March 9,

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLII No. 8

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Dicks): Order, please!

On behalf of hon. members I would like to welcome to the

public galleries the Grade V class of St. Joseph's Elementary School in St.

John's East, together with teacher Lucille Gambin and parent assistants.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: I would also like to welcome to the House

twenty-nine Grade V students from Park Avenue Elementary School in Mount Pearl,

together with their teacher Donna Warren and teacher-intern, Lori Pynn.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Oh, I am sorry. Being somewhat nearsighted I

failed to recognize the former Member for Menihek. We would like to welcome to

the public galleries Mr. Peter Fenwick.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Statements by Ministers

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

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am pleased to advise hon. members that yesterday I attended

two meetings, one in Clarenville, and the other in Whitbourne, to discuss the

restructuring of health care institution boards in the Eastern Region of the

Province.

I met with the Chairs and Chief Executive Officers of the

Bonavista Peninsula Health Care Board, the Clarenville Area Health Care Board,

and the Burin Peninsula Health Care Board to outline government's decision to

appoint one board from that part of the Eastern Region to govern all health care

facilities currently governed by these three boards.

After my meeting in Clarenville, I attended a meeting at

Whitbourne with the Chairs and Chief Executive Officers of the

Trinity-Conception Health Care Board, the Placentia Area Health Care Board, the

Carbonear Interfaith Senior Citizens Board and the Memorial University Clinics

Association Board to discuss health care board restructuring in that part of the

Eastern Region. At that meeting I outlined government's decision to appoint a

single institutional board to govern all facilities currently governed by these

three boards.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

DR. KITCHEN: I do not know why we have three there

because it is really four, three, plus Memorial is four.

Mr. Speaker, the government's decision is essentially in line

with the recommendations of Mrs. Lucy Dobbin's Report which she submitted on

health care board restructuring in the Province. I would like to point out that

prior to meeting with the local officials yesterday to announce government's

decision, I consulted with them and others, widely. I am pleased to say that the

people who have operated health care facilities in these areas were very

receptive and positive about the changes we are making in general. More than

ever, people see themselves as being in partnership in the provision of health

services to the people of the Province. This is a very positive sign and speaks

well of what we might expect in the future in terms of the delivery of health

care services at the local and especially at the regional level.

I want to make it clear today that the boards we are

appointing will be new boards and not simply an amalgamation of existing

organizations. This is not a process of bringing smaller organizations under the

wing of larger organizations. However, we will be looking at building on the

strengths of the current system and having some members of existing boards as

part of the new board structures.

Mr. Speaker, now that the consultations have taken place and

decisions have been announced with respect to the new boards for the Eastern

Region, I hope to be in a position shortly to identify the members of the Board.

When that is done, I will be making a further announcement.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This is just a continuation of what happened some months ago

when this government acted upon the Dobbin Report which did not give one reason

whatsoever for the cost efficiencies or improved level of services that would be

attained by restructuring in the seven boards in this Province. What has been

done is that they have drawn a geographic line in seven regions of this Province

to make seven larger boards without substantiating it with any aspect

whatsoever, number 1, from improved patient care and number 2, from a cost

efficiency basis. There is nothing in government records, reports or studies to

substantiate that.

Furthermore, the minister has stated that all the people he

consulted with have been in favour of this reorganized board in this Eastern

Region. I understand he received several thousand names on a petition from the

people on the Burin Peninsula, presented to him, who do not agree with what is

happening here.

We have a health care system that is descending into chaos

and all we see is a reshuffling of chairs around the boardroom table, that's

what's happening. We have had hospital beds closed in this Province in the last

four or five years, we have understaffed hospitals, we have waiting lists beyond

two years in certain specialty areas, and all the minister can do is sit around

and shuffle around a few chairs and draw lines on a map in this Province. I

think it's disgusting and disgraceful.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. members time as expired.

Does the hon. Member for St. John's East have leave to

address the House?

Leave given, the hon. member.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to speak briefly to the minister's statement. The

alleged purpose of doing this is to provide more efficient health care services.

What we see is that they're establishing these boards and then we will see the

government cranking down health care costs and putting the onus on these boards

to close down services, to cut them out and blame it on them instead of taking

the blame for what they are doing themselves. That's what we're concerned about,

Mr. Speaker, and that's what I fear is coming next.

MR. SPEAKER: On behalf of hon. members I'd like to

recognize Ms. Shannie Duff the former Member for St. John's East who is present

in the galleries today as well.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Oral Questions

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

West.

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

Minister of Mines and Energy.

Under

section 8 of the privatization act, new Hydro is

required to set up a pension plan for its employees. The Premier told the media

last Friday, that $35 million to $40 million would be transferred from the

Public Service Pension Plan to the new Hydro plan. I assume, that is the value

of the benefits Hydro employees have accumulated in the Public Service Pension

Plan; however, Mr. Speaker, the Premier also said that government would make a

cash contribution to new Hydro's pension plan in the area of $30 million to $40

million from the Province's general revenues. Let me ask the minister, Mr.

Speaker, is that a contribution from the taxpayers of this Province to cover

part of the unfunded liability in new Hydro's pension plan?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes. The cash

contribution part that is not coming out of the present plan, is reflecting the

unfunded liability of the present plan and naturally, with privatization,

arrangements have to be made now to recognize the unfunded liability part that

government is responsible for and that is what is being done.

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

West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, now, the minister has confirmed

that it is a contribution from the taxpayers of the Province. The Premier also

said that new Hydro would charge out $20 million to $30 million in electrical

rate payers to cover part of the past unfunded liability. Under the

privatization act, new Hydro will recover this amount from the rate payers over

an amortization period of fifteen years. Mr. Speaker, $20 million to $30 million

amortized over fifteen years will cost the payers of electricity bills in this

Province, at the very least, $100 million; in other words, the people who pay

light bills in this Province, and the taxpayers will contribute in the area of

$140 million to $150 million to new Hydro's pension plan - at least, Mr.

Speaker, $100 million by the ratepayers and $40 million by the taxpayers.

Will the minister confirm that this amount is in addition to

the millions of dollars electrical consumers will have to pay every year to

maintain new Hydro's pension plan as a fully-funded plan?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, the amounts that are talked

about here are already recognized in the estimates that have been given for

rates for the future that we have put forward, and the second amount that the

hon. member refers to, reflects an underpayment by the employer and employees of

Hydro over the years, again this amount will be crystallized but paid into the

fund over the years.

I want to come back to the first comment of the hon. member

when he talked about a cash contribution. That isn't an up front, cash

contribution, it is by way of a note over many years, with a particular time

frame on it. So we aren't taking out a cash contribution today and making it, it

will be over several years.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

DR. GIBBONS: Yes, and we owe it. Government owes that

amount to the fund, so when this is finished the employees of new Hydro, and the

retirees of Hydro - both employees and retirees of Hydro - will have a fully

funded pension plan that is appropriately funded.

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

West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I say to the Minister of Energy,

that's going to cost the taxpayers and the payers of electricity bills more,

when you look at it being done in notes, and amortized over a period of time.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the government is forcing rate payers,

electricity payers in this Province, the people who have electricity, and the

taxpayers, which in most cases is one and the same, to contribute $150 million -

asking the taxpayers and electricity bill payers in this Province to contribute

$150 million to a private pension plan of a private company, while at the same

time this government has seen fit to scuttle the pension plan for its own

employees.

Last year, Mr. Speaker, the government withheld about $50

million in contributions from the public sector plan, and I guess it is plan

again this year to retain another $40 million to $50 million this fiscal year.

These moves have put the public sector pension plan in jeopardy, and I would

like to know how the government can explain its actions.

Why is this government, I ask the minister, forcing the

payers of electricity bills in this Province, and taxpayers, to contribute $150

million to a pension plan for a private company, which new Hydro will be, while

you are doing everything in your power to scuttle the pension plan for public

sector employees.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: Far from it, Mr. Speaker. Government is

standing up to its liabilities, and will do so in a very, very responsible way.

The amount that is in the public service pension plan now, put there by Hydro,

the corporation, and put there by the present employees and former employees,

and retirees of Hydro, that will be put into their new plan.

The unfunded liability that we, as a government, are

responsible for, will be put into that new plan in a responsible way by way of a

note, and the other amount will be put in there properly, through the rate

payers, because it wasn't put in there adequately before, over the many years

that the other side was responsible for it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay.

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

the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.

With regard to silviculture, I think all hon. members would

agree that silviculture must be improved and increased in this Province so that

we don't run into the same problem in our forestry now that we see in our

fishery. I would like to ask the minister, first of all, if he could update us

on the status of the federal-provincial agreement for silviculture for this

Province.

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

Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: The status, Mr. Speaker, of the existing

federal-provincial agreement is that there is a year-and-a-half left to run on

that, and the level of funding for silviculture remains the same. We will be

spending out of that agreement approximately $12 million in forest enhancement,

the bulk of which will be for planting, thinning, scarification and seeding.

When that agreement is over, and that is a 70-30 agreement,

then we will have great difficulty in maintaining that level of silviculture

funding unless we can negotiate another cost-shared agreement with the Federal

Government. I might point out, I am hopeful that the present Federal Government

doesn't take the position taken by the previous Federal Government - his cousins

prior to this administration now - who declared that they were going to end the

cost-shared agreements and thereby end the kind of money that Newfoundland needs

to do the silviculture programs that he so badly needs.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White

Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: I certainly agree with the minister. Cousins

or no cousins, I didn't like what was done by them and I hope it doesn't

continue with your cousins who are up there right now. Because it is not a

matter of cousins, it is a matter of this Province maintaining a sustainable

forest. And if silviculture is not improved, I say to the minister, then we may

be standing up with a moratorium for forestry in this Province in the very near

future.

Even if the Federal Government do not proceed after the

year-and-a-half is up, can the minister assure this House that no matter what

happens at the federal level, the Provincial Government will not only stay the

same but increase their amounts to that particular program?

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

Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, this government is totally

committed to the forestry industry in this Province, committed to good forest

management, committed to forest enhancement, committed to silviculture programs

that will guarantee that we can maintain the level of economic activity that we

presently enjoy from the forestry resources - the three paper mills, the

sawmilling industry (inaudible). But, as the member well knows, it costs money.

It is very expensive to provide silviculture treatments. This Province will put

whatever money is possible into it, but the member well knows there is a limited

amount of money. We can only spend what we have to spend and we will do that.

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

for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: I fully realize there is only a certain

amount of money, but I can tell you that there is not a lot in this Province

that is more important right now as the silviculture needs. It is one of the

resources that is left and I have great fears of what can happen in the very

near future in that particular sector.

