Province of Newfoundland THIRTY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NEWFOUNDLAND Volume XXXIX Third Session Number 47 VERBATIM REPORT (Hanscird) Friday, 16 November 1984 Speaker: Honourable James Russell

The House met at 10:00 a.m. will celebrate the 75th. year of his ordination, and I know that at MR. SPEAKER (Russell): that time, as well, we will wish Order, please! to extend appropriate wishes. STATEMENTS BY MINISTERS MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of the Council. MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, before we get into the regular business of the House, I rise for the purpose of proposing on behalf of the House, and I know it will be unanimously adopted, the best wishes of the House on what really amounts to a milestone that has occurred within the past week.

In respect of it I am very grateful to the hon. the member for Carbonear (Mr. Peach) for drawing this to my attention and requesting me to do this. The hundredth birthday of the Right Reverend Monsignor Edward Joseph O'Brien was celebrated earlier this week. Honsignor O'Brien is the oldest Catholic priest in Canada. As everyone knows, he spent most of his time, actively as a priest, in Northern Bay. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, the North Shore of Conception Bay is synonymous with Monsignor O'Brien.

There are few people of our vintage who have gone to the area who have not thought and had in their minds Monsignor O'Brien. I suppose there are many people throughout Newfoundland who benefitted from his teaching and his direction as children. Certainly this is, as I say, a very momentous occasion and a milestone. I know the biggest milestone will occur this June, when the distinguished Prelate I think it should be pointed out at the present time, as well, that the Monsignor has been seventy-four years a priest.

He is one hundred years old, he is a distinguished citizen of this Province, he has contributed greatly to the Province itself, particularly, as I say, on the North Shore of Conception Bay, and I know that all members of this House would wish to associate with the House in extending best wishes and congratulations to the Monsignor. In closing I wish to say again, Mr. Speaker, that I am grateful to the hon. the Member for Carbonear (Hr. Peach) for having drawn this to the Government's attention SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! HR. BARRY: Mr. Speaker, MR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. the Leader of the Opposition. MR.

BARRY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to join with the Government House Leader (Mr. Marshall) on behalf of the official Opposition in also extending best wishes to Monsignor O'Brien. I think it should be noted that in addition to the very good work he put in during his ministry at Northern Bay, Monsignor O'Brien spent a large part of his career in the church at Northwest River in Labrador, where he made a tremendous contribution to the Naskaupi/Montagnais. He was L4859 November 16, 1984 R4859

considered a friend, a protector at a time, Mr. Speaker, years ago, when they needed somebody to speak for them when the ravages of the Western culture was hitting hard, and all too often, unfortunately, governments were not as sensitive as we would hope and believe they are today - although sometimes we wonder - in staying attuned to the needs of the Native peoples of Labrador. Monsignor O'Brien was there before aboriginal rights became a popular word on everybody's lips, but Monsignor O'Brien knew that the Native peoples of Labrador needed special attention and he gave it. And I think, Mr.

Speaker, if for no other reason this House does well to recognize the significant occasion at which Monsignor O'Brien has arrived, and the significant contribution he has made to this Province. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. SPEAKER (Russell): Order, please! MR. NEARY: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (Russell): Order, please! Order, please! No, the Chair would have to rule against that, otherwise it could get very much out of hand and theoretically every member in the Legislature would like to make some comments. MR. NEARY: We do not mind the hon. gentleman having a go, but we would like to have a go, too. MR.

SPEAKER: The tradition is that one person from the government side and one person from the Opposition side make comments and I think I would like to stick to that rule. ORAL QUESTIONS MR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. the Leader of the Opposition. MR. BARRY: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Premier I would like to direct a question to the Minister responsible for petroleum energy (Mr. Marshall).

I would like to ask the minister if he would indicate to the House whether the recent reports in the media as to the proposed mode of production planned by Mobil in the environmental impact statement which has been prepared and delayed at the request of the minister and the government of this Province, whether that is a floating platform mode with tankers moving the product ashore somewhere - whether that 'ashore' will be Newfoundland or not we would like the minister to indicate as well - and is it true that the numbers of jobs from that proposed mode of development would be something in the range of 1,100 and no more up to the year 1990 and would peak sometime around 1993-94 at about a little over 2,000 jobs?

Is this true? MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of the Council. MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, I want to tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that I am not in a position to comment on his questions. The report that he refers to, some alleged report, happens to be the L4860 November 16, 1984 R4860

property of Mobil Oil and I would suggest he direct his questions to Mobil Oil. The deferral of the environmental impact statement, Mr. Speaker, as we have indicated quite clearly, was requested and was granted in view of the new co-operative regime of development of the offshore. It was requested by this government because this government wished the environmental impact statement to be dealt with in accordance with the new joint management regime that has been agreed upon between this government and the federal government. The present environmental impact statement, Mr.

Speaker, my understanding of it, that was supposed to have been filed having been called upon by the previous federal government, was a statement that was going to be filed with a very, very preliminary development plan. Now, we feel and we felt that first of all it was essential that the environmentaL impact statement relate to the new joint management system. Secondly, we felt, and I think this is quite logical, that if your are going to have an environmental impact study, you should at least have a much firmer idea of the mode of development, but, thirdly, Mr.

Speaker, and most importantly, and to the consumate disappointment of the hon. gentleman there opposite who asked the question and who has failed this Province miserably on questions of energy, we have done it because we want to be able to sit down with the companies and with our partner in the development now, the federal government, to see that the optimum number of jobs are provided for the young people of this Province. Now, I know that is going to disappoint the hon. gentleman when he hears us say this, but that is the reason why we have done it.

And he asks about a report, and there is interest about a certain report. I say that we officially have not had any such report. We have asked for the environmental impact statement to be deferred for the reasons that I have given, and I think they are just and reasonable reasons. And I would suggest if he has any questions concerning any ideas of Mobil, that he might ask Mobil, because whatever is put down is their own private report. MR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. the Leader of the Opposition. MR. BARRY: Mr. Speaker, another question.

I would like to ask the Minister responsible for the Petroleum Directorate whether it is correct as reported that employees of the provincial government as well as the federal government have had access to this report, and whether these employees have passed this information on to the minister, and whether that information received by the minister corresponds with the information that has been recently released, and whether the minister is of the opinion that the approximately 2,000 jobs at its peak will be sufficient to meet the demand of the unemployed in this Province where, as we see in the statistics for October, 1984, in the past year alone, the number of unemployed have gone from 37,000 to 44,000 in the Province?

In one year, 7,000 people more were looking for jobs than were able to be provided. And I believe that the work force increased last year by approximately 9,000, so we saw out of that 9,000 only 2,000 provided with jobs and another L4861 November 16, 1984 R4861

7,000, in one year, going without employment. Does the minister agree with the Premier that the jobs now, in light of this report, from the of Eshore, will meet the needs of the unemployed in this Province? MR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. the President of the Council. MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, I can tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, first of all, that I cannot speak for employees of the federal government and the hon. gentleman should understand that. With respect to the employees of this government, I have no knowledge that they have received any reports.

As a matter of fact, I have knowledge that they have not received a report. And, secondly, the report has not been passed on to me for the simple reason that whatever report and whatever documents accompany the environmental impact statement have been requested to be withheld until we can get this joint management regime into place for the purpose of perfecting and ensuring the optimum number of jobs for the young people of this Province in the offshore. Now, the hon. gentleman there opposite asked a series of five questions that makes the other two redundant.

But the final question, which the hon. gentleman apparently exults in, he absolutely exults, he want to paint a picture of disaster, paint it as bleakly as he possibly can, but already in his questions the jobs have gone from 1,000 to 2,000 in a short period of time, so it just goes to show his consistency within that short period of time. I would say to the hon. gentleman that this government is doing, and will do in every step it is taking, everything to ensure the optimum benefit for the people of Newfoundland and optimum jobs for the young people of this Province. And, Mr.

Speaker, the hon. gentleman should also know that we have achieved that and we will achieve it through a regime that has been set in through a negotiated agreement in a process that the hon. gentleman said could not be achieved in that particular process. So we have that agreement now and the hon. gentleman, while he wants to ask questions can also answer one: What excuse has he got being over on the other side of the House when publicly he says he can support the letter that Mr.

Flu ironey has given the Premier of this Province, when he crossed the House ostensibly under the guise that a satisfactory agreement could not be realized on the basis of those negotiations? SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. Leader of the Opposition. MR. BARRY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister reponsible for Energy (Mr.

Marshall) whether he is not aware that our position has been that he and government opposite has no choice at the present time, they have no choice, they have boxed themselves in, they have lost the of Eshore case, they have now no choice but to cast themselves on the mercies of Mr. Muironey, Mr. Speaker. We will never know what other deal could have been obtained because the hon. minister could not negotiate and did not want to negotiate and L4862 November 16, 1984 R4862

did not know how to negotLate. And, Mr. Speaker, what we are trying to find out now is just how good a deal are we going to see from Mr. Muironey. And the next few weeks and months, Mr. Speaker, are going to permit us to find out, provided, Mr. Speaker, the minister is prepared to give more information to the general public of this Province than he is as far as the Mobil environmental impact statement is concerned, where he is trying to impose another form of censorship on this Province, another form of censorship with respect to the most important development facing this Province. MR . SPEAKER: Order, please!

Order, please! I have to remind the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barry) that it is Question Period, and certainly he appeared to the Chair to be entering into the realm of debate. I would request that he pose a question. MR. BARRY: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I must say the minister did provoke me there a little. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister if he is not prepared to be honest with the people of this Province and admit that if not he, then the employees of the Petroleum Directorate have access to the Mobil environmental statement. He seems to have denied that he has access to it.

He has not indicated whether the employees of the Petroleum Directorate have access. And, Mr. Speaker- MR. NEARY: They have not. MR. BARRY: Do they? MR. NEAPY: Yes. HR. MARSHALL: No. HR. NEARY: Then how come it leaked out to the public? MR. BARRY: The Minister says no. Now in that case, I would like to ask the minister whether he is aware that Hr. Gordon Cosse, the Assistant Deputy Minister, Petroleum Resource Management for the Petroleum Directorate, on June 6 and 7, 1984, in Calgary presented a paper called Hibernia - From Exploration to through Development.

And he indicates in this paper, page 7, that "the approach of Mobil will be a development plan, the first stage of which involves the installation of a purpose built semi-submersible production plantforrn with tanker storage." In other words, a floating platform, and also that they indicate that tankers will be bringing the oil to shore. Now, Mr. Speaker, the position of the Liberal Opposition is that there should be concrete platforms, and there should be a pipeline to shore.

We ask the minister whether his officials have received this information from Mobil and whether the minister is accepting that this is the way that the Hibernia field should be developed? MR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. the President of the Council. HR. MARSHALL: L4863 November 16, 1984 R4863

Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman is confused but of course that is quite evident to everybody in Newfoundland at the present time. First of all he talks about an environmental impact statement that was supposedly, according to reports in the media - well, obviously it was possibly in the process of preparation by Mobil but it has not been given to government so it is Mobil's own property in recent times. Now he refers to a statement of June. MR. BARRY: It is printed. MR. MARSHALL: It was not printed June 6 and 7. We have very good officials but they are not clairvoyant, Mr. Speaker. All that was Hr.

Cosse was indicating was his impressions of what the thinking of Mobil was at that particular time. The hon. gentlemen will he very disappointed to know that the thinking of Mobil is not going to be the final word with respect to this. It would have been the final word, Mr. Speaker, if the hon. gentleman's new-found colleagues there opposite had been elected in Ottawa. Whatever Mobil had said would have been, because their philosophy was, 'Well, we cannot interfere with the company. The company does what it wants to do.

