May 15,

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLI No. 50

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

Order, please!

Before proceeding with our routine business I would like to

welcome to the Speaker's gallery on behalf of hon. Members the hon. Brian

Gardiner, Member of Parliament for Prince George - Bulkley Valley.

Also, I would like to welcome to the public galleries forty

Grade V11 students from St. Edward's Elementary School, Brigus, accompanied by

their teachers Mr. Fowler and Mr. Marshall.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Oral Questions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

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

Today unemployment insurance benefits expire for fishermen

throughout our Province and we have some severe ice conditions around our coast

that have hampered hundreds of fishermen from being able to pursue their

livelihood, I am wondering if the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations

could inform the House if she has made any representation to her Federal

counterpart the Minister of Employment? What have been the results of those

representations?

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

Labour Relations.

MS. COWAN: Yes, I have written a letter to Mr. Valcourt.

It went out some time ago. He has not responded as yet, although there would not

be time for him to respond, I am not condemning him, but the letter went to

Ottawa, I believe, at the beginning of last week and I would anticipate his

response soon.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, this situation with severe ice

conditions around our coast has been known for weeks, as a matter of fact, there

was a resolution passed in this Assembly a week or so ago. Members on this side

have made representation and Members on the other side have made representation.

What does the Minister suggest then if she only last week wrote a letter to the

Federal Minister with this situation known for weeks? What does she suggest?

What is she telling fishermen to do now that they cannot fish and have no

benefits? How are they supposed to stay alive over the next number of weeks

until the ice conditions improve?

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

Labour Relations.

MS. COWAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure if that

was a question or a speech. Anyway, I was quite aware of the fact that a number

of my colleagues on both sides of the House have approached the various

Ministers responsible in Ottawa including the Minister of Fisheries, who has

also been able to make a face-to-face representation to the Federal Minister of

Fisheries. So, the matter was well in hand, and it was not something on which I

felt he needed to move more quickly on than I did. He is well aware of the

problem, Mr. Speaker. It is a long ongoing historical problem in this Province -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

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

I do not know if the Minister is aware but as of today those

fishermen have no income. They have no means to feed their families let alone

have money to get back into the fishery.

As Minister of Employment or, Mr. Speaker, maybe I should say

as Minister of unemployment with 22.3 per cent unemployment in the Province,

does the Minister have any employment program under consideration for those

fishermen around our Province who cannot fish? Does she have a proposed

employment program to take them on working within the next number of days so

that they can feed their families and get back into the fishery? Has she given

any consideration to that, Mr. Speaker?

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

Labour Relations.

MS. COWAN: We have many people in this Province, Mr.

Speaker, who are in very drastic circumstances due to unemployment and they are

on our minds frequently. We will be addressing the subject this afternoon in the

Private Member's debate and going into it thoroughly at that time. We do not

have any employment programmes in mind immediately, but as I said to the House

the other day, we are monitoring the situation carefully and if in two or three

months' time it has not improved we will only be too pleased to put something in

place.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Two or three

months' time. These people do not have any income as of today. Is the Minister

hoping that those fishermen will be so weak within two or three months' time

that they will not be able to go to work? Is that her wish? Will the Minister

stand in her place as Minister of Employment and tell the hundreds of fishermen

throughout our Province what she is going to do to employ them until ice

conditions around our coasts improve? As Minister of Employment, can she do that

please?

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

Labour Relations.

MS. COWAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would suggest that

his Tory buddies in Ottawa are the ones who should be responding to this

particular problem.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS. COWAN: These Tory buddies in Ottawa who are prepared

to bring in Bill 69, which is the most devastating thing that will ever have hit

Canada. What did they care about fishermen in Newfoundland? What did they care

about any of the people in Newfoundland, with the concerns that we have in this

Province with unemployment? I ask the hon. Member of the Opposition to ponder

that, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: How incompetent!

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

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. RIDEOUT: When is she going to run for Parliament? She

should not be in this House.

Mr. Speaker, my question will be to the Premier. The Premier

will know that the Municipalities Act lays out very detailed procedures which

must be followed before a Cabinet can decide to amalgamate towns and

communities. Government must - and the Act does not say that Government should

or Government may, the Act says that Government must - first of all make a

specific amalgamation proposal. Second, publish that proposal in the Gazette and

in the affected communities. And third, appoint a commissioner or commissioners

to study the feasibility of the proposal before any recommendation can be made

to Cabinet.

Now I want to ask the Premier: Were all these requirements of

the law followed with reference to the specific proposals that the Minister of

Municipal and Provincial Affairs presented to this House yesterday? Were these

proposals that were tabled in this House yesterday published as the Act

requires? Were these proposed groupings as tabled in this House yesterday the

subject of feasibility studies as the Act requires? Were they recommended by

commissioners as the Act requires? Or were they proposed by any municipality in

the northeast Avalon region?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition

and all Members of the House and, I suspect, all members of the public are

aware, that a variety of proposals were put forward. Some were recommended, some

were not, some were changed, changes were proposed, and so on, and, Mr. Speaker,

while it may be correct to say that the Lieutenant-Governor in Council may not

be able to issue an Order in Council, if certain mandatory requirements are not

followed, this House can make the decision that is necessary no matter what

course of action has been followed, and no matter what recommendations have been

made. Now, Mr. Speaker, we have brought a resolution, the Minister has brought a

resolution to this House and this House will make the decision that this House

considers appropriate.

Everybody can well understand that you would have an

interminable process, if you had to go through with the kind of process that the

former Government had in place and it did not get recommended or the Minister

proposed something that was recommended in another direction. So, Mr. Speaker,

the Government is dealing with it in a very responsible way; proposals were

made, commissions were appointed, hearings were held, recommendations were made

and finally, the Government has brought its proposal before the House and such

action as is necessary will be taken.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, the Premier just cannot, as

leader of the Government, accept those parts of the law which he likes and

ignore those parts he does not like.

The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister

could not recommend to Cabinet, nor could Cabinet recommend to this House -

which is what happened yesterday, because that was a Government order - the

Cabinet could not recommend to this House without going through the process I

have laid out.

Now, I want to ask the Premier, were those specific proposals

that the Minister tabled in this House yesterday, do they conform to the letter

of the law, as it currently exists in this Province?

MR. SIMMS: That is the question.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, either the hon. Member does

not know the law or I do not, one or the other, and we will decide which one is

correct later on.

The Lieutenant-Governor in Council, can propose to this House

any matter that the Lieutenant-Governor in Council sees fit to propose.

Now, it does not have to conform to any specific Act; if we

propose a procedure and ask this House to authorize a change, this House has the

power to alter any Act as is necessary. Mr. Speaker, I just said now to the

President of Treasury Board, that it may be necessary to re-word the resolution

somewhat, to provide for the introduction of such legislation or the passage of

such Orders in Council as may be necessary to give effect to the proposed

amalgamation, and, Mr. Speaker, we will do whatever is necessary and seek the

authority of this House to do so.

MR. RIDEOUT: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: So, Mr. Speaker, now the Premier can bring

in a resolution outlawing elections, boarding up the doors of the legislature

and never having this place meet again; that is the essence of what he is say.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: That is just as silly as what you are

suggesting.

MR. RIDEOUT: That is just as foolish as what the Premier

just suggested, Mr. Speaker. The Cabinet can only act within the authority of a

statute of this legislature, and this Government has flaunted that particular

statute.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the municipalities feasibility report

regulations, let me remind the Minister of those. The municipalities feasibility

report regulations which were amended and approved by the Cabinet in October,

1989, set out fourteen criteria for the assessment of the viability of the

amalgamation proposals. All of these fourteen criteria are important, some of

them are technical and all of them require a great deal of study.

I want to ask the Premier, have the proposals that were

presented to this House yesterday by the Minister been studied and assessed

against those fourteen criteria? If they were, who did the study, and will those

reports be made available to this House so that all Members will have the

benefit of the reports before we are forced to vote on the resolution presented

by the Minister yesterday?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I suggest to the Leader of the Opposition

once again that he get whoever wrote the question for him to seek legal advice

before he puts forward these unfounded propositions.

Mr. Speaker, this Government cannot bring legislation before

the House to outlaw or close the House, or outlaw elections or anything else.

The Constitution of Canada prohibits that. It requires the House to meet within

a certain time and not to be closed beyond a year period.

So, Mr. Speaker, the Government cannot bring such legislation

before the House, it is a foolish proposition. But, Mr. Speaker, we can bring

any legislation we wish before the House to alter the Municipalities Act or to

do something that is contrary to the Municipalities Act, and provided this House

authorizes it to be done, it is quite legal, and you do not have to follow any

predetermined procedures fourteen or forty-four. It does not make any

difference. I suggest the hon. Member seek legal advice or get whoever wrote the

questions for him to do so.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, the question to the Premier was

would the Premier table in this House the assessments that were done, allegedly,

by the department, on those specific proposals so that Members of this House

will have the benefit of those assessments when we are debating the resolution

that will come before the House over the next few days.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the Government will table the

reports of whatever commissions were done, but I do not know that there were any

specific assessments done by any specific officials with respect to any specific

proposal.

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible) conform to your own regulations.

PREMIER WELLS: No, Mr. Speaker. We are coming before this

House, asking this House for authority to do that which we are proposing, the

Lieutenant-Governor in Council may not be able to do some of those things under

the provisions of the Act without seeking the express authorization of this

House. Now, Mr. Speaker, suddenly their eyes are open, they know why we are

coming to the House, a brilliant deduction. I am really impressed, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, the Premier should be depressed

because he has been caught deceiving the people of this Province, again.

MR. SIMMS: Again.

MR. RIDEOUT: Again, for about the fifteenth time in two

years.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I want to remind the hon. Member of the use of parliamentary

language. To say that the Premier was caught deceiving the people I consider to

be unparliamentary, and I ask the Member to withdraw, please.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, if it is unparliamentary, I

will withdraw, and we will look at it and argue about it later.

Mr. Speaker, has the Premier not admitted here today that the

real reason for this resolution that was brought into this House yesterday was

the Government wanted to deliberately circumvent the law of Newfoundland and

Labrador? Was that not why it was brought in here?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: No, Mr. Speaker, that is not the real

reason why the resolution was brought. The resolution was brought before this

House because the Government committed that it would not make major amalgamation

changes in the secrecy of Cabinet but it would bring it before this House so

that it would be publicly debated. Now, Mr. Speaker, certain proposals could not

be done by Cabinet, anyway. Some of what is proposed can be done.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I cannot imagine that hon.

Members opposite are so stunned that they just now discovered that, and that

that comes as an utter shock for them.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

If an hon. Member wants to make a point of order, the Chair

is not going to respond to Member's singing out, 'Is that a point of order?' If

hon. Members want to say that it is a point of order they should get up on a

point of order. But in this we are referred to in a collective sense, and the

Chair would not rule it to be a point of order. But if the Member were referring

to one particular Member, but taking it in its collective sense, the Chair would

not consider it to be unparliamentary.

But the Chair is standing to ask hon. Members to my right to

please give the Member silence so that he can conclude his answer.

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the Government made its

commitment quite some time ago that it would not bring amalgamation proposals -

or put amalgamation proposals - into effect after a secret discussion by Cabinet

by passing an Order in Council.