There are reports now that NCARP recipients will have to work

for compensation benefits after May 15. Will the minister assure the House that

if silviculture work is a part of the new fisheries compensation package that

people who usually work in the silviculture projects will not be displaced?

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

Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, if one is to read and believe

the reports about the kind of money that may be available under NCARP when the

time comes, then I can assure the hon. member if the right portions of that

money is indeed - if, I said, if indeed made available to forestry and can be

agreed between the provincial government and federal government that NCARP money

should be used on the basis of job creation and one of those job creation

projects would be silviculture than I can tell you there will be plenty of money

around if all that happens to accommodate the people who would qualify and want

to qualify under NCARP as well as the people who normally do the silviculture

work in this Province.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have questions for the Minister of Mines and Energy.

Yesterday the minister admitted that Hydro, under orders from the top, brought

in private accountants who tried to plug the leak to the public of privatization

cost information. Since it's the public who have to pay through future

electricity bills for privatization costs, lawyers bills, consultants bills and

all the rest, why shouldn't the public know now what all this is costing and how

much is going to the different firms? Why isn't the minister sharing the

information with the public by tabling it in the House of Assembly now?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct the

hon. member first. I at no time said that Hydro had brought in private

accountants to take care of this. What I did say, maybe to her but certainly to

others, was that in view of the fact that there had been leaks out of Hydro's

finance department, clearly some leaks out of Hydro, they had to handle this

matter in a different way and they had obtained a firm in this city that is now

handling that for them.

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

Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

More questions for the Minister of Mines and Energy. What is

the minister trying to hide from the public, from the voters, the citizens, the

taxpayers and the electricity rate payers? Why the cover-up? If they haven't

brought in a firm of private accountants what is it, a security firm? Exactly

what has been changed at Hydro to try to plug the leak? Who are these people at

the private firm? Who are they, what are their names and how much are they

getting paid, because the ratepayers are going to have to pay for them too?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, there is nothing being covered

up and nothing will be covered up. All this information will be made available

at the appropriate time in the appropriate way, but on a day to day basis I'm

not going to come into this House or go anywhere else and say, here is a bill I

got from this person, this one and somebody else. When all the accounting is

done and everything is audited, it will be made public and it's being handled in

an appropriate way so that it's not leaked out every day to the Opposition.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the Minister of

Mines and Energy is going to cover this up until it's a done deal and it's too

late.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS. VERGE: I have a question for the Minister of Justice.

The Minister of Justice told the House that there is a galaxy of lawyers, law

firms in the Province, law firms on the mainland, financial advisors and

consultants, all working on the Hydro privatization. The minister, as well as

the Minister of Mines and Energy, refused to provide names and billing amounts

as I've been requesting, but would the Minister of Justice say now if it's true

that the lawyers are getting paid $200 - $400 an hour?

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I don't know where the hon.

lady gets her questions but I will tell her I have never refused to provide

billing amounts here in the House. I haven't been asked, unless memory is

failing me in my old age, battered as I am by the winds of adversity here in the

House, but she's never asked me inside or outside the House for billing rates.

Mr. Speaker, I have never been asked by the hon. lady, or woman if she prefers,

to provide billing rates. I will say I have no idea what the billing rates are.

I have no doubt they're very high because that's what good lawyers cost these

days and the lawyers who've been retained are, in my view, absolutely top-notch.

Let me tell the House who they are.

AN HON. MEMBER: You picked them.

MR. ROBERTS: I did not. The government have retained

Curtis, Dawe, who in turn have retained Blake, Cassels, in Toronto, to advise on

Ontario and securities matters. Hydro have retained O'Reilly, Noseworthy, who

have in turn retained a Tory firm in Toronto, again estimable lawyers.

The underwriters, I understand, have retained White,

Ottenheimer & Baker, an estimable firm, who in turn have retained Osler, Hoskin

in Toronto, another estimable firm.

What I will say to the hon. Lady is that unlike the counsel

retained by her and her colleagues, to advise on the Hibernia related matters,

we have insisted that Newfoundland and Labrador counsel be retained in a lead

rate, that the technology transfer be here. We will not do what she did.

She and her colleagues paid $4 million to the Peter Lougheed

firm, Bennett, Jones in Calgary, and no transfer of technology at all. We have

taken steps which will prevent that. We have retained Newfoundland law firms. I

have no idea what they are being paid, Mr. Speaker. I don't know what they are

being paid. I hope they are being paid fairly and handsomely and properly,

because the money they are being paid is money that is well spent. We are

getting good advice, and we need it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of

Education.

In view of the minister's comments on the potential

postponement of his restructuring processes, I am wondering if the minister

could comment on his proposal to introduce the full day kindergarten when his

department was so obviously unprepared; and will the minister confirm this

afternoon, to the parents and to the school boards of the Province, that the

full day kindergarten concept has been postponed until it has been fully

studied, and matters of curriculum, space, class size and other associated

problems like school bussing have been properly addressed.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, over the past couple of years

government has been talking with the church leaders and various stakeholders in

the educational system, and as a result of government's desire to consult with

people to try to reach a consensus, we have missed some very important

benchmarks, and although it was not announced as a government policy, it was

stated that it is quite possible that we will not be able to achieve what we had

hoped to achieve come this September - namely, put the school boards in place

and go ahead with a lot of our reforms. So it is quite possible - now we haven't

made a definite decision on that. We are trying to re-evaluate just where we

are.

If we reach the conclusion that we cannot put the boards in

place for September, then certain of the other good things that we had intended

to do might have to suffer, and it is quite possible that one of the things

which we will not be able to do, come September, will be the implementation of

the full day kindergarten. That decision will be finally dealt with, hopefully,

in the next week to ten days. As soon as we have a definite decision we will

make it known to the people of the Province in the appropriate manner.

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

Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that daycare

and early childhood education centres in the Province are required by law to

have one adult supervisor or educator for every eight children, how does the

minister plan to avoid kindergarten classes of thirty to thirty-five students?

Does he plan to introduce regulations to limit the class size in kindergarten to

twelve to fifteen students?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, there are kindergarten classes

in this Province today - not very many, but some - which have more than twelve

to fifteen students. They are not breaking any laws of the land. The hon. member

is referring to different things. He is referring to apples and oranges, and we

are not going to do anything which would interfere with our ability to teach our

children in the school system.

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

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

the Minister of Justice.

I wonder, would the minister confirm that the government has

before it proposals for the establishment of three gambling casinos in the

Province, including one in St. John's East, in the premises of the Battery

Motel?

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, there are no proposals before

the government either at Cabinet or anywhere in the Cabinet system, to the best

of my knowledge. Now, the hon. gentleman will understand, I know, that papers

come to Cabinet from ministers and they are worked on by officials, but I have

not seen any proposal nor am I aware of one. I am aware that a number of groups

in the Province, including the one to which he refers, have sent word to the

government that they would be interested in such a venture.

MR. BAKER: Five or six.

MR. ROBERTS: My friend the Minister of Finance says five

or six in fact. I know of at least three and my friend says five or six. These

are around but they are nowhere in the system, and I can assure my hon. friend,

the Member for St. John's East, that there is nothing approaching a proposal to

Cabinet being developed in my knowledge. I think we have asked officials to look

at the ramifications of the situation but this is very preparatory work.

Government are not contemplating this and I suspect it will be a long-time

coming, but there is nothing before the government in that sense. When I say a

long-time coming, if ever it came, I have no idea what decision, if any, we

would reach if or when the matter comes to Cabinet. I am not even, at this

stage, able to say whether the matter will ever come to Cabinet. Any minister

may raise the matter with the Cabinet.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for St.

John's East.

MR. HARRIS: A supplementary to the President of Treasury

Board.

Can the minister tell the House how much in 1993 government

received in gambling revenues through the various sources and whether or not he

sees this as a source of revenue for the government, these proposals we are

talking about.

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

MR. BAKER: I did not quite get the last half of his

question because his voice fell off and I do not know what the last part of it

was. The first part had to do with the amount of revenue in 1993, the total

revenue from gambling which includes licensing and so on, which includes 649,

the Nevada type pull-offs, plus the video lottery terminals, and so on, during

1993 was probably in the vicinity of $45 million during that year.

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

for St. John's East.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, the final part of the question

to the minister was whether or not he sees this as a potential source of revenue

and is he not concerned about the problems that gambling has been causing? We

even have Gamblers Anonymous here now and a lot of people are spending and

wasting a lot of hard-earned money on this problem. Is he concerned about that?

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned about some of

the effects of gambling and obviously there are people who are addicted to that

form of activity. What I am also concerned about, Mr. Speaker, is that this

activity is controlled in such a way that the minimum impact is felt by the

people of the Province. The hon. member will know that with the introduction of

the video lottery terminals this Province took an extremely conservative view in

terms of how that was going to be done and limited it to age controlled

establishments and so on, to avoid the kind of disaster that occurred in many

other provinces when they were allowed in the corner stores and so on, all

around the Province.

We have taken a very conservative view and we are very

concerned about this. We are very concerned in a way that revenues are so high

from this source because it indicates, I believe personally, a misuse of money.

The money could be much better spent by the people. The activity is happening

and unless members opposite have some way of banning gambling totally in the

Province I would love to hear about it, if they have such suggestions. In the

meantime we have to simply control it as best we can.

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

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

of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. For some time now there has been a lot of

talk about this new infrastructure program that is suppose to be great for the

Province, create jobs, and provide infrastructure for municipalities in the

Province - much needed infrastructure, I might add. The minister and his

department has had five months now to do some assessments on different

municipalities in the Province to determine which would be eligible for such

programs. Could the minister tell me today how many municipalities would be

eligible for this infrastructure money, and would he tell the House if he is

considering only municipalities that are up to their maximums now of

approximately $300 per household for funding?

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

Provincial Affairs.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I do not have the foggiest idea

right now as to how many municipalities will qualify, but I hope that either by

Friday of this week or the latest by mid next week the application forms and the

criteria will be in the hands of every municipality in the Province. It will

then be basically up to the communities themselves whether or not they think

they can qualify or not. I have given a deadline of the last of March to get

their applications back in and the reason why I am moving on that as fast as I

can is because you have to go through, as he knows, the public tendering process

and sometimes construction in Newfoundland can be pretty slow in getting

started. The federal requirement this year is that we spend at least 35 per cent

of our money this year and that is going to be difficult in itself, so I am

hoping that I will be able to give the hon. gentleman an answer sometime maybe

in the next couple of weeks when the municipalities get the applications and

find out what the criteria is.