They can ship the jobs outside of Canada to the States if they want to.' But that is not the regime on which the offshore, to the disappointment of the hon. gentlemen, is going to be developed. He says, too, that we would never know the deal that might have been arranged. He never knew the deal? Well, Mr. Speaker, I suggest he look at the Nova Scotian agreement. That is the deal, Mr. Speaker, that Mr. Chretien and Hr. Lalonde tried to shove down the throats of the people of this Province, that was the deal that the hon. gentleman, after he made his trip across the House, wanted to shove down our throats.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. MARSHALL: And, Mr. Speaker, that would have resulted in disaster for this Province. Now the hon. gentleman says his position is concrete platforms. The position of the government is concrete platforms unless their is very good reason to the contrary and the companies are going to be putting in proof. The duly elected representatives of the people of Newfoundland today are going to be able to put them on the proof purely and simply because of the agreement that we have entered into with the federal government.

No thanks to the hon. gentleman who did everything he could do to sabotage it, purely and simply for his own ambitions. He wanted to do it all himself. God help us, Mr. Speaker, if the hon. gentleman had been able to do it all by himself. As I said yesterday, Mr. Speaker, what a sad state of affairs. The once great Liberal party looked around for a leader, they went from A to B to C to D and after all these years they could not find a Liberal and they had to elect a jealous Tory. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. MARSHALL: We are seeing, Mr. Speaker, the results of that today.

I can tell the hon. gentleman that everybody on this side of the House stands 1.4864 November 16, 1984 R4864

foursquare in our determination to see, number one, that we get a just return on the revenues. It has been agreed and the words are, Mr. Speaker, that we are going to have the right to establish and collect revenues as if they are on Land. Secondly, Mr. Speaker, we have attained the right for joint management with the federal government, and you have seen, Mr. Speaker, the first instance of this joint management in the deferral of that environmental impact statement. I pay a great deal of compliments to Ms.

Carney and to the federal government for their continued co-operation in this area because they have no hesitation whatsoever in co-operating with this Province when this Province took the measure it did for the protection of the people of this Province the provision of the ultimate number of jobs procurable in the offshore. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. member for Menihek. MR. FEN1JICK: Mr. Speaker, my question was going to be directed to the Minister of Justice (Mr.

Ottenheimer) but he is not here, or to the Premier if he were not here, but I think perhaps I will continue on down the line and address it to the President of the Council. AN HON. MEMBER: He does not know which way is up yet. MR. FEU1ICK: Well, I certainly know which way is down, that is for sure. The Lions Club of Trepassey several days ago applied for a Licence from the lottery licencing organization in order to operate a bingo, and the reason they wanted to operate the bingo was in order to collect some money to give to a committee that was involved with helping the families of striking trawlermen.

They were soon visited by the police and told that they would not be able to get a licence under those conditions. They continued to ask. They went up to the lottery Licencing people and asked them and they were also told that they would not be allowed to operate a bingo in order to help these families out. At the same time the Lions Club, because they are a pretty aggressive bunch and did not want to take this kind of nonsense, told the lottery licencing people that they were going to go ahead anyway.

At that point, between the police and the lottery licencing people they were threatened with the removal of their licence to operate bingos and so on, they were told that they would immediately be audited and that they would be charged under the act for violations of it. When this was brought to my attention I got in touch with lottery Licencing people, and they then went out and asked for a second opinion. After asking for a second opinion. MR. TULK: So there is a question? MR. FENWICK Yes, there is a question at the end of it. MR. SPEAKER (Russell): Order, please!

The Chair, I think, has been fairly lenient with the hon. member in his having more than an ample

preamble to his question and would request that he get on with a specific question. L4865 November 16, 1984 R4865

MR. FETWICK: By the way, the decision was rescinded, that is the

part I was going to get to. The question I have of the President of the Council (Mr. Marshall) is are these kinds of harassing tactics that have been used on the Lions Club condoned by this government? MR. SPEAKER: The han. President of the Council. MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, I can say to the hon. gentleman that in this Province the law is applied uniformly to all people. I realize that the hon. gentleman probably because of his representation, the party he represents is probably a little bit more emotional about this than some other people might.

But the fact of the matter is, be it a labour union, be it a church group, be it individuals, the law has to apply equally to everybody. Now I am not fully familiar with what the hon. gentleman is talking about before I came into the House, except I am going on the basis of his explanation beforehand or his discription. But the law applies equally to all and no matter how just one may feel a cause may be, the law still has to apply. You cannot allow individuals or groups of individuals to adopt a different method or a different law purely and simply because of the cause itself.

The position, I think, or our attitude would be that there is certainly freedom in this Province, freedoiii of association, freedom of people to do anything that they want which is within the law, but they have to comply within the law, otherwise, Mr Speaker, you are going to have people selectively determining which laws they are going to obey and that is going to lead to a state of anarchy. MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker. HR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. member for the Strait of Belle Isle. MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I have a number of questions for the acting Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Coudie) dealing with the St.

Anthony fish plant situation. I wonder if the minister could tell us whether the government have changed their policy or whether they are still prepared to accept the recommendation of the Kirby Report, the so-called North of fifty recommendation, which recommended and hopefully will lead to the creation of a Northern Fisheries Develop Iment Corporation. Is that still the policy of this administration, Sir? MR. SPEAKER (Russell) The hon. Minister of Fisheries (Acting). MR. COUDIE: Mr. Speaker, as far as I am aware it most certainly is the policy of this particular administration. The fish plant at St.

Anthony obviously plays a very important role in what is referred to, at least by me, as the Northern fishery. As a matter of fact, for the hon. gentleman's information, I will be getting a briefing later on today by senior officials of the department in relation to that fish plant. It has been being fairly successful I think recently in relation to other plants throughout the Province in terms of the processing they have been into. And in addition to that I have been holding some discussions with the Torngat Fisheries L4866 November 16, 1984 R4866

Co-operative up in Northern Labrador. Other discussions are planned to take place and the intention being to hopefully see the St. Anthony fish plant, and perhaps other operations in Northern Labrador or along the Coast of Labrador, become even more viable than they have been in the past. It seems the way to do that might be through that corporation. MR. ROBERTS: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member for the Strait of Belle Isle. MR. ROBERTS: Mr.

Speaker, the minister, I am sure, will be pleased to notice that the plant has had the best year in its entire history, and that is a tribute to the men and the women who work in the pLant, including the men and women in management. I will ask two questions because I think really they are the same type of information. Have any meetings being held or scheduled with the Government or Canada, who of course are the other partner? As the minister will no doubt be told by his officials, there has been $15 million sitting on the shelf - at least there was until Mr.

Wilson got going last week; I do not know if it is still there or not - but there was 15 million available in Ottawa, 100 per cent federal money, for the NFDC in the current fiscal year. Could the minister tell us whether there have been any meetings with the Government or Canada, or are any planned, and could he tell us when we might expect some development, some announcements? This year's season, of course, is all but over, the plant is closing this weekend as far as I am aware, but Spring corneth quickly even in Northern Newfoundland and on the Coast of Labrador.

The minister, of course, is quite right to say that the NFDC, which is the Northern Fisheries Development Corporation, must operate not only on the Northern Peninsula and on the Southern Coast of Labrador, but in the North. The St. Anthony plant, however, will be the jewel in the crown, if I may say so, and it has been a bit of a shining jewel I am happy to note, this year. But could the minister tell us where we are now? MR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. Minister of Fisheries (Acting). MR. GOUDIE: Mr. Speaker, no doubt the St. Anthony plant has been a shining jewel in the Crown.

It would be my intention, and I think I can possibly be accused of a number of things when I say this, but hopefully there will perhaps be another one or two shining jewels a little further along the North Coast of this Province, specifically in Labrador as it relates to the fishery. But that is something down the road. In relation to meetings to be held with the Government of Canada, such a request has gone in. As a matter of fact, I understand that there had been requests gone in to meet with Mr. Fraser prior to my assuming responsibility for Fisheries on an acting basis.

But as a follow-up to that, since becoming responsible on an acting basis, I sent a rather detailed proposal and list of topics to be discussed with Mr. Fraser in Ottawa relating to the fishery in this Province and I am now waiting from a response from him. L4867 November 16, 1984 R4867

Hopefully that meeting will be arranged fairly quickly. Secondly, in relation to when we can possibly expect some developments, I can only suggest to the hon. gentleman at this point in time that I am interested and this government is interested in seeing developments take place in the fishery, but I would be a little more prepared 'I think to answer that question in some more detail following discussions with my counterpart in Ottawa. MR. ROBERTS: A further supplementary, if might? MR. SPEAKER (Russell): One other supplementary by the hon. member for the Strait of Belle Isle. MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. FEU1iICK: On a point of order, I asked for a supplementary on the last question and I did not receive it. I would appreciate getting it in. MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! I am sure the hon. member is aware that the tradition in any legislature is the person who catches the Speaker's eye first is recognized. That is exactly what the Chair is doing. HR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the minister and I think it is only fair of him to wait until he hears from Mr. Fraser.

I would simply say that we all hope there will be some quick action because, as his predecessor has no doubt told him, this thing has been on the front burner with the heat turned up high for at least - what?- six or eight months, and people are unstandably beginning to be more than anxious. My question, Sir, is this: Could the minister tell us whether there is included among his points for discussion with Hr. Fraser in Ottawa - and if not, will he put it on the list? - the question of the capital expenditure at the St. Anthony plant? Now my concern is not only with St. Anthony, but it is chiefly with St.

Anthony, where people are among the people who send me here to this House. The St. Anthony plant, for the benefits of the minister in case he is not familiar with it, needs significant and substantial capital expenditure. In fact, it needed it two or three years ago, and it has been going on with Scotch tape and Band-Aids and a lot of sweat and hard work by the men and the women there. The money that was in Ottawa was destined in part for that. I can assure the minister that $15 millions was there and was available for that. Can he tell us whether he will raise it with Mr.

Fraser in the hopes that we will get some assurance over the next month or so that the money needed to make the St. Anthony plant fit to carry on has it has been - we are not talking expansions, we are simply talking keeping what we got - that that money will be available and will be provided for that plant in the coming fiscal year. MR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. the Minister of Fisheries (Acting). MR. GOUDTLE: L4868 November 16, 1984 R4868

Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the hon. gentleman. I neglected to refer to the $15 million amount of funding that he had included in his question. I do not know at this point in time whether that amount of money is still available. We can all speculate I suppose on whether it is there or not but I can assure the hon. gentleman that that matter will be raised.

The matter of the Northern Fisheries Corporation is certainly very high on my shopping list not only for any capital funding which may be needed to either improve or get into new facilities, etc., and I am not referring only to fish plants but to other facilities that are needed in relation to the fishery. That is very high on my list and certainly will be discussed with Mr. Fraser in Ottawa when we get together. I can also assure the hon. gentleman that in addition to discussing these matters, or proposing to with Mr.

Fraser, they have already been discussed by me with senior officials in the Department of Fisheries and there also are - MR. ROBERTS: DFP or your own department? MR. GOUDIE: With my own department to date and it is certainly very high on the list for discussions with Mr. Fraser. MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Sir. MR. NEARY: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. the member for LaPoile. MR. NEARY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister responsible for Energy (Mr. Marshall) in the absence of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ottenheimer). The people of this Province, Mr.