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible).

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

East wants to answer her colleague's question. She can do it, but it will not be

my answer, it will be her answer, and it will probably be dead wrong.

Now, Mr. Speaker

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair again is asking hon. Members to the right to please

extend to the Premier the courtesy of allowing him to answer the question. He

cannot answer the question as long as Members to my right keep interrupting. So

I will ask the Premier to clue up in a few seconds, please.

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Government is

totally and completely satisfied that it has done everything that is entirely

appropriate. It has taken no step that is in any manner inappropriate. The

Government is at liberty to bring legislation or proposals or resolutions before

this House that will do anything that the Legislature has power to do. It cannot

bring a proposal that is unconstitutional but it can bring any proposal that is

within the power of the Legislature, and this one very clearly is.

AN HON. MEMBER: It is as simple as that.

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

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

the Premier. The Premier is aware no doubt of a report commissioned by the

Council of Maritime Premiers called the McMillan Report, it was reported in

December 1989. Amongst other issues, this report discussed the integration of

Newfoundland and Labrador into the Council of Maritime Premiers by setting up

and establishing a Council of Atlantic Premiers and it proposes three models for

discussing this.

Would the Premier advise the House whether he has made up his

mind whether or not he will support the establishment of a Council of Atlantic

Premiers, with this Province as a full member?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon.

Member's question but I have to tell him that that action was taken and

announced publicly a year and a half ago. The Council of Atlantic Premiers was

announced and put in place about a year and a half ago. What has been taking

place recently and has been recommended by some of the Maritime Premiers is

another proposal they referred to as Atlantic Union, or Maritime Union, and then

the proposition to expand it to include Newfoundland and be Atlantic Union. It

may be that is the matter to which the hon. Member is referring.

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

supplementary.

MR. HARRIS: The Council of Maritime Premiers still meet,

and, of course, the Premier knows that there is a White Paper on the Economic

Union being published shortly, next month as a matter of fact. Does the Premier

intend to associate himself with the presentation of that paper, and does the

Government have any plans to provide for public discussion and response to that

White Paper?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the Council of Atlantic

Premiers, to which I just referred, will be meeting in Sydney on 30 May, I think

is the next scheduled meeting, and we will be discussing the proposals at that

particular time. Although, to be fair to the hon. Member I have to say that the

officials in IGA, and other officials in Government have been looking at the

detail of some of these proposals in preparation for attending that meeting. We

will not be getting those proposals for the first time at that meeting. A great

deal of preliminary work is being done at the moment to assess the proposals and

when I attend the meeting I will be in a position to discuss some of the pros

and cons of it, although I have to frankly admit I have a bit of difficulty

coming to understand what is really meant by Atlantic Economic Union in either

the Maritime Provinces or the Atlantic Provinces. It is a little difficult.

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

supplementary.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A public response and discussion is what I was concerned

about there. My question to the Premier is: in view of the goals set by the

Federal Government in the Throne Speech for the elimination of all

interprovincial trade barriers by 1995, and the Premier's support along with a

number of other provinces of an agreement to so reduce interprovincial trade

barriers, could the Premier tell the House what plans his Government has, or

would like to bring forward, to protect those who would be affected by the

removal of interprovincial barriers, particularly those in effect in sectors

like the beer industry, the fishing industry, the construction industry, and

others?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Member makes a good

point and raises issues that are clearly of great concern in the Province. I

appreciate his question because it gives me an opportunity to deal with the

issue. It has been dealt with in the media about a year or so ago but it has not

received much attention recently.

Most provinces following the meeting of premiers last June in

Winnipeg signed an agreement to eliminate barriers to interprovincial trade.

Eight of the ten provinces have signed and only Quebec and Nova Scotia have not

as yet signed that agreement. Mr. Speaker, before the agreement was signed we

sent a draft of the proposed agreement around to various groups, various

industrial and commercial and business groups in the Province and asked for

their input, and I am happy to say, Mr. Speaker, that we got very substantial

support for the signing of the agreement. Our own assessment of it is that the

terms of the agreement will affect only a very small portion of the actual

purchases and acquisitions by government, which is what the agreement relates

to, because it affects only above a certain level. I think $25,000 is the limit

and something like 80-odd per cent of the acquisitions by Government fall under

that level so they are not really caught by it. In terms of the beer industry,

in particular, nothing in the agreement would adversely affect the beer

industry.

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

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

I also have a question for the Premier: after two years of

chaos and indecision Government has come up with probably the worst possible

amalgamation proposal for the northeast Avalon. The big loser in this proposal,

Mr. Speaker, is the City of St. John's, without a doubt.

Mr. Speaker, what rationale does the Premier have for

annexing the Goulds and the St. John's Metropolitan Area Board lands that are

protected as agricultural, to the City of St. John's?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, in order to really fully

answer the hon. Member's question and be fair to the Member and the House,

dealing with it adequately would take some time, so I would suggest either one

of two courses: we do it in the debate when it takes place or hon. Members agree

to give me adequate time now to do it, and I am quite prepared to do that, but

it would take a significant period of time. So, Mr. Speaker, I am quite prepared

to accede to whatever hon. Members want.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I know the Premier is trying

to avoid the issue and it is a very sensitive issue as St. John's is the one

which will suffer most by the proposal put forward by his Government.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier will realize that revenues for all

cities are based pretty well on the land. It develops the land to pay for the

cost of services and they need to develop the land for residential and

industrial uses. Mr. Speaker, will the Premier not agree that burdening the city

taxpayers with this responsibility for the agricultural land within this area is

going to saddle the taxpayers of St. John's with unnecessary costs?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, again an adequate answer

would require more time but I just point to a headline in today's paper, "St.

John's the big winner." So, somebody disagrees with the hon. Member at least.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: The Government considered a number of

conflicting interests in this amalgamation issue. The interest and concern of

the capital city area of this Province, and we are committed to protecting the

interest of the capital city area of this Province because we have a

responsibility to do so. Conflicting with that, Mr. Speaker, are the interests

of the smaller communities on the coastal side of Conception Bay and they have a

slightly different interest. Conflicting also is the interest of the group in

the cohesive community of Mount Pearl who wanted, as the hon. Member for Mount

Pearl said, to retain the special community they had, they did not want to do

anything that would hurt that. So, Mr. Speaker, there were conflicting interests

that had to be accommodated. We believe, Mr. Speaker, we made the decision that

will provide for the orderly growth of one major city in this area and not two

major metropolitan municipalities in this area, as the unmanaged growth would

have resulted in in the future.

So, Mr. Speaker, we put in place a system that we believe

will allow the City of St. John's to grow and maintain control over all the

primary services in the area that it services. Mr. Speaker, it also enabled us

to do it without putting in place a third level of Government. We believe that

was the right course of action.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I have no hesitation in saying that I do

not believe Mount Pearl should have been created a separate municipality in the

first place. I think it should have been part of a single municipality of the

City of St. John's. But the fact is, Mr. Speaker, it was not. It was created and

built as a separate municipality. It was made a city three years ago. Mr.

Speaker, we just could not ignore those facts even though we believe having a

single metropolitan city, at least away from the coastal areas, was the right

course of action to take. But we could not just ride roughshod over that

community of some 22,000 or 23,000 and we did not. We put in place a proposal

that we believe will provide for the orderly development and giving priority to

the St. John's capital city area of this Province. We did just that, Mr.

Speaker, with trying to accommodate to the extent that we reasonably could the

legitimate concerns and interests of other areas.

Mr. Speaker, during the debate I will be happy to elaborate

further on it, but question period really does not provide enough time to

adequately do so.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to see that the lawyer is

coming out in the Premier today when he makes arguments for Mount Pearl that

exactly fit Wedgewood Park and that exactly fit the Goulds, yet they do not fit

into his rationale for protecting Wedgewood Park and the Goulds. Mr. Speaker,

you can make the same exact arguments that the Premier just made -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member is on a supplementary.

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

Mr. Speaker, is it not logical that the City of St. John's

will, out of necessity, have to use whatever political clout it has to try to

get the agricultural zone removed from the lands between St. John's and the

Goulds, in order to help pay for the services they will have to provide that

area? And, Mr. Speaker, is it not true that the Government, with their proposal

yesterday, have sounded the death knell for the protected agricultural land in

the St. John's area?

AN HON. MEMBER: Right on.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: To address the first commentary that he

made before the hon. Member asked the question, Mr. Speaker, Wedgewood Park and

the Goulds are quite different from Mount Pearl. It is a quite different

situation. Wedgewood Park is a little tiny enclave of some 1,200 or 1,300

people, quite different from what is now the City of Mount Pearl, even though

perhaps it should not have been created as such in the first place.

Nevertheless, that is the situation today and Wedgewood Park is markedly

different, so there is no comparison.

Mr. Speaker, the same pressure on the agricultural protection

for the lands in the Goulds area existed, anyway. Whether it was within the

municipality of the Goulds, within the city boundaries of St. John's, added to

Mount Pearl, or whatever else was done with it, the same pressure to take it out

of the protected agricultural zone would still exist. That pressure will not

alter, no matter what the municipal structure, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia

West.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Premier, as well, in the absence of the Minister of Municipal Affairs. The

Government, up to now have spent millions of dollars to subsidize facilities and

maintain roads and other services in the non-urban areas of the Northeast

Avalon. Apart from the tax burden of servicing the high tract non-urban land,

which was just mentioned, will the taxpayers of St. John's now be responsible

for the large capital debt of the Goulds, and will the City be responsible for

the high sums which will have to be invested to bring the municipal

infrastructure into the non-urban areas of the city, to a standard? How much

will this cost? Can he also tell us, will the Government be passing over to the

St. John's City Council, the operations cost for the Aquarena and the Canadian

Games Park?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: No, Mr. Speaker, we will not be passing

over to the City of St. John's an amount to cover the operational cost of the

Aquarena, for example. The Aquarena serves the people of this area. There is no

reason why the people of the City of Corner Brook or the people of St. Anthony

or Burin should pay the cost for services that they do not enjoy. So we have to

make sure that costs are allocated on a fair basis.

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the other costs, I have no doubt

that proper long-term management of the additional areas of land that are

brought within the city, to ensure that the city's future is protected, will

result in some additional cost for the City of St. John's, I have no doubt about

that. But, Mr. Speaker, they will also have the opportunity to provide for

additional development. For example, Newfoundland and Labrador Housing is

talking about a major residential development in what was the Watercrest area of

the St. John's Metropolitan Board area lands and in the Southlands area. So,

that would provide substantial additional revenue to the City and ensure that

the City has the ability to provide all of the services that are necessary.

I have no doubt that the Minister of Municipal and Provincial

Affairs will be discussing with the City any particular problems that arise out

of any transfer or additions to the city, but I want to make sure, Mr. Speaker,

that neither the hon. Member, nor any Member of this House, nor the City

Council, operates on the assumption that the Government is going to pass over to

the City of St. John's large sums of money, because we are not. We do not have

the monies to do so.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has ended.

Before proceeding to other matters, on behalf of hon.