The other question is, that I would think the member probably

picked it up from a misinterpretation of what I said yesterday to CBC. CBC is

reported today as saying that none of the larger communities who are not up to

the $328 per household would qualify. That is absolutely incorrect. Every one of

those communities will qualify, every one of those larger communities, and I am

certainly sure that a large percentage of those other communities who are up to

the $328 will qualify as well, with one exception, and I announced that in this

House, I guess almost two weeks ago and the municipalities around the Province

have been notified as well.

We have a problem in some communities around the Province

with their basis or their financial records and the situation, financially of

communities around the Province. Some communities in this Province are in dire

straits -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I would ask the minister to complete his answer.

MR. REID: I thought I was answering the question, Mr.

Speaker, I apologize.

MR. SPEAKER: It was somewhat lengthy.

The hon. the Member for Humber Valley.

MR. WOODFORD: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Would the minister confirm to the House that the criteria

that will be involved in that application or be included in that application,

will he confirm then that they will be asked to cost-share the programs on a

one-third basis or will he be using the same formula that he applies now to the

regular formula for capital programs in the Province for the year; one-third or

the same formula that is applied to capital funding?

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

Provincial Affairs.

MR. REID: Yes, Mr. Speaker. It will be based on both, and

maybe I shouldn't go any further than that and let him come back at me again.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. Member for Humber

Valley.

MR. WOODFORD: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. I won't

go into that one any further, I will use another time, could the minister then

tell the House if his department's funding will be new funding or will it be

funding that is usually used for the capital program every year?

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

Provincial Affairs.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I am not at liberty, as a new

minister and certainly not the Minister of Finance, to be able to stand in this

House this afternoon and tell you whether there is going to be any money in the

capital works budget. The hon. member will know the monies that the Province

will have to put in, and all he has to do is read a newspaper to find out. Right

now, it looks like the Province will put in this year, as much as $40 million to

$50 million towards the infrastructure program, which is a far cry from

one-third of the program which was announced earlier at $25 million. I suggest

that the hon. member wait until the Budget Speech next Thursday and in the

Budget Speech I am sure there will be some indication of whether or not there

will be a capital works program.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Humber Valley.

MR. WOODFORD: Mr. Speaker, the minister does not need a

Budget to come down next Thursday to tell me if there is going to be any funding

in the department for this year, that is going to be automatic I take it,

supposed to be creating jobs, so there has to be funding in it. All I ask the

minister is if it is going to be new funding or will it be the same funding that

is used every other year for capital programs in the Province. Yes or no. A very

simple question.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Provincial Affairs.

MR. REID: I guess, Mr. Speaker, that if it is the same

amount of funding we will base it on 1988 figures and all we will have to spend

is $25 million, so I don't think we will have too much trouble coming up with

$25 million.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to

direct a question to the Minister of Health. I would like to ask the Minister of

Health if he would inform this House if the fact-finding team appointed by him

to investigate matters pertaining to the Grenfell Regional Health Service under

the direction of Dr. Peter Roberts has access to statements that I passed on to

him?

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

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, all matters, all letters and

correspondence, that the hon. member has passed on to me relative to these

matters have been transferred, passed on by me, to the appropriate people.

MR. SPEAKER: Question period has expired.

Presenting Reports by

Standing and Special Committees

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

Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, as required by statutes I would

like to table the following reports from Crown agencies and boards. They are:

the Newfoundland Crop Insurance Agency for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1993,

the annual report of the Livestock Owners Compensation Board, ending 1993, and

the annual report of the Newfoundland and Labrador Farm Development Loan Board

for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1992.

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Pursuant to

section

45, paragraph two of the Financial Administration Act, I wish to table the

attached list of temporary loans raised under sections 44 and 45 of the act

between the period May 20, 1993 and February 27, 1994. My critic opposite will

recognize that this is a list of T-bill borrowings as well as overdrafts during

that same period.

Notices of Motion

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, the Opposition filibuster

tactics, the deliberate and prolonged obstructionist tactics we've seen, have

caused those who sit on this side of the House to authorize me to give the

following notice of motion.

I move, Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 50, that the

debate on Bill No. 1, entitled, "An Act Respecting The Privatization Of The

Newfoundland And Labrador Hydro-Electric Corporation," standing in the name of

the hon. the Premier, and any amendments to that motion for second reading of

Bill No. 1, shall not be further adjourned and that further consideration of any

amendments relating to second reading of Bill No. 1 shall not be further

postponed.

Let me say we shall be calling the bill for debate at the

earliest moment permitted by the rules tomorrow afternoon, Sir.

Thank you.

Petitions

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

MR. A. SNOW: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm pleased to have

the opportunity to stand and submit to this House a petition on behalf of the

residents of Labrador City and Wabush, in the District of Menihek.

The petition is addressed to the Newfoundland House of

Assembly, and it says:

WHEREAS we the citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador seek to

stop the proposed sale of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro; and

WHEREAS the sale of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro has not

been proven to be in the best interests of the citizens of the Province; and

WHEREAS the production of electricity is an essential service

for the people of the Province and should be controlled by the people:

WHEREFORE the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and

call upon the Newfoundland Parliament to demand that the Government of

Newfoundland and Labrador not privatize and sell Newfoundland Hydro, and ensure

that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro remains a Crown corporation.

Mr. Speaker, these thirty-two people who have signed this

petition in the District of Menihek don't want the privatization of Newfoundland

Hydro to proceed. We've seen the Minister of Justice rise today and tell us that

he is going to be ramming through legislation to promote the sale of

Newfoundland Hydro. He calls this legislation, in his words: The most important

pieces of legislation that have ever been presented to a provincial legislature

since Confederation. That is what the Minister of Justice referred to these

pieces of legislation that we are debating, or will be debating, in subsequent

days and nights here in the House of Assembly.

He has given notice that he is going to be restricting the

people's access, the people's ability, to debate this particular piece of

legislation. This government, which has shown its participation in democracy by

taking the smoking regulations, the smoking carnival, if you want to call it

that, on tour of the Province, it saw that as an important issue, and so it was.

It allowed people to participate in that particular piece of legislation by

travelling around the Province and submitting public input. It allowed people to

participate in this democracy with regard to a proposed name change in this

Province. Those momentous decisions and pieces of legislation allowed public

input but this government didn't see, Mr. Speaker -

MR. GILBERT: Point of order, Mr. Speaker

MR. SPEAKER: Point of order, the hon. Member for Burgeo -

Bay d'Espoir.

MR. GILBERT: The hon. gentleman referred to the fact that

the committee on smoking legislation was taken on public tour of the Province. I

would like to point out that no, it wasn't taken on a public tour of the

Province, despite the requests by the members of his party to do that. We did

have public meetings in St. John's at no expense other than an ordinary meeting.

So I would just like to correct the hon. gentleman.

MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

The hon. the Member for Menihek.

MR. A. SNOW: There is no point of order and the member,

the used-to-be minister, the worn out minister, the now member, Mr. Speaker, has

confirmed that they had public discussions. There has been no public discussion,

no opportunity for the public, no opportunity whatsoever. It has been done in

secrecy, in the back rooms of this Province, in the Cabinet room - up there in

the Cabinet divving up the pie. We see them down at Newfoundland Hydro in the

public trough, and they won't allow the people to find out who's got their nose

in the trough today. So, Mr. Speaker, they call in these secret auditors and now

they're going to divvy up the pie. It won't be long before we'll have secret

police around deciding who is for and who is against. That's what this Province

will be coming to - when they won't release information about who is taking the

public money for cutting these deals, Mr. Speaker, because that's what is

occurring. We had the Minister responsible for Mines and Energy suggesting that

there is a cover-up. He doesn't want the people of this Province to find out who

is doing this, Mr. Speaker. He doesn't want to know what the amounts are, he

doesn't want the people to be aware of the amounts.

The people in Labrador City and Wabush, Mr. Speaker, want

this sale to stop. They do not want it to proceed because they foresee huge

increases, tremendous increases in the cost of energy and we, by the nature of

our geography - the Minister of Finance has nodded his head in confirmation, in

agreement with the Premier who has already suggested, Mr. Speaker, that the

people in Labrador City and Wabush or in Labrador will face a minimum of twenty

and possibly 30 per cent increase in their hydro bills -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. A. SNOW: - not including the added cost of

privatization, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. A. SNOW: May I have one minute to conclude, Mr.

Speaker, by leave?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Does the hon. member have leave to continue?

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

MR. SPEAKER: No leave.

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

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

As we get involved in this debate on the privatization of

Hydro, Mr. Speaker, what we have seen today in the Government House Leader is on

a parallel with what we saw a few months ago in the Kremlin in the Soviet Union

- no difference, Mr. Speaker, because that is dictatorship at its best. If you

ever wanted to see - over in the Soviet Union there was a group who wanted to

take it over and bring back communism and dictatorship. Well, today, Mr.

Speaker, they didn't have to bring the guns and the powder jacks here but they

brought the dictator.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: And how hon. members opposite - and I say this

with sincerity - how hon. members opposite can stand in this House and vote for

that kind of attitude, Mr. Speaker, that type of dictatorship, someone who can

come in with the hobnail boots and lay it to the people of this Province, is

beyond me.

I say to the backbenchers over there that you should never

sell your soul or your principles for a Cabinet post. Never sell your soul or

your principles for a Cabinet post. We have had three speakers on this bill, and

for the last two days, the Government House Leader could have called Orders of

the Day any time he wished, Mr. Speaker, but he chose not to do it and today he

gave notice of closure. Today he gave notice that your constituents shall not be

heard anymore. We had petitions to present from people from all districts in

this Province and it is our responsibility - the Member for St. John's East

joined with us, it was his responsibility to present these petitions on behalf

of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. We acted responsibly. There were no

public hearings, there were no public meetings, so we brought the wishes of the

people to the floor of this House through petitions. And now, Mr. Speaker, the

old `dictator number two' decided to get up and put the boots to democracy in

this Province and brought in closure.

Now I'll tell you one thing, the people of this Province are

not about to stand for closure on this issue. The people of this Province,

starting tonight in the district of Pleasantville, will come out loud and clear

and send a very strong message to this government. Why won't the Member for St.

John's North, for example, have the courage of the Member for Pleasantville - to

go out and listen to his constituents and bring back their wishes instead of

lining up behind `old hobnailed boots', Mr. Speaker, when he puts it to

democracy in this Province? Why won't the Member for Lewisporte go out and

listen to his constituents and ask them what they want to say? Why? Because you

don't have any courage; because democracy is not important to you; because

principle takes second place to the hopes of getting into Cabinet. That's why

you're doing it.