Speaker, a few days ago were outraged to hear that for the second year in a row Newfoundland Light and Power Company had made illegal profits. At the same time the Public Utilities Board are rubber stamping increases for the Light and Power Company, a year ago, the year before last, they had profits they were not entitled to, this year they had profits they were not entitled to. Now, Mr. Speaker, will the President of the Council (Mr. Marshall) tell the House what is going to be done to protect the consumers against this kind of gouging so it will never happen again?

Will the hon. gentleman tell the House if the Light and Power Company will be directed by the administration to refund the millions of dollars that they have gouged out of consumers illegally, that they will be ordered by an Order-in-Council to refund that money to the consumers of electricity in this Province? SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. the President of the Council. MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. gentleman knows, and knows full well, the matters of electrical rates are subject to the scrutiny of the Public Utilities Board.

The Public Utilities Board is presently examining the statements made by Newfoundland Light and Power and will make such an order as is appropriate. We certainly L4869 November 16, 1984 R4869

hope that measures will be taken to lessen and ease the impact of electrical, rates and we will do everything we possibly can to that end. I mean, it is a fact of life that everything has gone up, particularly electrical rates, over the past two years, but we are doing everything we possibly can and it is through the medium of the Public Utilities Board that this will be dealt with. I can anticipate what the answer is going to be and the hon. gentleman will get a little corner in The Evening Telegram tomorrow, but if he wants to go again I will respond to him. MR. NEARY: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. MR.

SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. member for LaPoile. MR. NEARY: That is poor consolidation to the consumer of electricity. What I asked the hon. gentleman was what the administration was going to do to strengthen the Public Utilities Board, what they were going to do on the eighth floor to see that this gouging of consumers of electricity stops?

For instance, let me ask the hon. gentleman in view of what has happened over the past two years not only with Newfoundland Light and Power but with the Newfoundland Telephone Company where they have record profits, and in the case of Newfoundland Light and Power illegal profits - they took in more money than they were allowed to take in - is that going to be refunded? Will the hon. gentleman indicate to the House whether the administration will put a consumer representative on the Board of Commissioners of Public Utilities as was recommended by the Federation of Mayors and Municipalities in this Province? MR.

SPEAKER (RusseLl: Order, please! The time for the Question Period has expired. Does the House wish to give leave to the hon. President of the Council (Mr. Marshall)? SOME HON. MEMBERS: No. MR. SPEAKER: Leave is not granted. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh! MR. SPEAKER (Russell): Order, please! I would lIke to welcome to the galleries some 60 Grade VIII and IX students from St. Edwards School in Kelligrews with their teachers, David Locke, Ann Perry, and Gerard Fitzgerald. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! PRESENTING REPORTS OF STANDING AND SPECIAL COMMITTEES MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member for the Strait of Belle Isle. MR.

ROBERTS: Due to some foul up in communications, I am in a somewhat anomalous position, and I wonder if I might ask leave of the House to present the Report of the Public Accounts Committee even though I am no longer a member of the Public Accounts Committee? Apparently they acted yesterday. L4870 November 16, 1984 R4870

MR. NEARY: Oversight. MR. ROBERTS: Well, that is the job of the PAC Do I take it I have leave? MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member for the Strait of Belle Isle have leave to present the report? SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed. MR. SPEAKER: Agreed. MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, it is with a great deal of pleasure that I table the Report of the Public Accounts Coimni.ttee on the financial statements of the Province for the year which ended 31 March 1982, that being the 1981/82 fiscal year. There are, I understand, copies available for the members and for the press. Mr.

Speaker, if I may be permitted a very brief valedictory, because I earlier asked my friend and colleague, the Leader of the Opposition (Hr. Barry) if he would nominate someone to replace me and he agreed to do so - in fact, as I understand, the House acted yesterday and I understand that new members have been appointed - so I would simply like to tell the House, Sir, that with the tabling of this report the Public Accounts Committee is now for the first time in its history up-to-date. The 1982/83 public accounts are before the Committee at present and we had completed part of our hearings.

I assume that the new members and the Committee will carry on with its work. The 1983/84 report has not as yet been tabled, although I understand that the Auditor General proposes to have it presented to the Minister of Finance (Dr. Collins), who will doubtless table it immediately, hopefully before the end of this session. But as of this stage, Sir, the Public Accounts Committee is up-to-date and I think that is a first and I want to thank the members of the Committee, and the staff of the Committee, because it is their accomplishment. The report itself, Mr. Speaker, needs no detailed comment from me.

The format is I think quite a straightforward and good one. We examined a number of paragraphs in the Auditor General's Report and our report takes the form of, in each case, a quotation of the relevant portion of the Auditor General's Report so it is readily available, a

summary of the quite extensive evidence which we took, the findings which the Committee made, and the recommendations. There are seventeen recommendations, some of them fairly critical of the government, finding the practices of the government were not acceptable, others accepting explanations that have been made in respect of criticisms and comments made by the Auditor General. Mr. Speaker, one other innovation in the report which I hope will continue is that we have added as an appendix to the report a review and a status report on the recommendations we have made in previous reports.

We had what we called a show-and-tell session where the officials came before the Committee to tell us what they had done in respect of the previous year's recommendations. That is the first time there has ever been any follow-up. We have included a report card and I even note there are stars, one star is L4871 November 16, 1984 R4871

good and four stars is bad - perhaps it should have been the other way around - but there is a report card which grades the administration on their response to the recommendations of the PAC. Thank you very much. MR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. the Minister of Transportation. MR. TULK: Where are all the stars? HR. ROBERTS: The stars are all on this side, I say to my friend from Fogo (Mr. Tulk), not on the other. MR. DANE: As required by

Section 32 of the Mineral Act, Mr. Speaker, I would like to table the annual report of the mineral licences and mining leases. NOTICES OF MOTION But, Mr. Speaker, it is appropriate I think that the Committee, which after all is a part of the House and reports to the House, should let the House know what the administration has done in response to the representations which we have made. I hope that next year's report will continue that practice. I see my friend from Social Services (Mr. Hickey), he stars in the report, and I hope that he is back next year in the report. Hr.

Speaker, let me conclude by thanking my colleagues who worked on the Committee. I enjoyed the process immensely. I like to believe, and I do believe, that we did good work and I want to thank my absent friend from Humber West (Hr. Baird) - who would be the first to note it were I am here, so I note that he is not here - and the other members of the Committee, and our Clerk, Miss Murphy, who also sits at the table here, and Mr. Porter, the research officer, and the staff of the Auditor General's Department, and the Auditor General himself. I think we have done good work.

It is the accomplishment of all of these men and women and in behalf of the House, Sir, I would like to say a word of thanks to them. MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of the Council. MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the hon. the Minister of Justice (Mr. Ottenheimer) I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Incorporate The Certified General Accountants Association Of Newfound land". MR.

SPEAKER: Before proceeding to Orders of the Day, I wish to refer to a matter of privilege that was raised yesterday in this Legislature in Committee stage at first and reported to the Chair by the Chairman of Committees and then some argument was heard with regard to that. Subsequent to listening to the arguments and debate, I indicate I would try to get a copy of the transcripts and rule on it today. I have been able to get a copy of the transcripts and I have read them very carefully. In essence the point of privilege raised by the hon. the member for LaPoile (Mr.

Neary) was that the hon. the Minister of Public Works and 1.4872 November 16, 1984 R4872

Services (Mr. Young) made some allegations that he had misused the privileges of the car pooi. to a lot of funerals, but, Mr. Speaker, I never go in heLicopters, I go in my own private car. Having read the transcripts, I find, really, that accusations, if you will, or allegations were made on both sides.

It is correct that the Minister of Public TJorks and Services did infer that the hon. the member for LaPoile had misused the car pool; however, also in the transcripts there is an allegation by the hon. the member for LaPoile, on page 4, that Cabinet ministers had misused the car pool in driving their children to school and their spouses to supermarkets and that kind of thing. MR. NEARY: Do not forget the night clubs do not forget helicopter to take the undertaker to the graveyard. MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! So in essence, and I refer to Beauchesne, page 12,

section 19 (1), "A dispute arising between two Members, as to allegations of facts, does not fulfil the conditions of parliamentary privilege", and, therefore, no prima fade case has been established. mm MR. YOUNG: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not know if it was audible to the hon. House, but I did just hear the hon. the member for LaPoile (Mr. Neary) accuse me of using a helicopter to go to a funeral. Now, if the man is sick, I think he should go to a doctor. I mean, there is something wrong with the hon. gentleman. I do go MR. NEARY: To that point of order, Hr. Speaker. MR.

SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. the member for LaPoile. MR. NEARY: Mr. Speaker, it is hard to deal with an illiterate, but I suppose you have to deal with it when the items come up. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh! MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Order, please! MR. NEARY: Mr. Speaker, to the point of order. MR. SPEAKER (Russell): Order, please! I will hear the balance of the hon. member's point of order. However, I certainly think it is unparliamentary for one member to refer to another member of this House as being an illiterate and I would ask the hon. member to withdraw that comment. MR. NEARY: Yes, Mr. Speaker. But, Mr.

Speaker, the hon. gentleman said that he thought he heard me say that the hon. gentleman on one occasion in his career Look a government helicopter, dressed up in his tuxedo, and went across the bay to a funeral and then had the helicopter pick him up. The hon. gentleman thought he heard me say that? When he stepped off the helicopter in his tuxedo, in his capacity as an undertaker, L4873 November 16, 1984 R4873

attended the funeral, and then had the helicopter come back and bring him back to St. John's - MR. NEARY: It is not a lie, it is absolutely true. MR. YOUNG: He is such a crook! MR. NEARY: - is the hon. gentleman denying that? Because, Mr. Speaker, if the hon. gentleman said that he thought he heard me say that, he is correct, because I did say it. MR. YOUNG: Further to toy point of order, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Public works and Services. MR. YOUNG: I think the hon. gentleman should withdraw that or produce evidence that I did use a helicopter to go to a funeral. SOME HON.

MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. YOUNG: Mr. Speaker, I charge the hon. member, and I say it now, that he is deliberately lying to this House. MR. NEARY: You are getting a dose of your own medicine now and you cannot take it. Deny it. MR. TULK: Yes, deny it.. MR. NEARY: The hon. gentleman is getting a dose of his own medicine now and he cannot take it. MR. MORGAN: Do not be making up lies, boy. Be honest. MR. MORGAN: Slime! Slime! MR. CALLAN: Slime? The master of innuendo. MR.

SPEAKER (Russell): It appears to the Chair that in these comments made by both hon. members, and the accusation made by the hon. the member for LaPoile (Mr. Neary), and language uttered by the hon. the Minister of Public 12orks and Services (Mr. Young) contained some unparliamentary language and I would ask both hon. gentlemen to withdraw their comments. MR. NEARY: I was not listening to Your Honour. .Jhat was it I said that was unparliamentary? DR. COLLINS: You do not know? MR. MARSHALL: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the President of the Council on a point of privilege. MR. MARSHALL: Your Honour has made a ruling in this House and Your Honour has asked two hon. members of this House to withdraw. Now, the rules are the same for both side of the House. Mr. Speaker, when Your Honour makes a ruling of that nature it is incumbent upon any who is directed to withdraw to withdraw without any equivocation whatsoever and to 'githdraw S L4874 November 16, 1984 R4874

immediately. I am quite sure the hon. the Minister of Public Works and Services (Mr. Young) is prepared to do this and I ask the hon. the member for LaPoile (Mr. Neary) to do the same and respect the Chair. MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. the member for the Strait of Belle Isle. MR. ROBERTS: My friend from LaPoile had not refused anything. All he had asked is the right of any condemned man to know what he is condemned with. He simply asked Your Honour what was unparliamentary. I have no doubt he will withdraw it. DR. COLLINS: He was questioning His Honour's ruling. MR. ROBERTS: Mr.

