November

30, 1995

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLII No. 66

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (L. Snow): Order, please!

Before we begin the routine proceedings, I want to welcome to

the galleries on behalf of all hon. members, twenty-six Democracy, French

Immersion students from Ascension Collegiate from the District of Port de Grave,

along with their instructors: Ed. Wilding, Connie Ellsworth, Barbara Pynn and

bus driver, Don Sullivan.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Yesterday, after Question Period, the hon.

the Member for Grand Bank raised a point of order that I would like to deal with

now.

The point of order raised by the hon. Opposition House Leader

was that the comments made by the Minister of Social Services were incorrect and

that they were misleading the House.

On this regard, I want to refer hon. members to Beauchesne,

page 151, about The Acceptance Of The Word Of A Member: It has been formally

ruled by Speakers, that statements by Members respecting themselves and

particularly within their own knowledge must be accepted. It is not

unparliamentary temperately to criticize statements by Members as being contrary

to the fact, and I think that's what the hon. member was doing, but no

imputation of intentional falsehood is permissible, and on rare occasions, this

may result in the House having to accept two contradictory accounts of the same

incident, therefore was not a point of order.

Oral Questions

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

Extern.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Works,

Services and Transportation.

The minister was aware of a public meeting on Bell Island

last night where there were over 600 people in attendance. The people of Bell

Island are very upset over the unfair, unjust and unconscionable rate increases

which are effective tomorrow. The Mayor and a committee from Bell Island met

with the minister this morning, he listened, no commitment. He must now realize

the impact and seriousness of the situation.

Will the minister now agree to a roll back or a review?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister met with the committee this morning; he is fully

aware of what took place on Bell Island last evening and all the controversy

around the new ferry rates.

What I can say to the hon. member is that the whole of

Newfoundland and Labrador is under difficult financial situations. The whole of

Canada is under difficult financial situations. As minister responsible for the

Department of Works, Services and Transportation, if I had to make decisions

that were going to be popular with people then I would most commonly make all

the wrong decisions. I have a responsibility to all the taxpayers of this

Province to provide an efficient service to the best of our ability within the

financial means we have. Under today's changes and financial cutbacks, less

revenues, we have to make some hard decisions. It is not easy, but they must be

made.

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

John's East Extern.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would say to the

minister that the people of Bell Island are only looking for fairness. The

minister won't admit that this is a policy change and it is also a broken

promise or commitment to the people of Bell Island and Newfoundland and

Labrador. Yet the Premier blatantly agreed across the House it is a change in

policy. Will the minister now agree that this is a change in policy and that his

own caucus members didn't even know about this change, nor were they consulted,

and in fact, he embarrassed the Member for Mount Scio - Bell Island, his own

colleague?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation.

MR. EFFORD: Mr. Speaker, when we were elected to

government by the people of this Province in 1989, and while the Cabinet was put

in place, it was put there with the confidence that it would make the right

decisions based on the interest of all people of this great Province of ours.

Since 1989 our financial condition has changed drastically from what it was

then. It was bad enough then, but certainly it has gotten much worse now because

of the economic conditions that we are facing in this Province today.

We have to make some hard decisions. If I had the

opportunity, if I had the pleasure, of making decisions to satisfy all the

requests of people I would do it. I don't have that pleasure. I have to make

decisions that go with the responsibility of me being a minister of the Crown.

When either the Premier or the people of this Province no longer see me in that

place, then somebody else will have to make those decisions. Right now, I make a

recommendation, government makes the decisions, and it is based on the best

interest of fairness of all people in this Province. Believe me, this is not the

most difficult decision that is going to have to be made in the future to deal

with our economic conditions.

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

John's East Extern.

MR. J. BYRNE: I would say to the minister, yes, hard

decisions may have to be made, but people have to live in the meantime.

