November

18, 1991

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol.

XLI No. 72

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): Order, please!

Oral Questions

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I was not in the House on Friday but I

understand that the Premier and the acting Minister of Public Works admitted to

the press on Friday that Government had, indeed, been wrong to issue a vague

wide open tender call with respect to the three health care facilities awarded

last week. Both, in fact, said that Government would not use that method again.

I believe that is what they said publicly. I don't think it is good enough to be

able to say, 'Sorry, we won't do that again.'

I want to ask the Premier this: Did he not know that the

tender call he referred to on Friday with the press was wrong weeks before the

contracts were let? Wasn't the Government told, in fact, by Hanscombe

Consultants and by officials of the Department of Public Works? And why did the

Government not re-tender those projects when it was advised to do so?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, let me correct the

misrepresentation. I, at no time, said it was wrong. If the hon. the Leader of

the Opposition wants to interpret something that way, he has to be responsible

for his

interpretation, but it is incorrect. I have no idea what the acting

minister said, because I was not in the House on Friday, either, but what I said

to the media was that I discovered after we got the tenders back - I had nothing

to do with the design of the tenders - that it would clearly have been better if

we had set certain limited parameters. Our objective was to try to get proposals

to build at the lowest possible cost and to invite new ideas and suggestions.

And, indeed, Mr. Speaker, I think it worked extremely well from that point of

view. We did conclude, however, that it would be preferable, not that it was

wrong, but that it would be preferable, in the future, to be somewhat more

specific in the basic character or content. I think that was a sound conclusion,

Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, we are well used to hearing the

Premier toying with words, but the fact of the matter is that everybody out

there thinks - that is my perception, and I think the perception of the press

and everybody else - that both he and the minister publicly acknowledged that

the approach used in this tender was a mistake, and that, Mr. Speaker, is a

mistake that is going to cost the people of this Province $6 million. In fact,

it is a mistake that may ever cost more if the contractors proceed with their

lawsuit against the Government.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier said this, as did the minister, and

if the process was wrong on Friday then, surely, it must have been the wrong

process to follow several weeks ago. Therefore, I ask the Premier, Will he do

what he should have done in the first place, will he do the right thing and have

these projects retendered, using more detailed specifications, this time, to

make it fair for everybody?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Let me deal with a couple of things. He

suggests I am toying with words. I say to the House, Mr. Speaker, and to all who

will listen, I am using the words quite accurately and completely, which the

hon. member is not. Now, if he wants to manipulate and try to achieve a

particular position for himself, then he has to answer for that; but I am not

toying with words, I am using them accurately and correctly.

Secondly, he suggests that everybody out there 'thinks' -

that is not correct, Mr. Speaker - everybody out there is being told by the

members opposite that this is the case but, fortunately, very few believe it

because they don't accept what they say. The third, which is most significant,

is that it was a mistake and it cost the Government $6 million. That is totally

and completely without foundation. Mr. Speaker, if we had been more specific -

and I regret that we were not, but there is nothing wrong with it as such - if

we had been more specific and invited proposals from everybody, and required

proposals on the basis of a steel and brick building, there is no indication

that we would have had a bid one cent less, let alone $6 million less. There is

no indication whatsoever that there would have been a bid for one cent less, so

to misrepresent this as costing the taxpayers $6 million is atrocious.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I wish to say that I am advised by the

acting minister that it is probably the best move Government has made in some

time. Now, that is not to say we did it in the most proficient way, but taking

that approach was the best move we have made in some time. It has resulted in

the Government saving some considerable sum of money.

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

MR. SIMMS: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

I say to the Premier, it is not only I who perceives it. I

had a little envelope passed to me at the security desk today, and people are

writing letters, talking about the conspiracy and everything else. It is not

because of something I said. The Premier was the person on television Friday

night saying it was a mistake, that it was wrong, it was too vague. It was he

who said it, not I.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to ask him this question, and it

goes back to his answer to my last question.

Section 4 of the tender call

documents say, and I quote: 'Amendments to the tender call will be permitted up

to the tender closing date,' end quote. Is he aware that the company which was

the lowest bidder on two of these projects advised the Department of Public

Works in advance, in writing, several weeks before the tenders closed, that

brick could be substituted in their bid for steel siding for an additional

$150,000 a building? In other words, that company would have constructed these

two steel and brick buildings for $3 million less than the Trans City bid. Is he

aware of that, and if so, Mr. Speaker, how does he now explain the decision to

award those contracts, anyway, when they did, in fact, have bids from another

company that would have proven $3 million savings?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, first I ever heard of it. As

far as I know, there is no validity in what was said. Whether or not there is, I

don't know, but I will most certainly have it checked. I will have the acting

minister pursue it immediately, and the House will be fully informed as to what

the real situation is, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SIMMS: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker, on this

particular matter.

I tell the hon. the Premier that I can get a copy of the

letter for him if he cannot obtain it from the Department of Public Works.

Let me as him a final supplementary. Since Government is

admitting that the process was flawed, will he acknowledge that? Maybe the word

'flawed' might be acceptable to him. He won't accept anything else. He certainly

said the process was vague. Can he tell us how it is, then, that Marco

Construction correctly guessed the kinds of materials that Government had in

mind? How is it that Marco is the only one of all of the bidders -

AN HON. MEMBER: Trans City.

MR. SIMMS: Trans City on behalf of Marco. How is it, that

Trans City on behalf of Marco, in addition to all the other bidders, is the only

bidder who was able to guess the kind of materials that the Government wanted to

use in this particular process? Did they just make some kind of a lucky guess?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, that is another example of

this kind of misrepresentation, misleading people into thinking something when

it is not valid. The Trans City bid, I am told, is not the only one; there was a

second bid from a numbered company, apparently owned and managed by one Basil

Dobbin, who also bid on brick and steel, but the bid was substantially in excess

of the cost of Marco. It would have cost - how much?

AN HON. MEMBER: $14 million.

PREMIER WELLS: - over the term involved, it would have

cost the Province $14 million more to have accepted that bid from a numbered

company organized or run by a Mr. Basil Dobbin. So, Mr. Speaker, with that kind

of misrepresentation, no wonder people think funny things if the Opposition keep

saying funny, unfounded things.

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

MR. SIMMS: We will see. I am going to ask him one quick

question. He says he did not discuss this matter with Mr. Hickman; did he

discuss it with any of his ministers privately outside the Cabinet room?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I would say yes, Mr. Speaker, I spoke to

ministers outside the Cabinet room. I would think that I spoke to the Minister

of Works, Services and Transportation. I would have spoken to Treasury Board. I

think I probably would have spoken to the Minister of Health and so on, because

the issue was coming up in Cabinet and frequently, they advise me of matters

coming before Cabinet. I happen to be the Premier, and they advise me of matters

that they intend to bring before Cabinet. So, I would think yes, Mr. Speaker, I

would have met with individual ministers or even as a group -

MR. SIMMS: And called them up?

PREMIER WELLS: - no, I would not have called them up.

They would have come to me and told me what they were proposing to bring before

Cabinet. This is not at all unusual, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I have a new set of questions for

the Minister of Finance on another matter altogether.

The Minister would be aware that Members in this House, on

both sides of the House, are receiving letters from hundreds of pensioners,

those public service pensioners who have retired, thinking of course that their

pension incomes would tide them over in their later years, in their senior

years.

Many of these people are now desperate, because as he knows,

they have now lost about 20 per cent of their annual income in just the last

three years. I want to ask the Minister of Finance: how is he responding to

these letters? What is he saying to these retired public servants who are

bearing the greatest share of the Government's Restraint Programme, what is he

saying to them?

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

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A number of points

have been raised by the Leader of the Opposition. One: that they are bearing the

greatest measure of restraint. I do not know if he has any evidence of that. But

with respect to the indexing of pensions, that matter is presently under study

and something should be coming forward shortly.

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

MR. SIMMS: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of

Finance. He would be aware that pensioners in this Province - public service

pensioners in particular - last received a pension increase in the year 1989.

That was an increase at that time, I think, of about 2.5 per cent. There has

been no increase in 1990, no increase in 1991, so a 2.5 per cent increase over a

three year period. I mean, that would indicate that they are bearing the brunt,

I think, a fair bit of it. By the way, the CPI increased somewhere over and in

excess of 20 per cent during that same period of time. So I want to ask the

Minister, does the Government intend to provide these pensioners with an

increase in his upcoming budget? Can he tell the pensioners if they have

something to look forward to?

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

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, we will make the announcements

at the appropriate time.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for

the Premier about Kruger's operations in the Province. We learned through the

news media that the Premier recently had a meeting with Mr. Joseph Kruger II,

the principal of Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Limited, as well as members of the

executives of the two companies, Kruger Incorporated and Corner Brook Pulp and

Paper Limited.

Would the Premier tell the House of Assembly what he now

knows about the plans of Kruger and/or Corner Brook Pulp and Paper for operating

the newsprint mill at Corner Brook? In particular, would the Premier tell the

House of Assembly what he knows the companies are proposing in terms of

employment of people in: first, the mill at Corner Brook; and second, the

associated logging operations around the Province in the short term and in the

longer term?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: (Inaudible) a little bit of detail and a

little bit of time, Mr. Speaker, because the question invites a number of

commentaries. The three people with whom I met were Mr. Joseph Kruger, as the

Member has indicated, the other two, I do not know whether they are officers of

the Corner Brook company, but they are senior officers of the head office. There

was nobody from the management

section of the Corner Brook company there. One

was Mr. George Bunze, and the other was Mr. Guy Dufresne, who are both officials

from Kruger in Montreal. So all three were officials from Kruger in Montreal.

I do not know the detail of what they propose to do with

respect to individual operations. They are a little uncertain themselves. They

showed me figures that indicated that while they operated at, perhaps a better

than average level in Corner Brook this year than many other Canadian newsprint

operations in terms of producing at perhaps 90 per cent of capacity or something

close to that, they are concerned that the paper industry association is

projecting next year it may be down to as low as about 82 per cent, or even

below 82 per cent of capacity, on average, in the mills in Canada. So, the

Association of Newsprint Manufacturers are projecting a very, very difficult

year in the year coming up.

Now, let me start by saying I am most impressed with the job

the Kruger Organization has done in terms of refurbishing the mill in Corner

Brook and improving its capability and its productivity, and with the job that

the Kruger officials and the workers in Corner Brook have done to achieve this.

They have shown me some of the detail on what they have been able to do and what

they have been able to achieve and I am most impressed with what they have done

to improve the efficiency of that mill, and I give them full marks and full

credit for it.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know in detail what they intend to do,

but they did indicate that the possibility is they could have significant

downtime in this coming year. There could be significant downtime. It may well

be that in order to operate it, they will have to look at how they might achieve

it. They might close one machine for a prolonged period of time, which would

mean a prolonged layoff for a significant number of people, or they could close

the whole mill for a shorter period of time. I suppose, which route they choose

would have different affects on their bottom line. It may cost more to close the

whole operation for, say, twenty or thirty days than to close one machine for

eighty, ninety or a hundred days. But those are things they will be considering

and I have no doubt they will let us know.

We do not know in detail what they are doing with the rest of

the associated companies, but from the discussion I did have with Mr. Kruger and

the other representatives, I felt they were obliged to be fair to their

employees in Newfoundland. As long as they were fair to their employees in

Newfoundland and did not give them an inordinate share of the burden, I could

not complain with what they did to ensure the viability of that operation in

Corner Brook. Because it is no good trying to do anything to force them to

operate in circumstances where it could only drive them into serious financial

difficulties. We had to be understanding of the position they find themselves in

and, to whatever extent the Government can assist them, we must assist them.