Speaker, the Minister of Finance (Dr. Collins) passeth all understanding, as do his budgets. The hon. gentleman was not questioning Your Honour's ruling, all he was doing was asking what precisely was unparliamentary, no doubt with the intent of withdrawing it the moment he knew what it was. That seems fair enough. MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! I am sure the hon. the member for LaPoile is aware of what he had said. If he is not, then that is unfortunate.

However, the hon. the member for LaPoile made a certain allegation about certain things that had been done or are alleged to have been done by the Minister of Public Works and Services (Mr. Young) in using helicopters for private business reasons. Certainly I think that that is wrong and the hon - MR. NEiRY: That is what. I was accused of yesterday, Mr. Speaker, and you have already ruled on that. MR. SPEAKER (Russell): Order, please! The hon. the Minister of Public Works and Services (Mr.

Young) used some unparliamentary language and the Chair feels that this is not doing anything for the decorum of this House and has asked both hon. members to withdraw their comments. HR. YOUNG: Mr. Speaker. HR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Public Works and Services. MR. NEAHY: I will not withdraw anything - MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! The Chair has recognized the hon. the Minister of Public Works and Services. MR. YOUNG: Mr. Speaker, I do apologize for using unparliamentary language. It is unfortunate that I have to get down to the same level as the hon. the member for LaPoile. MR. NEARY: Hr. Speaker. MR.

SPEAKER (Russell): The hon. the member for LaPoile. MR. NEARY: Mr. Speaker, what I said I am L4875 November 16, 1984 R4875

prepared to stand by. I withdrew the unparliamentary statements, if Your Honour will recall. Yesterday I was accused in this hon. House of abusing and misusing a government service. I challenged it. I asked to have the documentation put on the table of the House. It was refused. Your Honour ruled I did not have a point of privilege, that anybody in this House could come in and make charges and accusations.

And the hon. gentleman today, when Your Honour called Orders of the Day, I happened to utter a remark that the hon. gentleman at one point in his ministry took a helicopter, went to a funeral as an undertaker, dressed up as an undertaker, in his tuxedo - MR. TOBIN: Where? Where? MR. WEARY: Yes, I can tell the hon. gentleman where - and then had the helicopter pick him up and bring him back to St. John's, across the bay. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Where? Where? MR. WEARY: Now, Mr. Speaker, what is unparliamentary about that, I would like the know? MR. MORGAN: Back up your charges. DR.

COLLINS: You are challenging the Chair. MR. WEARY: Mr. Speaker, that statement is not unparliamentary so therefore I would like to know what language Your Honour is referring to that is unparliamentary. MR. SPEAKER (RusseLl): The hon. the President of the Council. MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, I quote Beauchesne, page 39,

Section 119, "Speakers' rulings, once given, belong to the House which, under Standing Order 12, must accept them without appeal or -debate. Speakers' rulings must be complied with." Now, Mr. Speaker, that is known. Whether the hon. gentleman agrees with it or does not agree with it, if Your Honour makes a ruling in this House it must be complied with, otherwise there is complete chaos in the House and you just cannot operate. The Speaker in this House occupies a position of utmost respect from all members and the House cannot function, Mr.

Speaker, unless your rulings are complied with swiftly and complied with without equivocation. Now the hon. gentleman has been asked to withdraw. I would suggest, and I would hope, that the hon. gentleman on reflection would withdraw because it is necessary for the business of the House and the decorum of the House and everything. MR. WEARY: But you would not say that yesterday. You let my name be blackened. MR. MARSHALL: But the fact of the matter is Your Honour has asked the hon. gentleman - SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh. MR. SPEAKER (Russell): Order, please! MR. MARSHALL: L4876 November 16, 1984 R4876

- and if the hon. gentleman refuses to withdraw and withdraw promptly there is only one recourse and it is a regrettable recourse, but Your Honour will have to name him. Chair and I sincerely hope that it does not continue. The hon. the Minister of Public Works and Services. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Name him! Name him! MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! The Chair has heard enough arguments on this point of order. The Chair did make a ruling and asked two hon. members of this House to withdraw comments made because the Chair felt they were unparliamentary and uncalled for. One of the hon. members has done that.

The Chair asks the hon. member for LaPoile (Mr. Neary) to do the same. The hon. member for LaPoile. MR. NEARY: Mr. Speaker, I will do it under duress, I can guarantee you that. But I want to say to Your Honour that this is the first time in this House that a member has been directed to withdraw charges and allegations made against another member that are founded, that are true. Now, in the charges that I made, the language was not unparliamentary. And Your Honour knows that that is not a correct ruling. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh. HR. SPEAKER (Russell): Order, please!

There will not be any further argument on this matter. The hon. member for LaPoile (Mr. Neary) certainly has come very close to challenging the ruling of the MR. YOUNG: I do not know whether I should rise on a point of order or a point of privilege, but I want to make quite clear, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. gentleman, although he has withdrawn, or partly withdrawn his remarks - he did not do it to my satisfaction. Hon. Sir, he accused me of using a helicopter to go to a funeral and back. Now, Mr. Speaker, since I have been a Cabinet minister, I can produce the logs - MR. NEARY: Let us see them. MR.

YOUNG: Just a moment, Mr. Speaker. The only time ever I was in a chopper was when we were on a committee for the inshore fishery. Since I have been a Cabinet minister, Mr. Speaker, I was in a chopper once and that privilege, Sir, was to go around with the Minister of Health (Mr. House) opening clinics in Labrador. I have never used a chopper, Mr. Speaker, I have never used a 'plane. MR. MORGAN: Withdraw that accusation. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh! MR. YOUNG: And I asked the hon. gentleman to withdraw. He is making unfounded accusations. If he wants to get low, Mr.

Speaker, let him come on and I can read the Mifflin report and stuff like that to him. But, Mr. Speaker, I have never used a chopper. L4877 November 16, 1984 R4877

MR. NEARY: To that point of order, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (Russell): Order, please! Order, please! This has gone far enough and the Chair is not going to hear any more argument on it. MR. WEARY: He can dish it out but he cannot take it. I can produce a witness. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh! MR. MORGAN: I am going to nail you (inaudible). MR. WEARY: You would love to, would you not, jigs and reels? HR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Order, please!

Certain statements have been made, and certainly it is, in the Chair's opinion at least, incumbent upon any member of this House, I suppose, if certain things are said, to be prepared to produce whatever evidence he or she has. MR. MORGAN: I am going to nail you, old buddy. Slime! You are not fit to be in the House of Assembly and I will prove it in two months time. SOME HOW. MEMBERS: Oh, oh! MR. WEARY: Get the Premier in to get them under control. MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Order, please!

Certain members in this House on both sides have insisted in the last few minutes on completely ignoring calls for order from the Chair and, if that persists, then the Chair will have no choice but to name hon. members on either side. ORDERS OF THE DAY MR. MARSHALL: Motion 4. Motion, the hon. the Minister of Rural, Agricultural and Northern Development to introduce a bill, "An Act To Create A Farm Loan Board And To Provide Loans And Incentives For Fat-rn Development," (Bill No. 50), carried. On motion, Bill No. 50, read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow. MR. MARSHALL: Motion 5.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Health to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Medical Act, 1974," (Bill No. 51), carried. On Motion, Bill No. 51, read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow. KR. MARSHALL: Motion 3. Committee of the Whole on Supply. On motion that the House resolve itself into Coitunittee of the Whole on Supply, Mr. Speaker left the Chair. COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE L4878 November 16, 1984 R4878

MR. CHAT.HAN (Aylward): Order, please! The hon. Minister of Finance. DR. COLLINS: Mr. Chairman, SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh! MR. CHPIRMAN: Order, please! DR. COLLINS: This is the first opportunity I have had to speak in Committee since the hon. member for the Strait of Belle Isle (Mr. Roberts) tabled the report of the PAC. I would just like at this point , if I may be permitted, just to compliment the hon. member on his chairmanship of that Committee. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! DR. COLLINS: I think he did an excellent job.

I know that individuals in the department under my responsibility appeared before the Committee and were always treated with courtesy. The conduct of the Committee was carried out in a very expeditious manner. I think that was the experience of all officials. I am not certain if there were any elected members appear before the Committee during his chairmanship, but certainly, to my knowledge, all officials who appeared were very pleased with the way the Committee was being conducted.

And I think they felt that not only did they get a fair hearing of their side of the various issues, and, of course, the issues are brought to the attention of the Committee in the first instance by the Auditor General, not only did the officials get a fair hearing, but they felt that the operations of the Committee were useful to them in conducting their affairs in a manner which would be acceptable to all members of this House. So I would sincerely like to congratulate him.

It is most unfortunate he is not here,I think it is regrettable he is not here because he could add to the conduct of business in this Committee, but that is his business, I guess. But even in his absence I would like to compliment him. Now, Mr. Chairman, I would just like to make a few comments in regard to the debate that is going on in Committee in regard to the Supplementary Supply Bill. I do not have many comments to make, because most of the debate has been rather insubstantial.

It has mainly consisted of remarks made that are not germane to the subject; there have been wild statements made, there have been allusions to matters which were frivolous to say the least and so on and so forth, so I really do not have much to say. However, there were a few questions asked. I think the only one that I can remember of any great substance was the question asked by the hon. member for LaPoile (Mr. Neary) and he asked about the retail sales tax receipts. Hon. members know that the only finalized figures that are available to this Committee are those in the Public Accounts.

And the last Public Accounts that were tabled where for the year 1982-1983, those are the finalized audited figures. So I have the figures for the Public Accounts for a number of years here, the last one being the year L4879 November 16, 1984 R4879

1982-1983. And in 1982-1983 the total RST revenues were *267,240,000 I will not do down to the final dollars and cents, but $267,240,000 was the audited total RST revenues. Now accounts receivable at the end of that year were $14,657,000, again I am rounding off the last few numbers, because I do not think the Committee would be interested in that. So accounts receivable were $14,657, 000 in comparison, as I mentioned already, to the total receipts $267,240,000. Now, Mr.

Chairman, if we compare those figures with the figures for the prior year, the year immediately previous to that, that is for the 1981/82 year, the audited RST revenues were $251,136,000. That is approximately $16 million less than the year following. In contrast, the accounts receivable for that year were $15,193,000. In other words, wereas the RST receipts went up from 1981/82 to the year 1982/83, the receivables went down, so we were getting on top of the figures, on top of the amounts owed to governement. We were getting a decreasing amount of receivables at a time when we were getting increasing revenues.

Now, Hr. Chairman, I am sure some hon. members might say, 'Well, despite all that, $14.5 million are a lot of receivables.' I am not saying they are not but I am sure that hon. members will realize that the RST collections is really like a business, and all businesses operate on the basis that they will have some receivables. As a matter of fact, we date our receivables and we know that there are some receivables of a recent date, a very high percentage, and then decreasing amounts as you date further back. Now there are a number of receivables that we likely will not be abLe to collect.

Again that is unfortunate, but I submit, that it is not unusual in any business venture to have some receivables you cannot collect. I think the latest figure I heard was something of the order of $5 million will not be collectable because businesses have gone bankrupt, vendors owning these amounts have died, and so on and so forth. In some instances there has been court action instituted but not yet concluded, or we probably would go for a write-off if the action were concluded, but it looks from the court actions that there just are not monies available to satisfy the accounts owning to the RST account.