Mr. Speaker, the minister answered a question I asked the

other day in the House, and I quote from Hansard on November 27: `That is all we

are charging, $1.50 to get aboard a ferry to go to Bell Island. One dollar and

fifty cents to get aboard a bus, that is what the City of St. John's charges. It

is a minimum fare structure, reasonable. A bottle of Coke and a bag of chips is

$2. God, you get aboard a ferry for $1.50.' I say to the minister, a Coke and a

bag of chips are not necessities. The minister also publicly stated that the

people chose to live on Bell Island. Is the minister now saying to the people of

Bell Island, to avoid these rates, move off Bell Island? Is this just another

form of forced resettlement for the people of Bell Island and other islands in

Newfoundland and Labrador?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation.

MR. EFFORD: Absolutely not, Mr. Speaker, absolutely not.

If we made a decision based on the accusations in the statements just made by

the hon. member, then we would say to everybody in this Province - because

people live in different regions of this Province for different reasons and it

costs people to live in a particular area. We have to remember, we have a

population of 550,000 people living over an area four times the size of Japan

with a population in excess of 60 million people - I just can't tell you the

exact numbers. So we have to deliver services to people living wherever they

choose to live, and we are delivering that service; $3.5 million annually is the

cost of operation of the two Bell Island ferries - $3.5 million. Revenues in

1994 and 1995 was $403,000, that was 11 per cent. They will go to approximately

15 per cent or 16 per cent. If we were charging what it would cost the people to

use that ferry, that $3.5 million, then the accusation that the member just made

would be fair, but we are not even recovering 20 per cent, around 15 per cent of

the total cost of the operation.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: No, it is not a user-pay, it is not a forced

resettlement, it is just political statements that the hon. member is making.

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

Extern, on a supplementary.

MR. J. BYRNE: I will say to the Minister of Works,

Services and Transportation, that transportation is a responsibility of the

Provincial Government. People on Bell Island are not only paying the ferry

rates, they are also paying RST, GST, income tax and all of that goes to a

certain portion of the cost of all government services.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my final question to

the Premier, since the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation doesn't

understand the seriousness of the situation, doesn't understand that the people

of Bell Island are in direct hardship - the students, the people living on the

island - and that he is basically uncaring in this situation.

Will the Premier direct the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation to review and roll back the unjust rate increases to the ferry

service on Bell Island?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, in response to strong

arguments made by the hon. the Member for Mount Scio - Bell Island, I asked the

minister to review his entire proposal with respect to changes, and he sat down

and we went over it in detail. We have had, I think, about three meeting on it -

three or two?

AN HON. MEMBER: Three.

PREMIER WELLS: We have had three meetings on it, so far.

We looked at mileage, looked at everything, all of the factors of it, and he

made his case, and he laid out the case and presented the argument. He said to

me, here is the mileage. I even got the maps out and measured the mileage

myself, because I didn't think the mileage was right.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

PREMIER WELLS: So, we did a fairly detailed assessment.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: We did a fairly detailed assessment of it,

and I have to say to all hon. members of the House, while nobody likes to have

increases, particularly not increases that go from a small charge to a larger

charge - I understand that; I perfectly understand the views of the people of

Bell Island - but we have to think about being fair to the overall public of the

Province, and the minister has satisfied me that is what he has done, and I have

total confidence in the actions of the minister.

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

MS VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have questions for the Premier about the Federal

Government's intentions to change unemployment insurance, about the plans Lloyd

Axworthy told him and the Maritime Premiers about in Ottawa yesterday.

After yesterday's meeting, the Premier described the Federal

Government's intentions to revise UI as marvellous. What is it about this

program that makes the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador its chief

cheerleader?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I have no idea where the Leader of the

Opposition got that information, but I can tell the House it is not accurate.

AN HON. MEMBER: CBC Radio (inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: That probably confirms its inaccuracy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: It may, indeed.

What I did describe as marvellous was the willingness of Mr.

