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April 15,

2013 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol.

XLVII No. 4

The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Wiseman): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

Today I want to welcome to our public galleries Renee Osbourne, who is a

Grade 12 student from Blaketown in the District of Bellevue, and she is

accompanied today by her parents Bill and Norma Osbourne. Renee was selected by

Samaritan's Purse to represent Newfoundland and Labrador.

Statements by Members

MR. SPEAKER: Today we have members' statements from the Member for the

District of Bellevue; the Member for the District of Cape St. Francis; the

Member for the District of Fortune Bay Cape La Hune; the Member for the

District of Baie Verte Springdale; the Member for the District of St. John's

Centre; and the Member for the District of Lake Melville.

The Member for the District of Bellevue.

MR. PEACH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this hon. House today to recognize Renee Osbourne, a Grade 12

student of Crescent Collegiate. She resides in Blaketown in the District of

Bellevue.

She will be going to Costa Rica from April 17 to April 26 to deliver

thousands of shoeboxes through the Operation Christmas Child Program. These

shoeboxes are packed with hygienic items such as school supplies, toys, and

candies to help celebrate and also brighten the children's day.

Renee was selected to represent Newfoundland by Samaritan's Purse. Operation

Christmas Child was started in 1990, and to date, over 100 million shoebox gifts

have been collected. Renee will be joining a group of Canadians at the Toronto

airport, and they will be travelling to Costa Rica together. They will be

interacting with the children through various activities, as well as delivering

the shoeboxes.

Renee has completed many fundraisers to support her trip. She has been

selling tickets, bars, and cold plates. She is very excited about this trip, as

it may be a once in a lifetime experience for her.

Please join me in congratulating Renee on her hard work and dedication that

has successfully earned her this opportunity. We wish her all the best on her

trip.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. K. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this House today to commend a group from Logy BayMiddle CoveOuter

Cove called The Concert Crowd.

What started back in 1968 as a concert fundraiser in the community school and

church grew in popularity. The group consists of thirty amateur actors, singers,

dancers, and musicians. Most hail from the community; they have gained a few

members from other areas along the way, with some of the founding members still

with the group.

This started in a school in the town at the beginning and has moved to the

Arts and Culture Centre to sold-out shows. The Concert Crowd has performed at

conventions, festivals, RNC parties, and many other functions.

The Concert Crowd donates its proceeds to charities like the Red Cross, the

Canadian Cancer Society, the Kidney Foundation, Rainbow Riders, Community Food

Sharing Association, VOCM Cares, Day Break, School Lunch, CNIB, medical

emergency support, the town museum, and the St. Francis of Assisi Cemetery. The

show also partners with VOCM Cares Foundation.

I ask all hon. members to join with me in thanking these dedicated people for

their time and effort they put in to helping others. To date, this group has

raised over $400,000.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Fortune Bay Cape La Hune.

MS PERRY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this hon. House today to congratulate Christina Fudge, presently a

Level III student at St. Peter's All Grade School in McCallum, who is the

recipient of an emerging artist award in the Junior Division of the Newfoundland

and Labrador Arts and Letters Awards last year.

Mr. Speaker, Christina is a bright young woman with a natural talent,

ability, and strong passion for writing, as evidenced by her winning story

entitled Strike a fictional prose about a young person in an abusive

relationship. She scored in the top ten of seventy-two entries overall.

Mr. Speaker, the provincial Arts and Letters Awards Competition is over sixty

years old, and recognizes outstanding talent among the Province's writers,

visual artists, and musicians. We are all very proud of Ms Fudge, and look

forward to her continued literary works.

I ask all members of this hon. House to join me in applauding Ms Christina

Fudge as one of our Province's emerging writers.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Member for Baie Verte Springdale.

MR. POLLARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this hon. House today to acknowledge the accomplishment of the

Springdale Braves Bantam hockey team. They captured the gold medal in the

twenty-team mega provincial tournament that was hosted by Mount Pearl from April

4-6.

Their endurance was tested as they played six games in total, dismantling the

Harbour Breton-Bay d'Espoir team in the championship game. Throughout the

tournament, the Springdale Braves had only three goals scored on them with three

shutouts a very good feat indeed, Mr. Speaker.

Members of the team include: Brenden Keats, Brandon Roberts, Andrew Brown,

Nicholas Newman, Nicholas Clarke, Skyler Budgell, Brandon Burt, Riley Huxter,

Rylie Young, Eddie McKay, Noah Butt, Christian Howse, Tanner Inder, Joshua

Groleau, and Justin Thomas.

Coaches Tim Howse and Wayne Clarke, manager Melanie Morey, and trainer Danny

Huxter are also to be commended for shepherding the team to a provincial title

in the C division.

Throughout the tournament, fans were treated to very exciting and very

intense hockey moments as the athletes gave their all, creating unforgettable

memories.

I ask all colleagues in this hon. House to join me in congratulating the

Springdale Braves Bantams for bringing home gold.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It gives me great pleasure to stand today to honour Becky Pendergast and her

team at the HUB Print Shop. Located in the heart of St. John's Centre, it is the

largest independently run print shop in the Province, providing excellent

service to government, business, individuals and community groups.

Becky has worked with the HUB for thirty-two years touching the lives of

many. She has been responsible for creating an open and supportive environment

in the Print Shop, where people with disabilities learn all aspects of the trade

and participate fully in the operation of this successful service.

Becky runs a professional shop that values and respects both the needs and

the strengths of the workers she trains and supervises. She has developed a team

committed to their work, often working far beyond the call of duty to serve

their clientele.

Becky is also an incredible, generous, dedicated volunteer, helping out with

social activities providing persons with disabilities fully accessible and

supportive recreational and entertainment events. She is at the very heart of

what makes the HUB a fantastic organization.

I ask all members to join me in thanking Becky Pendergast and her team for

their great work and by saying bravo.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Lake Melville.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RUSSELL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today in this hon. House, Mr. Speaker, to recognize the recent success

from the Goose Bay Judo Club at the recent Atlantic competition.

Four members of the Goose Bay Judo club travelled to Truro, Nova Scotia to

attend this competition. Each member of the club did exceptionally well and

should be commended.

Jared McCauley competed in the Men's Under 15 under 66kg division, just

missing the podium with a fourth place finish. Dawson Sampson competed in the

Under 18 under 66kg division and won the silver medal. Toni Beaufield competed

in the 70kg plus Under 18 division and also won silver.

Rebekah Whey, who was recently graded to a black belt for the Goose Bay Judo

Club and might I add, the first woman in the clubs thirty-seven year history

and only at eighteen years of age won the gold in the Under 21 under 63kg

division.

Terry Whey, their Sensei, accompanied them out to the competition and was

very proud of their accomplishments. Jared, Dawson, and Toni have plans to

continue their training and compete for the chance to represent the Province at

the Canada Winter Games.

I ask all hon. members of this House to join me in celebrating the great

accomplishments of these Labrador Judoka.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Ministerial Statements.

Statements by Ministers

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured today to rise in this hon. House to commemorate

the recent ninety-sixth anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

It was on a spring morning in 1917 that 10,602 young Canadian soldiers

representing four divisions of the Canadian Corps fought together for the first

time ever, and against all odds took Vimy Ridge from the German Sixth Army.

Mr. Speaker, the Battle of Vimy Ridge has considerable significance for

Canada. Although the battle is not generally considered the greatest achievement

of the Canadian Corps in its importance or final result, it brought our forces

together like never before. This unity saw soldiers from all across the country

fighting alongside of each other. This image of national unity has been seen by

historians as a symbol of our country's national identity and has widely been

identified as a moment of nation building.

At 100 hectares, the Canadian National Vimy Memorial is Canada's largest

overseas memorial. It was opened in 1936 and serves as a constant reminder of

the commitment and the dedication of our soldiers to fight for the freedom of

our neighbours in foreign lands.

Mr. Speaker, that commitment continues today. Our peacekeeping forces have

been involved in many missions since World War I and have worked to protect,

defend and safeguard the innocent and helpless.

Canada remains an important partner in UN peacekeeping missions. This country

has sent over 120,000 troops as part of UN peacekeeping missions, and has the

second highest number of peacekeeping fatalities with 114.

Mr. Speaker, as we watch our troops standing tall and proud as they continue

on today's important missions, we look back with pride at those who fought and

those who died so many years ago defending our freedom at Vimy Ridge, Lest we

never forget the contribution and sacrifice which they made.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bay of Islands.

MR. JOYCE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for the advance copy.

We too would like to join with the government to recognize the Battle at Vimy

Ridge and the contributions that our soldiers made at the time and how it was

definitely a nation building episode in our history. We will never forget the

fallen soldiers and the people who today are still offering the ultimate

sacrifice to keep Canada free.

Mr. Speaker, I just had the experience of we had some medals delivered to

our family sixty-five years ago. We were going to donate them to a museum. When

we traced them down they were not our families, they were a distant cousin. I

just had the privilege of delivering those medals to the three sisters,

eighty-seven, eighty-six, and eighty-four in California.

If you had to see the pride in their faces of their dad in the First World

War that is outside of Newfoundland and Labrador but with their roots in

Newfoundland and Labrador, the pride in their face that their father was

involved in Newfoundland and Labrador in the First World War is evident all

throughout North America and all throughout the world, the contribution.

To all the soldiers and to the families who are still making contributions, I

say thank you very much. To all the families who have to endure while their

soldiers are away in Afghanistan and in the peacekeeping, we thank you very much

on behalf of all people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. MURPHY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would also like to thank the minister for the advance copy of his

statement. I also have to note that it was yesterday, ninety-six years ago in

history, that the Newfoundland Regiment had its biggest loss, next to

Beaumont-Hamel, ever recorded with the loss of 460 men in one flank of that

particular battle, the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Of course, at Monchy-le-Preux, we

had 460 casualties; 166 killed or missing, 141 wounded, and 153 that we had

captured on the second worst day in Newfoundland and Labrador history, I guess,

in that particular context.

Like our party, we also take time to remember the fallen. We take time to

remember those who are making the ultimate sacrifice when it comes to

peacekeeping. They are also subject to some sights that hopefully you and I will

never have to see or anybody else in this House for that matter.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I would like to just clue up with four words: We shall

remember them.

I would like to thank the minister for the copy of his statement.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Does the Member for St. John's South have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this hon. House today to announce that for the first time in the

history of the Voisey's Bay Development Agreement, we have achieved the

commitment from Vale to develop an underground mine in Northern Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, this commitment was secured through amendments

announced on March 28 which further strengthen the original agreement that was

made in 2002 between the provincial government of this Province and Vale

Newfoundland & Labrador Limited.