And I would hasten to point out that that $5 million of uncollectable has, of course, accumulated over a very large number of years. Hon. members may be interested in this statistic, I do not want to push it to hard now, but in the last thirteen years, I think it is, we collected over $2 billion worth of RST and that $5 million of uncollectable receivables relates to that type of period. So it is a very, very small percentage of the total accounts of RST activity. I think, Mr. Chairman, I can say we are not relaxing on our attempt to get in these receivables.

No one is more anxious than our department to get in as much money as possible in these straitened financial times. We are not relaxing our efforts. We have pretty good methods in place in terms of compliance officers and auditors and so on and so forth to get at these receivables. But we have something in the order of sixteen thousand vendors in the Province and to really police every one to the maximum would mean such an L4880 November 16, 1984 R4880

army of officials in the Department of Finance that it would really cost us more than the exercise would be worth. Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for LaPoile (Hr. Neary) also asked about other taxes owing and I not have some figures on these. There are lesser amounts there. Mining and Mineral Rights Tax, there is about $7,689,000 owing in that account, but the vast majority of that, approximately $7.5 million, as a matter of fact something over $7 million of the approximately $7.5 is owed by one firm, that is Javelin.

As everyone knows, this is not news to the House, there have been tremendous court actions go on with that firm because of the amounts that we claim are owing under that particular tax and those matters have not yet been resolved but are ongoing, and are in the hands of the Department of Justice. So apart from that particular item, there is very little owing under the mining and mineral rights tax. In regard to the tobacco tax, there is only a small amount of current receivables, about $20,000 as a matter of fact.

Under gasoline tax, again there is a small amount of current receivables compared to the total amount of tax collected, about $70,000. Now the other point that I was getting into that the hon. the member for LaPoile (Hr. Neary) brought up was this reclassification thing. He always drags this old chestnut out, saying that ever since the restraint came in the government is reclassifing its favoured public servants and,

whereas we are saying we are not giving them a wage increase, in actual fact we have reclassified them in higher categories and therefore in effect they do get wage increases and all that sort of blarney. MR. CHAISMAN (Aylward): Order, please! The hon. member's time has elapsed. DR. COLLINS: I will continue with my blarney later, Mr. Chairman. MR. T3ARREN: Mr. Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN (Aylward): The hon. the member for Torngat Mountains. MR. WARREN: Mr. Chairman, I did not have any intention of getting into the debate. However, seeing that the member for the Strait of Belle Isle (Mr.

Roberts) released his PAC report this morning - and it does tie in to a certain degree with supplementary supply - I decided to say a few words. Having been a member of the PAC for the past year and a half, I must say from the offset that we did have a good chairman and a good vice-chairman. In fact, all members of the committee cooperated very fully. I think all witnesses that we called forward were given a fair opportunity to provide out what we needed to find out in the committee.

It was very interesting to note that the fifth recommendation that came out of our report of last year is that in our Province at the present time only 40 per cent of the vendors, only 40 per cent of the business in this Province are bonded. The answer that was given, and I think this can be borne out by others on the committee, by the officials of the department was that they were L4881 November 16, 1984 R4881

only going to bond those who are dishonest. This was the implication that was left with us, that only those who are dishonest will be bonded. Now, Mr. Chairman, I think if we are going to use the bonding system for one person in this Province to carry on a business, then I think we should use it for every individual. It was only this morning in Question Period that the President of the Council (Mr. Marshall) said, 'Everybody in the Province will be treated alike.' In response to a question from the member for Menihek (Mr.

Fenwick) concerning the Trepassey Lions Club, concerning their rules and regulations, the President of the Council said, 'Everybody in this Province will be treated alike.' Now, Mr. Speaker, how can the President of the Council say that at the same time knowing that the Department of Finance are not treating anybody in this Province the same way? They are saying to one businessman in Placentia Bay, 'You need to be bonded because we think you might not be honest enough to pay your bills.

They are saying to a businessman out in Conception Bay South, 'We have known you for three or four years, you have been a good Tory so we will not bond you.' So I think, Mr. Chairman, that one thing the minister can do is follow the recommendation brought forward by the PAC Committee that all registered vendors be bonded. I think that is a good recommendation and it definitely should be followed. Let me just tell you, Mr. Chairman, I know an individual - and I will not give any names - who has already gone through four bankrupties and owe this government in excess of $18,000 in sales tax.

I do not want to name him because the minister knows who I am talking about. And this person now is associated with this government. This person is now working for this government. Now I am just wondering why cannot his wages be attached and get the money back that belongs to the taxpayers of this Province if he owes $18,000 to this government to you and me and every other person in this Province? So he has already gone through four bankrupties, and each time sales tax belonging to the people of this Province was not paid.

And one of the reasons, was he was not among the 40 per cent that are bonded, he was among the 60 per cent who were not bonded. and, Mr. Chairman, therefore, if we are going to tighten up on the finances of this Province let us treat everybody alike. We all know there are honest people and dishonest people. Regardless of what walk of life your career lead you, whether you are a politician or a doctor or a lawyer or a carpenter, regardless of what you are there are honest and dishonest people. Are we going to start segregating them, putting them into two categories?

They are all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians so we cannot put them into two categories. So of all the recommendations that are there, this is one of the major ones that the minister should implement to make sure that the public purse of this government is looked after. Mr. Chairman, I would like also when the minister gets up, and I am sure the minister can get it in the next few hours, to know the number of businesses that have closed shop, have closed their doors within the past two years, and the number of dollars that is L4882 November 16, 1984 R4882

owed to this government by those businesses. I am not talking about the last six years, or ten years or twenty years or thirty years, I am talking about the last two years alone. How many businesses have closed shop and owe the government sales tax revenue that belongs to the people of this Province? And I believe at the same time the minister can also advise us of those people, of those companies, of those small businesses that have gone under, could the minister advise us how many of those were not bonded or were not required to post a security? Mr.

Chairman, at the same time I would like to ask the minister what I believe is a fair question, knowing that there still is, I believe, an ongoing court battle in Canada with the federal government and with the United States government concerning the distribution of kmway products in the Province, I would like to ask the minister has there been any provincial sales tax collected from Amway distributors?

I would also like to know whether his Finance department is in close contact with the federal Finance department - they must be now; they are in bed together - and find out the number of dollars that are in dispute in this Province alone as it pertains to kway distributors. Mr. Chairman, I would like for the minister to answer some of those questions and I am sure that as time progresses this morning there will be other matters that I will be raising. MR. CHAIRMAN (Alyward): The hon. the Minister of Finance. DR. COLLINS: Mr.

Chairman, I will ,just continue where I broke off and then perhaps I will get back to what the hon. member was getting into. As I said, the hon. member for LaPoile (Mr. Neary) got onto that old chestnut about government, for some strange reason he has never explained, picking favourites in the public service and deciding to reclassify them upward - this is his allegation, it is not by any means factual - so they can get a wage increase by the backdoor. Now, of course, this has been answered on at least two occasions.

I know I answered it once myself in a public formum and I believe the hon. the Premier answered it, laid out the points, so the thing should have been put to rest. But, of course, the hon. member for LaPoile is never satisfied. If he gets onto something, no matter how spurious the topic and how incorrect his facts, when it is countered he will just ignore it when the truth is laid out, he will just keep going as though nothing had happened. It is like water off the duck's back.

I will do it once again because the only way, I suppose, to finally put those things to rest is to keep at it and, you know, water dripping on a stone, I suppose, sometimes has an effect. it is totally untrue that particular individuals are reclassified from the point of view of favouritism. In a very large service like the public service, and I think we have something like over 9,000 employees if you put them all together, and that is excluding individuals like teachers and nurses, you are bound to have issues arise whether I am in the right slot and, if I am in the L4883 November 16, 1984 R4883

right slot, whether my pay is commencerate with my duties and responsibilities; and, secondly, as time goes along whether responsibilities and job descriptions change. This is a fact of life. These things happen and therefore you have to have an arrangement for reclassification. That arrangement for reclassification is open to every single solitary member in the public service. Any member is quite within his rights to approach that particular division in Treasury Board and say, 'I want a classification review.' It is not to say that he will always get it the day he requests it.

Quite often, if there is absolutely no validity to his case, he might even be persuaded from pushing the issue. But apart from those caveats, it is open to anyone in the public service. It goes on all the time. When a decision is finally brought down, there is an appeal system whereby someone can go back at the thing again. Now there have been reclassifications over the two-year restraint period. The facts have previously been given whereby on a numerical basis there was no weighting of the reclassification to the managerial part of the system as opposed to the employee part of the system.

There was certainly no weighting that was in any way improper towards one department over another. it was just the mechanis-m that has been there for years and years and years, conducted by the same individuals, or their equivalents in Treasury Board, who have been conducting the reclassification arrangement over years and years and years. The appeal system has not been changed. All I can say, once again, is that the unfounded accusations of the hon. member for LaPoile (Mr. Neary) are a lot of hog-wash and shouLd finally be put to rest.

I have not doubt they will not be put to rest and that at some point in the future I will be up again making the same statements I am making now. But nevertheless those are the facts that any reasonable person, I am sure, can understand. Mr. Chairman, getting down to the points brought up by the hon. member who just spoke, he was concerned about bonding. I have not had an opportunity to read the PAC report yet but he states that they are recommending that all vendors be bonded. That can be done, there is no doubt about it.

I do not think the majority of vendors would be happy about it because there are costs to bonding and in our view it is not necessary to bond everyone. There is a very large number of vendors who do not require bonding and therefore to have them be responsible for costs for bonding would just seem to be a waste of their money and probably a waste of everyone else's time. However, we will certainly not ignore the recommendation. We will study it, we will discuss it with those who might be affected and we will finally respond to it.

I cannot, obviously, foretell how we will respond but what I am saying is that up until now anyway we have not felt that the way to go is to bond everyone. Now the hon. member also said that the way we are applying bonding at the present time is in equitable. We are doing it in sort of a capricious manner, that we are picking out individuals and saying we bond you and we will not bound you. That is not in actual fact the case. I might in passing just L484 November 16, 1984 R4884

refer to what he said about the President of the Council (Mr. Marshall). He said the President of the Council said that every Newfound lander is treated the same. Well, you know, I am not certain that the President of the CounciL said that, but he did not mean it in those bald terms. For instance, we do not consider children the same as adults and children are Newfoundlanders too. We do not consider children the same as adults in giving automobile licences or whatever. In same circumstances we regard Newfoundlanders all equal and we treat them all alike.

And that is what we do with bonding, in a similar set of circumstances everyone is treated alike. In other words, all new vendors, whether they are on the West Coast or the East Coast, whether they are male or female, whether they are in Labrador or on the Island or whatever, all new vendors are bonded for a period of Lime. It is equitable. Some people ultimately end up remaining bonded, some do not. But they all go through initial bonding periods.

Secondly, in certain categories, and it does not matter if you are a West Coaster or an East Coaster or a Labradorian or a Newfoundlander, if you are in these categories you will be bonded. Certain categories remain bonded, because from our experience we know those categories give rise to trouble.

There are certain types of vendors, there are certain types of businesses being carried on in this Province where they get into repeated trouble with RST and it is only sensible and responsible in terms of the public good that we ask that all people in those categories, no matter who they are, if they are in those categories they all have to remain bonded. Finally, there are those individuals who are, shall we say, chronic offenders on an individual basis.