Axworthy to agree to sit down with the Government of this Province immediately

after his proposal is put forward and negotiate a special arrangement to ensure

that this Province is treated in a fair way, and to ensure that it is done in a

way that is in the best interest of this Province. That is a marvellous change

in national government policy and I welcome it. That, too, is marvellous. The

overall change and proposal I did not describe as marvellous, and I do not

describe it as marvellous now. I spent the last, I suppose, eight to ten weeks

corresponding with Mr. Axworthy, setting up meetings with the Chairman of the

Social Policy Committee and Mr. Axworthy, meeting and corresponding with the

Prime Minister, meeting and corresponding with Mr. Tobin and others, dealing in

detail with these proposals and pressuring to get a reasonable accommodation for

Atlantic Canada.

The meeting that occurred yesterday was as a result of the

initiative I took four weeks ago to set up the meeting, Mr. Speaker, so that is

the position of this Province and not whatever the Leader of the Opposition was

led to believe from whatever source.

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

supplementary.

MS VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

All of us who listened to CBC radio news today heard the

Premier's voice describing these changes as marvellous. Now, if the Premier this

afternoon is saying marvellous only applies to part of the changes, will the

Premier tell us his full assessment and reaction to the total package of UI

revision?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I do not have the full detail even right

at this moment. I sat down with the Prime Minister yesterday, Mr. Axworthy and

Mr. Tobin, and some officials from Mr. Axworthy's office and we did a general

review of it. Now, I can say that I am satisfied that while they are not doing

it exactly as I would wish them to do it I am satisfied that they have taken

into account the strong representations that were made, not alone by me, but

here, Mr. Speaker, I give substantial credit to Brian Tobin who carried this

battle very strongly on behalf of the whole of Atlantic Canada. I acknowledge

publicly that he did it and I give him full credit for it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, working cooperatively with

Brian Tobin I believe we have been able to persuade the federal government to

make reasonable adjustments to treat those parts of Canada that have a difficult

situation in a more considerate way, but I cannot say anymore than that until

the minister has made public the full details and I have total knowledge and so

does the rest of the country.

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

supplementary.

MS VERGE: Mr. Speaker, so the Premier of Newfoundland and

Labrador is satisfied with the UI changes and he thinks parts of the proposal

are marvellous. Will the Premier explain to us how the Chrtien government's UI

changes will ensure that UI cheques are replaced with pay cheques for productive

work here in Newfoundland and Labrador?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I do not know why the Leader of the

Opposition keeps putting words in my mouth that are not there. Maybe she does

not have a very strong case when she does that. I did not describe the proposal

as marvellous. I did not describe my satisfaction with the individual parts of

it, what I said was, as a result of the representation yesterday and the

undertaking by the minister, that he was prepared to look at the particular

situation, not alone of Newfoundland, but he was prepared to negotiate with the

government of each province, if they wished it, a special arrangement that would

better use unemployment insurance funds, would ensure that the needs of the

province are better met. Because he recognized that the needs are different in

one province than it may be in many others.

That is marvellous, Mr. Speaker. I welcome that change. That

is not part of his original proposal, I don't think you will hear him announce

it tomorrow, but that was an undertaking that he gave me, and I welcomed it, and

that is what I describe as marvellous. So I just point out that the comments

made by the Leader of the Opposition are not accurate.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MS VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Some other premiers,

including Premier McKenna of New Brunswick are expressing alarm about the

economic hardship that will result for their provinces from the UI changes. I

would ask the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, what will be the net income

loss to this Province as a result of the UI changes each year after the

transition period?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: We've done calculations as to what it

might be if you make this assumption as to the change and how it will be

implemented, if you make a different assumption, and if you make a yet still

different assumption. There are certain announcements that the minister will

make tomorrow that will have a substantial bearing on what the overall impact on

the Province will be. I'm not in any position to either determine that with any

degree of certainty at this stage until the minister makes the specific

announcement, and until I'm better informed on the details of it.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MS VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Premier make