The development of the underground mine, in addition to the above-ground

mine, will extend the Voisey's Bay mine life by another fifteen years and

provide hundreds of construction jobs after the project is sanctioned in 2015.

Once in operation, employment is estimated to be 720 workers, an increase from

the current mine employment of about 285.

Mr. Speaker, an underground mine is important to the continuity of operations

at Voisey's Bay and will provide a future feed supply for the Long Harbour

Nickel Processing Plant, which will offer additional employment to the people of

the Province. This agreement will allow additional time for the construction of

the plant at Long Harbour and it will provide a limited exemption from the

primary processing requirement over the next three years. This ensures, Mr.

Speaker, that operations at the Voisey's Bay mine will be uninterrupted, as well

as result in enhanced industrial and economic benefits and additional revenues

to the provincial government of over $100 million over three years.

Mr. Speaker, with the promise of underground mining to go along with the

other mining that is taking place now and the ongoing construction of the Long

Harbour site, the Voisey's Bay project has greatly exceeded the original

expectations.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Projects such as this ensure that the Province will reap

the full benefit from development of valuable mineral resources with new

employment and new economic opportunities.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: This government will continue to support future mining

operations that will ensure that the maximum benefit goes to the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Official Opposition.

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister, by the way, for the advance copy of the Ministerial

Statement. I am actually thrilled today to stand here as Leader of the Official

Opposition; I have a lot of good memories about 2002 when this development was

first announced. As a matter of fact, I was President of the Deer Lake Chamber

of Commerce at the time when the current Cabinet Minister then in the Liberal

government, Rick Woodford, came out and made the announcements and shared the

good news with us in our community of Deer Lake.

This recent announcement actually brings a lot more benefits to the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador, in particular to the Aboriginals on the North Coast.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BALL: The Province as a whole will benefit, as I will say, on the

foundation of the agreement that was first signed in 2002. It extends the mine

life, as the minister says, for fifteen years and adds stability, there is no

question, to people in that area and to people in the Province.

One thing that we did not see in all of this, however, was the determination

of where the power would come from. As we know, during the discussion last year

on Muskrat Falls the mining developments in Labrador was a piece of that. We

understand now that that will not happen in this particular case, and I am not

surprised to hear that.

The other thing with this agreement that we did ask on the March 28, when

this was announced, was what remedies would be in place just in case the company

here, Vale, did not fulfill all their commitments. I understand that remedy is

in place, it is substantial, but the exact details of the remedy have not been

disclosed, and one that I would like to see.

Overall, Mr. Speaker, this is good news for the people of the Province. We

will benefit, the people on the North Coast, and definitely the people in

Labrador will see tremendous benefit from this.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Third Party.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker

I, too, thank the minister for the advance copy of his statement. Obviously,

I am very glad to see this development going ahead.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS MICHAEL: When I served on the Voisey's Bay Environmental Assessment

Panel, one of the things we saw as being really important was the longer-term

viability of the mine. One of the things we were very grateful for was the

possibility that going underground looked like a real possibility. So, I am

delighted to see this finally happening.

I am happy to hear the minister speak about the benefits for the people of

the Province. I hope he also is talking about the workers who will be working at

this mine. We know that at Voisey's Bay itself we have had a couple of

protracted strikes there, one of which went on for eighteen months. I hope that

caring about the workers will mean putting in place anti-scab legislation so

that this employer will never again keep our workers on the picket line.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Oral Questions.

Oral Questions

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

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Last week the Premier reversed some cuts to the Justice Department saying

there were new compelling arguments that were brought forward.

I ask the Premier: Since the minister says that you have the final say, how

did you miss such compelling arguments in the pre-Budget meetings?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Just to be clear, budgetary decisions are a matter for Cabinet, not just the

Premier, number one, and caucus. Number two, any decisions made in the

Department of Justice rest with me. I take full responsibility as the minister

for that.

What we did last week was demonstrate to the people of the Province that we

were prepared to listen to the concerns they had. Upon listening to the

concerns, a discussion occurred between myself, the Attorney General, the

Minister of Finance. We concurred that we would chat with the Premier and share

the concerns and share a suggested approach to respond to the concerns that were

raised.

With her direction and concurrence, Mr. Speaker, we responded accordingly. I

will say that the response we provided, Mr. Speaker, was almost exactly what we

were asked to do by the stakeholder groups who attended the meeting in question.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well, it was very clear in the media reports that the minister did say that

the Premier would have the final say. That is the reason why I put that in the

question, Mr. Speaker.

Even though this government claims they have completed a year-long core

mandate review, it is obvious there was no consultation with stakeholders for

the cuts ahead of the Budget. Some of the Justice cuts were revisited and

revised just after one meeting with justice officials because of these so-called

compelling arguments.

I ask the Premier: What is the definition of a compelling argument?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, let me say first of all, the groups who were represented on the

committee came from a variety of interests that are party to the justice system.

They brought in valuable advice and guidance to us as part of those discussions.

As I said a few moments ago, if you take for example the Sheriff's Office, we

have responded by putting back in the system every resource that we were asked

to provide by the High Sheriff, as an example, Mr. Speaker. We also committed to

do a thorough review of the Sheriff's Office, the Legal Aid system, and of

course the Crown prosecutor's office. As minister, I will certainly be taking a

look at that myself anyway.

In the broader question, Mr. Speaker, there is a clear difference between

making a budgetary decision and doing a core mandate review. A core mandate

talks about the activities you ought to do in the department, the Budget talks

about how you fund them.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The question will be a quick one. Since these were key stakeholders in this

process in terms of justice, why were they not included in the initial Budget

consultation?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, when we did our consultations before bringing down

the Budget, I consulted widely, along with my colleague, the Attorney General.

That would have included consultations from the Legal Aid, it included

consultations from the Director of Public Prosecutions, and it included

consultation from the High Sheriff's Office.

Very clearly, Mr. Speaker, there is a difference between consulting and doing

exactly what people tell you to do. We consulted. We sought information, we

asked questions. They provided data to us. We did an assessment of that, Mr.

Speaker. At the end of the process, as minister, I made some decisions that I

brought forward for government to consider supporting.

We clearly communicated, Mr. Speaker, but there is a difference between

excuse me, consulted. There is a difference between consulting and doing what

people expect you to do, but they were certainly provided an opportunity to give

input.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What I heard is they listened to them the second time around, but they really

did not pay any attention at all the first time around. The Premier has

mismanaged this process from the beginning. To make matters worse, she is making

up an arbitrary definition of compelling arguments. According to the Premier, if

you are a justice official your argument is compelling, but if you are a student

or you are a teacher, your argument is noise.

I ask the Premier: Why aren't thousands of students protesting in the streets

over cuts to the ABE program at the College of the North Atlantic not considered

to be a compelling or just noise?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, Budget 2013 is a good, solid budget for the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: We have talked for a whole year, Mr. Speaker, about

doing a core mandate review that tells us and assures the people of Newfoundland

and Labrador that we are spending every five cents on their behalf effectively.

Mr. Speaker, you listen to what people have to say. You do a consultation.

When people see the effect of the recommendations, there may be things that were

not considered and they come back and say: I need to reconsider what I said;

will you have a look at this?

Mr. Speaker, nobody has made a compelling argument to me at all, nor have I

received any letters or representations on the ABE program. Perhaps you would

like to (inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Leader of the Official Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am not here to be the expert on the ABE program or the College of the North

Atlantic, but what I will tell you is that they were not given the chance to

consult with this government, Mr. Speaker. On March 8, the Premier said she

expected there would be less than 500 layoffs in this year's Budget. We now know

that this number is well over 1,000.

I ask the Premier: How did you grossly mismanage the Budget process so that

your budgeted cuts that were expected to be 500 are now over 1,000?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, consultation happened with CNA; it

happened right across the whole education system.

Mr. Speaker, if somebody wants to come and make a compelling argument to

government why we should spend $9,400 per person per year providing ABE in CNA,

when we can do it cheaper through the private colleges, when we can do it

cheaper for CNA, when we can have a higher success rate, when we can provide it

more ably in other parts of the Province, broaden the delivery, when we can

bring the cost down somewhere closer to $2,300 per head that they are paying in

the rest of Canada, I am more than prepared to listen.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Official Opposition.

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well, what you normally do in that situation is you would go and speak to

those people in advance. I can tell you that discussion did not take place with

the officials at CNA.

Mr. Speaker, the minister has said that employees will be treated with

respect through the transition period and that the process would be handled

professionally and carefully; however, employees are telling us that they are

being called into an office, there for a few minutes, given the news, and then

asked for their keys.

I ask the Premier: Why are you treating the layoffs of hardworking

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians with such cruelty and a callous fashion?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury

Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I expect better from the Leader of the Opposition to engage in such an

inflammatory comment and derogatory comments about the officials who work at the

Human Resource Secretariat, Mr. Speaker.

These people are professionals who act with dedication and they have tried

their best in this process. I am aware of one situation where it is alleged that

an individual was called into an office and told peremptorily, for lack of a

better term, Mr. Speaker, and that person was a contractual employee.

If the member opposite has examples of that happening, certainly provide that

to me and I can assure you I will investigate that and determine what is going

on. To simply criticize people, Mr. Speaker, and to, again, cast aspersions on

people who work in our government is shameful.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Official Opposition.

MR. BALL: Mr. Speaker, I believe the minister just did not listen to the

question. At least he did not give the answer to the question. What I am talking

about is the cruel and unprofessional fashion in which this has been handled.

I can guarantee the minister it is not me saying this; there are thousands of

people out there now with their families who know this. This has been done in a

callous and a cruel fashion. Just speak to the people who are on the front lines

in this in your government.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier has just laid off 1,000 people in this Province. Now

we hear that there is an individual who was laid off at the Eastern School Board

who has been given a senior position, a senior appointment, in the Department of

Education.

I ask the Premier: Is this true and can this be justified?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I need to deal with the

preamble of the Leader of the

Opposition's question. Mr. Speaker, it is not the Premier or the Cabinet

ministers who issue layoffs. We hear them stand in this House of Assembly day

after day and talk about our professional public service, and they are. Every

opportunity that I have to praise our public service, I do it, Mr. Speaker,

because they are worthy of such praise.