Members, I would like to welcome to the public galleries, today, Walter Hodder,

a former MHA of this Legislature and father of the present Member for Port au

Port.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Presenting Reports by

Standing and Special Committees

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

MR. MURPHY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is certainly a

pleasure for me, at this time, to table a report of the Government Services

Legislation Review Committee, respecting Bill No. 6, "An Act To Revise And Amend

The Law Respecting A Pension Plan For Employees Of The Government Of The

Province And Others".

Just a few short comments, Mr. Speaker. I would want to thank

those who took the time to present both oral and written briefs and to thank the

Committee Members and, of course, the Deputy Clerk of the House, who helped in

compiling this report. Thank you.

Answers to Questions

For which Notice has been Given

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I wish to lay upon the Table of

the House, my reply to Question No. 27. It was asked by the hon. the Member for

Grand Falls and was contained in the April 4 Order Paper.

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

Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish also, to lay

upon the Table of the House, the answer to the question asked by the hon. the

Member for Grand Falls, and, in laying it on the Table, I give the hon. Member

credit for asking the question. Obviously, it was well-meant, and he was looking

for the information for comparative purposes. In producing my expenses, Mr.

Speaker, I did a comparison, and I am laying on the Table one-and-a-half pages,

because that is what it took to list my expenses, Mr. Speaker. The year the hon.

Member was Minister of Forestry, it took seven pages.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. FLIGHT: I am tabling twenty-nine trips to such places

as Grand Falls, Gander, Corner Brook, Grand Falls, Grand Falls, Grand Falls,

Goose Bay -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: - and, Mr. Speaker, for comparative purposes,

I can tell you that approximately seventy trips were taken by the Minister of

Forestry in the year 1986-1987 -

AN HON. MEMBER: That is ridiculous!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: - to a lot more exotic places -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I cannot hear the hon. Minister. I hear Members on my right,

saying that the hon. Minister is out of order. I cannot really hear what he is

saying. If I could hear what he were saying, I would be able to substantiate

whether or not the Minister is out of order. I ask the Minister, please, to

finish his comments on the tabling of the answer.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, I just want the record to show

that I took twenty-nine trips from the year 1990-1991, the bulk of them in the

Province and, for comparison purposes, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Forestry in

1986-1987, took around seventy trips -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)

MR. FLIGHT: - and took seven pages to prepare it.

MR. SPEAKER: When Ministers, please, are tabling answers,

I want them to be as precise as possible. I mentioned the other day, that, when

we are giving Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given, that the

Opposition does not get an opportunity to reply, and the same rules apply. Hon.

Members should avoid getting into debate and be as precise as possible.

The hon. the Minister of Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Members to my right, for some reason, today, seem rather

feisty, but they do have to give Ministers to my left an opportunity to speak.

The hon. the Minister of Development.

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, I apologize. I was not in the

House last week. I had fully intended to table these last week.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. FUREY: The hon. the Member for Grand Falls has asked

me to lay upon the Table, trips taken by the Minister, April 1 to March 31:

Destination, date of trip, length of trip, purpose of trip, etc. I did not

compare myself to my predecessors, I could not add that high.

But, as Minister, Mr. Speaker, I travelled to: Gander,

Stephenville, Philadelphia, Corner Brook, Houston, Gander, Corner Brook, Deer

Lake, Deer Lake, Deer Lake, Twillingate, Goose Bay, Gander, Deer Lake, Ottawa

and Norway, Deer Lake, Deer Lake, Ottawa, Toronto, Deer Lake, Deer Lake, Deer

Lake, Gander, Deer Lake, Ottawa, Wabush and Deer Lake.

Mr. Speaker, I will lay that upon the Table.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. FUREY: Well, I did go to Saskatchewan, but the

question to me was for April 1 1990 to March 31 1991. I did, indeed, go to

Saskatchewan last week to represent the Province at the National Science

Ministers meetings.

Now, the next question asked, was to lay upon the Table of

the House, all itemized expenses paid on behalf of the Chairman and all other

Commissioners of the Economic Recovery Commission, and the President and

Vice-Presidents, I assume they meant, of Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador

since both organizations came into existence.

The President and the Vice-Presidents: The President, of

course, is Jim Janes. His travel, hotel, meals and entertainment since this

organization came into existence was $2,993.66. Vice-President Kennedy was

$148.39; Vice-President Saunders was zero; Vice-President Marshall in Labrador

was $5,587.73; Vice-President Lush in Central was $7,691.51; Vice-President

Pearcey was $626.32.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

MR. FUREY: Vice-President Cook -

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader, on a

point of order.

MR. SIMMS: As much as we love to hear the Minister's

voice - not nearly as much, though, as he loves to hear his own voice - I have

to say to Your Honour, the purpose for putting questions on the Order Paper is

because they require lengthy answers. But, if the Ministers are going to stand

and read the answers out, what is the point in putting them on the Order Paper?

- point number one.

Point number two: The question was, to lay upon the Table,

that is all we have asked, lay on the Table, not to get up and make big smart

answers.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Obviously, the customs in this House in the time since I have

been a Member of this hon. House, is that Ministers, during the four years that

I sat in Opposition did, indeed, get up and read answers and explain answers to

questions under this particular heading. That is the practice of this House,

Your Honour, and I suggest we continue to follow that well-established practice

in this House.

Members opposite can ask questions, but they cannot tell us

what to put in the answers. If they do not like the answers, they cannot sit us

down. If they ask the questions, then they have to put up with the answers. It

is not like when we were in Opposition, when a lot of the questions were never

answered. We attempt to answer all questions and we will answer them to the best

of our ability. If Members opposite do not like it, then that is too bad. We are

not overly concerned about the feelings of Members opposite. It is interesting

to see, when they start to hurt they get up on spurious points of order that

have no meaning, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: To the point of order, there is no question

about it, questions that are lengthy are asked to be tabled. One of the main

reasons for tabling is because the answer is too lengthy for the House and ought

to be tabled.

As to practice and procedure, that is a different matter.

There is no question, practice has been that Ministers have commented upon the

answers but, again, this Chair does not want any long or lengthy comments. The

purpose of asking the question is to avoid lengthy answers, getting into the

debate, so I ask the Ministers, please, to be as precise as possible in tabling

their documents.

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, I am summarizing. There are some

seventeen or eighteen pages that I could take Members through. I know they want

the answers. I know they are very concerned; that is why I want to give them, in

summation, what this lengthy document says.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I left off at Vice-President Pearcey, who

spent in travel, hotel, meals, and entertainment -

MR. SIMMS: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader, on a point of order.

MR. SIMMS: Your Honour has just ruled and ordered the

hon. Minister, as I understand it, to table his answer. Now, he continues to

flaunt Your Honour's ruling.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

What the Chair said was that in the past - and the Chair is

going to research it a little further to see what the practice has been. I do

remember from my own recollection - you see the House will change, because

different Oppositions will require different things. We have had a couple of

things that have not been required previously. Of all my time in Opposition, I

have never known that ever we complained about a Minister who was responding to

a question.

The Chair is going to research it. The very reason for

Answers to Questions, as the hon. the Opposition House Leader pointed out, is

because the questions require lengthy answers, and that is why they are asked to

be tabled. Quite obviously, the logic from that is that they ought to be tabled

with as little discussion as possible. That is quite obvious. I have said the

practice and the procedure may be different but the Chair is going to check it

out to see what the practice and procedure was. In the meantime, I ask Ministers

to please co-operate and be very brief in the tabling of their documents.

I ask the Minister to clue up.

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

I am trying to get through one page which they specifically

asked for. They asked for the President and the Vice-President. They

specifically asked for travel, hotel, meals, entertainment, in total.

Vice-President Pearcey, $626.32; Vice-President Cook -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point in the House proceeding like this. The

Chair can recess immediately to check out what is going on. There is no point in

proceeding.

RECESS

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Again I remind hon. Members of the purpose for Questions on

the Order Paper. When the answer is to be lengthy and detailed that is the

reason why the question is put to the Order Paper. Indeed the Chair has the

authority sometimes to do that when a Member is asking a question, to say that

he thinks the appropriate place for this question should be the Order Paper

because it is too complicated, too detailed, and will take too much of the time

of the House. Quite obviously that is its purpose to be put on the Order Paper

and to be tabled. That says to me that when a Minister is giving the answer,

when he is tabling the document, that it should be as brief as possible because

that is the reason why it was put there. Again, I have not had time to check the

research but my own personal feeling is that when an answer has been tabled,

that as little as possible should be said about it - because the answer has been

tabled. Whatever the practice was in the past I will try and see. I do know, as

I said, that it has been done but the Chair will ask for Member's co-operation

and I will try and have something more definitive, more absolute tomorrow, but

on the basis of it, it seems to make sense to me that the answer should be

tabled with as little comment as possible.

It being Wednesday and Private Members' Day I call upon the

appropriate Member.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: It is 3:00 o'clock on Wednesday.

MR. SIMMS: A quick point of order, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SIMMS: Did the Minister of Development table his

answer, then?

MR. FUREY: I will table it tomorrow.

MR. SIMMS: You can table it now, if you wish. It is only

to table it.

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

MR. DOYLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am pleased to introduce this resolution today on behalf of

the official Opposition. I will read the resolution, it is only a short one:

IT RESOLVED that the House urge the Government to immediately bring in an

emergency job creation programme in order to combat the alarming unemployment

rate and the loss of jobs to the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, why would the official Opposition today bring in

a resolution calling upon Government to introduce some kind of a job creation

program to help the unemployed people in Newfoundland? Well, the answer is

really very, very simple, Mr. Speaker. We are at a crisis situation in the

Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. We are at a crisis situation with an

unemployment rate of 22.3 per cent, the highest unemployment rate in Canada and

the highest the unemployment rate has been in quite a number of years. I would

imagine it is the highest time the unemployment rate has been in a lot of years

in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. When the Government took office

back twenty-four months ago the unemployment rate was at 17.5 per cent, still

unacceptably high, still much too high at 17.5 per cent, but it was a whole lot

more manageable than what it is today at 22.3 per cent. That is a full increase

of 5 percentage points in a twenty-four month period. That is absolutely

unacceptable and disgraceful for this Government to be presiding over, in just

twenty-four months. We have 50,000 individuals in this Province who are now on

welfare, and the statistics say there are 52,000 unemployed. In May 1991 we have

approximately 25,000 families on welfare, and that compares, Mr. Speaker, back

in 1989 when the Government took office to 19,000 families at that point in time

on welfare, a full increase of 6000 families who are now on welfare today that

were not on welfare twenty four months ago, and this Government has to take

responsibility for that, Mr. Speaker. We have 13,000 more people unemployed

today than were unemployed back in 1989. Believe it or not we have one out of

every ten people in this small Province with a population of 560,000 on welfare,

and one out of four officially unemployed. Now that is the record of this

Government over the last twenty-four month period. At a time when we are at a

crisis in the economy, at a time when we are seeing layoffs of 3500 people in

the public service, at a time when people are begging and begging for jobs and

at a time when people are genuinely hurting in this economy that they are living

in, they are looking to their Government to offer some glimmer of hope. They are

looking to the Government to offer some glimmer of hope. What do we see the

Government do, Mr. Speaker? We see the Government doing absolutely nothing to

try and address the unemployment problem that we have in this Province. We see a

Government not only bankrupt of ideas to restore some dignity to the unemployed

people of the Province but we see a Government that is totally devoid of

compassion. Absolutely no compassion for the working man, absolutely no

compassion for the unemployed person and they refuse to put one red cent into

employment generation programs in this Province. This is at a time when the

Government is presiding over a 23 per cent unemployment rate, at a time when

they have laid off 3500 people in the public service, and they refuse to put one

red cent into employment generation programs in this Province. Mr. Speaker, that

is absolutely unacceptable, the Government and especially the Minister of

Employment and Labour Relations should today be totally ashamed, she should be

ashamed, to be sitting in the House of Assembly presiding over an unemployment

rate of 23 per cent and does not have, in the Department that is called the

Department of Employment, one employment program to help the people, the 52,000

people in the Province who are currently unemployed.