But, Mr. Speaker, we cannot, for example, just pay out money

to assist them to keep the mill going because if we do then we have a similar

obligation to Abitibi-Price in respect of its two mills. If we do it in the

newsprint industry we have a similar obligation for the mining industry, and if

we do it in the mining industry we have a similar obligation to the fishing

industry, and so on and so on. Then where are we going to get the money? Are we

going to tax those three industries to get it, or are we going to tax the

unemployed workers? So you have to be realistic and recognize that we, in this

Province, are not and cannot be shielded from the effects of national economic

recession, we must live with it as best we can.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When the Premier is giving credit for the success in the

Corner Brook mill over the past few years he might also mention the effort of

the previous government headed by Premier Brian Peckford.

I would now like to ask the Premier whether his

Administration will take any steps at all, will use its considerable influence

with Corner Brook Pulp and Paper, or take other measures to ensure that the

maximum number of Newfoundlanders derive a livelihood from the Corner Brook Pulp

and Paper operations in this Province over the next year or two. I would like to

ask in particular if the Premier is prepared to act on the recommendation of Mr.

Ron Smith and the Loggers' Union that in the case of the logging operation the

Government work with the company to

schedule the logging operations to involve

and employ the maximum number of loggers? I am told this can be done in a way

that will not add to the cost of the company.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: To the first question the hon. Member

asked, Mr. Speaker, I assure the House that I would have given full credit for

any significant contribution, if I had been aware that any significant

contribution was made to the refurbishing of that mill in Corner Brook and to

what has been achieved in Corner Brook. I am very much aware of what the former

government did and what its involvement was, and I can say that I see nothing to

give any particular credit to the former government for. There is nothing to

give them any blame for, but nothing to give them any particular credit for

either.

Now, Mr. Speaker, on the second question: the Government will

do whatever it can to work with the Loggers' Union and the company to ensure

that whatever decision is made, it is made in such a way that it does the least

possible harm to the loggers. We cannot, however, tell the company how to run

their operation, they must run that. So long as they comply with our laws they

must run it in a way that they think best that secures the future viability of

the operation in western Newfoundland, but at the meantime it fairly takes into

account the interest of their loggers as well, and I have every confidence that

that company would not operate in such a way as to cause a detrimental impact on

the loggers if they could do it another way without causing any harm to the

company.

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

supplementary.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As the former lawyer for Bowater, the Premier must remember

that when Bowater decided to abandon Corner Brook, Bowater did whatever it could

to see that the mill would close. It was due to the efforts of the Peckford

administration that Kruger was secured as a new purchaser/operator.

I would like to ask the Premier now what concessions has

Corner Brook Pulp and Paper and/or Kruger requested of the Provincial Government

in relation to environmental compliance, in relation to silviculture or

reforestation, or in relation to any other contractual or legal obligations the

companies have with respect to their operations in this Province?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, on the first part of the hon.

Member's comment let me say to the House that there is nothing she has said in

this House more inaccurate than the statement she made then. I have no fear of

saying that, Mr. Speaker, because I have personal knowledge of it that no other

member of this House has. As much as I give credit to Kruger for what they have

done, let me give credit to Bowater for what they did too, Mr. Speaker, because

they recognized that those assets were for the purpose of securing the operation

of that mill in Corner Brook, and they made available

a power operation, that in terms of value, if you had to look

at it in terms of value, was worth $350 million, and did nothing about taking

the value out of it, knowing it was dedicated to the operation of the mill. To

make this kind of scurrilous attack on a company that contributed significantly

to this Province in recent years, over the last forty or fifty years, is

unforgivable.

Mr. Speaker, the Government will honour all the terms of all

the agreements that are in place.

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible) Kruger and Corner Brook Pulp and

Paper.

PREMIER WELLS: I cannot speak for Kruger or Corner Brook

Pulp and Paper.

MS. VERGE: My question was, what concessions have Kruger

requested?

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, Kruger have asked us to look

at a number of proposals.

MS. VERGE: What?

PREMIER WELLS: Kruger have asked us to look at a number

of suggestions that they made. We had only a preliminary discussion the other

day. The Minister of Forestry and Agriculture, his Deputy, and myself, met with

these three people. We had only a very preliminary discussion on a number of

proposals. I gave them a preliminary reaction of Government to those proposals

and I also gave them an undertaking that Government would look at those

proposals and respond more fully over the next few days or so.

MS. VERGE: What were the proposals?

PREMIER WELLS: Oh, there were a number of things, and

before I discuss it in public I will respond to the Kruger officials and then I

have no hesitation making them public.

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

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

I have a question for the Minister of Fisheries. Last year

when the Minister reacted to the 1990-91 Atlantic Groundfish Management Plan he

said he was unconvinced that there was a real sensitivity to the plight of the

northern cod resource as reflected in the Multi-Year Plan that we saw come down

last year, where we had a total allowable catch set for three years, decreasing

each year, I think it was, by 5000 tons. As well last year the Minister

recommended a total allowable catch of between 170,000 tons and 185,000 tons. I

am wondering if the Minister will be discussing a similar recommendation with

his Atlantic counterparts, as he is meeting with them this week, I understand?

Consequently, as he is meeting with the Federal Minister of Fisheries and

Oceans, will he be recommending a total allowable catch in the same range as he

recommended last year, or will he be recommending a reduction in the total

allowable catch that has been set for 1992?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, when we meet on Thursday, the

Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the other Atlantic Provinces

Fisheries Ministers, we will be discussing the forthcoming management plan, the

management plan for 1992, and I expect at that meeting the Federal Minister, Mr.

Crosbie, will present to the Ministers the latest scientific findings on the

health of the stocks and, if in fact, Mr. Speaker, as happened last year, it can

be shown that the stocks continue to be overfished, and if a reduction in the

total allowable catch is necessary, then the Province will do the right thing.

We will do what we have to do to ensure the future rehabilitation of the stocks,

and indeed the future of the fishing industry.

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you again, Mr. Speaker. A

supplementary to the Minister. Will he be recommending to the Federal Minister,

Mr. Crosbie, that the inshore allocation, or the inshore allowance, remain

steadfast at 115,000 metric tons? Will the Province be making that

recommendation this year?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, the position of the Province

with respect to the long established inshore allocation is pretty well known, I

think. I do not know what has happened this year that would encourage the

Province to take a different position and to maybe stand by and see the inshore

allocation tampered with. I guess, not being able at this point in time to give

the hon. gentleman a firm commitment as to what we will do, I think it is safe

to say that we are not going to be recommending to the Federal Minister that the

inshore allocation be reduced. We will wait until Thursday, but again I can

assure him that we have no intention at this point in time of making any such

recommendation.

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. I would

like to ask the Minister: in light of the controversy surrounding the 3NO zone

over the last number of months, and seeing what has taken place with the

Newfoundland boats and so on that have gone in there to fish and that have been

arrested, will the Minister be taking forward a Provincial position for

discussion with his Atlantic counterparts? More importantly, will he be

recommending to Mr. Crosbie, the Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, that

there be an allocation provided in 1992 for Newfoundland boats to fish in the

3NO zone?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I will be making a statement at

the meeting of the Ministers on Thursday. In that statement we will be setting

forth the Province's position with respect to foreign overfishing and the need

for Canada to have some kind of management control over the resource, and I will

be releasing that document to the House I expect, either before, maybe before I

make it at the meeting, or maybe right after that.

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

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

a question for the Premier too. I find it interesting over the last few months

to observe that the Premier's Ministers are falling around him like flies, and I

guess the start of his political patronage appointments to fall started this

weekend. I have always wondered what the real reasons are that Ministers quit in

the middle of a term, like several of the Ministers over there. I wonder could

the Premier tell us if the real reason that the Member for Humber West quit his

portfolio, Mr. Speaker, was that the Premier asked him to move aside from that

portfolio and offered him a lesser portfolio, in order that Ed Roberts might be

substituted for the Member for Humber West?

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I note the

Premier did not want to answer it. Maybe I am closer to the truth than he really

wants to admit. Maybe that is not the real answer. But I wonder would the

Premier tell us if the real answer as to why the Member for Humber West quit

Cabinet was that he would not cooperate with the Premier when the Premier was

trying to devise some way to circumvent the Public Tendering Act, so that he

could use the public works' fund as a Liberal slush fund? Is it true, Mr.

Speaker, that the Minister of Justice would not go along with the Premier and

that is why he quit?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I rise only to say that I am

not going to engage in this kind of scurrilous, personal attack, and respond in

that way. I mean, I am prepared to debate issues on the basis of their merits.

But I am not going to reduce myself to intellectual cowardice in responding in

this kind of a way with this kind of action.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has expired.

Before proceeding on with the routine business of the day, on

behalf of hon. Members I would like to welcome a delegation of students from

Levels I and II from the Fogo Island Central High School, accompanied by their

teacher, Mr. Clem Dwyer.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Notices of Motion

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

MR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, I move that on tomorrow, I will

ask leave to present the following resolution:

BE IT RESOLVED that the House of

Assembly Act be amended to assure the election of an aboriginal person to the

Legislature of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Orders of the Day

MR. BAKER: Order 4, Mr. Speaker.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Revise And

Consolidate The Law Respecting Crown Lands, Public Lands And Other Lands Of The

Province", (Bill No. 22).

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

Extern.

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

closed the debate on Friday and I do not know how much time I have left -

MR. SPEAKER: We will check with the table for the Member

for St. John's East Extern. You have three minutes.

MR. PARSONS: Mr. Speaker, seeing that I only have three

minutes left, I would like again to say that we on this side, have no problem

with the revamping of that Bill. The old bill was outdated and had to be

revamped and brought into this century; but what I do say to the Premier today,

who is sitting in his place, that I do not see any need for 7 (2). I do not see

any need to fix something when it is not broken. Mr. Speaker, we had no problem

in Newfoundland and Labrador with

Section 133, I think the

section was, in the

old piece of legislation.

It served Newfoundlanders and Labradorians well and all I say

to the Premier is the only part of this Bill which I have problems with is, 7

(2). I don't know the reason, but the Premier seems to be the leader in pursuing

this

section 7(2). For the life of me, I don't see it, and there are many people

like me.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: The Premier has not spoken about it this

time, but he said he would amend it, to take away whatever wrong was done in the

first instance. This bill has been on the floor three times, first, as Bill 25,

then, Bill 53, and now, Bill 22, and there have been additions and amendments.

I say to the Premier, I don't think there are any great

things, even in

section 7(2), but I believe there is a loophole, of which

advantage will be taken, not by the many, but by the few. And if one person took

advantage of that, depriving one Newfoundlander or Labradorian of the right to

fish, or to travel, the right of access to any lake, river or pond in

Newfoundland and Labrador, then I think it is wrong, Mr. Speaker. And the

Premier, perhaps, now is the only one who can change it. It is not a big deal

but, again, the option is there for someone to abuse it. Surely, Mr. Speaker,

history repeats itself, and if there is a loophole, there is a tendency towards

abuse.