Then he stands, in the next breath, and accuses the very same people of

treating people who are being laid off in an unprofessional, callous way. Now,

what is it, one way or the other? Because I am backing the public service. You

need to prove what you are saying. Bring the examples forward.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Official Opposition.

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The announcements for the layoffs and people who have lost their jobs was

done right here in this House. It was explained outside there in media

interviews lots of them after this.

It was this government, and as a result of the actions of this government,

that people are out of work in this Province today. The Premier said there would

be no more than 500; we are now over 1,000.

Will the Premier please explain how we got from 500 to 1,000?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury

Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know again where the member opposite is getting his

numbers, but there have been, and I have seen the full list, 485 people laid off

in the core public service. That is the sixteen departments within government,

Mr. Speaker. There are 243 permanent employees, 206 temporary employees, and

thirty-six seasonal employees. Then in the outside agencies there are

approximately another 450 layoffs, for a total of 935.

What we did do, Mr. Speaker, we eliminated 246 vacant funded positions that

existed in government for whatever reasons and there are another 190

retirements. We will determine whether or not those retirements will be filled.

So the number of layoffs is 485 plus 450, which is 935. Mr. Speaker, that is

still a lot of jobs, and its impact on people and we realize that.

If the member opposite has information that we should know as to the way

people were treated, then please provide it to us.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well, I think the minister knows there will be extra layoffs that are coming

from management at CNA and we are expecting more layoffs that will come as a

result of the school board amalgamation.

Now, I want to go back to the other question before we got sidetracked there.

The minister has just laid off 1,000 people, as I said. What did not get

answered was the new appointment as the ADM in the Department of Education.

Is the minister or the Premier aware of this appointment?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, there was a new ADM hired. I believe the

individual starts next week. This was an individual, a position that was vacant,

went through the normal routine of interviews and was filled.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burgeo La Poile.

MR. A. PARSONS: Mr. Speaker, workers who are on the chopping block are

now required to make compelling arguments to the Premier to save their jobs, but

they are not able to do this publicly because this government refuses to bring

in whistle-blower legislation. We all saw what happened to a Legal Aid lawyer

who spoke out publicly against cuts to the Justice Department.

I ask the minister: You first promised whistle-blower legislation six years

and four ministers ago, when are you finally going to make good on that promise

and protect workers in our Province?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We have any number of pieces of legislation that provides protection for

workers in this Province. The member opposite who asked the question would

certainly know that. If the member has specific examples he would like to raise

with me in private where he needs some attention paid, I will certainly do that.

I will say to you, we have no intention of bringing that forward at this

particular point in time in this session of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burgeo La Poile.

MR. A. PARSONS: Mr. Speaker, current students of ABE at the College of

the North Atlantic will be transitioned to other ABE providers.

I ask the minister: What guarantee can you give us that this transition will

be complete in time for the school year and that ABE will be offered in as many

locations as now?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SHEA: Mr. Speaker, the ABE program is offered at the various campuses

of the College of the North Atlantic, and approximately 800 students attend ABE

at the College of the North Atlantic. I assume a percentage of them will

graduate, will complete the program this year. The remaining students will be

offered positions and will be able to continue their ABE in a venue other than

the College of the North Atlantic, whether it is a private college or a

community group. We have a number of community groups and the non-profit

agencies that offer ABE as well.

Our intentions are that the people who have not finished ABE by the end of

this school year will transition. Mr. Speaker, I will also note that through the

private institutions or through our community groups we actually offer ABE in

more communities through those venues than we actually do through the College of

the North Atlantic.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burgeo La Poile.

MR. A. PARSONS: Mr. Speaker, we are hearing reports today that a criminal

matter was delayed in St. John's this morning because there was no sheriff's

officer to escort the accused from his holding cell to court.

I ask the minister: How did you allow it to get so bad in the justice system

that criminal matters are now delayed because of a lack of staff?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, one thing I can assure the member of is I do not

spend my mornings scheduling sheriffs to work in courts, I guarantee you that.

What I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, is the member might want to raise his

question with the High Sheriff. I can only say that we met with the High Sheriff

last week. He guaranteed us that court security was not an issue. We added some

resources back to the system that would more than compensate for his challenges

around scheduling sheriff's officers.

I do not know the particulars of the incident the member has raised. If he

would like to give me more detail later, I will certainly follow up. I can say

to the public that it is not the Minister of Justice who does the scheduling of

sheriff's officers. It is done by the Office of the High Sheriff, independent of

this government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Barbe.

MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, government's decision to collapse school boards

has outraged many who feel our education will be downgraded.

I ask the minister: Why did he deny the public an opportunity to present

compelling arguments against this misguided decision?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, the member is going to be hard pressed to find

a government better than this one that has invested in education the way that we

have, Mr. Speaker, I can guarantee you that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: I can stand up here and I can rattle off the investments

that have been made in education that places this Province as leading in class

size, in student retention, graduation rates. Mr. Speaker, I can assure the

member, moving forward with this new board, the education in this Province will

remain that top-notch quality education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Barbe.

MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, one of the regions hardest hit in this

misguided, ludicrous decision will be Labrador.

I ask the minister: How does he ensure that the special challenges to deliver

education in Labrador will be addressed with one board in St. John's?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, the perfect question. I do not like to say that

to him too often, the perfect question. Mr. Speaker, the strong educational

presence in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, in Gander, in Corner Brook, that is exactly

the reason for this.

Mr. Speaker, they focus solely on education. They do not have to worry about

the finances; they do not have to worry about the busing issues. They focus on

what should be the ultimate aim of the education system. That is the success of

our students, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Third Party.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Today, the Finance Minister released the Salary Details for Budget 2013-2014

on the day that the Budget Estimates discussions start, as he said he would.

However, Mr. Speaker, the Salary Details book does not show any of the positions

the government eliminated in this year's Budget.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister: Why is this government deliberately

obscuring how many public sector workers they have let go in each department?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury

Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Last year we were criticized for not posting the Salary Details. I committed

that I would put the Salary Details up so that they could be dealt with during

Estimates.

Mr. Speaker, as a result of the layoffs and the workforce adjustments going

on is that we are reflecting the layoffs up until March 31, 2013. However, there

are a number of people whose position eliminations will not take place until

after March 31, so we could not put that in the Salary Details. They will not be

reflected until next year.

We could have delayed it, Mr. Speaker. We could have delayed the posting of

Salary Details. We would have been criticized for that. What we thought best was

to put the Salary Details out there so that the members opposite during the

Estimates would have those details and could ask questions about it.

Mr. Speaker, this is the situation that exists. We are certainly keeping the

commitment of posting the details.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Third Party.

MS MICHAEL: Mr. Speaker, I point out to the minister that the salaries

document was released this morning almost three weeks after the Budget, giving

the government ample time to update the numbers. Especially, since some of the

people who are getting laid off after March 31 received their notices before

March 31, Mr. Speaker.

Why is the Premier and her government trying to hide what are they trying

to hide by not releasing the real up-to-date Salary Details?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury

Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Mr. Speaker, we have outlined in the Salary Details the

positions that exist as of March 31, how much people are paid, and we have

outlined the number of people who are in those positions. What I understood last

year, one of the criticisms of the failure to put the Salary Details out was

that they did not have it for the Estimates procedure where it was needed, so we

have posted that.

Mr. Speaker, we are certainly not hiding anything. The documents are there.

They are out there for the people to see and to be used during Estimates.

We found earlier today, Mr. Speaker, duplication in two positions that we

will have to correct. What we had to do was after the Budget when the positions

were starting to be eliminated. We have had three weeks to work on it. The

commitment was to provide it prior to Estimates, and we have done that, Mr.

Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Third Party.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I say to the minister, if they were able to produce a Budget document showing

up-to-date budget cuts to Government Services, one could assume they would be

able to produce up-to-date Salary Details. We are going into Estimates with old

information, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I ask: Why do the Premier and her government continually want to keep

the people of this Province in the dark about their motivation and actions

around job cuts?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury

Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, I did not expect it from the

Leader of the Official Opposition. I did expect these kinds of disgraceful

comments from the Leader of the NDP.

We have had finance officials who have been working day and night throughout

the Budget process to put these materials together, Mr. Speaker. To criticize

them here today for not being able to give her what she wants to do her work,

Mr. Speaker, is indicative of how little respect that party opposite shows for

the public service.

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that she should apologize to the members of our

public service and the Department of Finance who worked so hard to put these

official documents together.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Third Party.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I will not even dignify that comment with a response, Mr. Speaker.

On March 27, the Premier told this House that she would very shortly have an

explanation of how she planned to spend $90 million assigned without explanation

in the Finance department's budget. It is three weeks later, Mr. Speaker.

I ask: Is the Premier now ready to explain to the members of the House what

the $90 million is for?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the NDP has a habit of

getting up in this House of Assembly and saying what she likes. I challenge the

Leader of the NDP we have Hansard here, Mr. Speaker. It is a record of what

gets said in this House of Assembly. It comes back to haunt you every now and

then, I say to the Leader of the NDP.

You show me where in Hansard that I said, other than when we had allocated

the $90 million, that there would be a public announcement. I said there would

be a public announcement of that. Hopefully, we will be able to do it shortly,

but not five cents of that money was going to be spent without the people of the

Province knowing on what it was spent.

We have not spent five cents. When we do, we hope you will get here in the

House of Assembly and laud us for another good judgement on behalf of the people

of (inaudible)

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Third Party.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

The people of the Province have no idea what plans the Premier has for the

$90 million and she is not telling us again now. I am sure they know it will not

be spent on worthy projects like ABE, wildlife, public libraries, or a host of

other important services.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Premier: Does she really expect her backbenchers to

vote yes on the spending of $90 million when she will not explain to their

constituents what it is going to be spent on?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, let me remind the Leader of the NDP that there is approximately

$185 million in this Budget for business development and community organizations

within this Province

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: who are going to apply for that money to drive

economic development in their communities. We do not know what projects are

going to be applied under that fund yet either, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, one thing we are not going to do is continue to have waste,

extravagance, and poor spending in this government. That does not serve the

students of ABE, that does not serve the people in Newfoundland and Labrador,

and it does not provide cancer drugs to people because we do not have the money.

We are certainly not going to embrace her solution, which she announced two

weeks ago, to raise taxes on hardworking Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. That

is not our plan, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Member for St. John's North.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KIRBY: Mr. Speaker, government's Outlook 2020 report claims there

will over 70,000 new job openings in the Province between now and 2020. They

have been telling people in the Province to get a diploma or get a trade because

about 70 per cent of those jobs require some form of post-secondary education.