This is a very important issue. This is an issue that

involves every man, woman and child in this Province. This is an issue about the

sale of our birthright, but now it has become an issue of democracy. It becomes

an issue of someone with a communist mentality, like the Government House

Leader, someone who believes in dictatorship, someone who practices dictatorship

and wants to wipe out democracy, who could have, for the last two days, called

Orders of the Day and refused to do so. Instead of that, we have had one

speaker, I think, the leader and the Premier, and I think, my colleague, the

Member for Grand Bank -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, no, St. John's East.

MR. TOBIN: St. John's East.

We had three speakers. Can you imagine, in this day, in 1994,

when you bring a piece of legislation to the House to sell Hydro, that after

three speakers, the leaders of the three political parties, the first thing we

see after that is what? Notice of closure. Cut off debate. Kill democracy. Bring

forth communism. That is what we are seeing in this. Attila the Hun was never as

bad as what we are seeing portrayed in this Legislature today.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. EFFORD: Give him a pill!

MR. TOBIN: Don't give me your pills, I say to him, Mr.

Speaker, give yourself pills - courage pills -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. TOBIN: - to have the guts and the conviction and the

stamina to stand up for your constituents, I say to the Minister of

Transportation.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. TOBIN: Believe in democracy. Practice it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

The hon. the Member for Humber Valley.

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a petition here on behalf of approximately sixty-five

or seventy constituents of mine. I will only read the first portion of the

petition, to make it obvious to you that this is a legal petition.

We, the undersigned residents of Newfoundland and Labrador

who wish to avail themselves of their rights, thus to present a grievance common

to the House of Assembly in the certain assurance that the House would therefore

provide a remedy, we submit -

Mr. Speaker, I won't go on into it any further because you

only have five minutes on a petition and I want to get as much as possible said

on it.

Mr. Speaker, never before, in the nine years - in another

month - that I have sat in this House of Assembly, and a good many years before

that I watched the proceedings of the House of Assembly in this Province, but

never before have I seen such an important piece of legislation. And it is not

coming from my lips, that it is an important piece of legislation, it came from

the Minister of Justice the other night when he admitted that it is one of the

most important pieces of legislation they have had to deal with since

Confederation.

If this is so important, Mr. Speaker - and it is important -

how come after just two nights, even if we had the debate for twenty-four hours

a day for the last two days, after forty-eight hours, how come we've got closure

invoked already, if this is so important? Furthermore, if it's such a good deal

for the people of this Province, if it's such a lovely, handsome, nice, package

deal for the people of this Province, why are we closing off debate on such an

important issue?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WOODFORD: I will tell you why, Mr. Speaker. It is, as

the minister admitted, because investors are interested. Why shouldn't they be

interested? Why shouldn't any man, woman or child in this Province or this

country be interested in something when it is going to be given away? It's a

sell-out.

Mr. Speaker, I will venture to bet, not in our children's

lifetime, not in our grandchildren's lifetime, but in our lifetime, that this

will go down in the annals of history in this Province as the worst deal since

Confederation - the worst ever.

Now, Mr. Speaker, usually human beings learn by their

mistakes. We made one mistake, back in the early 1960s, and it is rather ironic

that one of the people, at least one, who was around when that deal was made, is

sitting with us here in the House of Assembly today, and here we are, about to

make another mistake. Do people realize in this Province, do people opposite

realize that once Newfoundland Hydro is gone, what we lost, the 98 per cent that

we gave away in the 1960s, the other 2 per cent is gone as of next week if this

particular piece of legislation goes through the Legislature. It is gone forever

and a day, never again, Mr. Speaker, will we be able to get Newfoundland and

Labrador Hydro or the rights of Hydro or anything else back into the people's

pockets who own it now.

The people of the Province, the people of Newfoundland and

Labrador own Newfoundland Hydro, they own it. Why are we so fast and why are we

so swift to give it away? Why can't we have public hearings on such an important

matter, Mr. Speaker? It is obvious that in the next couple of days we will be

able to get up and say more on this particular subject and I, for one, am going

to take this clause-by-clause and explain and go through some of the

repercussions and ramifications from this particular piece of legislation and

hope to God, that backbenchers opposite will listen to it and take it to heart.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I understand nobody from this side has spoken to this

petition, so let me say a word or two in response to the personal abuse heaped

upon me by hon. members opposite.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: There will be more.

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, I have no doubt there will be more

because, when they have no arguments of substance, Mr. Speaker, their substitute

is personal abuse. Well, `Shoot, if you wish, this old grey head\but spare your

country's flag she said' - and the cry will be, `Bring back Baker'.

Let me just make a couple of points. There still are no

deadlines for passage of this bill. What we on this side have decided - Mr.

Speaker, after fourteen hours of wasted debate by hon. members opposite, we have

decided to give the House the right to decide. Fourteen hours, Mr. Speaker, I

remind hon. members, is equivalent to two full weeks of government business.

Under the rules of this House, the government gets seven-and-a-half hours a week

for government business. Under the rules of this House -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. ROBERTS: - the government gets seven-and-a-half

hours, a week for government business. This is equivalent -

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

It being now three o'clock, Private Members Day -

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

MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the hon. the Leader of

the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I want to raise a point of order

related to the procedural matter that was introduced earlier and notice given of

by the Government House Leader. The matter of introducing or giving notice of

closure after only two days of debate, Mr. Speaker - it is an absolute scandal

what the Government House Leader did here in this House today, an absolute

scandal, and he should hang his head in shame! He should hang his head in shame,

because, if ever there was evidence that this government is practising

Hitlerism, Nazism and dictatorship, Mr. Speaker, this is it today from the

Minister of Justice. And I put out a plea to the people of Newfoundland and

Labrador, to come into this House of Assembly, fill the halls with members and

people from around this Province -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SIMMS: - take over your own House, and show the

absolute arrogance of this Minister of Justice.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. ROBERTS: To that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I have no quarrel with the hon.

gentleman's resort to personal abuse. If he wants to demean himself and the

people who sent him here and his party by this, I will not respond to that.

What I will say, Mr. Speaker, is that my friend, the Minister

of Finance simply came over and told me that he had been subjected to this no

less than, was it ten times in the last couple years. This House a right to

decide. The motion that I made was in order - this House has a right to decide.

What has happened, Mr. Speaker, is, the strategy developed by my friend, the

Leader of the Opposition, has exploded in his own face. I hope the galleries

will be filled with the people of Newfoundland and Labrador so they will hear

the debate and know the truth of what is going on. There is no point of order,

Sir.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SIMMS: They won't hear the debate because you closed

it off! You shut it off!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Under Standing Order -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible). The only way to deal with

you and `Clyde Wells' is the people have to come in and clean you out of your

seat!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. W. MATTHEWS: And that just might happen!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WINDSOR: If you are so sure you are doing the right

thing, call an election on it and we will see how right you are!

MR. ROBERTS: We've won the election already!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WINDSOR: Call an election now!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WINDSOR: You're a bunch of cowards!

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

MR. SIMMS: By lying to the people, that is how you won

the election.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

As members know, under Order 50, a minister of the Crown has

a right to give notice of a closure motion, and in the circumstances, I see no

point of order. I think the Leader of the Opposition's point went more to what

he considered to be in the best interest of the people he stands to represent.

Having said that, it is Private Members' Day, and I think, in

fairness to the member's motion, I would now call it. The Member for St. John's

North is going to be debating the motion.

MR. TOBIN: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

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

West, on a point of order.

MR. TOBIN: Yesterday afternoon in the House - Your Honour

was not in the Chair, but my colleague, I believe, the Member for Baie Verte -

White Bay was speaking. The Government House Leader, Mr. Speaker, told him to

sit down and shut up. I find that to be really bringing the decorum of this

House to an all-time low.

At that time Your Honour was not in the Chair. The Chairman

of Committees was in the Chair, and he ruled that was in order. What I would

like to do, Your Honour, is ask you if you would take a serious look at that.

Because I believe, if members start telling one another to sit down and shut up,

and if `shut up' becomes the tone of the conversation and debate in this

Legislature, it will do absolutely nothing for it. The minister would not

apologize. The Chairman of Committees who was in the Chair ruled it was in

order. I ask you, Your Honour, if you would look at that and bring back to the

House, hopefully, a suggestion, if not a rule, that that type of language should

not be tolerated any longer.

MR. SULLIVAN: It is insulting!

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

MR. ROBERTS: To that point of order, Mr. Speaker, first

of all, the hon. gentleman is misquoting me. I assume he is doing it

inadvertently. I made no such statement in the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: You did so!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. ROBERTS: Secondly, Mr. Speaker, the matter was raised

at the time - I forget who was in the Chair, it doesn't matter. There was a

presiding officer in the Chair and the presiding officer dealt with the point

then. There was no appeal taken from the ruling of the Chair at that stage, so

the matter is closed. I did not suggest to the hon. gentleman from Baie Verte -

White Bay that he shut up. I said, many wish he would shut up, and that is a

statement of truth, Sir. I repeat the wish - there are many who wish he would,

Sir.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

On the point raised by the hon. member. I think the procedure

is, if a member disagrees with a ruling of the Chair, it is a challenge of the

person in the Chair at the time, and I appreciate it, but, of course, any member

is at liberty at any time to bring up what he considers to be a point of order

with respect to remarks made, and if it should happen again, the hon. member

could follow that procedure, and the person in the Chair may or may not agree

with the previous ruling. At this stage, I have no jurisdiction to review

another person's ruling and perhaps it is best left for another day, should it

occur again.

Private Members' Day

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

motion 5.

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

I am happy today to have the opportunity to speak to the

resolution that is on the Order Paper before us with respect to the matter of

small business. The Speaker and members of the hon. House will probably recall

that last September, in the last House, the same motion was introduced and

placed on the Order Paper for debate. Unfortunately, time ran out on us and a

new sitting of the House has occurred, and so I felt it was appropriate to again

place on the Order Paper for debate in private member's motion the motion that

we have before us today which deals with the small business sector in our

economy.

I want to say, Mr. Speaker, this being my first time speaking

to a private member's motion that I was party to introducing, that I appreciate

the rules, if you will, of the House, or the latitude that the House has given

so that at least one day a week, private members who sit it in the back benches,

and those, of course, who sit on the Opposition side as well, have opportunity

to bring forward matters for discussion that are matters of importance to them

personally. But more significant than that, I believe, it gives us an

opportunity to bring forward matters of importance to the Province and to the

constituents we represent.