I do not know if the Government saw the recent flash sheet

from Statistics Canada that was put out on the unemployment rate and the

accompanying story. The story that went right along with it that said, "The big

jump in the unemployment rate is due to the layoffs and restraint measures of

the Provincial Government."

Now, Mr. Speaker, that is not the Opposition saying that.

That is not the union sector of Newfoundland and Labrador, that is not even the

unemployed people who are saying that, that was said recently by Statistics

Canada. "The big jump in the unemployment rate is due in large measure to the

layoffs and restraint measures of the Provincial Government." Not said by the

Opposition but said by an independent group of people, people who have no axe to

grind with the Government or anyone else, that the Government is mainly

responsible for the jump in the unemployment rate and the restraint measures

that they have adopted.

But still, Mr. Speaker, the Government refuses to listen. The

Government just refuses to listen. I am wondering if the Government has any idea

of what it means to lay off 3500 people in the public service of the Province. I

was doing a little bit of work on that just recently to try and put it into some

perspective that might cause the Government to wake up and have a look at what

they have been doing. Does the Government have any idea of what it means, in

such a narrow economy as Newfoundland and Labrador with a population of 560,000,

does the Government have any idea of what it means and the devastation that it

wreaks upon the Province when you lay off 3500 people with one slap in such a

small narrow economy with such a small population base of 560,000 people? Do

they realize what kind of a devastating affect that has on this Province? Well,

let me tell the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations what that is

equivalent to. Laying off 3,500 people in Newfoundland is equivalent to laying

off every single individual in Labrador City, with the Iron Ore Company of

Canada and Wabush Mines. It is equivalent to laying off every single individual

in Wabush Mines and the Iron Ore Company of Canada. That is what it is

equivalent to. You have 600 people who are employed with Wabush Mines and you

have 2,500 people employed with the Iron Ore Company of Canada. That is 3,100

people and this Government has laid off 3,500 people in Newfoundland.

Now can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, what that would mean to the

economy of Newfoundland if tomorrow the Iron Ore Company of Canada and Wabush

Mines decided to shut down the whole operation. That is what it means, laying

off 3,500 people in Newfoundland means you laid off everyone at Wabush Mines,

you laid off everyone with the Iron Ore Company of Canada and still 400 left to

go. So do you have any idea of what kind of devastation that wreaks upon a

Province in such a narrow economy that we have here in Newfoundland with a

population of 560,000 people? Has the Government realized what it has done?

Let me even put it in better perspective. Let's forget about

Labrador. Let's forget about Wabush Mines. Let's forget about the Iron Ore

Company of Canada. Let me put it in an even better perspective for the Members

and for the Minister of Employment. To lay off 3,500 people in Newfoundland -

MR. EFFORD: How many?

MR. DOYLE: Thirty-five hundred. If you laid off every

single individual -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. DOYLE: Mr. Speaker, could I have a little bit of

silence please?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DOYLE: If you laid off every single individual at the

Grand Falls mill, if you laid off every single individual in the Corner Brook

mill, and if you laid off every single individual at the Stephenville operation

you would have 1,700 people gone. You would have 1,700 if you laid off everyone

in Corner Brook, Grand Falls, and Stephenville. Out in Grand Falls, you probably

have about 500 people in that mill out there. In Corner Brook you have 800

people in that operation, and in Stephenville you have another 400. That is

1,700 people, and the Government has laid off 3,500. Now can you imagine, if you

laid off everyone in Grand Falls, everyone in Corner Brook, and everyone in

Stephenville what that would do to the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador, and

how everyone would be scrambling to try and help the people of Newfoundland to

deal with what would be a catastrophe, a crisis? But still the Government can

lay off 3,500 people, twice that number, two mills in Grand Falls, two mills in

Corner Brook, two out in Stephenville and not bat an eye. Not bat an eyelash,

Mr. Speaker. It is absolutely unbelievable that this Government could be doing

what it is doing, laying off 3,500 people without any conscience at all, just

letting them go and throwing caution to the wind, not caring about the hardship

that they are inflicting upon the people of this Province, families who are

suffering and suffering very badly who are begging this Government for some

glimmer of hope to restore their dignity and their pride so that they can have a

job again. That is what this Government has done by laying off 3,500 people.

So, Mr. Speaker, it is the equivalent, and I want to say it

again to the hon. Members so maybe it might sink home. It is equivalent

to laying off - to put it in the third piece of perspective -

everyone at Labrador City and all three mills on the island. Laying off 3,500

people in Newfoundland is equivalent to laying off everyone in Labrador City at

the Iron Ore Company of Canada, plus all three paper mills in Newfoundland.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: Well, if you had been here for the last five

minutes you might know. I will tell the hon. Member. In Grand Falls you have 500

in the mill; in Corner Brook you have 800; in Stephenville you have 400; and at

Labrador City you have 2,500. So that is pretty well equivalent to what -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: Well, there is a few over there. There is a

couple of hundred over there. But to put it in perspective this is what the

Government has done. They have laid off the equivalent of everyone at the

Labrador operation, at the Corner Brook, Stephenville and Grand Falls operation,

that is what they have done. But I am not going to be sidetracked by the

Minister of Development.

So 3,500 people can have a devastating affect upon such a

narrow economy as we have here in this Province with only 560,000 people. I make

no wonder that we have an unemployment problem and rate that are out of control.

And when I look at the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations and tally up

the efforts of that hon. Minister over the last twenty-four months to do

something for the unemployed in Newfoundland, then I am very depressed and

concerned for the unemployed of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Because that Minister has done absolutely nothing over the

last twenty-four month period to try and help the unemployed. And with that kind

of an unemployment rate of 22.3 per cent, we do not even have one employment

programme that the Minister can point to to help out that 22.5 per cent, to help

out those 52,000 people who are asking this Government for some consideration.

This Minister of Employment should be ashamed to sit in this

House. I realize she has to go to Cabinet and she has to sit around the Cabinet

table and fight for her few pennies as well. But she has not done a very

effective job in getting those pennies and dollars to try and help the

unemployed. The Premier and her colleagues are not listening. And it is about

time that the Minister took some drastic action to try and impress upon her

colleagues and the Premier the need to help out those 52,000 people who are

begging and crawling and scratching on a daily basis looking for work to try and

keep their families afloat, to try and pay their mortgages.

Bankruptcies are going wild in this Province. And what affect

does something like that have upon consumer spending? The effect of laying off

3,500 people has not even worked its way through the economy of Newfoundland

yet. It has not worked its way through. The devastation has not worked its way

through yet. What effect does something like that have upon consumer spending in

such a small Province?

Naturally when you lay off 3,500 people consumer spending has

to go down. The purchasing power of the consumer has to go down when you lay off

3,500 people. So that is another effect that we have yet to deal with in the

Province. And the secondary effect of all of that is bankruptcies. Bankruptcies

are going to increase and that is going to result again in a greater loss of

jobs in the private sector. So we are looking at 22.5 per cent or 23 per cent

now in the unemployment rate. But it is conceivable that when all this is worked

through the system that we could be looking at an unemployment rate of 25 per

cent or 26 per cent when we finish up with the bankruptcies that are going to

occur as a result of it and the downward spiral in consumer spending that is

going to take place, and as a result of that the layoffs that are going to take

place in the private sector as well. All of that has yet to work its way through

the economy in Newfoundland and Labrador, and you do not have to be an expert to

know that. Any eight grade economics student can tell you that when you lay off

3500 people it is going to have a devastating effect upon consumer purchasing

power and consumer spending. You do not have to be a teacher, a Ph.D, a lawyer,

or anything else to realize that. All you have to do is say: well, we have an

unemployment rate of 22.5 per cent, we have a population of 560,000, and you

cannot all of a sudden grab 3500 people out of that and expect it to have no

effect upon a Province like Newfoundland. You cannot lay off the equivalent of

all the paper mills in Newfoundland and Labrador City and not close out drug

stores, restaurants, clothing stores, and everything else. All of this has a

domino effect and we have yet to see the devastation that is going to happen and

how it has worked its way through the system.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are hoping that happens.

MR. DOYLE: No, I am not hoping that happens. I would

prefer to see the Government over there presiding over an unemployment rate of

zero, because it is not the unemployment thing that is going to defeat the

Government, it is the arrogance of the Government, the broken promises of the

Government. It is pushing down the throats of the people the amalgamation

process. That will defeat the Government. I would love to see the Government

over there presiding over an unemployment rate of zero. There is an effect of

all this yet to come, Mr. Speaker, that we have not seen, and the effect is even

going to be more devastating. Now, did Government stopped there when they laid

off 3500 people? Did they say, we have done enough damage now, and hopefully

this will get a few more dollars into the coffers of the Province? Did they stop

there? No, they were not finished yet, Mr. Speaker. What did they do after that?

They rolled back the wages of 35,000 people, not 3500, they rolled back the

wages and broke the contracts of 35,000 people.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. DOYLE: By leave, naturally.

AN HON. MEMBER: A couple of minutes to clue up.

MR. DOYLE: I will not be clued up for an hour yet.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Labour Relations.

MS. COWAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I ponder here this afternoon the unemployment rate in our

Province, and the debt we have as a Government, I find some very, very startling

revelations. Now, is this not interesting? I must comment on this. We are

suppose to be the Government that is not interested in unemployment but look at

all our Members sitting here, concerned, interested, and following the debate.

There is nobody over there at all, only two people over there when the hon.

Member was speaking. I find that interesting.

We inherited, Mr. Speaker, a Province which had a lot of

economic problems but even more so we inherited a Province that had tremendous

debt. If you look at that debt this year we have to pay $528 million for the

entire year just in interest payments. That is $44 million every month, $10

million every week, $1 million every day, and it is $10,000 every minute. Every

two minutes, if we did not have those interest rates, we could hire a person.

That would be $20,000 that would hire somebody. Every two minutes we could be

creating a job, but we have been left with a debt, an unbearable debt load that

we are trying to deal with. We are not ready today to put money into an

employment program until we are convinced that the figures will adjust

themselves through the movements of the economy. We are not going to just put

money into the employment programs in order to manipulate statistics so that

next month we can say, this happened or that, and we are the great guys that did

it. We are going to wait and see if the situation rights itself. If it does not

within a couple of months then, of course, we will be quite ready to bring in

some sort of a programme that will be of assistance to these people who find

themselves unemployed with no hope of any kind of income.