So why is this government now pulling the plug on Employment Services and

slashing college training programs instead of providing a plan to meet the

growing demand for skilled workers in this Province?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, listen to what the NDP are saying. We had a look at our labour

attachment funding and we found that we had $15 million tied up in the

administration of the program rather than going to Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians who were trying to reattach to the workforce.

While I appreciate the cases made by organizations like the John Howard

Society that lost some funding in that instance, I remind the people of the

Province that we put $1.25 million in grants every year into the John Howard

Society to help their membership with this kind of activity, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we need to make sure that our people are ready, that the money

is being spent appropriately, that we are not wasting money creating jobs in

organizations but funding (inaudible)

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Member for St. John's North.

MR. KIRBY: Mr. Speaker, millions of dollars in funding cuts to College of

the North Atlantic have caused the college to eliminate dozens of programs

including Adult Basic Education programs, transition programs

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. KIRBY: trades programs, and engineering technology programs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. KIRBY: College campuses across rural Newfoundland and Labrador are

being forced to bear the brunt of these cuts.

I ask the minister responsible or the Premier for that matter: Why is this

government intent on gutting program offerings in rural Newfoundland and

Labrador?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, what we are doing is ensuring that money that is earmarked for

people to get education and training to reattach to the workforce is being spent

on Newfoundlanders and Labradorians in that position.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: LMD money is not meant to keep chambers of commerce

going in communities; it is to help people reattach to the workforce, Mr.

Speaker.

What we are doing in ABE is cutting the high cost of trying to deliver a

program through that organization that costs three times more than it does

anywhere else in Atlantic Canada. It costs more than it does in the private

sector. It costs more than it does for not-for-profits.

Mr. Speaker, we are going to continue to offer ABE. We are going to offer it

in more places in Newfoundland and Labrador and more cost effectively. We will

reinvest the other money (inaudible)

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Member for St. John's Centre.

MS ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, last week, the Minister of Justice held a special

committee to review the drastic cuts he made to the justice system that left the

provincial court system in absolute chaos. In the media, the Premier said that

all cuts were made based on year-long departmental core mandate reviews.

Mr. Speaker, I ask: Will the minister table the Department of Justice core

mandate review to the House?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

First of all, it is regrettable that the member is challenging the views of

the chief judges and justices of the Province, of the High Sheriff, of the

Director of Public Prosecutions and of the head of the Legal Aid Commission, all

of whom participated in a process to assess the system just last week and all of

whom are supportive of where we are. It is very regrettable that the New

Democratic Party does not stand behind those respectable people who represent

those organizations in the community.

Also, Mr. Speaker, let me be very clear that the core mandate review that was

completed on departments, just like the Department of Justice, was a review to

determine which activities ought to be part of the core job that you do. In

other words, in the Department of Justice we have policing services, we have

court services and we have

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The member has time for a quick question without

preamble.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This morning a court matter in St. John's was delayed because there was no

MR. SPEAKER: A quick question without

preamble, please.

MS ROGERS: Okay.

I ask the minister: Is there a compelling enough argument now to have him

table the justice core mandate review?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: We have time for a quick answer.

MR. KING: As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, core mandate in justice would

include policing services to ensure the laws of the land are followed. In

instances where the laws are broken, we have prosecutors, we have a legal aid

division and we have court services. Where needed, then we have correction

services. That is what constitutes the core mandate of the Department of

Justice.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time for Question Period has expired.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

Notices of Motion.

Notices of Motion

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

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I give notice that I will ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To

Amend The Revenue Administration Act, No. 2". (Bill 4)

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will ask leave to introduce a bill

entitled, "An Act To Amend The Services Charges Act". (Bill 5)

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Service Newfoundland and Labrador.

MR. MCGRATH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I give notice that I will ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To

Amend The Highway Traffic Act". (Bill 6)

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

MR. LITTLEJOHN: Mr. Speaker, I move the following private member's

resolution:

BE IT RESOLVED that this hon. House (1) commends the government for returning

half a billion dollars a year to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians by reducing

personal income taxes; and (2) supports the government in its decision not to

increase personal income tax rates to address the Province's fiscal challenge.

This is seconded, Mr. Speaker, by the Member for Cape St. Francis. This will

be the motion to be debated on Private Members' Day, Wednesday, April 17.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. KING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I give notice that the private member's motion just introduced will be the

one debated this Wednesday coming in the House of Assembly.

MR. SPEAKER: Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Barbe.

MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, to the hon. House of Assembly of the Province

of Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament assembled, the petition of the

undersigned humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS with declining enrolment, distance education by Internet is now an

accepted way to deliver educational services to students living in small

communities; and

WHEREAS students have little to no say in where they or their families

reside; and

WHEREAS many families do not have the ability to relocate so that their

children can access educational opportunities in larger centres; and

WHEREAS many small businesses rely on the Internet to conduct business; and

WHEREAS high-speed Internet permits a business to be more competitive than

does slower dial-up service; and

WHEREAS no high-speed Internet service exists in the community of Bird Cove;

and

WHEREAS there are no plans to offer high-speed Internet to residents of this

community;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the

House of Assembly to urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to partner

with the private sector and offer high-speed Internet service in this community.

As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, this is a number of petitions from the residents of the Town of

Bird Cove. Bird Cove is on the Great Northern Peninsula. It is the northernmost

of the incorporated towns. In that particular part of the district most of the

communities are unincorporated. Some are local service districts, others are

simply unincorporated. Bird Cove is incorporated. It suffered significantly over

the last twenty years with the downturn in the fisheries. Its population shrank

from, in the order of 600 or so to maybe 180 or so.

Recently, when there was an announcement about high-speed Internet, it looked

like these people were going to get high-speed Internet. They only discovered

later that the range that could be reached meant that their town would not get

high-speed Internet. In fact, it is even worse than that, Mr. Speaker, because

the installation is north of Bird Cove.

The operator had to go past the town in order to set up the high-speed

Internet transmitter. Then this is broadcast backward to the south. In fact,

initially it looked like it would come to the edge, the very boundary of the

town, but now it seems like some homes in the community have the service and

some homes in the community do not have the service. A lot of people who are

very concerned are high school students, people who want to use distance

education.

If you can imagine, your town generally is cut out. You were supposed to

receive the service. You did not receive the service, and then a few people in

the town did receive the service. Now one family member in one brother whose

family may live on one street has the service, another brother whose family

lives on another street does not have the service. You have children going to

school in the same classrooms receiving the same assignments, and some of them

within 100 yards or so of others can actually get on the computer and pursue

their education while the others cannot. Mr. Speaker, this is completely

unacceptable and I urge the government, as do these petitioners, to move forward

on this initiative.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Member for Torngat Mountains.

MR. EDMUNDS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To the hon. House of Assembly in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in

Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS there is an identified need for all levels of care in Labrador; and

WHEREAS the Paddon Home is a suitable building for all levels of care;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the

House of Assembly to urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to conduct

a needs assessments to identify the needs of all levels of long-term care in

Labrador, and to reopen the Paddon Seniors Nursing Home located in Happy

Valley-Goose Bay, to provide all levels of care.

As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I spoke to this petition last year and there was a need

identified then. The reason I am bringing it up again is because the need has

increased. In Budget 2013, there was announcement made of $500,000 to extend the

long-term care facility and certainly we do appreciate that.

I would like to go back a little further, Mr. Speaker, when this government

sacrificed jobs to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians for a cash amount of $100

million in lieu of giving away module construction on the Hebron Project. I was

glad to hear that out of this $150 million funding would be allocated for

long-term care in Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, I did not have the large calculator over here, but I figured

$500,000 is approximately one-third of 1 per cent of the $150 million. I am sure

the Member for Lake Melville and the Member for Lab West are well aware of

construction costs in Labrador. I think at best we can expect maybe three extra

rooms.

Mr. Speaker, the other point I want to bring across, and this was just recent

figures, out of the just under thirty beds available at the hospital in Goose

Bay, seventeen patients are waiting for long-term care. They are waiting for a

room in the long-term care facility and they cannot get rooms because there

simply aren't any. I think the need is much higher than what this government has

committed. Our seniors in Labrador have just as much a right to reside at

retirement homes in Labrador.

Just one other fact, Mr. Speaker: the seventeen patients waiting for

long-term care in Happy Valley-Goose Bay does not include the ones that are

outside of Labrador who want to go back to Labrador.

Thank you.

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

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

To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in

Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland

and Labrador humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS the process of slickwater hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, injects

hazardous chemicals into rock formations to extract oil, and is polluting

groundwater and air across North America; and

potential environmental impacts of shale oil and gas extraction in Canada,

including fracking; and

WHEREAS Quebec, Nova Scotia, and a number of US states have halted fracking,

and others are introducing regulations specific to fracking; and

WHEREAS it is incumbent upon the provincial government to ensure that our

natural environment is protected from harmful industrial processes;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the

House of Assembly to urge government to impose a moratorium on slickwater

fracking until it develops comprehensive regulations and ensures that each

proposed project undergoes a conclusive environmental assessment to determine

whether it is safe for the environment, the integrity of water supplies, and

human health.

As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, I was truly honoured last week to have an invitation to attend

the fracking meeting on the Port au Port Peninsula last Sunday afternoon. There

were a huge crowd in the context of the number of people that would show up in a

small area like the Port au Port Peninsula. I think three hundred and twenty

people was the final count as regards to the number of people that showed up. It

was a huge crowd; it was at capacity.

This is a concern for the people directly in the Port at Port Peninsula, but

not only in the Port au Port Peninsula it entails everybody right across the

Province, Mr. Speaker. I have names here from Corner Brook, a few names from St.

Johns, and people are signing it all over the Island, all over the Province. It

is one of these direct concerns that I think government has to address; it can

easily be addressed.

We already know of the New Brunswick example, for example. They have already

come out with ninety-seven regulations contained in about 106 pages, I think it

is, Mr. Speaker, the type of changes that they have made to their drilling

regulations. They are very comprehensive regulations, and I would suggest the

government have a look at those and address the needs of the people.

Of course, the people are just looking at protecting their water rights and

they are looking at protecting their environment. These are direct concerns and

hopefully government will address them.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Member for Burgeo La Poile.