There is provision now in this bill to grant land to the edge

of a pond, river, stream, or whatever. And, Mr. Speaker, a grant, unlike a lease

or a permit, as I understand it, is absolute. If a person were granted a piece

of land to build a boat house, and the boat house went back thirty-three feet,

the whole reservation, then you could fence from there in, on his personal

property. It can be said that there is provision in the act, in the amendment,

whereby one would have to leave x number of feet between the fence and the boat

house. However, Mr. Speaker, if he has granted land, I don't know if any court

in the land would say to the person, you have to leave an opening between the

boat house and the fence.

Mr. Speaker, I repeat, I don't think many people would do

this sort of thing, but if one person did, then I think it would be wrong. Mr.

Speaker, I say again to the Premier, there was nothing wrong with the act since

1949, and before. Our people delight in the outdoors and going in the woods, and

I, for one, hope there will never be an obstacle to their doing that. It would

be an awful slap in the face for many of us if we were to go up the side of a

pond, a lake, a river, and run smack dab into a chain link fence.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I rest my case, and ask the Premier

to reconsider. In support of the six-month hoist, I think it is relevant. I

think the Premier and his Cabinet, over the six months, might have a change of

heart. So, Mr. Speaker, I certainly support the Member for Torngat Mountains in

asking this legislature to vote with us for a six-month hoist.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As my colleague from St. John's East Extern has said, this is

the third time that this bill has appeared on the Order Paper, originally as

Bill 53, I think, then as Bill 25, and again, as Bill 22.

Mr. Speaker, when public hearings were held throughout this

Province on the bill, I cannot remember seeing any one group who supported the

provisions of

section 7(2), not one group, Mr. Speaker. Wildlife federations,

rod and gun clubs, The Salmonoid Council, SPAWN, and groups involved in

recreation in this Province, opposed the intent of

section 7(2), not the bill

itself. There is a recognition in the Province that there needs to be something

done to clarify the Crown Lands Act. Indeed, in many of the municipalities of

this Province and the territory bordering them there has been abuse of the Crown

land, and it certainly needed to be cleaned up.

Newfoundlanders, since we have come here - I guess in 1610

the first community was established - have always believed they had the

God-given right to proceed along the shoreline of our ponds and rivers - not as

much as the seashore. It has traditionally been accepted that individuals owned

portions and, indeed, had grants of land right to the seashore and erected

fishing premises there, and people believed it and accepted it. It has always

been a right to pursue the shoreline of this Province without any impediment

from any kind of construction.

The Minister of Environment and Lands, when he spoke on the

bill, said, you could get a permit to occupy before. While you could have gotten

a permit to occupy, what this does now is it gives an individual grant,

ownership, of a portion of land forever and a day unless some kind of an

expropriation order would come into being. It gives them that right forever and

a day to a parcel of land that had been traditionally set aside for the good of

the Province in general.

Mr. Speaker, the question is why. If the Premier and the

Cabinet wanted to put in

section 7(

d) and (e), as they did, and then say a way

out is provided in subsection (3) and (4), then why the necessity of putting in

(

d) and (e)? There is, for some reason, an apparent hidden agenda in this one.

No one in the Province wants this piece of legislation and have said so

publicly. Maybe there have been some discussions privately, and perhaps the

Minister in closing debate later on next week, will tell us about some of the

conversations that have taken place privately in this Province, as to why it is

necessary to give leases to portions of land right up to the water's edge.

Mr. Speaker, in the district that I represent, a large number

of people use, especially, the Gander River. It is, perhaps, the one area that

was more controversial than any of the other areas, because it is widely

suspected that on the Gander River certain individuals wish to have control of

large sections of the shoreline for hunting and fishing lodges and for other

reasons. It is a belief out there, Mr. Speaker, that there is somebody pushing

this to restrict access to portions of that river.

I had some discussion with the Minister of Energy, last year,

about a company that had been granted, back in the early 1900s, I think, title

to all of the land, and they have already asked several of the cabin owners

along that river to remove their cabins, even though they are back thirty-three

feet from the water's edge. Mr. Speaker, we, as the Opposition, and the people

of this Province, are suspicious of the reason for having

section 7(2),

particularly (

d) and (e), Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we have no problem with people having the right

to carry on aquaculture. We think it is highly desirable that a person who has

an investment in aquaculture along a stream would certainly have to have control

of that portion of land, and you cannot have intruders on it. In the same way,

if you had a fox farm somewhere during the breeding season, you cannot have

people interfering with the right to breed fox, just as someone who has fishing

rights cannot have people fishing on a pond before it is ready, or possibly

polluting the water that could in some way interfere with the aquaculture. There

is obviously no problem with a municipality being allowed to engage in water and

sewer projects along the seashore. Indeed, that provision has always been there.

Mr. Speaker, we have no problem with people who already have grants that were

given them maybe 150 years ago. What we do have problems with is giving the

grants now.

Mr. Speaker, the Acting Minister of Environment and Lands,

when he spoke last week, said there was no difference between a permit to occupy

and a grant or a lease. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform him that there is.

There is for a couple of reasons: Number one, PTOs are always subject to

renewals after the end of five years. I know a number of people in my district

now, Mr. Speaker - in fact, a friend of his has just recently acquired a PTO in

an area. The minister might know about it. I will tell him about it in a little

while. He acquired a PTO to occupy a portion of land on a remote access road.

Now, it is going to change and they have to get grants for that particular area.

Mr. Speaker, there is a difference, and the minister knows

change almost on a yearly basis. Each time they come up for renewal there is a

new consideration or new stipulation in the PTO. Once those grants are issued

they are going to be forever and a day.

Now, Mr. Speaker, with the passage of time, what is going to

happen as a result of this piece of legislation is Newfoundlanders are going to

feel that they are not allowed to walk along the seashore, because they are

trespassing. If someone is given title to a piece of land, a parcel of land and

he erects buildings, wharves and so on there, they are going to feel that that

is that individual's property and I cannot walk by it. A mind-set is going to

develop in the people of this Province that, for some reason, the shoreline

which was always theirs is suddenly going to be taken from them. Whether they

fence it or they erect boat houses, or whatever they have done, Mr. Speaker,

there will become a mind-set in the public, 'We are on territory or property

belonging to someone else, and we should not be here.'

Now, the minister might not think that is going to happen,

but it has already occurred, Mr. Speaker, in cabin lots where -

MR. FLIGHT: The legislation makes it impossible.

MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, the legislation does not make it

impossible.

MR. FLIGHT: (Inaudible). This legislation makes it

possible.

MR. WINSOR: No, Mr. Speaker, the legislation does not

make it possible. What this legislation does is it gives the individual the

right to that land right to the water's edge if he is given a grant.

MR. FLIGHT: (Inaudible) regulation makes it possible for

him to get the grant.

MR. WINSOR: Yes, exactly, that is what we are saying.

MR. FLIGHT: (Inaudible) impossible!

MR. WINSOR: No it's not! It makes it possible, Mr.

Speaker.

MR. PARSONS: You said it right the first time.

MR. WINSOR: You had it right the first time. Now, the

other day when the Minister of Environment introduced the bill, I thought he had

become very proficient in this particular bill, and, Mr. Speaker, I have to tell

you, I was very impressed with the minister's presentation. He did well, he did

a good job, but he has undone it all today. Because it says: 'No grant or

licence of the Crown lands shall be given except under the following

circumstances.' Then he goes on the spell out the five conditions under which he

is going to give it. Now the minister just said he is not going to give it. Now

what is it? Are you going to give or not give a grant?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) identify the purpose.

MR. WINSOR: Yes, Mr. Speaker, that is what we are talking

about in 7(2), the identified purpose.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

The Chair is, again, not going to permit this debate back and

forth unless it is done under the proper rules. If the minister wants to ask a

question or give an answer, he may ask leave of the member. With leave he can

stand and answer. I want these rules strictly adhered to, please.

The hon. the Member for Fogo.

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The minister, in his

enthusiasm with the applause he got the last day for his fine presentation has

been carried away a little bit with it and wants to speak on this bill at all

times.

Going back to what we said, the minister has now acknowledged

that people can get a grant for these reasons. Now, who in this Province, once

he has a portion of land that has been identified as his, is not going to say: I

am going to build a boat house? Then, once he gets the boat house built - the

minister has no reason not to give the land to the individual, to erect a boat

house. So he is going to acquire title to that land. He would be a fool not to.

Why is the minister going to deny someone that portion of land? Legislation

covers it. Unless it is going to be selective, unless the average Joe on the

street is going to be denied that lease. But some people, certain influential

members of society, are going to have access to that land. Perhaps that is why

the minister said that not everyone - under certain conditions. Well, what are

these conditions going to be?

AN HON. MEMBER: Clause 7.

MR. WINSOR: Clause 7. Well, I just read Clause 7(2) (e):

"for the purpose of giving a licence only for the construction of boat houses

and wharves to the extent that they intrude on the reservation." Clause 7(2) (

e) clearly states it, Mr. Speaker.

MR. WARREN: You're trying to cover up, but you can't

cover up.

MR. WINSOR: Then 7(4) says, "A grant, lease or licence

issued under paragraph (2)(

d) or (

e) shall not permit a grantee, lessee or

licensee to restrict access to the reservation on the part of the general public

by erecting a fence or by other means." But 7(2) (

e) says he is allowed to erect

a boat house; in 7(4) it says you can't erect one. Now what is it going to be,

Mr. Speaker? It has to be one or the other. The minister is obviously not clear.

He has become a little bit confused. I think that is what has happened. On

Thursday, when he introduced the bill, he had some good briefing notes prepared

for him. The minister was quite confident in his presentation. Today, I think

the minister has slipped somewhat, and now he is not really, really sure of what

the intent of this bill is.

Mr. Speaker, the Member for St. John's East commented that

the Premier seemed to be adamant that this bill be passed. Now, the Premier

indicated that he has not spoken on it. Mr. Speaker, the Premier did speak on

this bill, when it had another name, in a fiery, passionate defence of the need

to have

section 7(2) included, and he would not withdraw it despite the protests

in all the presentations that have been made. Some of them, by the way, the

Member for Mount Scio stirred up the protest, said it was not right and that the

recommendation was going to come back to change 7(2) because it somehow

interfered with the rights of Newfoundlanders.

Now, Mr. Speaker, personally, I am - as my colleague for St.

John's East Extern said, he frequently goes in the woods, and I have a cabin

where we have a PTO. I don't think we will ever get a lease to where the

particular

section -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Yes, Mr. Speaker, a friend and I have a cabin

in the Weirs Pond area, back in the country, across the pond and we have a PTO.

We have had it now for about ten years.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who gave it to you?

MR. WINSOR: Who gave us the PTO? Crown Lands in Gander,

Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: No, Mr. Speaker, we have no access to the

thirty-three feet along the shoreline. As a matter of fact, if this bill is

passed, it is possible, in our particular case, in view of where our cabin is

situated, that we might be denied entry forever because of an old road. If

someone acquires title to the old road, we can't get along by the beach to put

our boat in the water, so we will never get to our cabin.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is right.

MR. WINSOR: So, Mr. Speaker, there are provisions in this

that can restrict access. The people in this Province have asked this

administration on two occasions to delay the implementation of this bill.

My colleague from Torngat Mountains said, 'Hold on now,

what's the rush? You have not given us a satisfactory explanation as to why we

should have this bill now. What is the pressing emergency?' He asked that we

have a six-month hoist to see if there is something that can be done to

accommodate those in this Province who feel that this bill needs change.

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that there is an ulterior

motive in including this 7(2). What it is, at this point in time, we are not

sure. Perhaps when the minister speaks later in debate, when he asks the House

to vote for the six-month hoist so that this bill can have further study, he

will give us an explanation as to why Government feels that this particular bill

is needed now.