I find it rather interesting too, Mr. Speaker, the reaction

of the Opposition. They are very careful that they do not go back beyond 1988

because in 1987 in April the unemployment rate in the Province was 23.5, which

is higher than we have here today. I will table that information if I can just

so that it will be on the record here in the House. We have 22.2 now which is

not terrific, but 23.5 in 1987, and at that time, Mr. Speaker, we did not have a

problem with a recession, we did not have a failure in the fisheries. Do you

know that our cod landings this month are down by 10,000 tons? That has had a

tremendous impact on the work force in this Province.

We have, Mr. Speaker, a national recession over which we, as

a Province, have absolutely no control. If you want to see just how devastating

this national recession is, I am going to table also a three month average of

unemployment by cities - some of the major cities across Canada. And if you look

at them you will find Montreal, for example, has a tremendous problem with

unemployment. Windsor, Winnipeg, many Canadian cities are struggling with the

same kind of problems that we have here in Newfoundland. This is a national

problem, it is not one that is just related totally to this small island and

Labrador.

We, as a Government, are going to take a very responsible

attitude. We are not out here looking for political gain. I suppose I could say,

yes, let's have a program and I will get to send out letters all over the

Province giving people money, and I can sign my name to them and won't that be

wonderful? I will just look like the best Minister of Employment and Labour

Relations around. But I prefer to be remembered as a responsible person who felt

a responsibility towards the fiscal position of the Government balanced with a

responsibility towards the unemployed of the Province.

We have had mining closures, again most unfortunate, they

happened at the same time as the failure in the fisheries. We can look at some

positives, Mr. Speaker, and we are hoping that they will help alleviate the

tremendous problem that many of the people in the Province are under. For

example, we know that seasonal employment will soon kick in, which will probably

bring relief for many people. We have Enterprise Newfoundland which is doing a

terrific job.

Every now and then I hear people question about: what on

earth is Enterprise Newfoundland doing about creating jobs? Now just listen to

this, in January and February of this year 205 new jobs were created by

Enterprise Newfoundland and 708 jobs that were at risk were saved, and 22

businesses in Central, 27 in West, a part of the Province where we have

tremendous unemployment - they are doing a great job. In March 50 jobs were

created, and maintained, 370 jobs that could have been lost without the timely

advice of Enterprise Newfoundland. So ask me what Enterprise Newfoundland is

doing, Mr. Speaker, they are doing a great job. They are off to an excellent

start.

We have Hibernia. Every day now we see the employment figures

growing on Hibernia. I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, to those in the Opposition

that they should not really be directing their comments about unemployment to

the Government. They should be showing a bit of contempt for the Member for St.

John's East who wants to scuttle one of the best projects that we have ever had

in this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS. COWAN: That individual for nothing but personal gain

stood on his feet in this House day after day condemning HMDC and Nodeco for

their occupational health and safety programme when he had absolutely nothing to

base it on, when the president of the employees group at Hibernia says that that

site has excellent occupational health and safety. He was amazed that you could

go through a winter in Newfoundland during heavy construction - and normally

heavy construction closes down in Newfoundland over the winter - actually went

through the entire winter with eight accidents. We are still not even sure if

one was an accident.

That is an excellent rate. And he was horrified at the

comments of the Member for St. John's East who thinks he is here representing

labour. Really interesting. But what he actually is here doing is representing

himself. When it comes to the point where I get on page 1 and he gets on page

17, he drops the story and also has the gall to tell me that is why he dropped

it.

So if I was in the Opposition - the official Opposition - I

would be watching the hon. Member for St. John's East because he is out to

scuttle one of the best employment projects this Province has ever had. He may

be out to scuttle them too, so they better be careful.

We see that recession is bottoming out in central Canada.

That too is a positive sign, and that will eventually impact on our particular

Province.

The Member of the Opposition, the official critic who kicked

off this debate today, loves to say that our Government - or my Department - is

doing absolutely nothing to advance employment in this Province. That is not the

case. He has this sort of mind-set that unless you have public sector programmes

that last for sixteen weeks you are not doing anything to advance employment

opportunities for people in the Province.

Do you realize, Mr. Speaker, that we have through the

Canada-Newfoundland Youth Strategy been in touch with 25,000 young people in the

Province of Newfoundland and Labrador? Twenty-five thousand lives have been

touched with the type of information that that programme is disseminating, that

encourages young people to stay in school, encourages them to develop the skills

needed to find a job, and now through the linkages programme is actually helping

them find that critical first job. And yesterday, do you know what I did

yesterday?

I sat here in the House and I signed a document which gives

another 36 graduates who could not find a job, a job somewhere in the Province.

Those individuals are enrolled in the graduate employment programme because they

lacked experience. They have been out of a post-secondary institution for more

than three months, could not find work, because they did not have the

experience. We have gone to approximately thirty-six companies and encouraged

them to take on these young people, give them the experience they need. I am

very pleased every time that I am able to do that kind of thing. In total we

have over the past year I would say placed about 125 graduate students through

this programme and their chances of long term employment are greatly enhanced by

being in that particular programme.

We have as well masses of other programmes rising out of the

Canada-Newfoundland Youth Strategy. That graduate programme that I mentioned is

only one. We have the programmes that keep young women in school by providing

day-care for their children. We have a marvellous programme that the medical

school put in place that brings in young students from rural Newfoundland and

exposes them to all the opportunities in science and medicine that they can

seize when it becomes time for them to make career choices.

So we are doing a lot of work where it does not show those

immediate results that you can go around flaunting and saying: are we not a

great Government? But we are doing the kind of groundwork that leads to a strong

economic base and to a population that survives on full time employment. That is

not a sort of a hand-to-mouth type of existence, desperately looking for enough

money just to get their stamps. That way of life was sanctioned and encouraged

by the last government.

We are monitoring most carefully what is taking place in the

employment scene in the Province. It is not anything that we enjoy seeing. It is

difficult to realize that there are that many people who are unemployed and it

concerns us greatly. However, as I said when I began, we also have a

responsibility. Every minute we are paying $10,000 in interest payments to pay

for the excesses of the past government. I wonder how many jobs sixteen charter

flights would create, I do not know because I do not know the statistics, but at

least one or two, I would think. That concerns me greatly, when I see people

standing on the opposite side of the House condemning our Government for not

taking action when they in fact hamstrung this Government to make it very

difficult for us to do something to help the unemployed, to bolster the economy,

and to start getting Newfoundland on the road to a style of life that is more

similar to that enjoyed in the rest of Canada.

And they have the audacity - they would like to see us spend

money like drunken sailors like they did, because it would make them feel

better. It is embarrassing for the Opposition to see that we take this

responsible way of dealing with the problem. And of course I always know when

they are embarrassed because they start saying things like: sit down and shut

up, she's incompetent, she should resign. That is when I feel really good,

because I know that I am getting under their skin!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS. COWAN: Mr. Speaker, in a minute now I will sit down

and the next speaker may rise, but I want to say once more before I sit down

that if the problem becomes worse over the next two months, both the Premier and

I have stated that we will indeed look at putting employment programmes in

place. However, we are responsible to the taxpayers of this Province, and we

will put in place a programme only when we are convinced that the economy is not

going to right itself and address the problem in any way.

Thank you.

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

MR. POWER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to say a few

words about this resolution. I cannot say that I am delighted to speak on this

resolution because unfortunately it is not a very pleasant resolution to speak

about.

But I have to make a couple of comments about the Minister of

Labour who says that she does not want to go down in history as being a

political Minister of labour. If she is not careful she is going to go down in

the political history of Newfoundland as being the very worst Minister of Labour

that this Province has ever seen.

I cannot believe that the Minister of Labour stands up in her

place and basically acknowledges that we have all kinds of economic problems,

and says if they get really a lot worse, then maybe the Premier and I in two

months' time will do something about it. The Minister of Labour has to be - if

she is doing her job properly - concerned about the issues of today, May 15

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)!

MR. POWER: And be concerned - well, that is exactly -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. POWER: That is exactly the kind of arrogance that we

expect from the Minister of Labour. We bring in a resolution - they say they

never get a suggestion from the Opposition - asking for an employment programme,

that is all. Why do we want an employment programme? All of us are working. Not

a big problem for any of us individually. But why are 22.2 percent of our

population unemployed today? Why are 33 per cent - 1 out of every 3 people

between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four is unemployed.

And we ask the Minister of Labour to listen to the

Opposition, listen to the people of Newfoundland who cannot speak in this

Legislature and can only speak through us, people who are concerned as parents

that their children have not got jobs, people who are concerned as husbands and

spouses that they have not got jobs, they cannot pay their rent. Those are the

people we are speaking for. The Minister of Labour, the Premier and most of his

Cabinet totally ignore the issue. But I will bet any money - any money

whatsoever - that before six months are out, this Government is going to have to

go out and say: no matter what we tried we are going to have to have an

employment programme. We are going to have to increase our deficit by $10

million or $15 million. We are going to have to do something to get some of

Newfoundland's people working. Now why is that going to happen?

And something else, I mean, if you look at the resolution,

the resolution takes up about three and a half lines in the Order Paper, as

presented by Mr. Norm Doyle of Harbour Main to move - and here is what we are

asking:

"BE IT RESOLVED that this House urge the Government to

immediately bring in an emergency job creation program in order to combat the

alarming unemployment rate and the loss of jobs to the economy of Newfoundland

and Labrador."

Any lies in that? Is the unemployment rate alarming? Has

there been a loss of jobs in the economy? But when you look at the other part of

the Order Paper today, there is a page and half, probably fifty or sixty lines,

talking about amalgamation. Amalgamation is not the real issue in Newfoundland

today. The same as we spent almost all last year, almost all the first year of

the term of this Government, talking about Meech Lake and constitutional issues.

Canadians in the Meech Lake debate. It is wonderful.

But we also have a Premier who is being defiled in many parts

of Newfoundland because we have so many people who are unemployed. We have an

economy that is in shambles. We have a Government that seems not to have one

single iota of an idea of how to create a job in Newfoundland and Labrador. We

have a Minister of Labour who gets up and very falsely tries to tell people that

the whole problem is because of the deficit. The deficit has not changed

considerably since 1989, in April, when that group won the government, when the

Liberals put out their policy manual. The Premier of the Province knew then what

the deficit was, but he still made great promises about job creation.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)!

MR. POWER: Great promises by that Member who now wants to

speak from someone else's seat. Who said they were going to bring great amounts

of employment in Newfoundland and bring home every mother's son - nobody else is

going to leave the Province. All that happened in 1989. Everyone knew what the

deficit was, everyone knew what the problems were. And that group of people

deceived the citizens of Newfoundland into thinking they could deliver a vast

majority of programmes and promises when in reality, having been in Opposition

for seventeen years, they have not shown in the last two years of their

administration one new novel job creation programme. Not one!

The only ones that are in the Budget are the ones that were

there when we left. A graduate employment programme, a youth strategy programme

- they did not put enough money into it - and an employment programme where we

pay 50 per cent of the salary cost. And the Minister can squint all she likes

but if she can show in this House - I will gladly sit down and give her my time

- one job creation programme that her Department has initiated, a new programme,

in the last two years. And there will not be one single programme she can

mention because there is neither one there.