MR. A. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a petition to the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of

Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament assembled, the petition of the

undersigned residents of Newfoundland and Labrador humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS students of the Adult Basic Education program at the College of the

North Atlantic do not wish to attend privatized educational facilities; and

WHEREAS College of the North Atlantic has the most accredited Adult Basic

Education program in Newfoundland and Labrador; and

WHEREAS students are concerned as to the availability of private institutions

and whether or not they can accommodate additional students; and

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the

House of Assembly to urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to reverse

this damaging decision to students and reinstate the Adult Basic Education

programming at the College of the North Atlantic;

And as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, this is just one of many petitions which have been handed to me

by students at the College of the North Atlantic, and it is not just students.

It is family members, its staff, and its people in a lot of areas of this

Province, the urban and rural.

I heard the Member for Mount Pearl talking. I do not know if he was at the

function that was here on Friday. We saw the importance of this, the fact that

there were walkouts all over this Province at every College of the North

Atlantic. People sang that they wished they had an opportunity to have some

input into this process and make that compelling argument which apparently is

necessary in order to have a conversation.

The first thing I will say is that the numbers are wrong. The 31 per cent

success rate which government trots out here is actually insulting to the people

in the College of the North Atlantic. I will just give you one example.

A young girl who is part of the College of the North Atlantic in Port aux

Basques did the ABE program. She did four courses and then she went on to get a

trade. She went on to get a program. She did not complete the course but her

moving on to getting a trade and getting a program, is that not success in this

Province? Is that what we have to do, demean these people and use stats to back

up our faulty math?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. A. PARSONS: I think it is necessary that we acknowledge this. There

are a lot of people in this position who are using it to upgrade to where they

can continue on. Advance their life skills and advance their ability to have

employment, and to advance in their post-secondary careers.

I know there is going to be an RFP going out soon. I look forward to seeing

that. I am hoping government is going to make sure that all factors are

considered here and that we have students who will get this education starting

again on September 1. I am not confident.

I know the Premier said today that it is going to be offered in more places

than it was previously. All I can say, I hope that is the case. I will be

watching carefully to make sure that is the case. This should be a concern for

members of all sides of this House because it affects every single one of us. It

affects all of our districts.

People have a right to Adult Basic Education. I have heard a lot of

commentary over the last number of days and weeks about this. I am sure it is

going to be addressed a lot more in this House as we continue on. I appreciate

the opportunity to present this on the numerous students in the College of the

North Atlantic who are having this program taken away.

Thank you very much.

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

MR. KIRBY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in

Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS Newfoundland and Labrador currently has the highest unemployment rate

in Canada; and

WHEREAS the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador anticipates a labour

shortage of 70,000 people by 2020; and

WHEREAS eliminating the career practitioner knowledge base is contrary to

attaching people to the labour market; and

WHEREAS Employment Assistance Services (EAS) agencies are grassroots hubs in

communities providing services like skills development, resume development,

interview skills, facilitating attachment to the labour market and the

community; and

WHEREAS EAS agencies help individuals with complex needs find and maintain

employment in communities throughout the Province; and

WHEREAS EAS agencies have been serving thousands of people for years,

building expertise and rapport; and

WHEREAS loading the workload of 226 employees onto 139 Advanced Education and

Skills employees would be an overwhelming expectation, increasing staff turnover

and thus decreasing rapport with clients; and

WHEREAS EAS funding comes from the EI fund the Employment Insurance fund

built by workers to help them when and where they need it most; and

WHEREAS moving services away from people who lack the means to travel long

distances is not in line with the Labour Market Development Agreement's

principle of citizen-centred service;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the

House of Assembly to urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to reverse

the decision to cut funding to EAS agencies in the Province.

As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, as I have said before in the House of Assembly, I have certainly

heard a lot from individuals who work with Employment Assistance Services

providers across Newfoundland and Labrador. This really started what

precipitated now likely over 1,000 jobs being cut all together by this

government.

Many of these people will be displaced from their communities and will

probably be forced to move on and move out, maybe outside of the Province even,

in the eventuality that government does not see that this decision to shut these

EAS agencies, to cut funding to Employment Assistance Services providers

government does not come to the conclusion that this is a wrong-headed decision,

that does not do anything to help our labour market particularly in Newfoundland

and Labrador, particularly when it comes to some of the most vulnerable

individuals in our communities across the Province.

I hope the government will hear the pleas of these petitioners. I hope

members will see that this is overturned because it is certainly the wrong way

to go.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Barbe.

MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, to the hon. House of Assembly of the Province

of Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament assembled, the petition of the

undersigned residents humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS there has been an agreement between the Federation of Newfoundland

Nation Band; and

WHEREAS persons submitted applications, with the required documents, for

registration in the band up to the application deadline of November 30, 2012;

and

WHEREAS the reported number of applications received by the Qalipu Mi'kmaq

First Nation Band is in excess of 100,000; and

WHEREAS the reported number of applicants now registered as members are

approximately 22,000; and

WHEREAS the agreement between the Federation of Newfoundland Indians and the

scheduled to end on March 31, 2013; and

WHEREAS the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Band Chief has requested, but has not

received, an extension to the agreement to process the remaining applications;

and

WHEREAS to date, there is no decision on how to deal with the remaining

applications;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the

House of Assembly to urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to work

provide a fair and equal review of all of our applications.

As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, this is a matter which keeps on going. The length of time to

file the application was November 30. The deadline to have the applications

approved was March 31. March 31 has now come and gone. The issue is still a live

issue and people have no assurance, no certainty, and no way of knowing if their

applications will be approved appropriately.

Mr. Speaker, this is not to say that every applicant will qualify. Clearly,

many may qualify; potentially, most of them will qualify. We just do not know

that. For people who have for years and years done the work necessary to

establish their genealogy, their heritage, to have gone the entire process and

realized that many people are being recognized but different members in the same

family, some are recognized, some have now filed their applications and they

have no way of knowing if the applications will ever be considered.

Mr. Speaker, clearly, it would be a denial of fundamental justice to these

individuals if their applications are not looked at, and that is the purpose of

this petition.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Member for St. John's Centre.

MS ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in

Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland

and Labrador humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS transgendered people face high risk of discrimination, violence,

underemployment, and lack of access to housing and other services; and

WHEREAS a recent EGALE Canada survey found that 90 per cent of transgendered

youth hear transphobic comments regularly from other students and one-quarter

hear such comments from teachers; and

WHEREAS the Public Health Agency of Canada reports that nearly half of trans

youth seriously considered suicide and one-fifth attempted it in this previous

year; and

WHEREAS all individuals should have equal opportunity to live their lives and

meet their needs without being hindered or prevented by discriminatory practices

based on gender identity or gender expression; and

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the

House of Assembly to urge government to amend the Human Rights Act to include

gender identity and gender expression in the list of prohibited grounds of

discrimination.

As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, I presented this petition in the House a number of times on

behalf of not only transgendered people themselves but on behalf of the citizens

of Newfoundland and Labrador who believe this is just a basic right. It does not

cost the Province anything. What it does is it reaches out to some of the most

vulnerable, the most vilified, and the most discriminated against people in our

community, from all parts of Newfoundland and Labrador.

People who are transgendered occupy all parts of Newfoundland and Labrador.

They work in all kinds of professions. They are our brothers, our sisters, at

times our mothers, our fathers, our aunts, our uncles, our teachers, our

doctors, and our lawyers.

At this point, we see that human rights legislation is being changed not only

in Canada, Mr. Speaker. We can see it in a number of provinces in Canada that

have changed or on the verge of changing their human rights legislation to

include transgender rights, but we see it happening the world over. The United

Nations have supported this. They have included gender identity and gender

expression.

At this time for our Province of Newfoundland and Labrador to not do it is

nothing short of shameful. It is absolutely shameful at this point. There is no

compelling argument. There is no compelling reason at this point for the

Province to not go ahead and change its human rights legislation. As a

Newfoundlander and Labradorian, I am embarrassed by the lack of progressive

thinking in our Department of Justice to not proceed with this. There is no

justifiable reason to not do it. It is negligent and it is shameful.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to rising again to bring this issue before the

House.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. KING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask your indulgence for just one second.

I call from the Order Paper, Order 1. I apologize; I do not have the sheet in

front of me, Mr. Speaker, but I think it is Order 1.

MR. SPEAKER: Motion 1, the Budget Speech.

MR. KING: Thank you very much. Yes, I have it here.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I call from the Order Paper, Order 1, that the House approves in general the

budgetary policy of the government the Budget Speech.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Official Opposition.

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is now my privilege to reply to Budget 2013. Of course, this was a Budget

that was first announced in this House on Tuesday, March 26. Since that time, we

have had the Easter break, and we have had a chance to really analyze the

Budget.

Mr. Speaker, based on what we saw in the House on March 26, there was a fair

amount of response that came from the Budget and from across the Province. As

the details of the Budget really became known, became widely known, as people

had the opportunity, both inside government and across the Province to really

analyze the impact of Budget 2013 and what it actually meant to the people of

the Province, there was a lot of information that came out, a lot of more detail

around the Budget that really caused a lot of concern. It caused a lot of

concern for us, as the Official Opposition, but more so for the families and the

employees and people who were impacted by this Budget.

As I rise today in this hon. House, it is to deliver my remarks to Budget

2013; it is really not what I would consider to be an hon. Budget. If you had to

give a grading scale to this Budget, this is not one that would get a favourable

scale. As a matter of fact, outside the day of the Budget when we looked at the

feedback, this Budget received really a failing grade from most groups. There

was some support amongst the St. John's Board of Trade and the Employers'

Council, but on the whole, this Budget did not get a passing grade.

I agree with that, because regardless of what we heard leading into the

Budget, the breadth of this Budget and the depth of this Budget, in terms of its

cuts and the impact on families across this Province, this was not something

that we indeed were expecting.

As we talked about today in Question Period, the number of cuts, the number

of lost jobs, we were anticipating, believing and listening to what the Premier

said in advance of the Budget, that there would be somewhere in the vicinity of

500 jobs that would be lost as a result of this Budget. We know that the number

of jobs have been significantly higher than that, when we add up all the people

who have been impacted by this Budget.

Most people who I am talking to are calling this Budget, really, a

catastrophe. They are saying that it happened too fast. They did not take the

advice of a lot of people, the so-called experts in the field, who said you had

to be extremely careful, that you had to be very careful what you would do when

you had to make such deep, deep cuts.