Mr. Speaker, I ask members opposite, Government members, when

they vote next week on this piece of legislation that they vote in favour of the

six-month hoist, so that before it again comes to this House, we can have more

input from the citizens of this Province as to why they feel this legislation is

wrong and needs further amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

I have a few words to say on this bill, Mr. Speaker. First of

all I want to congratulate the minister on presenting the bill, because he did

give a good outline of what it stands for. He gave us fairly good detail.

AN HON. MEMBER: He knows a lot more than you do.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Yes, I admit that he knows a lot more -

well, I don't know if knows a lot more, but he certainly gave us a lot more

detail than I know about it. He presented his case quite well, and he did a good

job. I cannot disagree with that. I don't know if the presentation he has made -

he told his staff to prepare a text which will give me this type of a flow which

will hide what people in this Province are saying, that this act will restrict

their access to ponds.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: He did a good job, I don't disagree, but

he left out some things. When he delivered the text that he had, and I know he

understood it because it sounded like he did when he presented it, but when he

deviated a little from what he had prepared, he seemed to waver in his knowledge

of what this act was going to be.

Now he keeps saying, and he still keeps saying today, that in

the old act you can get a grant for thirty-three foot reservations around the

pond, or whatever it may be, some are thirty-three, some are fifty, some are ten

metres, some are fifteen metres. Now what the Minister was saying, and where I

think he was confused, I do not blame him, I am a surveyor by the way, and I do

not know if I am in conflict of interest by even talking about it.

If there is a conflict, I have to declare it, so I declare a

conflict just in case there is one, because I will be surveying Crown Lands,

maybe even tomorrow, maybe the weekend I am not sure, but I just want to declare

that I am a surveyor and if there is a conflict, I want to declare that there is

a conflict.

By doing that I can now continue. What the Minister was

saying, and he was getting mixed up between Permits to Occupy and Grants of

Land, it is not easy, the average person would not understand the big

difference. If I have a piece of land and the Government gives me a piece of

paper to say I can stay there, that is all I want; most people would not know if

it is a grant, a lease or a Permit To Occupy.

But what the Minister kept saying is that the old act could

allow you to get a grant to the reservation around freshwater bodies. It was

never on saltwater bodies anyway. With saltwater bodies you could own right up

to the shore, you always could. This will change that. I do not know if that is

good or bad.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. R. AYLWARD: Yes. I would say that for the business of

fishing, it would probably be good for people to own right up to the high water

mark, with small stages et cetera and most of the used areas that are used for

fishing, all areas around coves are all claimed anyway, so it would not be Crown

Land. You would not be reserving a reservation around on any of those places

unless you happen to give out a Crown grant on them now, but what the Minister

used to say is that the old act can grant a Permit to Occupy and he was getting

confused that by saying the word grant, that we were granting this land.

Now a Permit to Occupy is just that. The Government will

allow you to occupy that land for a specific short period of time until they

need the use of that land, and if they need the use of that land, you have no

recourse but to move off that land when they request it.

A Grant of Land is much different. The only jurisdiction in

this Province who can give you a grant, for one thing, is the Crown. They can

only give you a grant if the land for which you are applying is Crown Land which

has never had any adverse claims to it and, Mr. Speaker, that is the difference

between this Bill and what was there in the past.

What we are doing with this Bill, is serious. I still say

most people in this House of Assembly do not understand what we are doing. It is

a very serious thing we are doing. If you agree with people owning the

reservations up to the pond, vote for this Bill because that can happen. It is

difficult to block access to it, but you can own right up to the pond. You may

have to go around your boat house, it is quite possible, but you can own land,

an outright grant of land right to the high water mark of a pond now, which you

could never do before through a grant.

You could do it by adverse claim, squatter's rights as it is

known, but you could never get an outright grant of land right up to the high

water mark of a pond. Now this act will allow that to happen.

That is a significant change -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: I will tell you what a Permit to Occupy

is. I will tell you as I have been at this for thirty-five years. I will tell

you what it is.

Mr. Speaker, a Permit to Occupy, for the Minister's

information, allows a person certain rights to a certain piece of land for very

specific short periods of time, unless the Government needs it, unless the

Government needs it in the meantime. It is always in there, unless the

Government needs it back, and if the Government needs it back they might pay you

for the improvements that you have made to it, they might, but they do not have

to, but they could pay you for those improvements and then you have to

disappear. Now that could be five years, it could be ten; you can limit them, it

could be one year; there are different types of Permits to Occupy, but that was

always there and I say to the Minister, yes, that was always there. You could

get a permit to occupy right to the high-water mark, but that is all you could

get.

AN HON. MEMBER: (inaudible)

MR. R. AYLWARD: Right to the water's edge, right to the

high-water mark which is considered the water's edge, the high-water mark in a

pond. That is what a surveyor will use to judge the reservation, the high-water

mark. Now, if the pond is out twenty feet past that because there is no water in

it that does not matter.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair tries to be flexible. The Minister sees what was

going on wrong. Thank you, very much.

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

I was accommodating the Minister, and I appreciate the

Minister's input in this because I know he is sincere in what he is saying. He

is not trying to do this to dupe people or fool people. I think it is a matter

of understanding exactly what we are doing here. A lot of people would support

this, by the way, support having a grant to a boat house that you now have.

There are some very substantial boat houses on these reservations that people

have no claim to, and someone could come and bulldoze them out any time they

wanted to. There are a lot of people who would support this to allow them to

have a grant for that boat house, a grant for the wharf, or a grant on some

occasions for their cabins because some cabins are built on this ten or fifteen

foot right-of-way. It would get some significant support but the principle of

the thing is what we are trying to argue here, what we are trying to make people

understand. There is a difference, once this is passed, to what is happening

today. A permit to occupy is a completely different legal status than a grant of

land. A permit to occupy is spelled out very specifically, what you can do with

it, how long you have it, if it can be renewed, all of these things are in a

permit to occupy, but a grant gives you freehold title to a piece of land. You

can put restrictions in that grant, and it has been done in the past. The

Minister was not around at the time but in the early 70s when Premier Moores was

here there was a lot of turmoil about Crown land. They wanted to reform the

Crown Lands Act, to speed up the process, and at the same time, around 1972 to

1974 there was a lot of agricultural land which was being lost to agriculture in

this Province. There was a suggestion put forward that we only lease

agricultural land from now on and that we only lease Summer cottage lots. The

only ones we would give a grant for would be residence. Mr. Speaker, the

agricultural proposal did not come into effect very quickly. They were still

granting agricultural land for quite some time, but they were granting it with

conditions. They had certain conditions on the land. You could not subdivide it

for a specific amount of time. You could not give it to your son or daughter to

build a house on. All these conditions were in the grant. Mr. Speaker, somebody

took that grant to court. They went to court with the grant that had conditions

on it and it was ruled in court that the conditions did not override the

freehold title of the land. Now, that is where the problem comes in. If you give

a grant to this reservation it is much different than what used to be done,

which was a permit to occupy. The freehold title of that granted agricultural

land, back in the 70s, had more weight than the conditions that were on it so

this piece of land was allowed to be subdivided.

AN HON. MEMBER: What

Section are you on?

MR. R. AYLWARD: I am still generally talking about

Section 7, but I am referring back to what the old act was and giving an

example, if you bring this in, of what the old act was for land generally. You

could never grant the reservation before. You could never grant it. There were

people who owned it by adverse possession, by squatters rights but they had no

grants on it. What happened later, when the court did decide that the freehold

title of this grant had more weight than the conditions that were attached to

the grant, and the land was subdivided, from that day on, or a little while

after that, the Crown would only lease agricultural land. Now, agricultural land

in this Province is very scarce. There is not an overabundance of it so it is

important to protect it. I believe it is very important to protect it. Farmers,

by the way, do not agree with this. All the farmers in my district tell me I am

crazy. They want to own their land the same as every other Newfoundlander wants

to own his land. I argued with them when I was minister and I will argue them

black and blue today, that agricultural land is a very small resource. It has to

be protected. It should be leased, not granted. Now if I argued that for

agricultural land, certainly I cannot get up here and argue that the Minister

should be allowed to give out grants for reservations around a pond.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: It is almost the same. It is almost the

same, protecting your resource for the Province - access - free, unlimited

access to rivers and ponds around our Province, Mr. Speaker, free and unlimited

access to rivers. It is a tradition. It is a heritage, Mr. Speaker, and it

certainly is a resource and a right that we want to protect in this Province.

Now this is not going to stop your access immediately for rivers and ponds

around the Province, but it is a start. It is the first nail in the coffin. It

can be changed and softened up a bit more. This is the first step in this area,

Mr. Speaker, to relax the regulations that we have now. For whatever reasons

there are, if some people do have very expensive boat houses on this reservation

and they want to protect them, which I can understand, the permit to occupy

satisfied that for years in the past, and the permit to occupy could continue to

do that. If they get a grant for this piece of land, their next step then could

be to block off access. If you have a ten meter reservation, and somebody either

has a boat big enough, or money enough-

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I have to remind the Minister of Development of a rule that I

have made, and I do not mean to be cantankerous today, but it is the Chair's job

to ensure that the rules of the House are kept. I have told hon. members that at

no time are hon. members to have their back to the House. That is a difficulty

that we have with these rotating chairs, but if hon. members can remember that

please, it would help the chair immensely for members not to have their back to

the House.

The hon. the Minister of Development.

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, I apologize. My hon. friend from

St. John's North, the Minister of Education, was discussing a very significant

project for Bonavista North, so I apologize.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair realizes that, but the Chair will

tell the hon. member there is a vacant chair to the right of the Minister, and

the Minister could have gone, sat down, and discussed at full length the issue

of Bonavista North.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I hope you get your project in Bonavista North,

and I hope he does not try to fool it up on you now that you have brought him to

order.

Now, Mr. Speaker, where was I? I do not know, and nobody else

does.

MR. SPEAKER: If I can interrupt the Member for Kilbride

for just another minute. This is the point the Chair is making: with the chairs

we have - I know hon. members do not mean to break the rules, but it is so

comfortable to just turn around, this then creates a lot of loud talking. The

way it is generally done is if there is a vacant chair near the member, slip

into it and discuss the matter you are handling as quietly as possible so as not

to interfere with the rest of the House.

The Chair has to do this because if we let it go then, of

course, as hon. members realize, it will become a matter of habit, and it does

look awful to see members turned back-on to the House and engaged in heavy

conversation. Sometimes it is directed not only to the member immediately behind

him, but the member in the next row, and it becomes quite loud and the hon.

member does not realize that.

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

I still hope you get your project in Bonavista North, Mr.

Speaker, but after another couple of interruptions -

Mr. Speaker, what I was saying was that what we had at one

time is a permit to occupy this reservation. If you do happen to be lucky enough

to have an expensive boat house, or a fairly substantial wharf, or a part of

your summer residence happens to be built on this reservation, Mr. Speaker, you

could get a permit to occupy. Just as a for instance now, if you did have a

Summer cabin, a lot maybe, we will take that for an example, and it was on a

pond, and you wanted to build a boat house, and you have a ten meter reservation

around from the high water mark on your pond, and you wanted to build a boat

house. Under this regulation you have to publicize it for three months that you

want to build a boat house and you - well no, you do not, actually. You can

still build your boat house. Yes. Now you do not understand that part either.