The hon. member did say and he did recognize, I am sure we all do, that not everyone has the same level of honesty as everyone else, so there is bound to be the odd bad apple in a barrel, and where there is an individual chronic offender we often insist on permanent bonding there. Now that is also equitable. It does not matter who you are, where you are, what type of account, if you are a chronic offender - that is the classification - you are going to be bonded. So there is equitable application of bonding, although equitable application of bonding does not necessarily mean that there is universal bonding.

I might mention, Mr. Chairman, that the level of bonding is designed to cover the equivalent of a three month period of receipts that should be sent in. In other words, if you have a very large business we will calculate how much RST you would have to remit over a three month period and that is the levelling of bonding we put on. In a very small business we would calculate that lesser amount that you would likely be responsible for over a three month period and we require that lesser amount of bonding. Mr.

Chairman, in regard to the other matters, he asked about recent bankrupties and he also asked about the Amway situation in Newfoundland, those are details that I do not have readily at hand. I will attempt to get them. I do not know if I can get them before the Committee finishes its consideration of this L4885 November 16, 1984 R4885

resolution. But I will endeavour, even if the matter is put to rest by the Committee in the House, I will endeavour to get that information and bring it back at some later stage and in some later way. I think those are the main points that I can recall that need to be answered at this time. MR. NEARY: When are we going to get a financial statement for the second quarter. DR. COLLINS: We should be able to bring in that statement, I would say, within the next week. Thank you. MR. CHAIRMAN (Aylward): The hon. the member for Menihek. MR. FE1ICK: I want to sort of change the subject a bit.

Yesterday we had some debate on the question of the car pool and the cars that the government had. I understand in dissolving the car pool that the government offered one of the cars to the Liberal caucus and I want to state my objections right now that I really feel left out that the NDP caucus was not given the same privilege of refusing the car as well. Now my comments really refer to the letter that was read into the debate yesterday from the hon. the Leader of the Opposition (Mr.

Barry) in which he stated, if I remember correctly, that rather than take the car, rather than have the car, that the car should be sold and the proceeds should be turned over to the poor or the needy and so on, and quite frankly I was quite surprised. This was a side of the Leader of the Opposition I had not seen before and I had not realized the depth of his compassion for the poor and for the old and the sick and so on and so forth, so it was a new experience.

One of the lack of privileges that a new member gets, being a junior member of the House here, is that you get the worst parking spot in the parking lot out front. As a matter of fact, if my parking spot was any farther to the East I think I would probably be in the Trades College parking lot. One of the minor advantages of being in that position is that in walking to the Central entrance each morning you get a chance to sort of review the vehicles owned by all the members in the House, so I get a chance to walk by the member for Fogo's (Mr. Tulk) car and see that it is a four or five or six year old car.

It looks like it is very large and made to take the very bad roads between Fogo and all the roads that lead of I Fogo and so on. I also have seen the cars owned by the ministers and so on and so forth, and some of them are pretty good and pretty bad. The reason I mention this is that it just struck me that if the Leader of the Opposition (Hr.

Barry) has this real depth of compassion, if he really feels for the poor in the way in which he says he does, I would make a suggestion to him, that perhaps instead of selling the car pool car, which after all has probably been used for a number of years and is probably depreciated in value and will not realize very much, what we should do is give the hon.. the Leader of the Opposition the car pool car and the car that I have seen in his lot out there, which seems to be a beautiful example of German craftsmanship, in my opinion probably would, if we sold that car, yield considerably more that November 16, 1984 R4886

we could give to the poor and the . old of this world. So I would like to suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that if that is his feeling of compassion and so on, that we just amend his decision there and instead of selling the government vehicle we give the government vehicle to him, he sell his vehicle and the proceeds, I am sure, would go a lot farther than proceeds from seLling the government vehicle. MR. WARREN: You are nastier than I thought you were. MR. NEARY: Mr. Chairman. MR. CHAIR?(AN (Aylward): The hon. the member for LaPoile. MR. NEARY: Mr.

Chairman, with all due respect to my hon. colleague from Menihek (Mr. Fenwick), I believe on reflection my hon. colleague will regret ever having made that statement that he just made, Mr. Chairman. One thing that you have to remember in this House is that we were all at the end of the line at one time or other in our career. I remember once I just managed to get inside the rail and I do not think I had a parking lot. One of the first things the hon. gentleman complains about is the fact that he has not got a good parking lot. An NDP member! Mr.

Chairman, I ran NDP before the hon. gentleman got out of high school in case he is not aware of it. The fact of the matter is that here you have a man who is supposed to be dedicated to the ordinary people complaining about his perks, he is not satisfied with his office, he is not satisfied with his secretary, he wants his own private office in Labrador. None of the rest of us can have an office in our districts but the hon. gentleman wants it, and he complains that his parking lot is not above all the senior members. The last man in goes to the end of the line, Mr. Chairman. Mr.

Chairman, one thing that you always try to avoid in this House is getting personal. When you get down to the level of getting personal, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barry) did not use public funds to purchase his house or his car or anything else, Mr. Chairman, that was a low blow. The hon. gentleman should consider that as a low blow, I was rather disappointed with the hon. gentleman this morning when I raised a matter of the electricity rates and I wanted the minister to answer whether or not they were going to put a consumer representative on the Board of Commissioners of the Public Utilities.

Who do you think it was, Mr. Chairman, barred the President of the Council, the Government House Leader (Mr. Marshall) from giving me the answer, from telling me whether or not government was considering putting a consumer representative on the Public Utilities Board? Who was it who stopped that answer from coming across the House? MR. TULK: Who was it? MR. NEARY: The hon. member for Menihek (Mr. Fenwick), an NDPer who should have been saying, "Yes, let us have the answer.

Let us get a representative on the board." There is going to be an awful lot of disappointed people out there when they hear statements like just came from the hon. gentleman. They say, "Is that the L4887 November 16, 1984 R4887

big issue in Newfoundland? Is that the biggest issue? The hon. gentleman is worried about the Leader of the Opposition's (Hr. Barry) private ear, that he paid for himself out of his own pocket, is that the biggest issue we sent this man into the Legislature to raise?" Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman should hang his head in shame. And what the hon. gentleman should do in this House is to listen and learn. We all had to go through the learning process and there are some of us here who have more experience than others. The hon. gentleman should not rush in where angels fear to tread.

That is my advice to the hon. gentleman. The matter that I raised yesterday concerns the expenditure of public funds when the government, in their cute, subtle way, tried to get the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barry) to accept a car because they disbanded the motor pool so the ministers could have their own private cars and have their credit cards and have an allocation so they could get the cars repaired, a plan whereby they could trade the cars in after you get 120,000 or so miles on them. That is the point and that is what the hon. gentleman should be objecting to.

And I will read the letter that the Leader of the Opposition wrote, that I am proud to read in this House. I started to read it yesterday when I was rudely interrupted by a minister of the Crown, Mr. Speaker, and the hon. gentleman got his comeuppance today, and he will get some more comeuppance if he does not watch himself. They think they can dish it out over there. Then there were threats from the former Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Morgan); 'I will get the hon. gentleman and a friend of his in two months.' Frank Moores said two weeks one time and he is not around any more.

MR MORGAN: You and your colleague, you know what I am talking about. MR. NEARY: Is the hon. gentleman going to bring in a hit man? Is it a hit man he is going to bring in, Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman, let me read the letter again which I was in the process of reading yesterday. I am opposed to that principle. I am opposed. If we are going to have a restraint programme, let us have a restraint programme and eliminate the extravagence and waste. How are the poor NAPE employees going to feel when they see the ministry giving themselves motor cars? Auction them off, that is what we say.

And here is what the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barry) said re motor pool vehicles. "Thank you for your letter of November 6, 1984, offering the Opposition Office the use of one of these vehicles from the disbanded motor pool. I must refuse your offer. It is the position of the Liberal Caucus that these vehicles from the disbanded motor pool should be sold and the proceeds put towards helping the disadvantaged in Newfoundland society." What is wrong with that? "For example, there are children in this Province not receiving sufficient funding for proper crutches and wheel-chairs." That is true.

I have requests just about every week from families looking for crutches for their crippled children. "Senior S 1.4888 November 16, 1984 R4888

citizens with inadequate funds for dentures" -is that not true? Well, there is a few dollars you can pick up there to help get uppers and lowers for these people - "Widows with inadequate funds to meet their fuel requirements for the coming Winter, and many, many fa1Tilies with inadequate funds to supply proper nutrition to their children." "We note that you have assigned the other vehicles to various ministers. We strongly protest this additional extravagence and waste on the part of the administration and we asic that you take action to see that this policy is reversed." Now what is wrong with that?

The hon. gentleman should say, "Hear, hear", to that. The hon. gentleman should get up and support our objection, should support - HR. YOUNG: Hr. Speaker, a point of order. MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): A point of order, the hon Minister of Public of Work. MR. YOUNG: As I heard the hon. member for LaPoile (Mr. Neary) read the letter, the letter stated, as he read it, that the cars were assigned to ministers. There are no cars assigned to ministers from the car pool. They are assigned to the departments, and not to ministers. MR. MORGAN: A big difference. MR. YOUNG: That is quite a big difference.

I know I cannot correct the letter, written by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr.Barry), but I would like to put it on the record of this hon. House that no cars are not assigned to ministers, they are assigned to the department that the minister is in charge of. MR. CHAIRMAN (Dr.HcNicholas): I am not sure that is the point of order.The minister took an opportunity of explaining the position. MR. NEARY: Mr.

Chairman, we are arguing that this is a subtle attempt on the part of the administration to give the ministers their own private vehicles and credit cards and allocations to repair the cars, and now they have it. They have had it pretty good up to now, but now they are going to make it better for themselves. I say take the cars that are left over, auction them off, and use the money to help the disadvantaged in this Province. Mr.

Chairman, the hon. gentleman may not be aware of it but the whole purpose of disbanding the motor pool is to save money, but ministers have been given authority to hire taxis, to hire private couriers. One of the biggest users would be the Department of Social Services. They are doing that now and they will be hiring more taxis in the future, they will be hiring more couriers in the future and in addition to that they will have their own private vehicle to drive them around to the night clubs and the supermarkets and the schools and the fishing holes and all the other places they go, Hr. Chairman.

So, what the 'non. gentleman should do is get up now and say, 'Look, I am sorry I got personal,' something you do not do in this House. 'I am sorry about that, I have to learn. But I L4889 November 16, 1984 R4889

strongly support the Opposition in their move to try to get the strike settled at the Newfoundland Telephone Company, to try to get a consumer representative on the Board of Commissioners of Public Utilities. I am against extravagance and waste.' That is what the hon. gentleman should do. The hon. gentleman talks about the House being boring and not lively enough. The hon. gentleman is a member of this House and if he wants to make it unboring or if he wants to liven it up, the hon. gentleman has it in his own hands.

As a matter of fact, he is in a better position to do it, probably, than any other member of the House. HR. CHAIRHAN (Dr.McNicholas): Order, please! The hon. Hinister of Finance. DR. COLLINS: Mr. Speaker, I just felt that I had to make some brief remark after the hon. member for LaPoile's (Mr. Neary) statements there because, again like so many of his statements, they are of the mark. The motor pool was disbanded for one main reason, and that was to save money.

Under the present arrangement we estimate - we will have to review the figures, obviously, after the event - we will save the Province $200,000 by restructuring the duties that were carried out by the former motor pool. In other words, the motor pool was not in itself a bad idea, it was a good idea, otherwise it likely would not have arisen if it was not a good idea. In other words, there various types of transportation needs that had to be satisfied and therefore it was elected to put in place a motor pool. As a matter of fact, the motor pool gradually evolved.