So I don't think we are untimely today in discussing the

matter of small business or that part of the private sector economy out there

that is known as small business. One might wonder, Mr. Speaker, why I have an

interest in the area of small business, and I guess I could set it in the

context of this background. I happen to work in the small business area out in

the private sector and I was thinking yesterday about the first exposure I had

to business in the Province. And it wasn't so much small business to which my

first exposure was as a young person. It was almost thirty-four years ago - come

July of this year, just another few months, and it will have been thirty-four

years, when right out of high school, at the age of seventeen, I landed my first

job to make any real money.

Prior to that, I worked four or five years packing bags for

Jimmy Steinhauer at Stop and Shop, and at fifty cents an hour it became clear to

me that I wouldn't get rich if I stayed in the supermarket business. After I

finished school I applied to the Bank of Montreal for a job, and of all places

they sent me for my first work assignment was downstairs at the Bank of

Montreal, Confederation Building branch. I was down there for four years and I

guess it was probably my first real exposure, as well, to politicians, in a real

sense. I can tell you that back in those days, Sir, there were some hon.

gentlemen who were members of the then Legislature, for whom I still have great

admiration and respect. Many of them, I learned a lot from in the four years I

was down there.

I guess, what really struck me yesterday, in terms of a

career path, Mr. Speaker, is that it took me a whole thirty-four years to get

from the basement to the first floor of this building. I began to project that

and extrapolate it out into the future and tried to figure out how long it might

take me to get to the eight floor, and I concluded that my chances are not great

in this lifetime or in the next either. I guess the first floor is probably as

far as I will get.

Mr. Speaker, after spending five years in the banking

business, I then went with the noblest of federal agencies, or departments,

known as the Department of National Revenue. I can tell you that in the ten

years I spent there, I certainly gained a perspective on business in general and

on the real world in particular from the tax collector's point of view.

Notwithstanding the type of work they do down there, I would have to say it was

probably the ten most interesting years of my life, certainly amongst the ten

most enjoyable. There were days when I felt I had nothing to do and all day to

do it, as sometimes I think some bureaucrats may feel, but in all honesty, I

found the work challenging and interesting, and certainly, it gave me an

opportunity to see how the private sector worked in many and various forms.

So, Mr. Speaker, the perspective, I suppose, I bring to small

business after those number of years, having worked for a living, is from two

points of view, from the perspective of servicing businessmen as a banker,

dealing with them as a tax collector, and then for the last twenty years,

anyhow, having been involved in the business world myself. You may wonder how I

got from the tax department to becoming a businessman. Well, it wasn't easy. At

the time, myself and my wife had five children. We had a great time during those

first ten years we were married. We had five kids, I had a great job, and it was

most interesting. But as I sat at my desk from day to day and reflected on

really what I would be doing for the rest of my life, it became pretty apparent

to me that I would not be a happy camper sitting around sharpening pencils,

approving travel claims, assessing audit reports, training new auditors for tax

collection purposes, enforcing the statutes as we had them before us on tax

C.P.P. and U.I., and that sort of thing, so I decided I would take the few

dollars I had in my pension and invest it in a small manufacturing company that

I bought into, and take my chances in the real world. Some people thought I was

a fool then. Some people probably still think I was a fool, but I can tell you

that I don't have any regrets for having moved from that phase into the business

area of life. It's been interesting to work in the small business sector.

Now what really are we talking about when we talk about the

small business sector of our economy? Are we talking about something unique in

business, as opposed to large business, or some other definition of business? I

would suggest that small business is really just one part of the big world known

out there as the business world. The small business sector is really just one

segment of the total known as the private enterprise sector, and so how do we

define then, really, what small business is?

There is no clear-cut definition, I suppose, of the small

business sector. The income tax department has put the parameters on it as

being, I think, a business or corporation that probably does less than $5

million worth of business a year. Some of the financial institutions have put

their own parameters on defining small business, and one bank I spoke with last

week said it was people who borrow less than $250,000. Another bank said their

definition was a customer who borrowed less than half a million dollars and had

less than fifteen employees.

There are any number, I suppose, of

definitions or parameters

or descriptions that we might want to put in place to deal with, or to describe

the small business sector, but really the small business sector is that segment

of the private enterprise sector out there that differs from a large corporation

because it is perceived to, and in most cases I believe it is, a business sector

where the enterprises are operated in a more hands-on fashion, if you will, on a

more proprietorship or personal entrepreneurship basis than, say, a large

corporation. Large corporations are probably more easily defined than the small

business sector.

The small business sector also encompasses a multiplicity of

enterprises or endeavours. It is not confined to the financial sector, as the

big banks are. It is not confined to the development of Hydro, because not

everybody does. There are only one or two or three in the Province, and

sometimes only a few in a nation, who get involved in these things, but rather

small business cuts right across the broad spectrum of almost any type of a

business enterprise that you could imagine. It involves farmers. It involves

fishermen. It involves people in the service industry. It involves

manufacturers. It involves hi-tech industries based on a small scale, probably,

and the list could go on and on.

So, Mr. Speaker, small business is actually, in its sum

total, really big business. Small business is big business if you take it as a

defined sector of the private sector economy out there.

It's probably not really important to get much more involved

into what small business is about. I would rather probably spend the few moments

that I have dealing with some of the references that are in the motion that is

put before us, and I hope that at the end of the day all of those who have an

opportunity to speak to this motion that we are debating today will be able to

find, amongst our collective wisdoms, unanimity as to how we should vote on the

motion that is put before us, because really what we are asking in the motion

today to do is to give a vote of endorsement, offer a word of encouragement,

give probably a few words of advice and direction to the people who consider

themselves to be small business people out in the economy, and people who,

because they don't have the support structures of corporate boards and

shareholders to work with, sometimes find, and feel themselves to be, on their

own, somewhat isolated maybe, somewhat a little unsupported by the full business

community in what they're doing.

So the idea of the motion that we are debating is really to

offer support, to offer encouragement and to offer assistance where we can to

the people that consider themselves small businessmen. I guess small businessmen

or small business is best defined by the person who is in business. He can

consider or define where he thinks he fits into the private enterprise sector.

Today the motion that we have before us, Mr. Speaker, gives a

few facts and figures and some of these have already been stated earlier in the

House. I think I mentioned them in the Address in Reply to the Throne Speech but

it's important I believe to reference them again. At the present time the small

business sector of the Province, by statistics, is generating 85 per cent of all

of the new jobs that are being generated in the economy. The small business

sector, Mr. Speaker, accounts for a full 40 per cent of all of the business

activities that are out there in terms of generating employment. So a full 40

per cent of everybody who is working in the private sector is working in that

sector called small business.

Small businessmen have concerns and I was looking at an item

the other night in the financial post out of Toronto and it highlighted the five

or six major concerns that small businesses have. I won't go through the galaxy

of what they are but let me tell you what the two major concerns are that small

businessmen have. Number 1, the biggest concern that small businesses have is

the tax burden that presently is placed upon them as far as having to generate

tax dollars to pay the various levels of taxes that are imposed on the business

sector. About 75 per cent -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

On a point of order the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

I want to say to the Member for St. John's North that it's not out of disrespect

for him or his resolution which we, on this side, support and had intended to

debate today, and support by three of our members being ready to debate, but in

light of the actions and the motion invoking closure on members of this House,

the motion put forward by the Government House Leader just a few moments ago

where the backbenchers of the government and the private members have been

muzzled. Now the Government House Leader today because of the motion invoking

closure on the Opposition - he's attempting to muzzle them - whereby, the people

of the Province now do not have a voice because the government will not provide

for public hearings and public input, Mr. Speaker, that we are not willing to

sit in this Legislature today and tolerate this dictatorship any longer and we

are leaving.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. W. MATTHEWS: We are leaving the House, Mr. Speaker,

in protest. We are leaving because what the government is doing is not in the

best interest of the people of this Province. It's a giveaway, it's a cover-up,

Mr. Speaker, the likes of which has never been seen since Confederation. The

Premier and the Minister of Justice are involved in the biggest scandal, Mr.

Speaker, ever witnessed in our Province and we are leaving this Chamber

accordingly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I suppose it's

probably always easier to preach to the converted than to the ignorant. In that

vein I'll carry on and have reasonable assurance within my soul that at the end

of the day there will be unanimity for supporting this resolution that we have

before us.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. L. MATTHEWS: I would not want to presuppose, prejudge

or presume upon the intelligence of any hon. member of the House but I feel a

greater level of comfort now for some support than I did hitherto and so with

that we'll carry on.

I was outlining some of the concerns that the small business

sector has, Mr. Speaker. There were two that I was referencing. One was the

level of tax and tax burdens that are presently imposed on that business sector.

Secondly and not insignificantly, the second by about 65 per cent, the

second-biggest problem that the small business sector identified for themselves,

was the degree of government regulation with which they have to deal on an

ongoing basis in terms of getting through the enterprise of being business

people.

The first `be it resolved' in the motion asks us to

"...support organizations that promote the interest of small business...." In

that context let me refer to some of the organizations out there that do in fact

support the business community, and that in turn need the support and the

assistance of us in the Legislature, in government. I don't want to comment on

them all, but we have the organizations through the boards of trade that are in

existence out there. We have the chambers of commerce that represent the

interest of small business. We have the Confederation of Independent Businessmen

on a national level.

Then we get down to some of the other organizations that are

less high-profile. The junior achievement programs that are in existence. The

one that I really wanted to get to today, because it is one of the newer

initiatives that is going on, and it is that enterprise in the schools called

the cooperative education programs.

The larger organizations, while they need our support and our

encouragement, some of them are pretty well self-driven. I think of the boards

of trade and these types of things. What I've been encouraged with over the past

few years in my tenure in school trusteeship is the growth of emphasis in the

school systems that is being placed upon entrepreneurship and the whole concept

of training people to become business people.

Twenty years ago business people were generally - or further

back than that - probably historically, business people were for the most

part

looked sort of down upon, in the sense that they were a crowd that probably had

one thing in mind - that was profit - and to some extent they probably weren't

trusted, in the Newfoundland rural community in particular. There was good and

historical reasons for that. Sometimes they deserved not to be trusted as

business people, but I think we've come a long way from that and I think we are

in a generation and an age where the worth of the business sector and the value

of entrepreneurship is being more appreciated.

One of the ways -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Time is up?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave!

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave!

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Thank you, thank you.

MR. ROBERTS: The hon. gentleman should take as long as he

needs.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: May I have unanimity on that `by leave'?

AN HON. MEMBER: You have it.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: I have it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes you do.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: May I have a second opinion, Mr.

Speaker.

I will say this. That in the area of education, through the

secondary school systems, the concept of training people to be entrepreneurs is

rather new, but I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it is probably one of the

areas where we should concentrate a significant degree of encouragement, a

significant degree of -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) are you trying to tell us

something?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

AN HON. MEMBER: How are you Rick?