Not the Minister of Social Services is going to have a lot of

money. And you will either put money - and I said it the other day - in the

Minister of Social Service's Department in the next six months or you will have

to put some into job creation.

When you look at what this Government has done - the

wonderful job they did on Meech Lake, the wonderful deception now of

amalgamation, the wonderful things that they do outside of this Province - I

begin to wonder if there is any real point of having a government in

Newfoundland at all. I am not sure we would not be better off being like the

Yukon or the Northwest Territories and be run from Ottawa, run by a commission.

Everything that happens in this Province by this administration is blamed on the

Government in Ottawa and blamed on the past administration in Newfoundland.

But the real point of it all is that the Minister of Labour

does not go back in history far enough and find out where the real blame for

Newfoundland's economic woes are. The only real chance we had to be economically

self-sufficient was the Churchill Falls deal. That was given away. It was not

the Sprung and it was not the things that happened in the last seventeen years,

it is what happened before. So if you are going to be historically accurate

about Newfoundland's economic problems, let's go back to where they began. And

that was the biggest opportunity that we had and we lost it.

Now the other day I tried to get the Premier to acknowledge

that we had a serious labour problem in Newfoundland. He finally after about

three questions says: yes, we have a problem. Yes, 33 per cent of our youth

being unemployed is an unfortunate and sad situation and maybe we will do

something about it. I saw the Premier on TV finally for the first time that

evening relenting, at least in front of the press, and saying: we may have to

reconsider our economic direction. We may have to reconsider the Budget that we

brought in, the Budget which laid off 3,000 people and the spinoff effects of

that - and there is a lot more than 3,000 when it is all calculated.

There used to be multiplier effect when you create a job in a

province; there also must be a subtraction effect when you lose them. We used to

hear that if you created 2,500 jobs, with the multiplier effect you would

probably have another two or three jobs per job created, so you get 5,000 or so.

So maybe, if you actually lay off 2,500, maybe you will end up with 5,000

unemployed.

But the reality hits when you look at the employment

statistics. I think the Premier, when he saw these, when he finally began to

look at them and say to himself that maybe, just maybe, we are on the wrong

road; just maybe, we have not done the right thing. The only thing that

Government has done that is different, is that they have created Enterprise

Newfoundland.

Enterprise Newfoundland was RAND, the Department of Rural

Agriculture and Northern Development - small business, the Department of

Development and Newfoundland and Labrador Development Corporation were the three

parts of it. All those groups were working before, all those groups were

creating some employment before, all those groups were giving incentives to

businesses to create employment before. What I cannot see is, what has

Enterprise Newfoundland done that would not have been done by either the

Department of Development, the Development Corporation itself or by Rural

Development in the case of small business? I simply have not seen any large

scale job creation projects done by Enterprise Newfoundland, that have changed

any.

When the reality of it is looked at, Mr. Speaker, and these

employment fact sheets: the Minister of Labour says that maybe if these fact

sheets keep getting worse and worse, she and the Premier will do something about

this a few months down the road. But the resolution is asking to do something

now, because there is an emergency and any Member who is not bringing it back to

the Government, any Minister who is not mentioning it to the Premier, is not

doing their duty.

There is an emergency in Newfoundland today! What is

happening in the fishery? Unemployment insurance for fishermen gets cut off

today! In most of the northeast coast of Newfoundland, most fishermen are not

going to have any income for at least a month, and if ice conditions and fish

catches are as bad as they have been, then it is going to be a lot longer than a

month. Is that an emergency, is it not an emergency to go for a month without

food?

I think, most persons will say, yes, that is an emergency;

you cannot go that long without food and sustenance and that is going to happen

in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Is it true when we hear there are an extra 5,000 cases on the

welfare rolls this month, is that an emergency for the Province of Newfoundland,

for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador? Are we just going to

continually give more money to the Minister of Social Services and less money to

the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations? That is the problem with this

Government, they really do not seem to know exactly where they are going.

When you look at Forestry: the Minister who used to be the

Opposition critic in Forestry who is now leaving for a minute, always talked

about the great things that would happen in Forestry. How many new jobs have

been created in Forestry since April of 1989, how many new people are earning an

income from our Forest resource? The reality is, there are not any; that the

Forestry industry in Newfoundland now, if it is not exactly the same, it may be

a little bit worse than really what happened in 1989.

The Minister of Forestry and the Minister of Fisheries to

whom he is talking - are there more jobs in fisheries now than there were, when

this Government took office? The answer is no, there are less jobs in fishery,

even with all of the ideas you were supposed to have had. When you look at our

fishery resource and we are asking for this Government to respond to an

emergency situation, which they do not see as an emergency yet, the only reason

they do not see it as an emergency is that they are not themselves individually

unemployed and they do not have to worry about income in that regard, but when

you look at the figures, Mr. Speaker, you can do them any way you want. We have

more people unemployed this month than we had a year ago, we have more people

unemployed than we had, or the same number in March, when it usually falls.

Here is one startling statistic for all the Liberals of

Newfoundland who really wanted and thought they were going to initiate a real

change in this Province. When you came to Office in April of 1989, there were

188,000 people living, breathing and working in this Province, 188,000 two years

ago and these figures, this year, two years later of Liberal Administration,

there are 181,000 living, breathing, and people working in this Province. Now,

where did the 7,000 jobs go? Is that the real change that you talked about in

1989, when you tried to get elected? The other

part is, how many people are gone

out of Newfoundland? That is 7,000 real jobs that are not there.

Mr. Speaker, when I look at the Mining Industry -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. POWER: - it is either true or not true. Stats Canada,

on whom we rely, says, the two sheets are here, I will table them for the Member

for Exploits, who says it is not true, but it is true and that is why you will

not respond to the emergency. It is why everybody in your caucus today will vote

against this resolution that calls for emergency employment creation programmes,

you will vote against it because you do not believe what is happening. In your

hearts and souls, you think because you are Liberals and you think because you

are a new Government, that somehow or other, 7,000 less jobs are not present in

Newfoundland. But that is what is happening, 188,000 two years ago, 181,000 now,

you can subtract it anyway you like, there are 7,000 jobs in my mind, that have

left this Province. Then when you look at 22.2 per cent unemployed, 33.4 per

cent, I believe for Youth Employment, they are real numbers, and if somebody

across the way does not start telling the Premier that we have a crisis in this

Province, we will not get our Emergency Employment Programme, but, Mr. Speaker,

I have to say that in the Budget itself there is a problem. It is the whole

focus of the Budget. The focus of the Budget is not on job creation. What is the

biggest problem in Newfoundland and Labrador? Do a poll, any poll that the

Liberals want to look at. What is the biggest problem in Newfoundland? Biggest

problem is always jobs. It is always a struggle for families to try and get

young people educated first, get them some employment afterwards.

The reality is that in the Budget document there is not one

single mention of a new job creation programme. The dollars and cents are less

that they were last year. I think in one vote I mentioned the other day, in

youth employment alone they went from $1.582 million last year to $1.583

million. A $1,000 increase when in effect there are at least 3,000 more youth

unemployed, going from 26 per cent last year to 33 per cent this year, so we

have 3,000 more young people unemployed and we have an extra $1,000. Now, where

is that going to go? Give them a couple of dollars each and say: we are

Liberals, you have a Liberal Government in Newfoundland, we really care, we are

really compassionate, we are really concerned, and that is what we are going to

do for you?

It is not what the people of Newfoundland and Labrador

expected and it is most certainly not what they deserve. And the real problem

with this Government is that they do not have an economic plan. They have three

sources of excuses for everything: it is the Federal Government; it is the past

Tories; and it is the national recession which we cannot do anything about. But

they do not have any solutions, they really do not have any economic plan that I

can see. I cannot see where the fishery is going to improve - no ideas coming

from the Minister of Fisheries. No ideas coming from Forestry to improve the

forest job creation projects in this Province. As a matter of fact this year

there will be probably be a lot less people working in the forest. You are

laying off some people out at Wooddale I understand in order to take care of

their fiscal restraint problems.

But what this Government and Premier do not realize is that

there is a lot more to trying to run Newfoundland than just fiscal restraint.

Yes, it is great to keep your credit rating, but you will find when you become

compassionate, when you become caring, and maybe when you become knowledgeable

about what happens in Newfoundland, particularly rural Newfoundland, then maybe

you will see these emergency situations. You will realize that sometimes it is a

lot better to borrow a little money to keep those young people in Newfoundland,

to keep them here, to keep them working, than it is to let them go out of the

Province or let them stay in the Province and learn to live on welfare and

handouts.

The Minister of Labour may not be willing to acknowledge it

just yet but we are in a crisis situation in this Province when it comes to

unemployment. It has not gotten better, she can talk all she likes about the

statistics in other parts of Canada in the recession. The reality is that every

other part of Canada, the number of jobs created in every other province of

Canada was up in April from March, they are coming out of the recession, they

are actually creating jobs. In this Province, we are one of the few places where

the number of people unemployed in April was the same as it was in March.

That is a very unfortunate trend. It shows that in

Newfoundland the situation is getting worse, and in other provinces it is

getting better. I can only say to the Minister of Labour that maybe if she

listens, maybe when some of her colleagues get nerve enough to really tell her

that she is doing a terrible job, that she does have an obligation to the young

people and the unemployed in this Province, then maybe the Minister of Labour

might be able to acknowledge that we do have an emergency situation. Maybe she

will go to her Cabinet colleagues, get some money for temporary job creation

programmes so people will not starve to death between now and the time that she

and the Premier come to realize that we have an emergency in this Province.

As I say, it is not a delight to speak to this kind of a

resolution. It is very unfortunate that in this day, in May of 1991, after two

years of supposedly real change, we are back in the same mess that we have

always been in. But at least then there were some ideas of a plan to work it

out. With the exception of Hibernia - it is the only thing the Minister mentions

- the Hibernia certainly was not a Liberal idea. We had to fight the Liberals in

Ottawa tooth and nail for four or five years to get control of the resource and

get a decent agreement. The John Chretiens and Marc LaLondes and Trudeaus and

the Liberal caucus here in Newfoundland fought us tooth and nail so that we

would not have control of Hibernia. Now she gets up and she lauds this wonderful

project, this great thing that the NDPers are supposedly against, of getting the

Hibernia development. The only single project, the only thing that is happening

in this Province.

MS. VERGE: Clyde called it a pipe dream during the

campaign.

MR. POWER: Clyde called it a pipe dream during the

campaign, he probably did.

AN HON. MEMBER: Tell us about the Atlantic Accord.

MR. POWER: I will say the Atlantic Accord is the only

thing that you have going for you, the only single project of any consequence in

this Province. It was a Tory project done by Tories in Newfoundland and by

Tories in Ottawa, and you could not get it from the Liberals in Ottawa, you

could not get it from John Chretien, you could not get it from Marc LaLonde, you

certainly could not get it from Pierre Trudeau unless they were going to have

full control of it.