It started doing certain things and then got other duties and got a bit bigger, and then took on other duties and so on and so forth. It gradually evolved over a number of years. But we suspected that it had grown like Topsy and it was not performing as efficiently as it should, so we studied it. We did a very detailed study on it. It was not done by ministers, it was done by officials who are paid to do that type of thing, and give us their recommendations. After their study they said, 'Yes, it is inefficient, there are better ways of doing it.

It should be disbanded and the necessary transportation activities should be structured in a different way.' Some of those transportation requirements were to get those on social assistance to hospitals for certain cronic cares, particularly renal dialysis, that type of thing. That obviously could not be abandoned, that type of activity, so we brought in a different arrangement whereby we still did not need the motor pool but that activity would be carried on.

There is a need in government to send messages and packets and papers and God knows what around within the departments of government, all of which are not in one place. As a matter of fact they are spread throughout the city. We are attempting, by putting a new Confederation Complex up, to get over that dispersal, again which grew like Topsy over the years.

But even when that is in place - and it will not be in place, up and running, for probably another year and a half or two years or whatever - there still will be a need to send messages and parcels and packets throughout the city, and to some extent beyond the city L4890 November 16, 1984 R4890

by road. Now that can not be discarded. So now that we are abandoning the motor pool, we had to restructure who would do this duty, which we did. There was also a need to transport important people who visit this Province. Many people often take the view, 'This poor little Province, the trappings of a elephant on the back of a monkey', and all of that sort of thing and make these disparaging remarks, but quite apart from that, this Province has certain activities which it must partake in.

One is we get a lot of important visitors come into this Province on official duties and, out of a sense of courtesy if nothing else, we have to give them certain transportation services. That used to be done by the motor pool. We are now abandoning the motor pool so we have to distribute that type of activity in a different way, which we have done.

Finally, there were ministers and executive people in departments who had quite legitimate transportation needs whereby they could use their own cars, I suppose, but if so the government would reimburse them and even that would not necessarily be an official way of doing things. After giving it a certain amount of study we decided, now that we are disbanding the motor pool, that we had to distribute that necessary function.

The way we did that latter one - and this is what I am getting at and that is why I gave this explanation of the whole measure - the way we decided to do that was we would put a car in each department which would take care of the legitimate transportation needs of the minister, of the upper executives and, depending on the minister's wishes, he could even go down below the upper executives but on the other hand we did not want this car that was put in the department used, shall we say, for illegitimate uses running out for a Coke by some individual who just did not feel that they wanted to have a Coke down in the cafeteria there.

So we did strongly suggest that this use of the departmental auto be kept under control at the executive level. So that is the reason for that. Now, if the hon. the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barry) feels that that is wrong, because he has every right to do so, but we feel, on the basis of an efficiency study, that this was the best arrangement we could come up with without impairing the necessary things that have to be done in terms of transportation needs. Now, Mr. Chairman, I do not know if the hon. the member for LaPoile (Mr.

Neary) brought up any other points there, if so they have just escaped my mind at the moment. I would just like to get back to what complexion the debate on this particular measure took at the beginning. The opportunity was taken to deal with the recent federal government moves, the statement by the federal Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) and so on. I must say I found the whole approach by the Opposition very, very disappointing.

What the federal Minister of Finance is trying to do is correct a chronic financial and economic problem in this country, a problem that has been recognized by just anyone who has taken any interest in the matter. Canada is going quietly down the tube - and perhaps not too quietly - in comparison to what is happening in other countries. As that has been going L4891 November 16, 1984 R4891

on for at least the last five years and probably for the last decade, something radical has to be done, some revolution has to be caused. We cannot go on with the old nostrums that, say, the ND? party is fond of casting out, to nationalize everything, turn everything into a publicly owned operation and the millennium will be here and everyone will live happily ever after. Those old nostruius are blown out of the sky now, and have been for decades, although they are still being mouthed by the federal NDP party in particular, and I think to some extent by the local NDP party too.

But those old nostrums have been blown out of the sky it is ridiculous to even contemplate them any longer. Now, on the other hand, the Liberal party has got such cerebral sclerosis and has been so tuned into what it has been doing over the past ten years, there has not been a programme that you could not put your finger on, it was just all ad hocary. Mr.

Trudeau himself, I am told, said, 'I have no interest in economics.' Now this is from the leader of the country on whom the economy and the well being of so many people in this country depend and he has said, 'I have no interest in economics.' And, of course, one could see what happened to his administration. His lack of interest has given us what we have had for the past ten years. MI HON. ME(BER: Did the ND? support those policies? DR. COLLINS: Oh, absolutely they supported it. They would support anything that led to, shall we say, unwieldly public ownership.

There is likely a place for public ownership in Canada. But they would support anything that led to unwicidly public ownership. Mr. Trudeau and his cohorts had so little interest and so little, shall we say, contact with sensible economy policy that they sort of drifted more and more into public ownership of things. Now unfortunately that has caused such a mind set in Canada, both at the public official level and at many business people's level that we need an economic revolution in this country to get us out of this terrible situation we are in.

Because if we do not make a real serious effort, we are just going to go on and on and on, and we will end up like so many countries that have shown great promise and finally turned into welfare ghettos. And, of course, this is what was going to happen in the UK until Mrs. Thatcher came along and said, I am going to cause a revolution here, because if we do not the UK is going to sink into the North Sea. There is going to be nothing left but a few rusty firms that are outdated and everybody will be on welfare.

Although where the welfare is going to come from with all of that economic activity has gone, I do not know. But anyway she decided she would have a revolution. Now we in this country have to have a similar economic revolution, and for the Opposition not and the ND? - I am sorry to have to include the local NDP in this but I have not seen any indication that they are thinking otherwise- for them to fix on the immediate effects of beginning this revolution and have their mind only on that and have no regard for the bigger picture that Mr. Wilson and Mr.

Mulroney and his people are valiantly trying to L4892 November 16, 1984 R4892

bring in, going to have to bring it against tremendous lethargy, for them to do that is most disappointing. MR. BARRY: Mr. Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN (McNicholas): Order, please! The hon. Leader of the Oppostion. MR. BARRY: Mr. Chairman, first of all, just briefly, I am not going to belabour the motor pool matter, but I believe that one of the few good things that Mr. Wilson and Mr.

Mulroney's government did in the recent budget was to indicate a symbolic commitment to restraint on the part of the politician, and I believe the cars in the motor pool, if the motor pool is being disbanded, if the ministers have decided there is no need for the motor pool, those vehicles should be sold and the proceeds of the sale should be put into programmes where funds are badly needed as we all know, in the area of Social Services, other areas, the dollars that could be obtained from the sale of those vehicles could mean not necessarily a big lot, but it could be something of importance to many individuals around the Province.

Now I am not going to comment on the member for Menihek's (Mr. Fenwick) statement. I believe going into the personal affairs of members of the House of Assembly, or any other legislature,is a sign of inexperience in the House. I do not think that is normally done. MR. TOBIN: You should be able to afford it. MR. BARRY: I will be prepared to match my lifestyle, my budgeting, my method of living against other members'. If they want to table our finances here, I will be glad to do that. If every member wants to file their tax returns and so forth I will be glad to participate. MR. TOBIN: Some comparison. MR.

BAPPY: I will be happy to do that. But the point that might have gone over the member for Menihek's (Mr. Fenwick), head, just a minor one, I know, and the member might have missed it, but there is a slight distinction between spending your own money and spending the taxpayers'. And any money that I spend is my own, whether it is on a vehicle which is now five year old vehicle which I have to have for another five or ten years or whether it is on a house, or whether it is on a five year old tweed suit. It is a good quality suit, by the way.

Maybe the member figured I might have spent a little too much on it, but this was a $300 or $400 suit and it only lasted four or five years. Maybe the member of Menihek believes in the philosophy of buying cheaply and buying often. Well, some of us have a different philosophy, and we will be very delighted to hear about the member for Menihek's (Mr. Fenwick) personal living habits and buying habits as time goes on in this House. I am sure that this is going to really mean a lot to the person who is unemployed or the person on Social Services in this Province.

They are really going to get a great uplift from hearing this debate. That is really strike two for the member today. The other brilliant effort he made in terms of L4893 November 16, 1984 R4893

assisting the consumer and the ordinary man and woman in Newfoundland today was when he, the lone voice in the Legislature, denied the opportunity for the Minister of Energy (Hr. Marshall) to indicate whether government would be prepared to put a consumer representative on the Public Utilities Board. Again a great contribution for the consumers of Newfoundland and Labrador. Now, Mr. Chairman, I do not like to be detracted by rabbits when I am going after elephants, so I would like to get back to the Minister of Finance (Dr. Collins). Mr.

Chairman, the Minister of Finance has stood up in this House and has denounced members on this side for having the audacity to question the provisions of Mr. Wilson's minibudget. Now I do not know if the Minister of Finance has been consulted by the Federal Minister on this aspect of his budget, and perhaps he would be able to tell us when he gets up whether he has been consulted, but, The Globe and Mail today, Friday, on page 5, has a new story, "PC Plans Cost 50,000 jobs". Now this is not Mr. Turner or Mr. Broadbent getting up in the House and saying it is going to cost 50,000 jobs in the Canadian economy.

It is a well-known and reputable private economic forecasting firm called InforMetrica. Now, Mr. Chairman, this private concern has done a study and has found that 50,000 jobs will be lost to the Canadian economy as a result of Mr. Wilson's minibudget. Here is another little item in the story and maybe the Newfoundland Minister of Finance has been consulted on this as well. Did the minister know that Hr. Wilson has acknowledged that his Finance Department has calculated the number of people who will be put out of work by his measures? Mr. Wilson has done his own figures, but guess what?

In the fashion which seems to be rapidly becoming accepted in government, both here in the present government in the case of the Mobil environmental impact statement and in the Government of Canada, where Mr. Clark has muzzled his officials in External Affairs and where the press is having a hard time getting access to information within government departments, I think the word is that the ramparts are up around the federal government in Ottawa, and part of those ramparts is that Mr.

Wilson is refusing to release the calculations which the Department of Finance has made on the number of unemployed that will result from his budget. Now maybe we are missing something. Maybe the federal minister, while not prepared to tell the Canadian people, has told the Newfoundland Minister of Finance. Maybe he has whispered in the minister's ear. We will be delighted for the minister to get up because obviously he can only be expressing this support for Mr. Wilson if he has those figures on what the immediate impact is going to be.

Now the minister has said, "well, you know, we should not emphasize the immediate impact. We should be looking at the long-term approach." I wonder if the minister and the Premier and government is now backing away from this tried and true philosophy that what is good for Bay Street is not necessarily good for Bonavista. What is good for Main Street, what is good for downtown Toronto, downtown L4894 November 16, 1984 R4894

Vancouver, downtown Calgary, downtown Ottawa, downtown Montreal and Halifax is not necessarily good for downtown Corner Brook, downtown Port aux Basques, downtown Gander, Stephenville, Grand Falls or our rural communities. I wonder if the minister would comment on whether he has made any representation to the federal. Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) about the need for an approach that is more sensitive to regional disparity, more sensitive to the fact that we do not have a uniform country, that there are differences, different needs in different parts of Canada.

And specifically, Mr.Chairman, has the Minister of Finance (Dr.CoLLins) pointed out to Mr. Wilson that Newfoundland, with the highest level of unemployment in Canada and the world is going to be hit harder, Mr. Chairman, than the rest of Canada by measures that take 50,000 jobs out of the Canadian economy?