MR. L. MATTHEWS: A significant degree of support. I

attended, Mr. Speaker, just a short while ago up in my district, up at Vaters,

with the hon. the Minister of ITT and my colleague for Stephenville, Mr.

Aylward, a rather unique program - because it was a first in the co-op education

program. It was a program that meshed, or that made it, if you like. High school

students, with students from Memorial University, who were matched up with

individuals or enterprises in the private sector. The concept was that the kids

at MUN would be tutors to the kids in the high school so that together they

could work with the free enterprisers, the entrepreneurs, the businesses out

there they had been mated with to get an idea, get an overview, get a broad

general prospective if you like of what is really happening and what it is like

to be a small businessman.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if I may go on for another moment or two.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, can I move a motion that we

not rise until 10:00 tonight, if I have all that time on my hands?

MR. ROBERTS: That is the difference between down here and

up there.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: I truly feel like that mosquito now. I

hardly know where to begin. It is such a captive and such an attentive audience,

those that I know are going to stick with me to the end. I have to say, Mr.

Speaker, that in the nine months I have been here that is the best looking bunch

I have seen over there. They are all on the wall. I hope Hansard will record

that these gentlemen that heretofore occupied your chair are all a fine audience

and I am sure they are going to give me no hassle.

AN HON. MEMBER: Most of them are coming off the wall.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: They are coming off the wall.

If there is one particular area, Mr. Speaker, where I believe

us in government can concentrate our efforts and encouragement it is on the

co-op education programs that are springing up in the schools and that are being

worked out in the private sector, in the business sector, by employers who seem

to have a new attitude toward their participation and, if you like, their - I

would not call it commitment, but the necessity for them as business people to

give something to the educational system of the Province and our children.

Many years ago it would be unheard of to suggest that free

enterprise, or the businessmen in the community really owed something to our

children in school in terms of giving them access to the workplace free of

charge and spending some time with them to train them and give them an overview

on what it is like to be an entrepreneur, but it seems now that it has become

the in-thing and it is becoming accepted by large business as well as small

business to give some of their time, give some of their expertise, and give some

of their ability free of charge to children in our high schools so that they

will have some basic understanding of what it is to become an entrepreneur.

I wanted to go on to government agencies but I think I shall

resume my seat at the moment in the interest of allowing whoever was about to

speak after me, from this side, to now take their place and speak, and I will

resume when it is appropriate after the next speaker has his turn.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am somewhat disappointed that the Opposition is not here

today. I was hoping that they would participate in the debate as to the

importance of small business and to make some suggestions as to where we go in

the Province, and part of the changes they would like to see happen so that we

can all make the economy roll and start to get it going in this Province. I

support fully the motion put forward by the Member for St. John's North, my good

friend and colleague, and I think it is very timely as the government moves

ahead on a whole range of matters to try to redefine and restructure the economy

of the Province.

I believe it is very timely and I echo the statements he has

made regarding the education of our children. On the entrepreneurship side of

things, I think that is extremely important, and in the last three or four years

there has been a lot of progress made in that area. If small business, or if

business of any type is going to move ahead or going to be created in the

Province people have to have an understanding and they also have to have an

environment around them that will allow for that to happen. What we are doing as

a government has never been done before. It is to build an environment that

warmly welcomes and also gives, I suppose, a positive indication to, and reward

to, effort, good effort, strong effort, commitment, risk taking. All these

things are going to be rewarded and all of these things are going to be welcome

in our society.

They have been for years but government has not been focused

on trying to stimulate people to do things for themselves as far as I am

concerned. We haven't been able to do that over the years and I think now we are

trying to do that and refocus the government's structures, reform the

regulations and reform our own attitudes which is extremely important if we are

going to face the challenges which we now face and we face many challenges right

now at this time in our history. We face immense challenges.

The fishermen in the Province are people who are

entrepreneurs; they are people who have run small businesses and they have a

problem right now; they have a big problem and we have to find a way to help

them refocus while we are into this problem area, a crisis situation and make

the most out of it. We have to make the most out of the other situations that we

have in our resource industries. We have to find another way and we have to

adopt an attitude that says well, if we cannot do it this way or this is not a

market, then let us go and find another one, so those are the types of changes

that we have to make and I am very pleased to see that attitude is prevailing

within the government and hopefully outside in the workforces of the Province

and in the educational institutions that that will start being adopted and moved

ahead.

You know, we have one of the best information highways in

Canada, Mr. Speaker, the ACOA enterprise network is hooked up now in about 200

to 250 centres in the Province where you can get business information of any

type, market information of any type, at your disposal in any community in the

Province that wants it. I mean this is the first time in Canada, anywhere, of

any province in Canada that you can access that type of information on that type

of system; our Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador developed this proposal in

conjunction with ERC, it was accepted by the federal government and now we have

centres around the Province where you can go in and if you are a business person

already operating, you can use information, you can get access to information on

your market, if you want to look at new markets for your business, you can get

hold of this information at your fingertips; you don't have to drive to a big

centre, you don't have to come to the big City of St. John's to get the

information and that is important if we are going to have people thinking about

entrepreneurship, thinking about expanding on what they are doing or starting

new businesses.

It is extremely important for us to provide the fundamentals,

for us to provide the infrastructure for people to think for themselves and to

move and to decide if they want to move on something that it won't cost them a

lot of money but it will cost them their time and they will be rewarded for

their time and so the ACOA enterprise network, I speak highly of it. Our

Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology speaks highly of it and has endorsed

it fully and has Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador making sure that they are

spreading the good word on it so that people in the Province, no matter if they

are business people, if they are educational instructors, if they are people in

any part of the workforce, that they take advantage of this type of access to

information, because we are in a world now where geography matters little and we

have to prepare ourselves to develop new markets for the things that we can do

best, and the ACOA enterprise network, Mr. Speaker, is a way to do that.

I hope that the Members of the House of Assembly will take it

upon their time to go and visit one of the telecentres in the Province that are

now sponsored in different areas of the Province and take it upon themselves to

see how this operates because it is excellent technology; it is available to

anybody who wants it and it is the first time ever - and we are leaders in

Canada in that type of information highway being provided to business people or

educators or young students or entrepreneurs. It is very positive and I hope

that people will take it upon themselves to find out more about it.

It is also positive, Mr. Speaker, that in the Throne Speech

that the government has already announced, that the regulatory framework for

businesses is being reviewed and all of the hindrances that are there within a

bureaucracy are being reviewed and if they do not meet a certain criteria and

are not effective and do not serve a purpose, all of these regulations and

permits and all the things that get in the way and create paperwork for a

business person, we are going to get rid of as much of that as we can and we are

going to make it easier for a business person to go ahead and start on his own

or her own initiative to make it happen. The problem has been the frustration

created by paperwork and regulations which we have had in existence for so long

and which we have not had a good, hard look at and we are now starting to do

that.

I remember the former Minister of Finance, the Member for St.

John's Centre, started to do that when he was a Minister of Finance and as a

matter of fact, came in with - I think we cut out, in one Budget, I think,

Minister, 115 or 111 regulations and permits or fines or something that were on

the books.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) this government has had.

MR. AYLWARD: There have been more changes. Our Ministers

of Finance have made more changes in the last three to four years, given now,

mind you, the deficit crisis we've had in the Province, made more changes to get

rid of the little things that get in the way of a person trying to start

something. Those things aren't highlighted enough. We have to highlight them

more. They are things that used to cost a person $50 and fill out a form and it

would take you six weeks to get it back before you got the permit.

Those things, we are going to get rid of them. The ones that

we need we will keep. We are going to try to get the decision making of those

types of permits that are required, the minimal amount of paperwork required,

get that into the areas where people can make decisions, and government doesn't

get in the way, and helps instead of getting in the way.

I think that those initiatives that were announced in the

Throne Speech are very positive. For anybody who is thinking about starting

something or thinking about heading in that direction in this Province, then at

least what it does, it gives them encouragement, and it shows that the

government is going to pay attention. They are trying to provide a framework for

people to go ahead and do your research, spend your time, and we are going to

try to help you instead of hinder you. I think that is going to help a great

deal as we go through.

The Member for St. John's North talked about the burden of

taxation. That is also under review. I totally encourage the Minister of Finance

and the government to take right away action to deal with taxation measures that

will improve or help attract and start up new businesses here, or manufacturing

industries.

The idea, Mr. Speaker, of a taxation zone or tax zone or free

tax zone or enterprise tax zone, these types of things are done elsewhere. I

would hope that the Minister of Finance and the government will review taxation

zones, places - maybe the whole Province. Looking at a taxation zone to allow

for incentives for new businesses to set up. Because we are an attractive place

in Canada, and we are next to Europe and so on, but we have to become a shining

star. We have to become an attractive place and we have to let people know. The

way you let them know is you have to have a marketing pitch, a sales pitch. If

we are going to see a business we have to be able to say things to them that are

different than what other people are doing. I think the government is on the

right track. We are trying to do that, and I encourage the idea of a tax holiday

or a tax zone which would allow for manufacturing or assembly operations to be

set up in different parts of the Province. It is long overdue. It is time we did

it, and I am just very delighted to see that we are moving towards that end.

The other matter of focusing the developmental groups that

are involved in helping a person start a business, such as Enterprise

Newfoundland and Labrador, the agencies of government, like the Economic

Recovery Commission, and so on. The Throne Speech talks about focusing all of

the agencies that are working towards economic development on a client-centred

approach. So that when the person walks in to a government office, walks through

a government door, that the response that they get from all of us is one of a

positive indication. It doesn't mean you say: Yes, you can have your grant or a

loan or your this or your that. What it means is a client-centred approach of

saying, even if we have to say no on a proposal, that we say it in a way that is

professional, and we make people want to come back and want to do things. There

are ways that you can say no that can turn people off.

I'm glad to see again in the Throne Speech that we are going

to focus governmental activity towards getting people when they come in, to get

respect first off the bat - because they are coming into a government office,

which is a taxpayer's office - coming in, that they are going to get a decent

response. That they will be given a decision quickly instead of having to wait

or be strung out and get frustrated. We want to get over that and we want to get

around that, we don't want to deal with that any more. The client-centred

approach and the focusing of our public servants on that type of approach I

think is going to help a great deal when somebody is looking to establish some

business in this Province, from wherever part of the Province they are, or from

whatever part of the world they come.

I think it is extremely important. I will be making sure

myself, personally, that whoever I'm dealing with in the Department of Industry,

Trade and Technology, or within government or outside, that we keep pushing this

idea, because again it is one of attitude. It is the whole matter of attitude

and the framework that we are going to try to develop in this Province for

people to take initiatives and start something on their own if they can do so

and if they feel like doing so. I think it's extremely important that we help

people navigate through the regulatory process that we have in trying to get

people started. It is extremely important, and I think we are on the right track

as we move down the line.