You can still build your boat house. When you get the boat house built, as the

Member for Fogo said, then you can come and ask for the grant, but then you have

to publicize why you want it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: That is probably what the Minister wants,

what the Minister would like to see, and that is probably the right way to go,

but that is not necessarily the way that it has to go under this Act. Because

there is not - we cannot today enforce the traffic laws on our highways, Mr.

Speaker. If you think you are going to enforce every ten (Inaudible) - you

cannot do it. So although it is right what the Minister might like to see, the

practicalities of what has happened is somebody is going to build a wharf and

then he is going to come looking for a grant. That word frightens me when you

talk about reservations.

But okay. He comes, he publishes, he looks for a grant, he

wants to - now if he did not have his house built he gets a grant for a piece of

land. Now if he builds that boat house ten metres wide, a thirty foot boat

house, it would be a substantial one. You could probably bring in your relatives

and keep them in that for awhile, if you like. But he could build a thirty foot

boat house. Yes, ten metre or thirty-three foot boat house. Then it is blocked.

Now I know this says that he has to still provide access

around the back of that boat house, whether it be thirty, fifty or 100 feet. He

still has to provide access around it, and that is good - for this year. But

next year he is going to have a fence up next to that boat house, and then the

access is blocked, whether you like it or not. Whether we agree with it or not.

Nobody else is going to - nobody is going to know the difference unless it is

reported. It will be blocked. Somebody comes to use the access, to use that

piece of fresh water to go fishing, hunting, boating or whatever they want, they

will be blocked access from around that pond. If a person was really devious

enough they could do it on both sides of their lot, and then nobody will be able

to access that whole frontage in front of that lot, if they have two ten metre

boat houses on both sides. It is very expensive but it is possible.

That is why, Mr. Speaker, I am against this legislation in

principle. I think it needs a bit more thought. We have concentrated on

Section

7 pretty well on this. There are lots of good things in this Act, I am not

against this Act per se. This does put together a lot of lands law, law towards

land and Crown land in this Province and consolidate it. That is what it is for.

There is a lot of good stuff in here. But I have a gut feeling that we should

take some more time to consider what we are doing here in

Section 7.

I would even be willing to go along with this if the Minister

could give me a good reason as to why it has to be done. I cannot rationalize in

my mind why this would have to be done. I do not understand. I survey a lot of

pieces of property, I see lots of boat houses and wharves. Things are getting

along okay. If the Minister was concerned that the permit to occupy that we have

in the legislation today could restrict access to beaches or the thirty-three

foot reservation, well let's change the permit to occupy so that it would

alleviate his fears. But do not grant the land. Because the first fellow who

takes this grant to court in the next five or ten years will probably be allowed

to block access to that pond. Only one person will have to get the right to

block access to that pond. You know how many summer cabins, wharves and boat

houses - even summer cabins alone - are around this Province, and what they

would do if everyone decided to block their own piece of land from access around

that pond. It would be serious, it would be a complete change in what we are

used to in this Province.

Every piece of Crown land that was granted from that time

after could do the same thing, if the court rules. I do not know how the court

is going to rule. I did not expect in the 70s that it would be ruled in court

that a grant with conditions on it - that the freehold title holds more weight

than the conditions attached to that grant. If I have a freehold title without

conditions and you have freehold title with conditions on the piece next to me

and the judge looks at the two of them, he says both should be equal, you have

no conditions so your freehold title should be as good as the man next to you,

to what you have. So that is where I see it is a legal problem, and I certainly

do not profess to know what courts are going to rule, but I have been involved

in enough legal land cases, I have been in court as a witness several times on

land boundaries, lost posts -

AN HON. MEMBER: They caught you.

MR. R. AYLWARD: They caught me, as the Minister said. But

I was brought down as an expert witness. The only time in my life that I was

ever considered an expert was on a couple of pieces of land that I happened to

survey. But the rulings that came out of the court when the judge ruled on them,

it seemed to me, as a trained professional in one field - one very narrow field

I admit - seemed not to be logical. They were not logical from a surveyors point

of view. They certainly could be from a lawyers, obviously they were for the

judge's, or they could be for some other reasons, some other laws that I did not

know. But they were not logical from a - it was a piece of land that was to be

divided, and someone claimed this, and someone claimed that. One fellow had an

older claim than the other, and it seemed to me, as a surveyor, to have more

evidence that this claim - and what the judge did was split it all in half, and

it seemed like none of the evidence was considered. Maybe that was the fairest

thing to do, I do not know. He certainly had a lot more to think about than the

two or three minutes testimony I gave or the knowledge I had about surveying.

But that is what I am afraid of with these grants. If somebody gets a grant on

this foreshore or this ten metre reservation, I am worried that they could take

it to court. The ruling might be just as the Minister says: you cannot block

access, you cannot stop anyone from going around, and hopefully that will be

correct, but we are putting it out of our hands. It is like when Prime Minister

Trudeau repatriated the Constitution, and we got our Charter of Rights in, and

we went more to the American system where the courts decide more of what happens

to our lives now than the political people. It could be good or bad. The

Americans seem to think that it is the way to go. I just don't. I think the

political system should be able to dictate what happens in our lives rather than

the court system - one or two or maybe seven or eight men.

Mr. Speaker, I am nervous about this provision. I think we

should take some time to consider it a bit further. It is not critical that this

be done today or tomorrow, this month or next month; we have been here 600

years. We have the worst land registry system in the entire world, I would say,

certainly in North America. It is the most disastrous land tenure everywhere. It

is that because of our history, because we were not allowed to be here. So I was

not telling anyone that I was here and I owned this fifty acres, I just went and

took it. That is why, it is nobody's fault. It just evolved.

I was telling a story one time. I was surveying for Crown

lands years ago, when I was a younger surveyor, and we were doing Crown land

boundaries, that is what it was called. It was a big project to try and find out

where - the Crown is the biggest owner of land in the Province, and it is the

one that knows the least about its boundaries. It does not make sense from a

surveyors point of view, but certainly from a Treasury Board point of view it

would probably make a lot of sense. But, Mr. Speaker, we were surveying the

land, and you go to this person and say, 'how much land do you own?' The only

way you could decide is what that person who owned the land today told you where

the Crown land boundary was. 'How much to you own?' 'I owns back as far as you

can see up on top of that hill.' I said they will probably be getting all these

properties together now, and I think property tax might be coming in very soon.

'Just a little bit behind my house,' he said, 'you can put that line there.' So

it is very subjective, our land tenure system, and it depends on what, at the

time, the person thinks you want to know what his land is for. So if it was for

a tax purpose he was willing to claim a lot less than he did, and it was a lot

easier to survey just behind his house too.

Mr. Speaker, those are some of the reasons why I am nervous

about this legislation, this one

section of this piece of legislation, not all

of it. It is good legislation. It should have been consolidated years ago. I

congratulate the Minister and the Government for doing the job on it. I just do

not like this specific piece because it changes our historic treatment of that

ten metre reservation to give it the potential of restricting access. It does

not automatically do it and it might never happen for ten minutes, it might

never happen for ten years.

The Minister can smile, I am not being facetious in this, I

am not doing this to give you a hard time. I believe wholeheartedly that there

will be a court case, fairly soon, to show that no matter what conditions you

have on this, once you grant that piece of land, a court is going to treat that

grant as a grant, the same as they did in the 70s with a piece of agricultural

land that had conditions on it. It was considered as a grant without conditions

when the final judgement came, and without all the conditions in particular.

That is why agricultural Crown Lands today is still leased land, rather than

granted land with conditions, because very often those conditions will not hold

up in court.

Mr. Speaker, with those few words, I just want to say again,

I support my colleague's motion to hoist this bill for six months. I think it

would do all Members of this Legislature some good to give this bill a bit more

consideration and see what we could come up with to satisfy what the Premier

wants or the Government or the Cabinet wants to do with this legislation.

There would probably be even a simpler way. The simpler way

for me, would be for the Minister to tell me why. Why this change? With a Permit

to Occupy, if you have problems with it, it can be geared to help you out, can

be written in a certain way so that you can alleviate your concerns. A grant

takes it out of your hands, takes it out of Cabinet's hands and leaves it up to

a judge and a court to rule some day in the future what this grant meant and

whether it was meant to restrict access to the ten metre reservation or not.

So I ask the Minister to consider his haste or to supply

Members on this side with a logical reason why this change is necessary. If you

have to give some permit to use that foreshore, that ten metres, give it in the

Permit to Occupy so you can control it. Give it even in a lease, it might make

more sense, but take the word 'grant' out of it; if you use grant then you lose

control of it; then you give away freehold title. The Crown then does not hold

title to it officially. The Crown has given that title to someone else and if

you give a lease, you will keep the ultimate title; if you give a Permit to

Occupy, you will also keep the ultimate title and you will have control to do

whatever you wish to do for bringing this in in the first place. You have that

control now; whatever the reasoning in this act, you can carry out that

intention by lease or by Permit to Occupy, but you do not need to have it given

out as a grant. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia

West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, listening to my colleague, who I

guess knows more about this Bill than anyone, I wonder what would happen if

Government were to enact this Bill and what it would mean to the people of the

Province. I can only conclude that Government probably has some of their buddies

out there who they are trying to look after, because this Government - the

Minister of Education smiles; he is one of the people who practices this very

well.

The practice is the pork barrelling system and I would not at

all be surprised for a minute if this Government wants to give granted land on

rivers and lakes in this Province to some of their big business buddies. That

would not surprise me one bit. I do not blame the Minister of Forestry and

Agriculture because I do not think that he is involved in something like that;

but again, I think that he could be pressured into doing it by some of his

Cabinet colleagues.

I am very suspicious of what is taking place as it relates to

this new Bill. Now, as my colleague was stating, the biggest problem with the

Bill is the word 'grant'. Government is going to enact the word 'grant' rather

than the words 'lease' or 'Permit to Occupy'.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Permit to Occupy is the best.

MR. TOBIN: I do not know, Mr. Speaker. So that means that

if someone today has a cabin or a cottage, or whatever you want to call it, on a

pond or a river in this Province, they can now go out and have it granted. I

know that we can get permits to occupy and we can also get the lease, but under

this system here the Minister would be giving us a grant to the land. We talk

about construction of boat houses and things such as that, close to the water's

edge, the high-water mark, as I understand it, is what - I am in the process of

having some land surveyed myself and I think the high-water mark as I have been

told by the surveyers, is what would be included in the land, from the

high-water mark.

The question, Mr. Speaker, is - and the Minister has to give

an answer to this, and I understand he has not done it yet - why does Government

want to bring in a grant system for Crown land in this Province in terms of

cottages on rivers and lakes? Is it because they have buddies out there that

they are trying to look after? Is it a buddy system, Mr. Speaker, the big

business people?

I could not help, as I was glancing through Hansard that time

and looking at how Government - I did not know about it, I had not read the

papers in the last few days or heard the news from Newfoundland, because I was

on a parliamentary conference. I cannot help, Mr. Speaker, but really wonder if

this bill, together with all the rest of it, is not part of big business being

taken care of by this Government. The crowd who own large construction companies

and get millions of dollars worth of contracts, why wouldn't the Government

permit them to have granted land on rivers and let the poor people, Mr. Speaker,

swim rather than walk around their property?

What about the person who has fished on the ponds and lakes

in this Province for the past 500 years? What about them, Mr. Speaker? Will they

now be able to go to the pond of their choice or will they now have to cross

over someone's veranda on a cottage because of grants made to some of

Government's big business buddies? Will they be allowed to do that, Mr. Speaker?