So we had the Atlantic Accord, done by us, supported by us

and fought against by Members opposite.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. POWER: And if somehow or other -

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

Hon. Members seem to be under the impression that they can

shout across the Chamber, that they can interject and ask questions, that they

can engage in loud conversations whenever they feel like it when debate is going

on in this House - that is totally unparliamentary. Hon. Members will have an

opportunity to engage in the debate, and I would advise them to restrain

themselves and take the opportunity when it comes to engage in the debate in the

proper manner - that is parliamentary.

MR. POWER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. But I have to ask

forgiveness for my colleagues here because if the Minister of Social Services

and the Minister of Labour starts calling Hibernia a Liberal project then I

think we really have a distorted view of the history of Newfoundland and

Labrador for sure. It was a Tory project done by Tories, delivered by Tories and

it is the only thing that the Liberals have going for them. You have not got

another single project in this Province of any consequence.

Mr. Speaker, I can only say that the Minister of Labour took

some great strides to try and prove why we cannot borrow some money. I say to

the Liberal Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, yes we have a $5 billion

deficit, yes we are budgeting a $54 million deficit this year. It will not be

the end of our fiscal world if we go out because of 22.2 per cent unemployment

overall, because of 33.3 per cent unemployment with young people, if we borrowed

$10 million or $12 million or $15 million in May of 1991 and we created some job

creation projects, that we gave to some of the industries, some of the

entrepreneurs in Newfoundland and we created some employment and kept those

people in the Province until such time as our fishery and our other industries

improve. Mr. Speaker, I recommend it highly to Members opposite. It will not be

the end of the world. And I say in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, that it will happen

anyway. The only difference between us and them is that we recognize an

employment emergency and this Government refuses to recognize any emergencies,

refuses to recognize that they have failed the people of Newfoundland, that they

have not created employment -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. POWER: - and until they recognize they have failed,

then we are going to have the same situation.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. POWER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Eagle River.

MR. DUMARESQUE: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I am

pleased today to rise in this debate and expound upon the issue of unemployment,

and what is happening in Newfoundland and Labrador. Over the next few minutes,

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about the causes of unemployment in this

Province, some of the solutions that this Government is working on, and some

indication of the progress that has been made since we took power in 1989.

Mr. Speaker, the causes of unemployment have been documented

in this Province in a number of different reports and a number of different

studies. The causes of unemployment in this Province have been seen to be

directly related to the dependency we have on the Federal Government. Let there

be, Mr. Speaker, no doubt where the substantial amount of blame must be laid for

the unemployment problems we have in this Province today. It is the Federal

Government, it is the economic policies, and the national political platforms of

the Tory Government in Ottawa that has caused the problems of this Province

today.

Now which kinds of policies, Mr. Speaker, are we talking

about? Are we talking about the guy who came down here a few years ago who made

that revelation, 'I am not afraid to inflict prosperity on Newfoundland and

Labrador.' I wonder, who that was? After he went back from St. John's, Mr.

Speaker, after he went back that day a few years ago he started to put together

a platform for inflicting prosperity on Newfoundland and Labrador. He started to

put together his platform, his programme. The first programme, of course, was

the interest rate policy. Now, let us see how we can gear the interest rate to

inflict prosperity on Newfoundland and Labrador. Let us see if we will take the

interest rate down. Maybe we will bring it down to 6 or 7 per cent or something

like that. That would be where we could really inflict prosperity, Mr. Speaker.

I suppose everybody was astounded when they saw that, instead of interest rates

going down to 6 or 7 per cent, they were up around 12 or 15 per cent, Mr.

Speaker, since they were in power up in Ottawa.

What did that do to the business community in Newfoundland

and Labrador? What did that do to job creations? What did that do to housing

starts in this Province, Mr. Speaker. It drove them into the ground. These were

the policies of the Federal Government, Mr. Speaker. That is what it was going

to do for unemployment and employment in Newfoundland, Mr. Speaker. Of course,

they could not fulfill that objective in just one policy, there had to be other

policies in their platform to really inflict true prosperity in Newfoundland.

There had to be some other things.

So, Mr. Michael Wilson got together with his people and his

magic wand and said: What can we come up with? Can we come up with price and

wage controls? Can we come up with some kind of a national employment strategy

or something like that? Maybe we will have to look at the tax system, Mr.

Speaker. That is what he said: Maybe we will have to look at the tax system.

Maybe we will have to come in with a GST. Well, what a brilliant idea! A Goods

and Services Tax! Tax everything, Mr. Speaker, from one thing to the other.

Let's see if the tax system now is not burdened enough. Let's see if we can

really cause jobs to come out of the system by fiddling with the tax system, Mr.

Speaker.

So, the second masterpiece, the second part of that platform,

to inflict prosperity on Newfoundland and Labrador, was the 7 per cent GST. I

know, Mr. Speaker, from my own district, what kind of an impetus that was. On

January 1, 1991, when that GST was brought in, Mr. Speaker, signs went up: "Open

for Business"; "New Jobs"; "Help Wanted". Yes, Mr. Speaker, those are the kinds

of things that happened on January 1, 1991.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: Mr. Speaker, everybody knows what

happened in January, February, and March of 1991. The cost of living, Mr.

Speaker, went right up, and the prices on the goods and services went through

the roof. I mean, that really did something for inflicting prosperity on this

Province, it really produced, Mr. Speaker. But, of course, never can a programme

be fulfilled on two planks. There have got to be at least one or two other

planks to really bring true prosperity into a Province like Newfoundland and

Labrador.

So, we had to see what else we could do. Maybe if we looked

at free trade with Mexico, or, maybe, free trade in general - let us revisit the

Free Trade Agreement. That is what was happening in February and March. The Hon.

John Crosbie, when he was Minister of International Trade, said: Let us revisit

the Free Trade Agreement. Let us acknowledge the real prosperity that it brought

into Newfoundland and Labrador. Let us look at the wages in Mexico. Let us look

at what we can get for Newfoundlanders in Mexico, Mr. Speaker, and let us see

what free trade has done. Of course, they looked at Ontario and they said: Oh,

in Ontario, 50,000 jobs. But, Mr. Speaker, they were 50,000 jobs gone, not

50,000 jobs created because of the Free Trade Agreement. In one month, last

June, 50,000 jobs gone, cleaned right out, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: So, that was the central platform of the

Tories over the last two years: Interest rate policy through the roof; GST

nailed onto goods and services all across the board; and the re-visit to the

Free Trade Agreement, Mr. Speaker. They said, this was their masterpiece for the

future.

However, there had to be some other minor adjustments in the

whole equation. To really zero in on youth unemployment, to really zero in on

the fishermen, and to really get at the crux of the problem, they said there has

got to be some fine tuning in our policy. Let us look at our budget, Mr.

Speaker. Let us look at our established programme financing. Let us look at how

we can give some millions of dollars to Newfoundland, because they really need

it. What did they do? Of course, you would expect that they would fulfill that

objective in spades. Of course, you would think they would.

Now, there was a time when I think there might have been some

overpayments or something in transfers, maybe, for the last four or five years.

I think it happened in several other provinces as well, Mr. Speaker. So, they

said to Newfoundland, of course: Now, Newfoundland, you are in a tough position.

There is not much you can do, there are some things happening down there that

you have no control over. So we will forgive that $35 million that you

accidentally got a few years ago, we will actually forgive that. That would be

compassion. That would be inflicting prosperity. That would be really doing

something for job creation, Mr. Speaker. But, what did he do? He brought down

the hammer, Mr. Speaker. He said: Pay up, or you will not be getting any

established programme financing funding for this year. That is what that Tory

Government in Ottawa said.

He said to the Minister of Finance: Let us fine-tune it a

little bit more. Let us put the cap on her. Let us put the cap on health and

education transfers, Mr. Speaker. Now, of course that was not going to affect

Newfoundland and Labrador. That was going to really promote job development and

really stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit. Yes, Mr. Speaker! Nothing like

having $145 million pulled out from under you, just before you have to put your

budget together, when you are dealing with this kind of an economic situation.

That was the Tory philosophy from Ottawa that was propagated on this Province,

Mr. Speaker. That was it.

Of course, everybody acknowledges the seasonality of the

fishery, everybody acknowledges the seasonality of tourism in this Province, and

how much we depend on UIC. So, they said: We have got to fine-tune this UIC. We

will call it C-21. That is what we will call it. This is how we are going to

fine-tune the UIC, to make sure that the people on the Coast of Labrador get

that extra benefit, Mr. Speaker. We will make sure that the person in seasonal

employment on the Bonavista Peninsula is going to get that unemployment. We will

make sure that they qualify with ten weeks. Of course, everybody was

flabbergasted when this inflicting prosperity, this C-21 took $100 million out

of the UIC programme in this Province. It said: You are not going to get any

unemployment if you do not work up to nineteen or twenty weeks. It was zeroing

in on the people who could least afford it, Mr. Speaker. That is the kind of

financial obligation that they had to this Province. That was the kind of

prosperity that they wanted to inflict on Labrador, on Bonavista, on the South

Shore, on Corner Brook and those areas.

They were not content, Mr. Speaker, until they brought in the

mother of all policies. They said: We have got to zero in on the compassion of

Newfoundland and Labrador, we have got to get them generated, and we have got to

educate them. We have got to give them lots of money for their health care, so

they can be well and we can go out and be trained, and take advantage of the

opportunities that are going to be before us. So they devised the mother of all

policies, Bill C-69. He said: That is the one for Newfoundland. That is the one

that is really going to inflict prosperity on Newfoundland and Labrador, Bill

C-69. Hundreds of millions of new dollars, now, for health and education.

Newfoundlanders were saying: What are we going to do with it? We are going to

have to build new schools, new hospitals. We are really going to have to do

something to accept all this money that is going to be coming into this

Province.

Mr. Speaker, the most draconian piece of economic policy, the

most draconian piece of any government's programme to ever be inflicted upon

anybody in this country, is Bill C-69. It will forever damn the system of health

transfer payments, and education transfer payments on any part of this country.

But it will more seriously affect Newfoundland and Labrador than anywhere else.

That is the kind of fine tuning that they did to their three big planks in their

platform, Mr. Speaker.

Now, how did the Government of Newfoundland respond? We

obviously had to look at some solutions, because here we were depending so much

on the economic giant in Ottawa, saying: How could we do some things now to

really capitalize on the kind of transfer payments and the kind of economic

situation that the Federal Government has put us in? So, we said, let us look at

it in a couple of ways. Let us look at some macro projects. Let us look at

something micro to really get the small business community going.

So, Mr. Speaker, we looked at the Atlantic Accord, and we

said there were some things in the Atlantic Accord that could probably use some

fine tuning. We could probably try to get some things straightened out there. I

am not afraid to inflict prosperity on Newfoundland. With that kind of attitude,

we had no doubt that there would be some substantial, significant changes coming

in the Atlantic Accord, to make sure that when we did get a few dollars from

Hibernia, that they would be able to keep at least ninety cents of it. That

would be reasonable.