public the provincial government's calculations, and will the Premier indicate

whether Lloyd Axworthy's changes that he will be announcing tomorrow are based

exclusively on federal government economic forecasts, or whether they

incorporated any provincial government calculations? Will the Premier also make

public whatever federal government economic analysis he was made privy to?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I wasn't made privy to any federal

government economic analysis yesterday. They didn't suggest any. Whether or not

they've done them, I don't know. But when we have the full information and the

analysis is done, when that is done, Mr. Speaker, I will make it public. I will

not make public speculative analyses or possible analyses because I don't want

to cause undue concern where none may be warranted.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question

for the Minister of Health. On November 16, 1994 in this House I asked the

Minister of Health if his department is intending to allow personal care homes

to admit residents requiring level II care. Here is what the minister said. He

said: Level I, personal care homes are not built. They are not in a position

generally to look after people beyond Level I. Level IIs and Level IIIs will

continue to be primarily accommodated and cared for in long-term care

institutions and long-term care beds that are in the system and that I might

add, we have sufficient of in the system to take care of those types of people.

I now ask the minister, will he inform this House, if his

party, if his government and the department, have now changed that policy?

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

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

for the question.

The personal care home industry in this Province provides a

very valuable service in terms of the continuum of care for the elderly, and I

have to tell the House and tell the hon. member, that as a result of reviewing

the capacity of that sector vis--vis, the needs of the aging population of the

Province, and having reviewed the potential that they have to accept, in some

instances, higher levels of care, I have made a decision to open up the personal

home care industry where the homes can meet prescribed standards, to apply for

licensure to accept Level or low Level II entrance into that industry.

A number have applied, I anticipate others will apply; there

will be of course, standards that deal with life safety matters and programming

standards that will be appropriate to Level IIs and where personal care homes

can meet that level of care, as they have been saying over the years that they

probably can in a lot of instances, I have agreed to open it up so that they can

do that, and it will do two or three things for us. It will allow us to have

less pressure on long-term care beds where Level IIs are now going. It will

allow the personal home care industry to fill some of the vacancies which they

now have in the system and that runs anywhere from 12 per cent to 30 per cent

depending on whether they are subsidized or non-subsidized beds, and we believe

it is universally a most positive step in government's planning with respect to

trying to assist the elderly of this Province to have appropriate accommodation

at what point they need it, and to have it provided to them as closely as they

can to their homes and also, within a cost that is realistic and that is

bearable by most seniors who are in receipt of GIS and OIS.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Ferryland, on a

supplementary.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I gather from the minister's answer, he indicated that we are

going to have different categories of Level II care, it is not going to be all

Level II care I gather from his answer but I will leave that for the moment.

The minister stated in this House last November, and again in

May of this year, that we have enough long-term care beds in the system. On May

23, he said in this House: There are approximately 150 people on a waiting list

for nursing homes, and given the fact that there are about thirty-five admitted

a month, we could place most of these people within a three-month to four-month

period.

I ask the minister, will he confirm that the situation is

getting rapidly worse, and there are now over 200 people on a waiting list, and

that waiting list is only limited by the board's ability to be able to assess

and plan on these people?

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

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

No, I can't confirm all of the propositions put forward by

the hon. member because it is factually inaccurate. The last figures I saw, is

that there is still about 130 to 150 people at any given time who are either

medically discharged, they are in their homes and who could use placement in a

nursing home. The 150 figure, assuming that's it, the high end, is not

provincial, it's more specific to the Avalon or St. John's area.

What we are doing by opening up the personal home care

industry to Level IIs, is in effect causing a circumstance where we will no

longer have to admit as many or any Level Is into the long-term care sector, it

will ease further, the problem, if there is one in the long-term care sector, by

creating spaces that can either be redeveloped into Level IIs and IIIs spaces or

used as they are for Level IIs and IIIs, but in any event, the action that we

have taken and the direction we are going will significantly reduce, if not

eliminate any waiting list that might exist anywhere.