I would suggest they will not.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, sit down!

MR. TOBIN: No, I won't sit down. And if you are sincere

in your endeavours for fishermen in this Province, you will not sit down either

when the vote comes on this Bill. Because whether they be fishing offshore or

inshore or on ponds or lakes, the rights of Newfoundlanders is what's being

questioned here, the principle of Newfoundlanders being able to do what they

have been doing for 500 years. If they can catch fish, as the Member for Port de

Grave is saying, on the Grand Banks for 500 years, they should still be allowed

to do it, and if they have been allowed to fish ponds and lakes and rivers in

this Province for 500 years, they should be allowed to continue it, Mr. Speaker,

and granted, titled land to the high-water mark should not be given to people

who are friends of this Administration. It should not be allowed to happen, but

that is what will happen, Mr. Speaker.

I don't think the Minister himself would like to deny people

the right to fish and swim, because I understand the Minister is a fellow who

enjoys and appreciates the wildlife.

AN HON. MEMBER: I would never do that.

MR. TOBIN: No, I do not think you would. But I can tell

you there are people sitting on that side of the House who like the comfort of

privacy, who like the comfort of their millionaire buddies sitting around. They

are over there, Mr. Speaker, who do not want the ordinary Newfoundlander with

his pair of boots hauled up around his legs out with a bamboo in front of his

cabin. They are over there who do not want it, and this act will deny them the

right to do it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Slow down a bit.

MR. TOBIN: I will not slow down a bit . I will say what I

have to say, and if you do not like it, it is too bad, leave. That is what I

will do, Mr. Speaker, because this irritates me, this torments me, to see -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Yes, okay, boy. I can just tell you that I did

attend a parliamentary conference in the Yukon, and it was too short, Mr.

Speaker. When you look at this Bill, at the rights that people have in the Yukon

and the Territories in terms of their livelihood from fishing and hunting, when

you look at that, Mr. Speaker, and see what this Government is trying to do with

this Bill, this piece of legislation, maybe we should all attend a parliamentary

conference where hunting and fishing is so important to the livelihoods of

people. We should all attend that type of a conference.

Under this piece of legislation, I have great fears of what

could take place when the big business people, the buddies who get the tenders

to construct hospitals in this Province, as I just read from Hansard, I do not

know who owns the companies to be honest with you, and I could not care less,

but if things are being done for people in this Province do not be surprised if

certain people in this Province do not fence their land to the high-water mark.

I am not suggesting for one minute that this Minister intends for that to

happen. I am not suggesting that, but I am saying if you can build a boat house

in front of your cabin, in back of your cabin on a pond, or whatever the case

may be, if you can construct a boat house on your property if it is granted,

which will be to the high-water mark, then does a man or woman who have fished

there, trouted, or whatever the case may be, all their lives -

MR. FLIGHT: (Inaudible) doing that.

MR. TOBIN: Sure, but you are not giving people grants to

the high-water mark because right now under a permit to occupy or a lease, and I

know what I am talking about because I have a cabin on a pond, and I do not mind

admitting it, and people come time and time again to fish in front of my place.

I go out and chat with them and we have a great time and all that, but under

this here if I or anyone else was to get a grant, saying you can build a boat

house to the high-water mark then so can the Minister of Social Services and

other people. That is what we are saying. That is what this act will do.

MR. HOGAN: (Inaudible)

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Social Services

is back in the House and it took him two minutes to get up. Probably he should

get up and talk about the rights of people with cabins, what they can do, and

how they can abuse the system. Probably the Minister of Social Services can tell

us how the system can be abused by those who have cabins and cottages.

MR. HOGAN: (Inaudible) your buddy - boat house -

MR. TOBIN: Yes, I consider you my buddy so I know who you

are talking about. You do not have to mention your name. I look over at the

Member for Baie Verte - White Bay who is listening to what I am saying and I

hope he realizes that the people who fish ponds, lakes, and rivers in his

district will not be able to do it in a few years time if this Bill is enacted

because there will be people in this Province who will put boat houses to the

waters edge and then fence it. That will happen.

MR. FLIGHT: (Inaudible.)

MR. TOBIN: That will not stop it. That will grant it.

Right now if you have a permit to occupy the Government can take it on you in

ten minutes. If they want they can reimburse you for what they take but they do

not have to. The other avenue is a lease that has worked very well in this

Province. What scares me is not the ordinary Newfoundlander and Labradorian who

have cottages and cabins on a pond, that is not what bothers me.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do you have a grant for yours?

MR. TOBIN: A grant, no, a lease. I do not know what I

have. I do not have a grant, I know that.

AN HON. MEMBER: You do not know the difference.

MR. TOBIN: Yes, I do know the difference. I have a PTO

and I am in the process of getting a lease. I can tell you this much, Mr.

Speaker, that is if I can get my colleague to survey it, that it is not the

ordinary Newfoundlander that causes me concern, because most people in rural

Newfoundland today respect the rights of people who fish around lakes and ponds,

as they have done all their lives. It is the big business people who are cosy to

this Government-

MR. HOGAN: Who?

MR. TOBIN: Who should know better than the Minister of

Social Services? The Minister of Social Services is talking about big business.

He has brought so much welfare to the Placentia area, Mr. Speaker, that this

year Placentia got more money for projects because many more people there are

unemployed than in any other part of the Province. That would not have happened

if he had stood up with me and fought to make sure a portion of the Hibernia

development, if not all of it, took place in Placentia Bay. What has happened?

There is so much welfare now, in the minister's district, that he has to - and I

don't blame him, for having the most money, with the number of people who are

unemployed in that district. Because that is all one can conclude when one looks

at the statistics, that if the most money went there, that is where the most

money was deserved. That is the mess that this minister has brought to his

district.

So he should get them all out building fences, or tearing

down fences, around the ponds.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: No, the minister doesn't bother me either,

because I know he respects the rights of the people of Newfoundland to fish in

the lakes, rivers and ponds. If someone did it in front of his place he would

probably invite him in for a cup of tea. I understand that is the type of man he

is. But it is the big business people who are cosy to this Government that cause

me concern. If the millionaire buddies of the Premier, Mr. Speaker, or of any of

the other ministers, or the highfalutins of this Province, get on a pond that is

good for salmon and fishing, and if there is any way that they can prevent the

ordinary Joe from fishing in front of their cottage, then you can be assured

that the ordinary Joe will not be permitted to fish. That is exactly what this

bill will enable them to do.

So there is someone somewhere on a lake or river in this

Province whom this Government is trying to look after. As the debate goes on, I

just might say more. But there is someone somewhere who wants this enacted. If

not, why does the Government bring it in? That is the question.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, probably the minister over there

should get up and tell us who wants it done. If I understood rightly what he

said. He should get up and say over there why they are doing it. But he hasn't

done it yet!

Does the Member for Fortune - Hermitage want the people of

his district to be denied the right to fish? Does he want people to have their

cottages or their cabins there, and then build their boat houses to the

high-water mark, and put up a fence and let nobody fish in front of their

properties on the lakes, rivers and ponds in his district? I suggest he does

not. There is one way to prevent it, and that is if enough over there have the

courage to stand with us.

MR. HOGAN: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Well then, you didn't stand when they closed

the Placentia hospital, I can't see you standing up for a piece of Crown land.

When the sick and the suffering of Placentia were thrown to the wolves, you

didn't stand. I don't expect him to stand for a piece of Crown land, Mr.

Speaker.

MR. PARSONS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Yes, that is right. My colleague for St.

John's East Extern said he knows you long enough to know that you won't stand.

Now, I don't know what that is about. Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the Member for Placentia is doing

an awful lot of interrupting. I don't know what is on his mind, why he is so

distraught. I know what it is! He is against this piece of legislation, and he

is in Cabinet and he can't stand up! That is his problem.

MR. MATTHEWS: What do you mean, he can't stand up? Can't

he get up?

MR. TOBIN: No he can't. Because he would have to resign

from Cabinet, and he won't do it. I suspect he shouldn't do it. Because there is

a fellow behind your back now and you had better be careful. I tell you, I

wouldn't be looking this way too quick.

MR. EFFORD: Are you talking about me?

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, every time I say something in

this House the Member for Port de Grave asks, 'Are you talking about me?' Why

does he have such a complex?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Oh, is that right? Mr. Speaker, why did he

attack the Member for St. John's East the other night when he was not even here,

if he is that type of fellow? Every time the Member for St. John's East is not

here, he gets on his feet and attacks him, but he never does it in front of the

members when the member is here. It is when he is not here that you hear the

Member for Port de Grave.

Now, I want to get on with this. They are trying to distract

me from speaking to this bill.

MR. MATTHEWS: They can't stand the heat.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Crosbie is going to (inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: They cannot stand the heat because they

know you are picking them apart.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I can't hear what you are saying.

MR. MATTHEWS: When was the last time you were in the

House? Now, there is a slur on a member!

MR. TOBIN: Wednesday, Mr. Speaker.

MR. MATTHEWS: Tell them where you were.

MR. TOBIN: I went to the Yukon on Wednesday evening. As a

matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I was attending a parliamentary conference with two

of his colleagues, if he wants to know where I was.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, where you?

MR. TOBIN: Yes, I was, and we enjoyed it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who was with you?

MR. TOBIN: Well, I can tell you, it is not every member

over there that I would travel with, to a parliamentary conference, either.

But I want to say this: I expect there is someone out there,

somewhere who has a cabin or a cottage on a piece of Crown Land who wants to

travel with somebody, I can tell you that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Did you read the bill?

MR. TOBIN: Yes, I read the bill. As a matter of fact, we

were briefed and had a discussion.

AN HON. MEMBER: Tell the truth, you never looked at it.

MR. MATTHEWS: What did he say?

MR. TOBIN: Tell the truth, you never looked at it.

MR. MATTHEWS: Tell him you took it with you on the

conference to the Yukon.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, not only did I read the bill, I

had it with me, and I intended, although I never got around to it, to talk to

some of the leaders in the Yukon, to find out if they tolerated this type of

Government action on their lakes, rivers and ponds; that is what I intended to

do, but I never got around to it.

The Minister of Forestry and Agriculture, has to come clean

with the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Unlike the President of Treasury

Board as it relates to the construction of hospitals in this Province; from what

I have read in Hansard, he squiggled and squirmed, he didn't come clean. More

questions will be asked now that I am back as the official critic and I will

demand answers. But I say this: that the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture

has to answer because he has a responsibility to tell us who is the person or

persons that this act is going to look after.

AN HON. MEMBER: Bagmen.

MR. TOBIN: Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. TOBIN: What my colleague just said. I would not say

that, but I will say that there is someone, somewhere who controls, to a large

extent, what is taking place in this Province.

MR. DOYLE: Some of the Premier's friends.

MR. TOBIN: Well, they say it is some of the Premier's

friends, I don't know, Mr. Speaker. It is more than I can say, I don't know.

MR. WINSOR: He will have no friends left out in Gander.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: Some of the President's friends, he said.

MR. TOBIN: Probably, I do not know, Mr. Speaker.

The President of Treasury Board might have a point when he

says they are his friends because there are some great fishing areas and some

great developments on Gander Lake and the Gander River. I suspect that he

probably has some friends; and when he says that they are his friends this bill

is looking after, probably, he is right. But rather than saying it and

whispering it, let him stand in this House and put it on record, that is what

the President of Treasury Board should do.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: It is his friend?