The other day I noticed in the Globe and Mail that the

Hope Brook gold mine owner, Peggy Whitty, who is the owner of Hope Brook Gold,

indicated that she thought Newfoundland was a good place to do business. She

thought that she had the support of the government of the Province here, and

that she found the government here easy to deal with. I think that's a pretty

good endorsement from a big employer in the Province, and I think it should be

put on the record, because I think it also gives an indication of where we are

trying to head. If we can get more people thinking that way and talking that

way, I think that we will be able to get through the difficulties that we are in

now, and see some things happen.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to highlight the fact that when

we're talking with small business, and family businesses, the Junior Achievement

Program is one of the best programs that you could come across. It is starting

to get more and more within the Province, and I endorse it fully and I would ask

the Members of the House of Assembly, if they haven't yet, to take the

opportunity to go to one of these classes and talk with some of the students

about junior achievement and about what they are doing. It is one of the best

programs that has come along in a long time, and I would like to see it more

expanded within certain areas of the Province, and ask our business people to

get more involved, if they can, in junior achievement, because the students are

getting a great insight into what it takes, when you get out in the workforce

and start doing things on your own, and they are starting to think early, and

that's important.

We have to think about the long term here, not just the short

term, in trying to get through the rough waters, by doing Junior Achievement

Programs, and co-op education, as the Member for St. John's North said. We were

at a school function a few weeks back. The co-op program is a great program, I

think, that can help benefit students who are thinking about business, or

whatever type of occupation they are looking to go into, or vocation. I think

really what we are all doing is a vocation in one sense, that you are taking it

upon yourselves to develop your interests and then decide what you want to do

with your life.

By doing that, co-op education, I think we have to expand

that. I believe the federal government is now looking at enhancing it further in

their programs, and I would hope that provincially we try to do the same thing.

I think it's very positive, and the education focus that we're now looking at in

curriculum, which we are now looking at in the restructuring of education will

help, I think, save money, and then pump that money into those types of

programs. I would hope that the Cabinet and the government will take that

direction and go with it, and try to see us make those changes that are

definitely and desperately needed.

I think we are in the right direction, and I fully support

the resolution put forward by the Member for St. John's North, an outstanding

businessman in his own right, I might add.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. AYLWARD: A person of great wealth, I hear, of

knowledge, and maybe he has a little bit of wealth besides that - I don't know -

but I do know he has a great wealth of knowledge about business, and I would say

we could all learn a few things from him, actually, about how to do business.

AN HON. MEMBER: He's got good specials at the store, too.

MR. AYLWARD: You've got some good specials at the store?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. AYLWARD: You buy right and sell right.

There is one other program I want to highlight before I sit

down, the program that the government has out right now. It's getting some play,

but the ambassador program that has been highlighted by the Economic Recovery

Commission is just a one-pager that goes out and highlights good news stories in

the Province. I don't know if anybody has seen it, or members have seen it, but

I have to say to you, I picked it up one day. I was having a hard day, and I was

sitting down somewhere and picked up the ambassador program, one-pager. I

started reading all the good news stories that were happening, about business

people who are starting things around the Province. I thought it was pretty

good. That alone is beneficial, and the idea of ambassador... You know, we are

all ambassadors for the Province. I think we should all adopt that kind of a

motto, because I believe, wherever you go, we have a great tradition in this

Province; we have a great history and a great culture, and we all have to start

promoting it as best we can, and adopting this type of role as ambassadors

wherever you go, be it within the Province or outside the Province.

I think it's a good program. The more good news - there is

good news happening out there. It's not just bad news that you read in certain

parts of the media. There is some very good news out there that is happening in

different parts of this Province. The bad news always gets the screaming

headlines. That is a sad fact, unfortunately, but there are a lot of good things

happening around here.

I would just like to say we should think that way and to

think positive and I'm sure, Mr. Speaker, that with the great efforts of all of

our people in the Province and really we have to find a way to enliven and give

hope to our people. I think the measures that the government is taking are for

almost all parts going to help do that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. RAMSAY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it's a pleasure to rise in support of the motion

put forward by the hon. Member for St. John's North. Mr. Speaker, the hon.

member and the area, I suppose the constituency which he is so familiar with

which he represents well in the retail sector and also in the distribution and

wholesale sector of the Province, lends well to his expertise in bringing this

issue forward. As someone who has had some success and, Mr. Speaker, as most

people know, people who manage to rise to the top of their profession usually

can offer good advice to others on the way and manner in which the government,

as an example, should approach the issue of small business in dealing with the

small business sector, in dealing with the government programs and initiatives

that should be offered to the small businesses of the Province.

Mr. Speaker, the private members motion as it reads speaks of

course about the Strategic Economic Plan. Just the other day I had a couple of

accountants visit me on behalf of a group that they represent and after we

finished our discussions about accountancy in the Province, I put the question

to them, because they were very keen to offer to me with respect to their issue

of accountancy referring to our strategic economic Plan and also referring to

government's initiatives as announced in the Throne Speech.

So I asked them, Mr. Speaker, do you people feel that we as a

Province and as a government for the Province, are doing what is right and what

is seen as the right thing in the business sector? They were very, very

enamoured with the way that we had approached it, by planning ahead, by making

sure that we've itemized the different action items in the strategic plan. Mr.

Speaker, they were applauding this effort and they said really if you look at

provinces around the country, you know where Newfoundland stands. The strategic

plan document is there as something that will stand the test of scrutiny. It

will be adjusted as adjustment is needed over the next couple of years, I would

think. The government has undertaken to act upon the strategic plan and also is

working in concert with the federal government to provide the necessary funding

to implement the action items therein. So this, as an independent opinion of a

group of people who certainly should know about business and have an independent

view of the approach to business here in the Province, was very good to know.

Mr. Speaker, as well, I'd certainly like to speak a little

about my own background, in working in a small retail store from the time I was

about six-years-old - my parents ran a family owned business in the town of Port

aux Basques and I remember stocking shelves for fifty cents an hour leading up

to Christmas to earn enough money to buy Christmas presents. Mr. Speaker, it was

the kind of thing that I grew up with, serving on customers and getting used to

understanding the principles of ordering the goods into the store to sell. It

was a successful small business that existed in Port aux Basques for some

forty-six years and upon retirement of the principles of the business they did

close it but, Mr. Speaker, it was very interesting to learn business from the

time that I was a child.

My grandfather and my uncle, named Beauchamp as its called in

here, Frederick and James Beauchamp started the business in Port aux Basques and

it started as a small forge as it was known. My grandfather was a blacksmith and

he received a lot of his training during World War II on the American Air Force

base in Stephenville.

He learned the forge trade in Burgeo and was well known in

the repair of ships and other vessels in the Burgeo area, and moved to

Twillingate, because that was where the work was at one point in time, and upon

the sinking of the S.S. Caribou my family returned, my grandfather and

grandmother, returned from Twillingate back to the Port aux Basques area because

of difficulties they were having in some of our in-laws having lost three or

four of their family members on the sinking of the S.S. Caribou

Mr. Speaker, this I tell you because it is a little bit of

history, I suppose, as to how a small business sometimes begins in the Province.

In this case they came back to the town of Port aux Basques which was a bit of a

bevy of activity, I guess, because of the use of Port aux Basques as the main

port for the Newfoundland Railway and also it was used for the vessels docking

from North Sydney and the exchange of goods and services there to provide the

majority of goods that would be shipped across the Province by train.

Mr. Speaker, my uncle and grandfather started a small

business doing some retail work. This was prior to Confederation, and when

Confederation was dealt with, of course, tariffs prior to that were a very big

issue for Newfoundland. Really, I suppose, you could draw the analogy to now

trying to get rid of the trade barriers throughout our country and throughout

the world community. At the time I remember hearing stories of many a merchant

travelling on the ferries to Nova Scotia filling up briefcases with goods,

putting them in the false bottoms and bringing them back to avoid the tariffs,

not at all unlike these days when people bring back cigarettes and other things

to avoid the tariffs.

Mr. Speaker, it was very interesting speaking to customs

officers and others in Port aux Basques, who, over the years had to deal with

these issues, and how the change from the existence under the old Commission of

Government to the new federal customs officers put in a very different regime of

dealing with the way they dealt with the public who were purported to be -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. RAMSAY: They are raging in their seats over there.

From there they started this small business, and there is

another piece of history I might add. They got into retail and it grew and grew

to a point where it eventually encompassed about 25,000 square feet of retail

space in a town of 6000 people, so it was quite a large business and something

that we were always very proud of. We sold everything from a needle to an

anchor. It was such that, I suppose, as the need came up in the community the

need was filled. We had on the order of eighteen to twenty carpenters at one

particular time who used to build houses and do repair work, and this sort of

thing. We sold everything from furniture, to jewellery, to building supplies in

general, to offering construction services, the sale of propane, cement, and

really a variety of the department type store, the provision of furniture.

One thing in the area of electronics which would lead me into

the electronics of today and how we will move into a business world that is a

lot different from the business world as we have known it over the last, even

ten years. The first television to be sold in Newfoundland was not sold here in

the City of St. John's, it was sold in Port aux Basques. At the time Nova Scotia

had a TV signal over for Sydney and the people over there made a deal that they

would make some adjustments to their transmitter, they cut a hole in the side of

the transmitter, Mr. Speaker, and the signal sometimes could be picked up at

Port aux Basques. What you had were the first televisions sold in the Province

because of the radio skip-type effective transmitters at that time. We had a

group of people back when the first television was brought in, it was sitting in

the widow of our store here in this little town of Port aux Basques, they turned

it on and the TV signal came on, well, you could pretty well say there were tens

and tens of people there at the time. The next night there were hundreds and

hundreds standing around watching this television and the first t.v. signal in

the Province to come in from outside of the Province.

MR. ROBERTS: Here in St. John's, we used to watch the

test pattern (inaudible).

MR. RAMSAY: Yes, test pattern. And the congressional

hearings apparently, if you talk to the people at NTV.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) we would all be home - CJON

(inaudible). I was twelve or thirteen, it was the day before yesterday. You

would go and you would watch the test pattern. It was black and white, of

course.

MR. RAMSAY: It was very interesting. My grandfather and

uncle used to do radio repairs and as electronics came in every little thing -

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) advertising up there

(inaudible).

