this country or, indeed, this Province, to

ever forget that it was the Liberal Party in Canada that spearheaded the

Medicare that is the envy of the world, today. It was our Government, Mr.

Speaker, our leaders, who did that.

When we talk about our provincial commitment to health care,

Mr. Speaker, let me say, it was this Minister of Health, this Government today,

that said to the community of Forteau in the Labrador Straits, 'You are going to

have $1 million for a new chronic care centre in your area'. In the seventeen

years before, they had to go on bended knee trying to have people who needing

chronic care looked after in their own communities. That was the Government's

record, Mr. Speaker, and if you want to talk about our record in helping rural

communities, it is there for everybody to see what we are doing in that area of

the Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: All we are hearing recently, Mr. Speaker,

is the members trying to cast aspersions and innuendo on the Government when

they talk about health care centres. The fact that we are building three new

health care centres in this Province is lost on the people opposite.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where?

MR. DUMARESQUE: In Grand Bank -

AN HON. MEMBER: Where?

MR. DUMARESQUE: - in Port Saunders, and in Burgeo. That

is a commitment, Mr. Speaker, that cannot go unacknowledged. We have nothing to

be ashamed of over here when it comes to our commitment to health care. Our

record shows our long-term commitment, with millions of dollars extra in the

Budget every year since we came to power, millions of extra dollars every year

to the health care sector in our budgetary process. That is the record, I think

some $18 million more this year than last year.

AN HON. MEMBER: Turn down the volume!

MR. DUMARESQUE: The hon. member says, 'Turn down the

volume.' I know the truth is very hard on the ears opposite. I know they can't

stand to see new health centres built, they can't stand to see the Labrador

people have access to good health care. They would rather be flying around,

accompanied, in a helicopter, looking at trees, at $700 per hour.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: That is the mentality over there, and it

is too bad that more people in the Province can't see the lackadaisical attitude

that is prevalent over there. You talk about the values and the standards of a

social charter. I think everybody opposite would find it very difficult not to

see a social charter established and a social commitment made to the people of

Canada through our Constitution. I, for one, have long advocated that we should

look seriously at the economic rights of our people in this country. It may very

well be that until we have a cleansing of the ship in Ottawa, we may have to

cast a lot of things in stone to protect it from the Tory axe in Ottawa.

AN HON. MEMBER: It won't be long now.

MR. DUMARESQUE: I think everybody in this country has

continued to send a signal since the last election, and it is clearer every day

that we will not have much longer to wait before the Liberal Party is back in

Government in Ottawa, bringing sound, sensible, conscientious delivery o