MR. DOYLE: Mankind of every description without any

exception of persons.

MR. TOBIN: I heard Mr. March paying him high compliments

in the last few days with the exception of one.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Yes, and you know, the Minister of Development

probably believes that! But I can assure him that it is not true. There are some

people who like the President of Treasury Board, but there is a vast majority

who dislike his policies - not him as a person, but they dislike his policies,

his arrogance, and his contempt towards the public service of this Province.

But that is the question that we want answered. My colleague

just asked: Who are they? Who are the people that this bill is looking after?

Does the Member for Exploits have any buddies who have cottages or cabins?

AN HON. MEMBER: He has his own.

MR. TOBIN: Oh sure, but I am asking - it is not being

done for you, I wouldn't suggest that. You are not suggesting this bill is being

brought in to look after you.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, he is saying it is.

MR. TOBIN: No, he is not, he shook his head and said no.

But I want to know if it is his buddies. Mr. Speaker, is it developers in this

Province?

MR. MATTHEWS: What developers? There are none left.

MR. TOBIN: Yes, what developers? - that is a good

question, what developers? Some big meetings are going to take place in this

Province tomorrow, I know that, Mr. Speaker.

MR. MATTHEWS: What are they about? Tell us what they're

about!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. TOBIN: We are talking about Crown land, Mr. Speaker,

that is what we are talking about! That is the confidence that we have in this

Government, when a Minister of the Crown doesn't know what this piece of

legislation is about! I hope Hansard picked it up, because the Minister of

Social Services does not have a clue what this piece of legislation is about.

'What is it about?' he asked, Is it about cabins?'

It is about Crown land and the rights of Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians that they have had for 500 years and that are being taken away from

them. That is what this legislation is about, Mr. Speaker!

AN HON. MEMBER: Who read it to you?

MR. DOYLE: He asked: 'who read it to you?' Imagine a

minister asking, 'who read it to you?'

AN HON. MEMBER: Tom Murphy read it to him.

MR. TOBIN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, that is who read it to me.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Development is

trying to distract me from the real issue.

AN HON. MEMBER: That isn't much trouble.

MR. TOBIN: No, but it wasn't much trouble the day Crosbie

did the number on you, either. It wasn't much trouble that day when you tried to

be the hero. You have a lot to answer for in this Province one of these days. He

has a lot to answer to some of the people one of these days, according to what I

am hearing, Mr. Speaker. You should follow the example of the Minister of

Fisheries. You should listen more closely to the Minister of Fisheries. You

would be well-advised to do that. Rather than thinking you are the Minister of

Fisheries, you should consult with the Minister of Fisheries.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have

rights, whether it be in the offshore fisheries as I have said, in forestry or

the mining industry, then they should have rights in this piece of legislation,

and that denies them their rights.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Not as often as the Minister of Development.

And he should be careful now, talking about trips.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I just might.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: A good name for him, too.

MR. MATTHEWS: What?

MR. TOBIN: Chuck Barrett, a good name for him.

MR. MATTHEWS: Chuck Barret or Chuck Barry?

MR. TOBIN: Chuck Barrett. What does that have to do with

this anyway? I have to give this up.

AN HON. MEMBER: Sit down.

MR. TOBIN: I won't sit down unless the minister stops it,

I can tell you that. I have never been interrupted so often before in the ten

years that I have sat in this legislature - spurious comments, particularly by

the Minister of Social Services, and the Minister of Development, to some

extent. I have never been interrupted so often. Unless they give me the

opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to speak in the way I want to, with silence -

MR. DOYLE: And to bring out the points in the bill.

MR. TOBIN: - and to bring out the points in this

legislature, I will stay standing, Mr. Speaker. I don't intend to take very much

longer.

MR. MATTHEWS: By leave!

MR. TOBIN: No, not that either. I see the Minister of

Forestry is back. Another thing, Mr. Speaker, that irritates this side of the

House - if the piece of legislation is that important, why isn't the minister in

the House when it is being debated? That is the question that has to be

answered! That is why we have to stand on the floor and try to keep the issue

going until we draw him back into the House so he can hear our points. If the

minister were in the House listening to this debate it might not take as long.

It might just not take as long to debate the issues.

But we have to say it over and over again, hoping that he is

listening somewhere outside when he is not in his seat. How does the Premier

expect to get legislation through this House when a minister shows such contempt

for the House by not staying in when his bill is being discussed?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, when a minister shows contempt by

not staying in his place when a bill is being discussed, no wonder we have to

try to stall it. No wonder we have to repeat ourselves. He's at it again, Mr.

Speaker - the buffoon from Placentia! I want to withdraw that comment, Mr.

Speaker. While it may be parliamentary, I don't think it is right to say it. I

regret that I made that comment and I apologize.

In closing, let me say that I have great fears that the

rights of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to fish, walk and cruise around the

lakes, rivers and ponds in our Province -

MR. DOYLE: Is going to be seriously hampered.

MR. TOBIN: - will be, yes, in the first year, seriously

hampered. And in the second year, the fences will start going up, and the

buddies of this Government, with the money in this Province, will bar and deny

the rights that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have known for the past 500

years. I hope, and I beg and I plead with all members of this House to vote with

us for a six-month hoist. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Opposition House Leader.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I

couldn't hear you there, with the applause for my colleague. I will say, it is

going to be very difficult -

MR. WINSOR: Follow that speech?

MR. MATTHEWS: - to follow that speech. I say quite

sincerely, Mr. Speaker, that that is the second best speech that has been given

in this Legislature on Bill 22. The two best speeches that have been given were

by the minister when he introduced the bill - I must say that; I thought he

would be here for me to commend him on it. It was the best speech - I knew he

would not be long coming in when I said that. It was the best speech I have

heard the minister give, and that includes when he was in opposition and since

he has become a Minister of the Crown. He was really geared up for the speech.

He did a marvellous job in presenting the notes that were prepared for him by

his officials, I must say that.

MR. WINSOR: But it was flawed.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, there was a flaw. Because he tried to

defend something, I guess, in his presentation that is really hard to defend. It

has been touched upon by a number of speakers already. We all know the history,

Mr. Speaker, of this very contentious, controversial bill that stared out a year

or two ago, as Bill 53. Then, it came back as Bill 25, and now it is back in

front of us as Bill 22: "An Act To Revise And Consolidate The Law Respecting

Crown Lands, Public Lands And Other Lands Of The Province." So this is the third

edition.

MR. WINSOR: And it was the Premier who spoke most

eloquently on that bill in one of its former stages.

MR. MATTHEWS: In one of its former stages, yes, the

Premier spoke very well about it.

MR. WINSOR: He wanted it.

MR. MATTHEWS: But it is brought back now for the third

time. The Minister, when he made his presentation, and a number of times since,

keeps talking about this being our piece of legislation - our piece of

legislation. The Minister cannot have it both ways.

AN HON. MEMBER: It must be some bad if they want to give

us credit for it.

MR. MATTHEWS: No, it is not that. It is just that we all

know that within the last twelve months there has been a lot of controversy out

and about the Province about this particular piece of legislation. We have seen

the different associations and federations get quite annoyed with the Bill. We

saw a lot of public outcry at public meetings. Public attention was brought to

the bill, because was it the Wildlife Federation-

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. MATTHEWS: There were two or three others. The other

two or three associations and federations affected have really been concerned

about this particular piece of legislation. Really, their concerns are what it

will take away from the rights and privileges of Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians. Now that has been the big concern over this particular Bill since

day one, with its different numbers and different arrangements.

I suppose it is worth repeating, Mr. Speaker, as my colleague

has said, because the controversial clause here is Clause 7.2. I, like my

colleague from Burin - Placentia West, have gone through this particular piece

of legislation and have followed the happenings in both the Legislature and

outside on this particular Bill. But there seems to be somewhat of a

contradiction, in my humble estimation, in Clause 7.2 and then the subsequent

clauses, particularly (

d) and (e), and Clause 7.4. Clause 2 (

d) and (

e) seem to

give the right for those structures to be constructed, 'where a structure that

is being used as a residence and was erected before the coming into' and so on,

and 'for the purpose of giving a licence only for the construction of boat

houses and wharves to the extent that they intrude on the reservation.' What I

am asking you is, there seems to be some kind of contradiction with (4) 'A

grant, lease or licence issued under paragraph 2 (

d) or (

e) shall not permit a

grantee, lessee or licensee to restrict access to the reservation on the part of

the general public by erecting a fence or by other means.' So there seems to be

a bit of a contradiction here that on one hand you provide for the structures to

be put up-

MR. FLIGHT: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: You cannot own it. You do not own it

then.

MR. MATTHEWS: No, you do not own it. That is right. There

is a complete difference. You do not own it. So what I am saying to the Minister

is, and I do not know if the Minister is going to speak again-

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) closed debate on it.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, he closed debate, but maybe you can

react to the thing I am pointing out to you, because to me it seems to be

contradictory. On one hand you say you can or you cannot, and then you cannot or

you can. That is our only problem with the Bill, I say to the Minister quite

honestly. That is the only concern that we have, on this side, for the Bill. Now

I say only concern, but having said it, it is a very important concern, because

if anything is going to happen in this Province - well we know what type of

people Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are; we know how much we like the

outdoors; we know how much we like to fish and hunt and so on - and if there is

anything that is going into a piece of legislation here that is going to

restrict in any way that right to freedom that we have enjoyed, we cannot

support that. We have seen, as I have said, a public outcry in the Province

about that, particularly when the Bill was in a different form, so that is the

bone of contention that we have with this legislation. We just want to be sure,

we say to the Minister, that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will be able to

exercise those rights forevermore. But there seems to be some reason, and we

pursued this before, particularly with the Premier, because it seems that the

Premier is the person who most wants the Bill in this particular form, with this

Clause 7.2. It seems that for some reason, and a number of speakers have alluded

to that as well, that the Premier is pretty adamant about having this clause in

the piece of legislation. We have tried to pursue, and tried to find out exactly

why that could be, and there were all kinds of possible reasons why it could be.

Either there was something happened in the middle of the last general election

campaign -

MR. TOBIN: What?

MR. MATTHEWS: I say it could have been, when the Premier

was going about the Province and Labrador, that he may have run into situations

and talked to individuals who, for one reason or another, thought this

particular inclusion in the Bill would give them some rights that they thought

they should have, to the detriment, I might say, of the majority of

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. That is a possibility, and that has been

suggested, I say to the Minister. He knows that. We were not the first ones to

suggest that, I say to him. This surfaced in the public meetings that were held

about the Province on this particular issue, that that may be the case, that

there are some people out and about the Province who are affluent enough to own

properties along rivers, ponds, lake sides, and so on - affluent people - who

could build boat houses and so on to the extent that we are talking about here,

that they would actually restrict the reserve so that Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians could not get around the pond or lake or whatever they were used to

accessing. It is possible that this could happen, and that is why we want this

particular aspect of the Bill clarified to our satisfaction, I say to the

Minister. Once we are satisfied with that, when the Minister can allay our fears

on that, then we will look at giving this Bill passage here.

MR. FLIGHT: (Inaudible) issued for the purpose that you

are concerned about. I mean that is the whole purpose of the legislation.

MR. MATTHEWS: But there are grants out now.

MR. FLIGHT: That is the whole purpose for the

legislation.

MR. MATTHEWS: They are already out there, I say to the

Minister. It is not only what is going to happen in the future that we are

concerned about here.