I might say outside of the Avalon and St. John's area, there

are actually no waiting lists. We have situations where we have vacancies, I can

tell the member where they are if he wants to ask that question but we are

moving as quickly as is appropriate to address the long-term care needs, and the

actions that I have just described in the previous question, is a significant

initiative in that direction.

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

Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am speaking on a weekly basis and sometimes every two and

three days regarding waiting lists there. I am being informed that there are

over 100 urgent cases in Level III and there are over 200, as of the meeting

prior to this week. Now the minister was saying a few months ago that we cannot

take Level IIs into personal care homes and now he is saying we can take people

into personal care homes, the same people. Now with over 200 people on that

waiting list and I say to the minister, I received this information as being

accurate. Is the minister now making a decision to move people into personal

care homes because it costs $60,000 per person a year in a nursing home and with

fifty two, he said here in this House I think, in acute care hospitals costing

$150,000 to $175,000 a year? Will he indicate now that it is strictly financial

because personal care homes only cost $2,400 a year? I will further ask the

minister, will he now be prepared to give those personal care homes that are

severely strapped, an increase in funding to reflect the extra cost incurred in

caring for a higher level of care?

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

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

I would like to ask the hon. member if he will be good enough

to stick to the facts and state things as they accurately are? He uses figures,

he uses dollars and cents figures and population figures that are grossly

inaccurate and distort the truth of the picture. It is about time that the hon.

members on the other side, in asking questions, take responsibility for the

misinformation that they are providing to this House and they hope will get out

to the people of the Province to distort the realities and the truth of the

situation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Now, I told him a few minutes ago that

there are not 200 people on a waiting list, it may be 130-150 in St. John's. The

cost of keeping a person in a long term care, on an average is $3,124 a year. It

is not $5,000 a year or $60,000 as he refers to. What we are doing, Mr. Speaker,

is allowing the personal home care industry to make application to accept higher

levels of care so that where they have the capacity to do it now they can do it

rather immediately. Where they don't have the capacity, by virtue of programming

or meeting life safety standards, they will have the opportunity to provide that

additional infrastructure or level of service so that they will be able to

accept Level IIs. What we are doing is the most sensible and practical thing in

the best interest - not entirely of the operators although it will help the

operators - but it is in the interest of the seniors and the aging population

that we have in this Province. We seek to do the best and the most appropriate

thing for the people who need our care and who need our attention. We will spend

and maximized dollars that we have for health care in the direction of providing

services to them so that they will be best served by the government and by the

taxpayers of the Province.

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

Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The figures I obtained were from an estimates committee

hearing in this House by officials of your department and from the budget that

is prepared by your department showing a $3 million expenditure for 1,346

approximately personal home care beds and that is the average cost, by dividing

the beds into the total.

I ask the minister, and I have costs on every single nursing

home here in this city and the average cost of running it. I ask the minister,

will he table in this House the figures for the cost of running these and then

we can compare the two figures?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, I will attempt to table in

the House the figures for each individual nursing home in the City of St. John's

because that is where he is suggesting we have these high costs, if it is

appropriate to do so. I won't give an unequivocal undertaking in the event that

there may be a reason why it cannot be done but if there is no difficulty in

doing it, in terms of the institutions and in terms of government policy, then I

will be glad to make the information available and then we will see where the

information that is being used, is factual or otherwise distorted.

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

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

the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation.

I want to ask the minister why he and his government is not

prepared to recognize that in the case of the Bell Island ferry, that we are not

dealing here with discretionary travel? In fact, of all the ferry services in

the island we probably have more actual commuters travelling every day back and

forth to work and school, Cabot College, University, that this is of vital

importance to the people of Bell Island. Is he not prepared to make a special

case because of that particular factor?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation.