The Minister of Finance said in his speech that those receiving layoffs, as I

said earlier, that they would be treated with respect. Even in Question Period

today, Mr. Speaker, I was challenged about the way that this has happened. I

would not be up here today talking about how those people were not treated in a

professional or a careful way if I did not know what I was talking about.

Just minutes after this Budget was announced we saw all the members opposite,

they were standing on their feet and they were cheering and clapping their hands

about the success and what they felt was a great Budget. This was really not a

sign of respect for the 1,000 people who were out the door as a result of this

Budget, the people who were losing their jobs, Mr. Speaker. It was actually

alarming.

Some people even said to me that this is something that you need to keep a

picture of this because people across the Province, they do not agree with this.

When people are standing up and clapping their hands and saying good things

about a Budget that puts 1,000 people out the door, they considered that to be

indeed very disrespectful. Disturbing was another word that I had heard used

during the time.

Mr. Speaker, this was what was happening here in this House on March 26. I

can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Finance of the day, he may have

been feeling the warmth and he may have been feeling that his Budget was being

embraced. Mr. Speaker, in the communities across Newfoundland and Labrador I can

tell you that this is not a Budget that was being embraced. The people, the

employees of this government, these are not the people who were embracing this

government and the announcements that they were hearing.

Mr. Speaker, when you look at and you consider the decades of loyalty that we

have had amongst our public sector workers, this is not a way that they expected

to be treated. They are worried and they are still worried. There are still a

lot of worried people, a lot of worried families. They are now concerned about

the people who have lost their jobs, those 1,000 people who have now lost their

jobs as a result of this Budget. They are now wondering and they have to make

their own decisions what their next path forward will be, how they will pay

their own bills, how they will meet their financial commitments. It is causing a

lot of anxiety amongst the people in the Province.

It is actually atrocious, Mr. Speaker, the way that this Budget has rolled

out. I will say, I know this for a fact, because I know even members of our own

community and people that I have talked to, I can tell you many, many examples

of people who heard about these layoffs on Budget Day. It was days and days that

passed by before they finally realized that this Budget did impact them. Even

today there are people still left wondering if they will be impacted by this

Budget. It makes it very difficult for people to plan their future.

What this Budget was, Mr. Speaker, what this Budget is, is all about cuts. It

is about cuts and more cuts. This government's motto over the last ten years has

really if you had to consider how we got there, why is it that we have to make

such significant cuts across the public sector in this Province? It can only

mean one thing, because we were not in a situation here where we have had to

deal with a surprising cash situation.

There has been nothing new here that we did not know was coming. All of those

things we could plan for. It has been, Mr. Speaker, I have to say, we have spent

money. We just spent it because it was available. Many people that I am talking

to, many, many groups that I am talking to are talking about financial

mismanagement of this particular government, Mr. Speaker.

After ten years in government now this is a government that came in in 2003

with a lot of plans, I might add, and two years of actually preparing, in

election mode from 2001 to 2003, preparing to take government in 2003. They won

that election, and ten years later what we get is a Sustainability Plan.

Mr. Speaker, for me, I would say that has been extremely disappointing, to

realize we have a government in place for ten years and only now we are getting

a Sustainability Plan. When you look through the Sustainability Plan, even that

in itself is a very weak plan. I think it is highlighted if you go to the

Sustainability Plan, I think it is somewhere around page 11, where you will see

that there are four steps to the sustainability. It really does not give a lot

of detail. It talks about returning to surplus in year three.

Mr. Speaker, this Sustainability Plan, after ten years, has been very

disappointing to see that ten years later we are just getting to the point where

we have to develop a Sustainability Plan. When you look at the amount of wealth

this Province has generated over the last ten years, and just now getting to a

Sustainability Plan is certainly a missed opportunity, I say, to secure the

future of the Province.

Then there is a question about its sustainability and the sustainability of

our Province. Who is this for? This government is showing the public sector

workers as they show the public sector workers the door with the layoffs we

have heard about in the last couple of weeks, they have slammed the door on

Employment Assistance offices. We know the history about this in March. These

are offices that have supplied very valuable services to not only rural areas of

the Province but in a lot of our larger centres as well.

These offices have been given the axe. They have given the axe to teaching

positions and eliminated college programs. I know this has been a source of

great debate. Even in Question Period, as I said, today we have heard a lot of

comments about program cuts and what have been happening within our education

system.

The Employment Assistance offices are a group I feel have been really grossly

misunderstood. Not until you talk to those people do you realize the vast amount

of work and what they have done that was really outside of the scope that not

many people would actually pinpoint and point to this particular office as this

is what they have done. They have done an extraordinary amount of work for

people in the communities where the sites were open.

Now, Mr. Speaker, as I say, this government is not only jeopardizing the

administration of justice by cutting down attorneys, legal staff, and sheriff

offices. I might add it is almost somewhat of a farce to a folly that these cuts

were reviewed last week. I have to say that we called for those reviews as the

Official Opposition, as did many other people involved in Justice.

This part of it, this piece of the review I agree with. I say it was a good

thing, Mr. Speaker. When you call for something like this, when you see a

program that needs review, they respond and the government responds, as they did

in this particular case. It is the right thing to do.

You do have to wonder and you do have to ask yourself: Why did we get to this

situation in the beginning? If there was meaningful consultation done in advance

of this, one of two things would happen: either you would you be able to make

the right choice and you would not be in the situation that you would have to

review the program; the other thing that could possibly have happened is that

you talked to the wrong people, therefore you made the wrong decision. It had to

be one or the other. What was the consultation? It obviously had to be the wrong

choice or the program would not have needed review as it did, Mr. Speaker, so

quickly after the Budget.

I ask again, Mr. Speaker: Who will really benefit from this so-called

Sustainability Plan? It is not the people of Newfoundland and Labrador who are

benefiting from this Budget. They are the ones suffering the consequences of

this government's horrible financial planning over the last ten years.

Mr. Speaker, when you look at the experience of this Budget and what has the

experience been for the people of the Province, well I can tell you, the people

of Newfoundland, this is what they are experiencing. First-hand, they are

experiencing the cuts of this government's mismanagement.

Mr. Speaker, they are also experiencing cuts to public sector employees and,

indeed, to the services that those valuable employees provide. That is the

experience of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador; that is their experience

with Budget 2013. We have seen cuts to the public service and we are seeing loss

of services for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, loss of services

throughout the Province.

Over the next couple of hours, I will expand more and talk in more detail of

those services and certainly about some of those cuts. Mr. Speaker, one of the

programs that I will briefly touch on right now is the dental care program.

While Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are currently suffering from an inferior

dental care program right now because this government just recently cut funding

to this they simply not only just went in and cut funding, Mr. Speaker, they

actually cut funding without doing any meaningful consultations with the people

who were involved.

One of the other areas that have been affected by this Budget, Mr. Speaker,

is around fees and around ferries that actually connect many of our isolated

communities. If you live on an isolated community now that depends on a ferry as

a means of transportation, you have to pay a higher fee now as result of Budget

2013, as a result of this Budget that was read into this House on March 26. It

is a 10 per cent more fee.

If you have to leave your isolated community to go to work, if you have to

leave there to go to some kind of health care appointment, if you have to leave

there just because you needed to go pick up groceries or something, Mr. Speaker

it is a way of life for those who live in those isolated communities. Right

now, because of the increase in ferry fees, it is going to cost you 10 per cent

more.

MR. A. PARSONS: Ramea, Fogo, Bell Island.

MR. BALL: If it is Ramea, if it is Fogo, exactly, Mr. Speaker. The Member

for Burgeo La Poile reminds me that he has many communities in his district

that are affected by this, but not only people who live in his district but in

many of the districts. If you live on Fogo, as I said, you have to deal with now

those 10 per cent fee hikes for the ferry service.

Mr. Speaker, we are also seeing that there is one project, there is one piece

of this Budget, what we have been told has been ring fenced and it is sheltered

really from the spending and not affected at all by this Budget. Of course, that

is the Muskrat Falls Project that I am talking about here. This project in

itself has been excluded from any of the increased costs this year by this

government.

While this government

MR. LANE: (Inaudible).

MR. BALL: The Member for Mount Pearl is telling me right now that this

Budget is not impacted by that. I will explain later to the member how it is and

how it can be. There are certain rules around accounting

MR. SPEAKER (Verge): Order, please!

MR. BALL: where Muskrat Falls could have a tremendous impact on the

deficit of this government. The Member for Mount Pearl, I can explain to him

that there are certain

AN HON. MEMBER: South.

MR. BALL: Mount Pearl South.

There are certain principles around the accounting rules. Even though this

year's deficit is not impacted by it, when we get to this project there is

considerable danger that it will impact the deficits of this government.

I will ask the Member for Mount Pearl South right now if he would believe, if

he has every confidence, that he can stand there now and not expect to see cost

overruns on this project. I ask the Member for Mount Pearl South, when he gets

his chance to stand on his feet, will he do with all certainty, tell that this

project will not have a cost overrun.

So, Mr. Speaker, this government, as I said, as it ring fenced its pet

project, this government shoves front-line public servants through the door,

their election workers, by these election workers, they were rewarded. The

election workers for this particular government, they have been rewarded by plum

appointments, I say, Mr. Speaker. They have posts in senior levels of

government. These were not affected by this Budget.

Now, Mr. Speaker, there is one person, I will say, though, on the opposite,

who has been impacted by this Budget. There is one person who has been impacted

by Budget 2013, and that is, of course, the past Minister of Intergovernmental

Affairs. I am pleased of the fact that this Premier and the Minister of Finance

has reduced the size of Cabinet and we now have one less Cabinet minister.

I do, however, suggest that we could have done with a few more cuts in the

Cabinet. We could have lived with a much smaller Cabinet. This is something, Mr.

Speaker, just to remove the one, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs,

really was not enough. We needed a smaller Cabinet. This was indeed a missed

opportunity, and it is an area that we should have seen more.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, some colleagues of mine have been saying

lately that maybe we need to open up a new portfolio, or roll one of those

portfolios in so we could have a minister of reconsiderations so some of those

bad decisions in Budget 2013 could be reconsidered. A place for people to go and

review the decisions we call that the minister of reconsiderations. It is time

to open up that new portfolio, I say to the Speaker.

The Premier is also saying that the Office of Public Engagement, after this

core mandate review, for some reason the Office of Public Engagement is now

considered to be what? It is considered to be core mandate.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, core mandate?