I remember, Mr. Speaker, former Prime Minister Trudeau saying

that there would never be a time, if Newfoundland ever got into the Hibernia

offshore, that Ottawa would take back one red cent, until the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador were at the level of other Canadians across the

Country. That was the Liberal policy, Mr. Speaker. That is what they were

expecting. They were expecting, of course, that after this rejuvenation that

happened up there in 1984, that some of this would rub off onto that Tory

Administration, and they would welcome it with open arms and say, let us discuss

the fine tuning in the Atlantic Accord. No, Mr. Speaker, they said take it or

leave it. If we were obstinate, over-reacting, as some other Premiers have been

in the not-too-distant past, we would have probably thrown out two Accords. We

would have probably put $3 million, $4 million, or $5 million into court fees to

make sure that we got our rights - maybe $10 million or $20 million. I mean,

what was four or five, ten or twenty million dollars a few years ago? - not very

much. If we were of that mentality we probably would have flicked it over to the

courts, fought it out, paid the best lawyers in the country, and we would have

tried to resurrect our prosperity that way. But, no, Mr. Speaker, that was not

our mentality. We said, We are going to make sure that we take full advantage of

an otherwise bad situation. We could do better, yes, but we are going to do

something, we are going to get that Accord signed. The hon. Rex Gibbons, Mr.

Speaker, when we came in here in May, 1989, said, `We are going to sign that

deal. We are going to stand up with pride and sign the Hibernia Agreement.' Mr.

Speaker, after all the ranting and roaring, all the court battles, all the

posturing, all the inflicting prosperity, not one cent was realized by the Tory

Administration, at that time, not one red cent.

What did we do? Mr. Speaker, we signed that deal, and today,

we are going to reap the benefits of that deal. That is a Liberal project, a

Liberal initiative, a Liberal deed, Mr. Speaker, and we are going to produce on

that. That is what we have done. Of course, the Minister of Mines and Energy,

today, is not convinced that is going to be the panacea of all our economic

problems. He is obviously not going to say, now that we have the Hibernia

agreement, everything is over, we can settle back, we can put on our robes and

act like the Saudis. We cannot do that. We are obviously going to have to look

to other ventures. So, he looked to Labrador and said, What a wonderful land we

have down there, what wonderful resources, what valuable resources we have! The

water running over those falls, Mr. Speaker, now, there is something that maybe

we can work with. An otherwise insensitive Government would probably have said

to themselves, Well, let it go. You know, it is a long ways away, it will always

be there, maybe someday later, someday, the sun will shine. We will not have to

go down there. We will not have to do anything like that, Mr. Speaker. He said,

that is the way the Tory Administration in the past worked, let us not overheat

the economy or anything like that, let us not get into overheating the economy.

Mr. Speaker, we were more prudent, more understanding, more

rational. The Minister of Mines and Energy went to Quebec and put the

negotiations for the Lower Churchill back on track; consistent planning,

consistent progress, that is what this Administration has done, Mr. Speaker, to

secure - and I am confident that we will secure that fifteen thousand person

years of jobs, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Only five more minutes, `Danny'.

MR. DUMARESQUE: We have another few minutes to expound on

this resolution and, I guess, I will have to indicate why we disagree with what

has been proposed here today. We have looked at the big picture, Mr. Speaker. We

saw where the problems lie, we have acknowledged some of the solutions, and we

are working vigilantly to see that they are accomplished. We have put into small

business and entrepreneurship the integral component of stimulation, Enterprise

Newfoundland and Labrador, and everybody in Newfoundland and Labrador realizes

today that it is working, it is producing, it is establishing businesses, and

establishing meaningful employment, throughout this Province. Over the last

year, Mr. Speaker, did we create some part-time jobs? Did we create some kind of

a ten-week syndrome in this Province? - not at all. That is not our objective,

that is not our focus. We produced 4000 long-term meaningful jobs in this

Province in the last year. That is progress, Mr. Speaker, that is commitment.

That is not a flash in the pan, Mr. Speaker. That is not what the resolution is

asking for today; the resolution, today, is asking for another quick fix. What

is it saying? - that we must immediately bring in an emergency job creation

program. Mr. Speaker, it must be acknowledged that the last time that

Administration over there sought to immediately create a job creation program in

this Province, there was a big puff, a big bang, a big light over Mount Pearl,

and cucumbers popping all over this Province. That was the kind

of job creation, the kind of instant job creation we had.

I remember seeing the hon. Garfield Warren, down by the hotel

in Wabush, with cucumbers coming out of his pockets everywhere, cucumbers here,

there, everywhere, that is the kind of instant job creation projects we had.

Now, I suppose that did not cost anything, just a bit of

imagination, just a bit of playing around, but that cost $25 million, Mr.

Speaker, $25 million, and what did we get? We got zero jobs, we got a flash in

the pan, we got a con job put on to the people of this Province that was

supposed to be creating long-term, meaningful employment.

That is not our objective, Mr. Speaker. This Government will

be remembered for dealing with the real problem of unemployment in this

Province. We will be offering meaningful jobs for the people of this Province.

Our young people will have a meaningful career to follow in the different

sectors of this economy, Mr. Speaker, and overall, there is going to be a plan.

There is no cookbook, a part of our economic platform, Mr.

Speaker. There will be no cookbook, I tell you, propagated among the people of

this Province. What we are going to have and what we have established is a

master plan, and come the next election, the people of this Province will look

at it and say, `Yes, indeed, you have done what you have done in spite of that

man up there who said he was going to inflict prosperity.' In spite of the Tory

policies of that Government for the last six years, Mr. Speaker, we will survive

and we will overcome that kind of draconian policy and we will go back to the

electorate, proud to have accomplished what we said we were going to do back in

April, 1989. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Capes.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: Sit down! Sit down!

MR. HEARN: I am sure the hon. the Minister of Social

Services will get a chance to speak afterwards.

MR. EFFORD: Ten minutes?

MR. HEARN: I will consider it.

MR. EFFORD: Give me ten minutes.

MR. HEARN: Mr. Speaker, we just heard, what, to a

listener - should we be fortunate enough to have one in the House, and we do

not, except the person operating the machines upstairs unfortunately - what

appeared to be a tremendously exciting, political, speech. The unfortunate thing

about it is I really believe that the hon. Member who delivered it believes some

of what he said, and, if that is the case, he is even more naive than I give him

credit for.

It was extremely interesting to hear him list the prosperity

that was inflicted upon us by the Prime Minister of Canada, as he went through

the interest rates, GST and Free Trade and the EPF and UI and what have you,

with very little understanding of any of it. But, the most interesting thing

about it, was, if these programmes, inflicted upon Newfoundland the type of

prosperity to which the Member alluded, in other words, a complete lack of

prosperity - they were destructive rather than constructive programmes - then it

gives all kinds of justification for the very resolution we have here today,

because, if our people have been so demeaned by the Federal Government then,

what has the Provincial Government done, and the answer is a very simple,

nothing.

The statistics that have recently come out make it quite

clear what this Government has done to assist employment in the Province, where

we see this Province, the only Province in Canada, with the exception of Alberta

- and Alberta with an unemployment rate of 8.4 per cent, up from 8.3 per cent

last month, big deal - with the exception of that, no other province in Canada,

except Newfoundland, had a decrease in the number of people looking for

employment. Consequently, when the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations

stands up and talks about us being affected by the Canadian recession, and

having no control over it, how come, during the same period, every other

province in Canada did have some control, did exert some control, and lowered

the rate of unemployment? Consequently, it just does not wash. It just shows

that the Government, as everyone knows now, has taken no new initiatives at all

to deal with the unemployment situation in the Province. The only jobs, I

submit, that have been created are the ones created by the bureaucracies set up

by the present administration, Enterprise Newfoundland, the Economic Recovery

Commission, and what have you. These are the only jobs that have been created,

high paying jobs for friends and, of course, organizations which have delivered

absolutely nothing to those who are seeking employment.

It was ironic that the Member who spoke last, when he talked

about all the federal programs that had a negative effect Newfoundland, did not

allude to the positive asides of these programs, neither did he allude to such

agreements as the road funding program, the upcoming Tourism agreement that I

understand will be signed this week, the fisheries diversification programs, the

community futures organization put in place. If there have been any jobs created

in this Province recently, they have been created by federal initiatives. I am

not here to defend the Feds. In fact, there are many policies that they have

come up with that affect Newfoundland with which I thoroughly disagree, but, if

we are going to decry the programmes of the Federal Government, then at least,

we should have the courtesy of recognizing the fact that many of their

programmes have got us, as a Province, out of the bind we have been in with

unemployment. Consequently, many of the new initiatives are strictly there

because of federal funding.

I should ask the Government where are the jobs this year in

relation to our own construction programs? Where is the road work that should be

ongoing right now? Where are the municipal projects that should be operating?

What is happening in the field of construction? Most Members, some more than

others, have a lot of people in their districts who depend entirely upon

construction work for a living. How many of them are working right now? How many

of the major companies are in serious trouble because there are no major

projects being called by Government? These are provincial projects that should

be providing jobs right now.

What about Tourism? Yesterday in the House - I presume it was

yesterday - the Minister read a statement acknowledging the fact that this is

National Tourism Week. He went on to talk about Tourism generally and finished

up by saying, `And that is why, as Minister for Tourism, I am pleased to

announce the week of May 13 to May 19 as National Tourism Week. Maybe the

Minister should be announcing some good Tourism initiatives. I agree with the

Minister when he says that the Tourism potential of this Province is not being

tapped. I think there is only one way to go for us and that is up. I think we

have a long way to go. There is no place - and I have said this on a number of

occasions - there is no place in this country that has more to offer, maybe

there is no place in the world that has more to offer people who want to see

something different, than the Province of Newfoundland. if we want to get

specific about it, and I hint to the Minister, perhaps there is no place in this

Province, or in this country, that has more to offer than the Southern Avalon

Loop, part of which I represent. I do include the Northern Peninsula when I say

that the Southern Avalon has more to offer than any other part, because anyone

who becomes familiar with the trip from St. John's, around to St. John's,

whether you do the single loop out Salmonier Line, or whether you do the double

loop out through North Harbour, Branch, and into Cape Shore through Placentia,

represented by the Member for Placentia, covering four districts, Kilbride, the

Goulds area, Ferryland, St. Mary's - The Capes, and Placentia district, every

few miles, there is something unique, something entirely different, something

that people would come from all over the world to see.

The problem with that area is, as I have said before, we are

beyond the end. People come to St. John's to get on the boat, they come to Port

aux Basques, they drive across the Island, they land in St. John's and put their

foot in the water or whatever, and they bow to City Hall, saying, `We are here.

We have arrived.' What they do not realize is that the most exciting part of

Newfoundland, from the oldest settled part of North America to the historic

sites, to the scenery, to the Caribou herds, to the salmon rivers, to the bird

sanctuaries, all these things are beyond St. John's. You go down the southern

shore and around the loop to see them. Every few miles, you have something that

is entirely different. I am sure the Minister will get a chance later to

comment. I know he agrees with me. Undoubtedly, when his agreement is signed,

during the week, there will be some initiatives to help promote some of the

exciting sceneries we have up there, some of the exciting attractions,

specifically the bird sanctuary out in Cape St. Mary's, and what have you. In

the Minister's own booklet that he put out this year, there is a picture of the

bird sanctuary out in Cape St. Mary's, part of my district, and I thank the

Minister for that. But what I am saying is that we have to let people know.

Perhaps the Minister, himself, should do a little more