MR. RAMSAY: - changed - well, we are no longer in

business, so I can speak about it, I suppose, that is history. Anyway, they

moved from the electronics on through. Every new electronic gizmo of course

having had that history they moved into the eight-track. If you remember the

onset of the eight-track -

MR. ROBERTS: I have some eight-track tapes (inaudible).

MR. RAMSAY: You still have your eight-tracks, do you? But

the onset of eight-track tapes. From there to sell the eight-track tapes. The

way it was in smaller parts of Newfoundland, and hon. members from different

areas can possibly identify with this, if one person had it, and of course money

was going well in Port aux Basques in those days, everyone then had an

eight-track. Then they got into the big t.v. sets inside with the stereo and

everything in it as well, and they would move up to that. Then there were the

eight-track fireplaces and really the whole of our coast, down the coast as far

as Rose Blanche, and even some of the communities - at that time we used to

service Burgeo and shipped goods down the coast to Burgeo as well. A lot of the

consumer goods for Burgeo were wholesaled out from our place down to Burgeo and

retailed to them in Burgeo as well.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) nomination meeting.

MR. RAMSAY: Anyway, our ties to Burgeo go way back, Mr.

Speaker. To look at what the future holds for my district in the area of small

business, as a member of the House here I often get enquiries from constituents

who are so intent on wanting to start a business. They have an idea and they

want to take it through to reality. These people are very genuine in approaching

us, and a lot of them have little or no idea, because we haven't really

developed an entrepreneurial culture in the Province. Hopefully it is catching

on a bit more now. We've implemented programs in the schools. We've provided the

funding to Enterprise Newfoundland and other agencies throughout the Province to

assist in cultivating an entrepreneurial climate and a spirit within the -

providing the information to people.

It is certainly something that we hope will bring about a

change. Where people will take the - I suppose you could call it an

entrepreneurial spirit in being fishermen and being people who have their own

enterprise. They would take that and then utilize it in some different way. Some

talk about being trained for a variety of things. A lot of people have the basic

instincts there on which to succeed in the area of small business. It is that

kind of thing I think that government can do best.

On the issue of trying to attract, and make it attractive for

other individuals to come to Newfoundland and to set up shop here, and even to

attract medium-sized and even larger industries here in the Province, we of

course are going to take efforts, as noted in the Throne Speech, to change the

manufacturing tax regime and other tax regimes, to make the Province possibly

the best place, from a tax and regulatory standpoint, to do business in all of

North America. This kind of effort being made by this government is very

heart-warming to business people all over the globe, really, in looking at

Newfoundland as a potential location in which to do business. Mr. Speaker, I

know only too well from having dealt with a medium-sized business, I would have

to call it, in a group in Port aux Basques, that has had some difficulty. The

company is called Atlantic Seaboard Industries Ltd., and with a lot of effort on

my part and the part of community people back over the years, we managed to

establish a steel fabrication facility there which currently is working on some

very exciting opportunities globally, and we hope, Mr. Speaker, very well to be

able to make some very, very positive announcements for the future of this

Province with respect to Atlantic Seaboard Industries Ltd. within the next week

or so.

I have been working diligently with the new investors in

Atlantic Seaboard Industries Ltd. and with other federal and provincial agencies

to see them over the hurdles that they have experienced with a restructuring of

the company, and the opportunities that we have opened up, Mr. Speaker - and I

have hesitated to mention any of this publicly because it is certainly a

corporate announcement that will be made with the assistance of the two levels

of government, but it will certainly be, I would suggest, an extremely good day

for this Province when we can finally put to rest the fears of the future of the

Atlantic Seaboard facility in Port aux Basques.

The company that has come in here is very astute at the

management of their affairs, and, along with efforts of the current company in

seeking contracts worldwide - contracts in the Middle East, contracts in the Far

East and other contracts down in the Caribbean, that, along with the facilities

being provided there, we hope to be able to go to other facilities in this

Province and have to request space from them in order to complete these

contracts. Because the volume of work is huge and we just hope that the people

of the area who have put so much time and energy into this, will, of course, be

the first to benefit and the people of the Province through the tax revenue that

is generated in income tax, and also in the activity level and then the increase

in small businesses that have to be set up to support such an active facility.

Now, these other small businesses, it is inevitable that they

do crop up. One can only look at Hibernia and the businesses and business people

who have really grown to support and be suppliers to a large industry such as

that. It is not inconceivable, Mr. Speaker, that there could be an amount of

work that is significant even in light of the total value of the Hibernia

project, available to the Port aux Basques area, and if time frames require to

be provided up for bidding on a subcontractual basis to the other facilities in

Newfoundland and other facilities in Atlantic Canada.

We are very, very excited about this; it is almost to a point

if, in fact, the deal goes through smoothly as planned that - we would love to

be able to say something about it now but issues similar to the issues dealing

with the Ontario Securities Commission with respect to Newfoundland Hydro are

very similar with this because the companies involved are publicly traded and

based on that aspect, no announcements are allowed to be made until they are

cleared through the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Mr. Speaker, to look at some other areas, the client-centered

approach to doing business: this is one that is close to my heart, having

assisted people and tried to help steer them through bureaucracy at a couple of

different levels and also through an understanding, I guess, of the regulatory

and political process. I have experienced first hand the peril that business

sometimes ends up involved in, the frustration that they have in having to get

some activity done quickly. It seems that sometimes officials have to go through

the normal process which frustrates business to no end, because every business

that comes to the doors of government, expects their issue to be dealt with as a

priority, and because government does so many things and has some many issues to

deal with, it is only, I suppose, an understanding they come to eventually that

their issue is one of many priorities that government has to deal with.

Well, this government has undertaken an initiative, as

announced in the Throne Speech, to look at that and rethink it, in a way, and

reorganize somewhat, all of the departments in the Province, and agencies, that

deal with economic development, in order to focus on the client-centered

approach. Now, it is a nice phrase, it sounds really good, and sometimes the

efforts of government go unheeded.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. RAMSAY: Mr. Speaker, as I was saying with respect to

the client-centred approach to doing business, it is such that we have

businesses out there which get frustrated with their ideas. Sometimes it's

because of lack of capital, sometimes it's because the ideas they have are not

well enough thought out, the analysis has not been done to determine as to

whether or not they can succeed in their chosen venture, and the officials, we

hope, are not becoming shocked, I suppose. Some of the terminology sometimes

used is that they become gun-shy, I suppose, to the people coming in with a

certain idea, because the pre-conceived notion sometimes of an official is: That

cannot work. And the analysis is done, and if there is any pre-conceived notion,

of course, the person will fail and will not get to first base, and will not get

his idea off the ground.

Mr. Speaker, it's a shame, but sometimes there is a school of

thought that someone who brings forward an idea that is not well enough thought

out, an idea that hasn't had the proper analysis done, that our people are there

to assist someone in preventing them from losing the money that they would

invest into this venture if, in fact, it is deemed that they would fail, given

the analysis.

Sometimes people go off and they have success without

knowledge of the reason why they have had success in business. I suppose you

could look at the four different styles of business, and the result of those

different styles.

You have the business person who is a conscious competent, we

say. A person who is conscious of what he is doing and is competent at carrying

out his business activities is probably the highest order of business person,

and I would certainly think that would be the way we would identify the hon. the

Member for St. John's North.

The other individual in business that we have to look at is

the person who is an unconscious competent, a person who has been successful in

business but is not really sure how he has done it. Such people know that the

money has come in; they have paid the bills; they have made a profit, but they

are not necessarily able to determine as to the reason why they have been

successful, and that is unfortunate, because that is the kind of business person

who often, when the chips are down and when the economy gets rough, is put out

of business.

One only has to look at Olympia and York. They certainly had

a lot of success. When the recession came and the real estate market went down

through the basement, the Olympia and York-types were seen to be standing on a

stack of cards, and there was a certain incompetence in the way that they had

proceeded with those investments.

Then, Mr. Speaker, we have to look at two others. There is

the conscious incompetent, which is someone who is conscious of what he should

be doing but, for one reason or another, does not carry out the necessary

practices in business, and because of that, is not doing very well, or ends up

losing his business.

Worst of all, and the person we certainly try to steer clear

of getting involved in a specific venture, would be the unconscious incompetent,

who normally, without the proper information, would get into business and lose

his shirt. That is unfortunate for all involved, and is the kind of thing that

we, as government officials, should seek to prevent from happening, for the

benefit of the individual himself, and also for the benefit of the whole

Province.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we only have to look at what they do in

some other jurisdictions. In yesterday's Globe and Mail there was an

article about the National Association of Prospectors and a business person who

operates in this Province, namely one, Peggy Whitty, as the Chief Executive

Officer of Royal Oak Mines. Ms. Whitty was very - I suppose, `good' in her

comments, is the word to use - with respect to Newfoundland. She was very upset

with the British Columbia Government and we understand that British Columbia are

having some problems with the windy, craggy mine out there, that property and

environmental issues. We, of course, here in this Province, have our own

environmental issues to deal with, but Ms. Whitty was very laudatory in offering

praise to the Province of Newfoundland as a place in which to do business. She

mentioned this Province - and her activities in Hope Brook have been very

successful. She is, of course, seeking, I would think, new activity here in this

Province and we would hope for that and welcome her to do so. She has been a

strong leader and was chosen by the Venture News Magazine on television

some two months ago, I think, as the CEO of the year in the area of

entrepreneurial CEOs operating in the country, in taking on the delicate and

difficult issue of labour strife in the North West Territories, in the

Yellowknife mine situation and also in setting up a company that is debt-free to

run some of these gold mines throughout North America. To have a company these

days, one knows, that is debt-free is certainly a Godsend and it i the kind of

thing that we would hope we can do here in this Province, to seek to have

businesses that are debt-free, that can start to pay tax on profit and offer

profit to government through the tax process, be it income tax or whatever. That

is the kind of thing that we have to work toward, Mr. Speaker.

Now. furthermore, I certainly want to support the motion put

forward by my hon. colleague. I would certainly feel, Mr. Speaker, that we, as

MHAs, will work closely with our public in our districts to assist them and

assist in steering them through the bureaucracy that sometimes can be a wrench

around their neck in the starting of small businesses. Hon. members know only

too well the frustration that sometimes people meet in trying to get their plans

approved. The commitment of the government, and I repeat this for the sake of

its importance, the intent of government to decrease the unnecessary regulation,

the intent of government to improve the tax regime, the intent of government to

improve the general business climate in the Province by getting out of the hair

of business where it doesn't need to be there, that is, in and of itself,

enough, I would suggest, to support and encourage business here in this Province

and make Newfoundland the prime location for all of North America, in which to

do business.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member notes - the last stanza of his

motion is to encourage the development of entrepreneurship in the Province at

the small business level g