MR. BALL: I cannot believe that, Mr. Speaker. I actually thought that was

the first office that was going to go, core mandate. It was core mandate. It is

now enshrined, Mr. Speaker. This is something that this government believes is

absolutely necessary. While we can make cuts to wildlife departments, while we

can make cuts to dental programs, and while we can cut, cut, cut, the Office of

Public Engagement stands strong. It stands there now as a core mandated office

with this government, Mr. Speaker, I say.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I would ask all members for their co-operation.

The Leader of the Official Opposition.

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The other office, I must say, that escaped the core mandate review, which

really surprised me, was the Office of the Population Growth Strategy. That was

an office that actually survived the core mandate review.

I ask all members, even members of government, how many times in your

constituency office have you ever heard, and how often did someone walk in and

say: I need the telephone number for the Office of the Population Growth

Strategy? I have to have it. I need to post that on my fridge, Mr. Speaker.

I can tell you now, Mr. Speaker, not once did anybody come in through my

office door and ask for those numbers. Not once did anybody ask me for the

number of the Office of Public Engagement and not once did anybody look for a

number for the Office of the Population Growth Strategy. I have not seen it, Mr.

Speaker. It is now core mandated, Mr. Speaker. I can tell you this was another

opportunity in Budget 2013 that those offices could have been done away with.

The message, Mr. Speaker, that this government is sending, if you are a

public servant, if you work in the public service of this Province what you get

is not even a thank you, out the door, have a nice day. That has been the

feedback I have been getting. I have been getting it through e-mail after e-mail

after e-mail.

Mr. Speaker, I brought a lot of those e-mails these are samples, just in

case people think that I am just saying that. These are all samples of e-mails.

I will be more than happy, because we have a lot of time here today. I have two

hours and forty minutes to respond to this Budget. I can tell you now there are

members opposite who have been copied on a lot of those e-mails. I can start

reading those one at a time so you can see that this is not an isolated case,

the way people have been treated since they have received their layoff notices

as a result of Budget 2013.

Now, Mr. Speaker, there is another area where I believe there was a missed

opportunity in this particular budget, in Budget 2013, and that is along the

lines of the parliamentary secretaries. Right now, I believe we currently have

five parliamentary secretaries. People keep asking me, parliamentary secretaries

for what? Why do we need those parliamentary secretaries? Obviously, it is an

extra expense to government.

We have a Parliamentary Secretary in the Office of Public Engagement. This,

of course, is in an office that receives a multi-million dollar budget already

in the Department of Innovation, Business and Rural Development. This is a

department that receives millions of dollars. Now they need an Office of Public

Engagement as part of that department as well.

Again, Mr. Speaker, this is all about the core mandate review. I cannot

believe that a year in this process, after a core mandate review, after speaking

to many, many experts in the field the Office of Public Engagement survived. It

is still there. It is an absolute necessity according to this government, that

the Office of Public Engagement be kept in place, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, they have five parliamentary secretaries. One of them is in the

Office of Public Engagement. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, that in 2013 we

believe that this Office of Public Engagement is a necessity?

Mr. Speaker, the government, however, does not mind trimming back in other

areas. They do not mind cutting back expenditures when it really does not affect

their own. That is the message I am getting in all of this, Mr. Speaker. When it

comes to the Muskrat Falls Project, we cannot go there. We are not going to cut

back there, but when it comes to the services and public sector employees with

this government, well that is where the axe starts to fall.

Mr. Speaker, there are benefits to many people who live in Newfoundland and

Labrador. I want to talk a bit about Muskrat Falls because you have heard me say

many times in this House that the development of Muskrat Falls should be a good

news story. It really should be a good news story.

I mentioned it in Question Period today. There was a lot of debate that took

place here in the House late last fall on Muskrat Falls. One of the things we

talked about is support for the mining industry. On March 28 of this year when

going underground with Voisey's Bay was announced, well guess what, Mr. Speaker?

There was no mention whatsoever, no mention at all of Muskrat Falls power.

Instead, they will be looking for alternate forms of power for Muskrat Falls.

Now they are actually talking about wind power for Voisey's Bay.

We were not allowed to talk about wind power in this House, not for months

and months. It was not something we should be pursuing, but for Voisey's Bay to

go underground as a source of power now, Mr. Speaker, well guess what? One of

the options we are considering is wind power, I say, Mr. Speaker, and added to

that another development of a run of the river near that area, but no Muskrat

Falls. That is off the table now for the development of Voisey's Bay.

The other thing, Mr. Speaker, I was fortunate last week to spend some time in

Labrador meeting the Combined Councils. The meeting is called the Combined

Councils meeting. This is a group of community leaders who get together on an

annual basis. There were other MHAs there too representing the various parties.

It is always a great learning experience to hear first-hand of the many

challenges that the people in Labrador first-hand the things that they had to

deal with. Mr. Speaker, I went to the Combined Councils and I was there last

year as well and many of the same people were there. Do you know one of the

things that I heard? This is right in the area, just really next door to

development of Muskrat Falls. I talked to a lot of people and what a lot of

people are telling me, what they did tell me however, Mr. Speaker, is that the

true benefits we thought we were going to get work there; local companies

thought that they were going to get work there.

I will challenge everybody who was actually talking to the business community

up there that there have been an awful lot of people thought that they would see

the benefit, that they are not getting it. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I

heard one story which was a little I must say you want to hear a compelling

argument, well I will give you a compelling argument for a company in

Newfoundland. We have many companies in Newfoundland who can do this.

The brush cutting now from Muskrat Falls to Churchill Falls, which as we know

we will put a transmission line there to connect it to because we need the

reliability at Muskrat Falls and we will be in a situation where one of the

projects will actually debit and credit the other. We need the transmission line

to connect the two so the reliability is in place.

There is a long transmission line that has to go from Muskrat Falls to

Churchill Falls. There are trees there, and so we have to cut the trees now so

we can build a transmission line. I see my member here for Torngat Mountains;

there are certain parts of his area where he does not have a lot of trees. From

Muskrat Falls to Churchill Falls there are a lot of trees.

Guess what, Mr. Speaker guess what? The company that is going to cut that

transmission line, guess where they are from? They are not from Newfoundland and

Labrador. They are not from Labrador. They are not from the Island part of

Newfoundland. They are from Alberta. They are going to bring in loggers and they

are going to bring in a company from Alberta that is going to cut the

transmission line from Muskrat Falls to Churchill Falls.

Tell me that Newfoundland companies do not know how to cut wood, Mr. Speaker,

that the benefit from that transmission line is going to go to a company in

Alberta. The taxes from that company are going to be paid to a company from

Alberta.

On top of that there is even a lot of other work, a lot of surveying work

that is going to be done, not by Newfoundland companies. That is going to come

in from another province: New Brunswick.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BALL: Now, I hear the minister over there defending this again. He is

defending the fact that we are going to take a company from Alberta, we are

going to take a company from New Brunswick, and we are going to bring them in

here simply because they say they are going to provide jobs. However, Mr.

Speaker, what I know is that the taxes paid we have had many great people in

from Central Newfoundland and many people from the West Coast of Newfoundland

who could easily do that job. The benefits for that particular project will not

be seen right here.

I challenge the Member for Baie Verte Springdale how he feels about this.

Does he support those companies coming out? The minister is saying: Where are

the employees coming from? Well, maybe the minister should tell us where the

employees are coming from because they do not know yet. We are getting a lot of

concerns. There are a lot of people questioning where those employees are coming

from, and we heard that here last week. Where is the commitment?

What we do know, however, is that the taxes paid by those companies will not

be left in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. They will be from outside

companies, and the minister knows that. This is an easy project. This is an

extremely easy project that could be done by great Newfoundland and Labrador

companies.

Mr. Speaker, I really have about fifty pages prepared here. I am not even at

page five yet. I have lots of time to speak to this Budget. The reason I have

lots of information on this particular Budget is because there is a lot of bad

news in this Budget. There are a lot of things in this Budget that impact and

affect people in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to some of the financial planning. I talked

about financial mismanagement. Early last month, Scotia Bank and, of course,

Scotia Bank is one of the leading chartered banks in this country. They issued a

report on the spending by governments in Atlantic Canada, all of the governments

in Atlantic Canada: the governments in PEI, in New Brunswick, in Nova Scotia,

and of course in Newfoundland and Labrador. So what did the report say? What

were the findings in that report?

Well, Mr. Speaker, the findings are that this particular government, the

government in Newfoundland and Labrador, is the biggest culprit in Atlantic

Canada when it came to increases in spending. Now, of all the warnings we have

had in the last three or four years, this Province continued to spend. I am

going to get into a bit about that. There is a lot more about that there when it

comes to increases in spending.

Now, Mr. Speaker, what it comes down to is when you increase the spending

here, when you look at the revenue, and I have a spreadsheet and a history of

when you look at this, when you look at this and the increase in expenditures

over the last number of years, even last year when we knew we had to rein back

our expenditures, what happened last year? We even spent more, I say, Mr.

Speaker.

People always question: Where would you spend it or what would you change?

Well, there are a number of things I would change, I say to the members

opposite. I would not be out doing PR campaigns on projects. I would not be

opening up an Office of Public Engagement or the growth strategy, all of those

things, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: A tea party.

MR. BALL: Yes, a tea party, a party that did not happen.

Mr. Speaker, there are many, many areas. We need to get to when you look at

expenditures there is no doubt that there are lots of areas in this Province

that required upgrading, it required investments into infrastructure, but you

need to spend it with a strategy. You need to know that when you invest money,

when you spend that money it is in the right place. We have heard that the

expenditures that were put in, the money that we spent in health, that we are

not getting the required outcome. Lots of people are telling us that, Mr.

Speaker. Lots of people are telling us this. Scotiabank was one of the groups

that have been telling us this.

If you look at that a little bit further, the analysis of 2005 to 2010, we

see that this particular government saw the highest annual growth in spending

amongst all provinces, Mr. Speaker. So we have to be careful. What we were

warned was that we had to put in long-term expenditure controls. This was

important.

Mr. Speaker, in the three-year period that this particular report studied,

the spending was ratcheted up even more. We started to increase even more. When

Scotiabank came in with that suggestion, we did not listen to that. We just kept

going and we kept going and we kept going.

We did not listen to the fact that Scotiabank was telling us at that

particular time that we had to put in long-term expenditure controls, because

this is where were we were going. It was coming to a collision. The longer you

wait to put in those strategies, the longer you wait to put in long-term

expenditure plans, well then of course what happens is it makes the situation

much worse and it leaves a stronger and bigger impact when you put in

expenditure controls.