Has the minister been able to get from the federal minister some commitment that there will be recognition of this fact and that there will be some additional assistance, in terms of job creation or something else, for this Province to compensate, to give attention to the fact that we do have an area of Canada, here in Newfoundland and Labrador, which has particular needs and concerns which are not necessarily met by bringing in a budget that is good for the investment community on Bay Street?

Now, that is a very important question that the people of this Province would like to have the Newfoundland minister respond to. There is another interesting little

article in the newspaper, the Globe and Mail this morning. It is good that we have another morning newspaper here in this Province. We are able to get the Globe early in the morning. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister whether he is aware of the statement made by one of the partners in Hibernia, Gulf Canada, where they are seeing a fairly smaliscale production from the Hibernia oil field starting around 1989,1990, with a floating production system. Now, as a partner, obviously they must be in tune and be knowledgeable with what their operator ,Mobil, has in its environmental impact statement.

Is this more confirmation that the government possibly is getting a few hints, a few clues now as to what may be in that environmental impact statement? MR. CHAIRMAN (NcNicholas): The hon. member's time has elapsed. The hon. Minister of Finance. DR. COLLINS: Mr. Chairman, thank you. I am not endeavoring to cut off the hon. member for Menihek's (Mr. Fenwick) contribution to this. We do have a tradition, if members wish to take it up, or going bacic and torth from each side of the House, so I am sure he will have an opportunity very shortly. I did want to respond to the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr.Barry).

I am glad for his sake too that we have a morning newspaper in this Province because it if we had not, where would he get the substance for his remarks in this House? I am glad that he has that assistance available to him. I have not seen the paper, unfortunately, but I have no doubt that he is accurate in what he says. Now, again, you see, he only emphasizes what I say. He says that someone has caculated that the measures that the federal L4895 November 16, 1984 R4895

PC adininistrat ion so far have brought in are going to cost 50,000 jobs. Now there are two things about that. Firstly, again, there is this focus that I mentioned earlier, just the focus, no concept of what other aspect of their strategy is. It is all just what is going to happen now, immediately, that is enveloping his mind, he just cannot break out of that thing.

And that is the mind set that I mentioned that has been inculcated into people by what history, I am quite sure, will show was a disastrous regime for Canada, that this terrible, terrible blight came upon our country when the Trudeau cohorts got in power up there. This will go down in history. I am quite convinced of this, as one of the worst periods of non-growth - I almost said growth - in Canadian history. But anyway, the outcome of that was there was this mind set that the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barry) has that he cannot break out of, that narrow, narrow focus. Now that is one point.

The other point is that he is not asking are there jobs going to come also from this approach? And this is the point that Mr.

Wilson has made time and time again, with great difficulty, through the blocked ears of the Liberals and the NDP in the House of Commons, that there is another element in this that your econometric models cannot measure - cannot be expected to measure but it is very, very real - that there is going to be a response by Canadians generally, and particularly by Canadian business, to this new strategy which will give rise to a new flood of investment, a new flood of confidence, and concomitant with that a new flood of jobs.

Now no model can measure that, but f or anyone to ignore that is, as I say, to have this very narrow mind set that people really must endeavour to get out of now that this blight has been lifted ofE our shoulders, this blight that I mentioned. Now the other point that the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barry) raised, and again I have to revert back to it, is he said the ramparts have been put up because the public servants are not now allowed to make statements that bear on policy. And of course naturally they have been put up because there is that mind set there.

I would say that every senior public servant in the federal service, almost without exception, is a Liberal adherent. It is not that they are evil or anything like that, but they have had liberalism surround them for the last decade and they have got this mind set. The nearer you are to the action the more likely you are to be contaminated by that type of thing.

And it is only natural for these people, who have been working, say, for a decade with Liberal ministers going on with this economic nonsense that they have been going on with for the last decade, to fall into that way of thinking, that way of reacting almost reflexsively. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Mulroney would be out of their minds to let loose that type of public outpouring to counter what is going to be a very, very difficult economic revolution to bring about.

They have got enough trouble bringing it in, it is going to be a difficult enough task without having the back room boys at every move cutting the legs out from under them. So they, therefore, had to say, 'Now, look, there has got to be discipline in this L4896 November ]., 1984 R4896

government. We are the policy setters. When we set policy, if you are going to comment on it, you will comment within the framework of this policy that we have set and we are going to set that policy because we have been given a mandate by a vast majority of the Canadian people to set policy and to change the policy from the one that was there before. And if you go against that you are going against the Canadian people, because it is the Canadian people who want us to do this type of thing." And they would be highly irresponsible if they did not get control of the Public Service.

The extremely intelligent, able people in the federal Public Service, I am quite sure that as time goes on and the new philosophy gets through there, gets accepted, is seen to be working, because these people are very pragmatic often, they will not just take a strategy and say, "Okay, I will just accept that," they want to see something fruitful come out of it and I am sure that when that happens we will find these very able people in the Public Service responding just as positively towards the new strategy as, unfortunately, they responded to this terrible blight that was placed upon them for the last ten years by Trudeau and his group.

Now the other things the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barry) asked, whether we have said if it is good for Ontario, we will accept it and we will just lie down and we will not do anything. Now for anyone to accuse this government of that, they really have to be joking. I talked about a revolution in Canada but there has been a revolution in this Province too, although not many people on the opposite side will recognize that, but we know we have brought a revolution in this Province.

And the revolution in this Province is that we are no longer going up to Central Canada, cap-in-hand, and saying, sure we are poor little old people down here and we cannot do anything for ourselves, please give us a dollar. You know, the old cap in hand syndrome which was so prevalent in the Smallwood days. There is a revolution in this Province now that we as a Province stand up for ourselves.

And there are people in Canada, every part of Canada, who look at Newfoundland with a certain amount of awe and say, By gosh, just about a half million people and they have pulled themselves up by the boot strapes in terms of taking their destiny in their own hand and by gosh they are succeeding.

So for anyone to say that this government is just going to throw all of its philosphies out, all its past activities out, to pass things as done and now to roll over and and say whatever is done on Bay Street, just give us the crumbs and we will be satisfied, for anyone to say that they have to be living in a dream world. And unfortunately there is this dream world the Liberals and the NDP are living in and they will have to see the light.

We will keep trying to educate them so that they will become modern folk like the PC Party in this Province and in this country, and, as the last election showed, the vast majority of the Canadian electorate. They have become modern folk, they have brust out of this terrible era that is still having such a marked influence on the way people think across the way. Of course, we have made our point, and I made iL very specifically if L4897 November 16, 1984 R4897

it needed to be made, because I got a ready reception for it. I made the point up there that there has to be close attention paid to regional, and I used the word, 'promotion', and I do not like this word 'disparity', it has a negative connotation. I said there has to be a close attention made to regional promotion and the trend here has to be reversed. We all recall that at one time there were prograrrmies like , say, DREE and so on which had a certain potentially for helping out regional-wise.

But as time went on they were downgraded, downgraded until finally there was almost no effort or no thought or no push put into them by the federal government. As a matter of fact, and this is terribly cynical, many of them were disbanded because the federal government wanted to put something else in their place which they called - what was the word they used? - visibility. They wanted federal visibility.

We do not care if it is any good for the region, if there is a progratme there that is potentially helpful for the region but it does not give us visibility we are not interested in that, we are going to take that out of the way and we are going to put something in that gives us federal visibility. And, of course, people saw through that and that is why they were chucked at the last election. That is too cynical. They were so arrogant that they felt that they would get by with this, that people would buy it, they would take it hook, line and sinker.

But, of course, they found out in the election that people were not that stupid. MR. NEARY: Mr.Chairman. MR. CHAIRHAN (Aylward): Order, please! The hon. member for LaPoi.le. MR. NEARY: Mr. Chairman, you know, I never ever heard or thought that I would be in this House long enough to hear a minister defend the people up in Ottawa, the government in Ottawa that is trying to rape the economy of Newfoundland. The hon. gentleman - DR. COLLINS: Get your mind of f the edge of your nose now. MR. NEARY: - was right on the defensive, licking the boot straps of his pals up in Ottawa. Mr.

Chairman, the more things change the more they remain the same. The only thing that changes in this House is the faces, we get a new face once in a while, Mr. Chairman, but the issues are still the same. Here we have a government, just elected in Ottawa, that is out to ruin Newfoundland, to rape Newfoundland socially and economically and the hon. gentleman is so naive that he thinks this is great, in his simplicity he thinks it is great.

As I said yesterday, Brian Muironey has asked for blood and this administration have put the heads of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians on the chopping block and said, 'Help yourself up-along, Brian.' What a pathetic spectacle it is to see the Minister of Finance (Dr. Collins) in this Province kowtow, bend over backwards to please his pals in Ottawa when the hon. gentleman knows that the equalization payments to this Province, which are about $600 million or $700 million in this fiscal year, are about to be reviewed, and the L4898 November 16, 1984 R4898

established programme funding. DR. COLLINS: That is not true. MR. NEARY: it is true, Mr. Chairman. DR. COLLINS: Equalization is not to be reviewed. It is not true. MR. BARRY: it is in the budget. DR. COLLINS: Equalization is not to be reviewed MR. BARRY: Transfer payments. DR. COLLINS: He said equalization. MR. BARRY: Transfer payments. MR. NEARY: A New Direction For Canada, I have it home, I have the whole set, I was studying in it in the last couple of days. In the review, Mr.

Chairman, one of the things that the advisors are looking at are equalization payments, transfer payments and established programme funding. DR. COLLINS: Unture. Equalization is in the Constitution. MR. NEARY: I do not care what it is in, Mr. Chairman. DR. COLLINS: Of course you do not. MR.

NEARY: I do not know if it is listed in this piece in the paper: Canada student loans; ferry services; unemployment insurance; employment assistance; separation payments; urea formaldehyde; culture projects; Via rail; programme operations; social housing; energy; CBC; dairy programmes; cultural agencies; environmental secretariates; CBC high tech; transportation services; public works; CN subsidy; Canada home insulation; Canada oil; general industrial training; ferry services, again; customs and excise operations; research. Anyway, Mr. Chairman, it is in A New Direction For Canada.

The established programme funding is being reviewed and the other day Mr. Wilson appointed a hatchet man. DR. COLLINS: You said equalization. MR. NEARY: I am talking about established programme funding, transfer payments, Mr. Chairman - DR. COLLINS: You said equalization. You do not know what you are talking about, that is your problem. MR. NEARY: - are being reviewed and Mr. Wilson the other day appointed a hatchet man, he appointed a university type who is a strong advocate of reviewing equalization payments to the provinces, establish programme funding and transfer payments. Now, Mr.

Chairman, that should be a signal to the hon. gentleman who is now scrabbling and crawling to his pals up in Ottawa and over there trying to defend the indefensible, Mr. Chairman, Brian Mulroney. We have undertakers in this House, but I believe the real undertaker in Canada is Brian Mulroney and the premiers across Canada and the hon. gentlemen across the way are L4899 November 16, 1984 R4899

his pallbearers. DR. COLLINS: You will never get another woman DR. COLLINS: to vote for you. Including Mr. Pawley. MR. WEARY: Mr. Chairman, my hon. colleague, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barry), made some valid points. It was a good debate and a good argument. But the hon. gentleman, of course, was up trying to defend the indefensible. All he was doing was crawling to Ottawa. He talks about going with cap in hand. They are licking the bootstraps of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Mulroney and Ms Carney and Flora McDonald - I wish she would stop, I wish somebody over there would tell her to stop because it irritates me no end when she refers to Newfoundland fishermen as 'fisherfolk'