MR. FLIGHT: Not on a reservation they are not.

MR. MATTHEWS: No, there are structures out and about the

Province now, I say to the Minister. If the Minister would listen to what I said

before, there are people out and about the Province who own some pretty nice

structures out in the wilderness by way of -

AN HON. MEMBER: Cabins.

MR. MATTHEWS: You would not call them cabins or cottages,

they are more like homes - people who can afford it. And there are some pretty

nice boat houses and so on out and about the Province. I am not fortunate enough

to have one.

AN HON. MEMBER: You do not even have a boat.

MR. MATTHEWS: I do not even have a boat, that is right. I

was going to say to the Minister that I do not even have the oar that goes with

the boat.

MR. TOBIN: I have one then, I tell you that.

MR. MATTHEWS: But there are people out and about the

Province, and the accusations have been made -

MR. TOBIN: That was not very nice what the Minister of

Finance just said.

MR. MATTHEWS: I did not hear what he said.

MR. TOBIN: I heard what he said.

MR. MATTHEWS: It's half my fault for saying what I said

to him, so if he said something back then I have to take that.

These are the concerns that are raised by the different

organizations and association, the wildlife people, the wilderness people,

Salmonoid Council, I think, and associations, SPAWN have had some concerns about

this, rod and gun clubs, all those out doors people who like to use our

wilderness areas, outdoors areas, whether it is for boating, hunting, fishing or

whatever.

So we are quite interested, Mr. Speaker, in having these

fears put to rest, so that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians can be guaranteed

the rights and privileges that they have exercised for hundreds of years. We

want to be absolutely certain that the Premier's insistence on having this

clause in this Bill is not at the request of, or a promise made to certain

individuals in this Province, because we really cannot find any other reason as

to why the Premier would be so adamant on wanting it included. We could just

take it out, and away we go with the Bill, I say to the Minister, and he knows

that, but the Minister shakes his head. The Minister shakes his head that he

cannot omit that clause. Why can't you? Why can't you omit it and go on about

things the way we have gone on about things for the last 400 or 500 years, I say

to the Minister. Since before Confederation this is the way we have operated in

this Province, without this. What is so important in the year 1990 and 1991 that

we have to go and do this, I say to the Minister? Maybe he does not want to tell

me. Maybe he knows, maybe he does not know. Maybe the Minister does not know the

real reason why the Premier wants this here. Maybe he has not been told, but I

say to the Minister, before we pass this legislation, Mr. Speaker, we are going

to want the answers to this.

DR. KITCHEN: Are we working tonight?

MR. MATTHEWS: Are we working tonight, I believe the

Minister of Finance asked. I say to the Minister of Finance, I do not care how

many nights we work. That does not bother me.

MR. TOBIN: Oh, that is a trick. That is a trick.

MR. MATTHEWS: It does not bother me how many nights we

work. If we want answers to something we feel is important to Newfoundlanders

and Labradorians, then we will pursue it, and we feel this is important.

The Minister, to date, and the Government have not answered

the question.

MR. FLIGHT: It is answered.

MR. MATTHEWS: You have not answered the question. We've

been at this now for a long time.

MR. FLIGHT: We have had no opportunity.

MR. TOBIN: Well, we will give you leave.

MR. MATTHEWS: Oh, there were opportunities before now, I

say to the Minister.

MR. TOBIN: If you want to close the debate, we will give

you leave.

MR. MATTHEWS: The last time we dealt with this particular

legislation, there were opportunities, I say to the Minister, and we didn't get

the answers then, and we haven't got them now.

AN HON. MEMBER: In Committee, we can answer them.

MR. MATTHEWS: What's that?

AN HON. MEMBER: In Committee.

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, we will go to Committee to get

answers.

MR. TOBIN: We are hoping to get a six-month hoist.

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, that is what we are debating here,

Mr. Speaker, is that we are asking the Government to delay this piece of

legislation for six months, so that we can get the answers, so that we can once

again give Newfoundlanders and Labradorians the opportunity to express -

AN HON. MEMBER: There's no rush.

MR. MATTHEWS: There's no rush, that is right. Why rush

into something? Why rush into it, unless it is very, very important to someone,

Mr. Speaker, that there was a promise made that has to be kept. Otherwise, what

is the rush?

I say to the Minister - and he laughs about it - what is the

rush? Why don't we delay it for another six months, to see if we can get the

people of the Province to once again express their concerns, to let the

Government reconsider striking Clause 7(2) from the Bill. If they do that, there

we will be no problem, we will gladly pass this piece of legislation, I say to

the Minister.

Now, I think the Minister is going to get up, when he closes

debate, and make excuses as to why this particular clause, this

section of the

Bill, is here. He will not be able to tell us the real reason, I say to the

Minister, with all due respect.

MR. FLIGHT: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: You will do your best to try and explain

that to us and justify it.

MR. EFFORD: Sit down, boy.

MR. MATTHEWS: No, I say to the Member for Port de Grave,

I am not going to sit down, as much as he would like that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Or be muzzled like he was.

MR. TOBIN: Why doesn't he stand up? Why is he muzzled?

Why doesn't he stand up and speak on it?

MR. MATTHEWS: I do not know why he won't speak on it. I

am sure the great Newfoundlander and Labradorian that he is and so concerned

about Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, their traditional fishing rights, I say,

both inland and offshore -

MR. EFFORD: They have no rights.

MR. MATTHEWS: They have no rights, he says. Oh, yes, they

have rights. They can still fish.

MR. TOBIN: What will this do to them?

MR. MATTHEWS: There might not be any fish out there to

catch, but at least they can go out and try to fish.

MR. WARREN: The Member for Eagle River does not care at

all.

MR. MATTHEWS: So, I cannot understand these great

defenders of Newfoundlander's and Labradorian's rights, like the Member for Port

De Grave and the Member for Eagle River who sit back in their seats as if

everything is wonderful.

I say that very sincerely, because I am sure the Member for

Port de Grave probably goes out and does a bit of trouting himself, traipsing

around the woods and one thing and another, as much as he likes to go off and

jig a fish. I mean, he must have concerns about this piece of legislation, does

he not? I do not know. He says he does. Well, I hope that he rises in his place

soon and we will hear his real concerns about it.

I am sure, as my colleague said, the real reason why he is

not up asking questions and debating this piece of legislation - I do not think

his mind is put to rest on this piece of legislation, I do not think it is. The

Member for Eagle River might not care about it.

MR. EFFORD: I am trying to get back in Cabinet.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, I know. That is fair enough. You are

trying to get back in Cabinet and that explains it all.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Next week after the enquiry you are in.

MR. TOBIN: Did he say that?

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, that is what he said, he is trying to

get back in Cabinet. So, that is fair game. I hope that if he goes back into

Cabinet, Mr. Speaker, he will try to persuade the Premier and the rest of his

colleagues to eliminate that particular clause of the Bill.

MR. R. AYLWARD: I wish he were still in Cabinet. I

would'nt be (inaudible) if he was in Cabinet.

MR. MATTHEWS: I am sure that he was one of the few,

perhaps the only -

AN HON. MEMBER: He wants to be Minister of Fisheries.

MR. MATTHEWS: He wants to be Minister of Fisheries. Yes,

I am sure he does. Perhaps he wants to be Premier. That would not surprise me

either.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Aiden Maloney is going to get that job

when Walter quits. They are just going to put Aiden in.

MR. TOBIN: I heard it was Myles Murray.

MR. MATTHEWS: Having said that to my friend from Port de

Grave, I am sure that when he was there he was perhaps the only one who used to

stand up and be counted around the Cabinet table, and I say that to him very

sincerely. The rest of them were like mice, Mr. Speaker. So I hope he is back in

the Cabinet soon, so he can take up the fight for Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians and get this particular clause struck from the Bill, so that

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will not be in danger of losing the rights that

we have so enjoyed.

MR. TOBIN: The other thing that could work is if they put

Oliver in.

DR. KITCHEN: What is the concern?

MR. MATTHEWS: We have been here two or three days and the

Minister of Finance wants to know: what is the concern. Now, it is hard to know

when he is sincere or not. What is the concern, he says. Well, I tell the

Minister of Finance there are a number of concerns we have. Now, this is the

Minister's third Budget, I believe it is, and he is really out of whack again.

That is a real concern we have in the Opposition.

DR. KITCHEN: That is not addressing the Bill.

MR. MATTHEWS: No, it is not addressing the Bill, but you

asked me what our concerns were. It is a big bill I say to the Minister, a $95

million deficit. It has a lot to do with bills, and it is obviously going to put

a lot of pressure on the Minister and the bills he is going to have to pay, or

not pay. It depends on how he choses to address his $95 million deficit again

this year. That is the concern we have. I am sure the Minister has listened to

the debate or perhaps he has been too busy doing his sums and he has not

realized what the debate is about. If he has I understand that he should put a

lot of time into that. Permit to occupy versus a grant.

MR. WARREN: Where do you think there is a pond in St.

John's Centre?

MR. MATTHEWS: There are no ponds in St. John's Centre. I

do not know if there is or not.

MR. WARREN: That is as far as he has been outside St.

John's.

MR. MATTHEWS: The Member for Torngat says there are no

ponds in St. John's Centre.

DR. KITCHEN: (Inaudible) in St. John's Centre (inaudible)

MR. R. AYLWARD: Burton's Pond is in there.

MR. MATTHEWS: Burton's Pond is there.

MR. R. AYLWARD: It is probably covered over now.

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, Mr. Speaker, I am going to conclude

by saying to the Minister that I look forward to his answering the questions,

answering them properly, and not answering them in a way to try and get the

Opposition to shut up. None of this foolishness. Get up and tell us why you

cannot strike that clause from the Bill, the real reason, and if it requires you

to do so, go see the Premier and ask him why he is so adamant about having this

in the Bill. Ask him if he would relent and have it struck from the Bill.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. MATTHEWS: He may. If the Minister goes to see the

Premier he might agree to take it from the Bill. He might. Maybe there will be

some people out and about who will not be as upset as Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians in general would be upset if their rights and privileges are taken

away by this piece of legislation, I say to the Minister of Social Services, who

shakes his head. He does not obviously understand either because he is too busy

there signing off his -

MR. TOBIN: His Christmas cards.

MR. MATTHEWS: No, it is not his Christmas cards, it is

the grants and the projects he has approved for the Placentia office of Social

Services. I think the Minister gave himself $390,000, his office out there, more

than any other office in the Province.

MR. TOBIN: But, he had no choice with the unemployment

that is out there. He had no choice. There is nobody out there working.

MR. MATTHEWS: Then he pretends he knows about this piece

of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to conclude my remarks on the Bill

and look forward, I say to the Minister, when he responds accordingly, to give

the real reason and to tell me why he cannot strike this particular clause from

this particular piece of legislation.

MR. TOBIN: That is unparliamentary. You should withdraw

what you just said.

MR. MATTHEWS: If the Minister could assure the House that

he is going to do that then we will very quickly agree to pass this legislation.

That is all I have to say on the matter.

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

Capes.

MR. HEARN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This is a fairly detailed Bill covering a lot of areas. We

have heard most people who spoke, I think, zero in on Clause 7. There are a lot

of other sections in this also that bear scrutiny and most of them, I think, we

are quite satisfied with the appropriate wording. They do clear up some of the

problems we have had in the past. Most Members representing large rural areas in

particular in their work every day run across a fair number of people who are

constituents and have problems with Crown lands, one way or another. Sometimes