Mr. Speaker, that decision back three years ago was a wise decision, but

Scotiabank was not the only group giving that suggestion. The members opposite,

of course, we know now after the release of Budget 2013, they did not listen.

They did not take that advice because the evidence is all over Budget 2013.

Mr. Speaker, instead of sitting down and reviewing this decade, instead of

sitting down and taking a real good look at this decade of spending, we have to

ask ourselves: What was the response? What happened? Mr. Speaker, instead of

analyzing where they went wrong and really crafting what would have been a

careful strategy to help us, first of all keep us out of the financial mess so

that we did not get into it in the first place, what happened?

One thing that happened, Mr. Speaker, is this government realized that it is

now 2013. We have had a lot of money to spend over the last ten years. They have

had a lot of money from what I consider to be good deals, and I would say most

of the money that came into this Province was as a result of good deals that

were done by past governments and by good planning by other governments.

The members opposite know that. They know the benefits from Terra Nova, the

benefits from Hibernia and Voisey's Bay that we talked about earlier today,

these are benefits and White Rose these are deals that were not signed by

this government. Mr. Speaker, this is about doing the right thing for

Newfoundland and Labrador and how you spend the money. This is what I am talking

about now.

In 2013, Mr. Speaker, we realize we are facing a financial crisis. We were

actually spending too much money and we now need to change the course. What

happened, Mr. Speaker? How did the government respond? Mr. Speaker, what

happened was, no question, there was some panic that set into this government.

They realized that this is not sustainable and there was some panic that set

into this government.

One thing you cannot do as a government, and they were warned about this too

this government, Mr. Speaker, was warned about this is you need to get

focused. You need to put a strategy in place, but one thing you cannot do, you

cannot panic. You have to remain focused on the problem. You have to remain

focused on the challenge. You have to go looking for the solution, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I will talk to that again. I will talk a little bit more about

the sustainability and how the panic of this government actually set in, and

talk a little bit more of why and the symptoms of how that happened. Mr.

Speaker, the evidence of how this government panicked is all over this Budget.

Instead of just trimming the expenses strategically and carefully, the

Premier and her colleagues, what they did is they cut and they went to

departments. They challenged the departments to continue cutting. They paid no

attention, in a lot of cases, where the cuts were made, because in a lot of

areas there was potential revenue associated with some of the cuts that were

made.

You have be careful at any time you go in and you just make cuts that you are

not actually taking away programs that actually contribute to the finances of

the Province. We have seen that. We have seen this throughout this Budget. We

have seen cuts in areas that are actually contributing money to the Treasury of

this Province, I say, Mr. Speaker. When you look at where you cut, where you

look for the excess, you have to be very careful that you are not taking it from

an area where it can actually be a financial contributor to your Budget.

Mr. Speaker, what was needed, however, was a strategy and what was needed was

vision. This is the reason we are actually in this position. This is the reason

we are where we are today: there was no vision. There was no long-term vision.

We have asked for this. Where is the vision for this government? It is not

there.

As a matter of fact, if you remember just last year when we went looking for

a five-year infrastructure strategy program, it was not there. The Auditor

General, I believe, asked for this. Where is it? Then we were told, no, that was

just an evolving plan. That really is not a document; that is an evolving plan.

It was not there. So there was no long-term strategy to make investments into

the diversification of this Province.

Mr. Speaker, what we did hear from the other side, however, was that we had

to rebuild the Province. Of course, rebuilding the Province meant spending money

and there was a significant amount of rebuilding that had to be done. If you

look back at the history of that and you say how much rebuilding did we actually

do? We did quite a bit. There were things that were done. There were some good

things done with the money over the five- or six-year period. I will have to

say, with that aside, there was an awful lot of waste. I do not think anyone

would disagree there was an awful lot of waste that took place over the ten

years.

I think members opposite would agree that if we had to live this all over

again we would do things differently, Mr. Speaker. They would not want to be in

this situation. They would do things differently if they could, I am sure.

Right now, Mr. Speaker, they are left with a situation that they cannot blame

anybody else any more. They cannot blame a past Administration any more. When

you look at the way this government has mismanaged and spent the money over the

last three or four years, there is no one else to blame except this government

themselves.

Mr. Speaker, when you look at what the expectation would be of anyone who

lives in this Province, hardworking citizens of this Province, hardworking

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, day in and day out they pay their taxes. At

the end of the year, they would expect that a government would spend their

money, spend it wisely and they would manage the funds, manage the affairs of

this Province, that they would manage it effectively.

That is the promise, by the way, that was made. That is the promise, the

commitment, which was made by this government. They would manage the affairs of

this government; they would do so in an accountable and a transparent way. Well

I say, Mr. Speaker, that is not a promise that they delivered on. They did not

deliver on that promise, I say, Mr. Speaker.

Do you know what? The members opposite, they can scream and they can shout

all they want about the Liberals time in government all they want, Mr.

Speaker. We have heard that. We have heard that a number of times. The truth is

when the Liberals was in government in this particular Province back prior to

2003, there was only a fraction of the money available only a fraction of the

money. We had oil that was down between $25 and $30 a barrel, I say, Mr.

Speaker. The money was just not there. The amounts of money that we are seeing

floating around today is quite different.

I will say that as a result of many of those projects, they have made

significant contributions to the revenue in this Province. Right now, we have

seen for the last ten years a very steady cash flow.

Mr. Speaker, we are extremely fortunate to have such an abundance of the

natural resources. Of course, as we use those natural resources, that gives us

the opportunity to avail of royalties from oil and minerals. While this is not

all good, Mr. Speaker, we do have to question where it is come.

Mr. Speaker, one thing that I have noticed in a lot of the reports, in a lot

of the interviews that have been done, is that we always refer to oil and gas

royalties. Well, in actual fact, we are not there with gas. I have often

wondered when you look at what is happening all around the world, why is it that

based on the reserves that we have, reserves that we had that was even mentioned

in the Energy Plan, this government's own Energy Plan in 2007, why we have not

developed an industry around gas when it is happening all over the world. All

over the world, it is happening, even in the UK.

MR. LANE: The prices are too low.

MR. BALL: The Member for Mount Pearl South is just telling me the prices

are too low; we cannot do it here. Well, maybe we need to ask the people in the

UK if their prices are too low because they are certainly developing a gas

industry over there. Maybe we need to go to Saudi Arabia right now because I

understand that Saudi Arabia is looking very favourably into developing a gas

industry over there now.

Maybe the Member for Mount Pearl South needs to go to the US. I understand

one of the problems that we are having, if he is watching the financial impact

at all, how it is affecting the Dow and the TSX, I think he will realize that it

is having a significant impact of what is happening south of the border, I say

to the Member for Mount Pearl South.

MR. LANE: Volume (inaudible).

MR. BALL: The Member for Mount Pearl South brings up volume. Interesting

that he does that. Go to your 2007 Energy Plan. Go listen to what Nalcor said

just a few weeks ago off Labrador and then you go and do it. You take that and

you study, and you compare that to what is happening in the UK right now, I say

to the Member for Mount Pearl South. You go do the comparison and then you tell

me that you cannot put a gas industry in this Province. Then you go and tell me

that you cannot do that.

I challenge him to do that, Mr. Speaker, but this is what I am saying. We

keep saying oil and gas, but there is no gas. It is simply that way.

What has happened here in the last ten years, Mr. Speaker and by the way,

just a reminder, now we are at a time now in the history of our Province that we

have to spend responsibly. You ask the question: Have we spent responsibly? Have

we managed responsibly? I say, Mr. Speaker, was it responsible? Was it as a

result of responsible decisions to balloon the size of the public service and

only to turn around weeks later and callously cut over 1,000 jobs?

I say, Mr. Speaker, this is not about the people; this is not about the

individuals in these jobs. When they were hired, they would have thought that

they would have had a career, that this is something that they could have done

for many, many years. We hired those people, but we now find ourselves in the

situation that we have allowed this to balloon, and now we cannot afford to have

those positions any longer.

Was it responsible to ignore the advice of countless financial institutions

and renowned economists who warned the government to curb spending, I say, Mr.

Speaker? Was that the responsible thing to do, was to ignore this advice? Was it

responsible to spend lavishly when times were good and not to save for a rainy

day?

I say, Mr. Speaker, growing up in this Province, all of us knew that you

always had to put some money aside because just for that unexpected thing that

could happen. Those rainy day funds are something that we are all very much

accustomed to. It is important that we prepare for that, Mr. Speaker.

I have to say and I raise it again: Was it responsible to embark upon a

multi-billion dollar project when we are in such uncertain times, when we were

in such turbulent times? We do not know; we have made a fifty-year commitment

and I just went into, in trying to answer some questions to the members

opposite, that it is very turbulent times when you look at making a fifty-year

commitment to a project that we have no idea what will be new and exciting in

the energy world over the next fifty years. We have not made provision at all

for new technology and the role that would play in provision of energy not

only for the people in our Province, yet we expect that we are going to be able

to export this to another Province, or even to the US, when right now they do

not seem to be having an energy deficiency at all, I say, Mr. Speaker.

So, was it responsible? Was this decision responsible, I say? Mr. Speaker,

one thing I do know is that it is irresponsible not to plan for your future. It

is irresponsible to wait ten years and then to think, well now, after all this

money, now I am going to do a Sustainability Plan, I say, Mr. Speaker. That is

the irresponsible response. It is irresponsible to spend without preparing for

the long-term affordability plan. That is the problem (inaudible) people keep

saying: Who would you lay off or what it is you would not do?

One thing you should never do is put the expectations of someone to a point

where then you realize, oh, I have you now; you are hired; now I cannot afford

you, so now you have to let them go. That is a disservice, I say, Mr. Speaker,

to the people that you have just hired, when these are the types of decisions

that you have to make.

So, Mr. Speaker, as usual, there are a lot more questions than we have

answers. I suspect many of the government members themselves have looked at this

and said: How did we get where we are?

I want to talk a little bit about some announcements in January, for

instance, Mr. Speaker. In January, when we first heard about the looming deficit

that the previous Finance Minister had said was going to be somewhere around

$726 million, that deficit now had changed, and that now we were looking for the

deficit to be somewhere around $1.6 billion. From that point in January to

Budget time, well, that all changed. There was money that was coming from HST

MR. JOYCE: Seven million barrels of oil.

MR. BALL: Eight million barrels of oil that we had tucked away somewhere

over there that we suddenly found out that we had, and t