MR. EFFORD: Mr. Speaker, if we went on the rates that we

are charging the ferry users in other parts of the Province, the rates which we

are now charging Bell Islanders would exorbitantly increase. Commuters on Bell

Island are paying $2.25. In the case of St. Brendan's, Fogo, the old rate was

$4.75. The new rates are $6, $6, $4.50, $7 and $11.25, one way. We have a

special rate for the commuters and students and those people to and from because

of the necessity of either working or education of $2.25.

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

John's East.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The minister well

knows that while you can talk about $2.25 one way, that adds up to $100 a month

for someone travelling back and forth every day to go to University or to go to

Cabot College or to go to work. This is money that these people haven't budgeted

for and it is not part of their income. Doesn't the minister recognize the vital

importance of this daily access to training and education facilities and to work

for the people of Bell Island to improve their situation and not to be relying

on the government as so many people are forced to do? Is the minister trying to

make things worse?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation.

MR. EFFORD: No, Mr. Speaker, I am not trying to make

things worse; and yes, I do realize the hardships placed on people, as well as I

do realize the hardships placed on every Newfoundlander and Labradorian today

because of the economic conditions of this Province and this country. I also do

realize that if I only had one small percentage of the debt that this Province

carried that we are forced to face, and the interest payments that we have to

pay out because of the debt that we took over in 1989, we wouldn't have the

problems that we have today, and the people of Bell Island and all other users

would get a lot less per cost service than they are getting now.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Churchill Falls giveaway

(inaudible)!

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

MR. EFFORD: But, Mr. Speaker, the fact remains we have

some very difficult decisions to make, and I'm only one minister making

decisions, and we have to make those decisions.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to

the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture. I would like to ask the

minister if he would inform the House as to what basis he formed his recent

opinion regarding the harvesting of small caplin in 1996.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries, Food and

Agriculture.

DR. HULAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I reported to this

House the other day that the decision to ask the federal minister for an early

decision on a 1996 caplin harvest was made on the basis of the information given

to us from the DFO scientists that such a harvest would not in any way

significantly impact or otherwise the health of the stock.

The information that we have received is that the stock is

indeed very healthy. The size of the fish are small but the fish that are there

are of reproducing age. They have reached sexual maturity. They are of

reproducing age. The advice that we have been given, that should the federal

minister proceed with a harvest for next year it would not have any impact on

the health of the stock whatsoever, and if a decision is going to be made on a

harvest, that in order to secure markets the decision should be made early. That

is why the request was made.

Also in the request, I should advise this hon. House, is that

should a decision be made for a harvest in 1996 it should be made with the

proviso of a total utilization of the harvest, and that means a utilization of

the males and the females. For those of you who know the fishing industry, know

the caplin industry -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

DR. HULAN: Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to take his seat.

The hon. the Member for Bonavista South. Time for one

question.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I say to the

minister, since the decision to either open the caplin season in 1996 and the

size of the caplin to be taken will be a decision that rests with the federal

Department of Fisheries and Oceans, I ask the minister if he has conferred with

his federal counterpart in Ottawa, and if he concurs with the minister's

statement of a few days ago.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries, Food and

Agriculture.

DR. HULAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do not know what statement the hon. member is mentioning of

a few days ago - Mr. Tobin made many statements in the last number of days - but

I will tell you that the request for a harvest in 1996 has been put forward by

the Inshore Council of the Fishermen's Union, and they have also requested that

the size requirement of a fifty count be dropped this year in order that a

harvest could occur.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time for Oral Questions has elapsed.

MR. SPEAKER: Notices of Motion.

The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. DICKS: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to table some

pre-commitments for 1995. It wouldn't be on Notices of Motion.

I herewith table six copies of two Orders In Council to meet

the requirements of

section 26, subsection (inaudible) of the Financial

Administration Act. One is in the amount of $700,000, which represents a

pre-commitment for the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation to procure

tourism advertising in the amount of $700,000 in the fiscal year 1996-'97. The

second is in the amount of $49 million, under the Trans-Canada Highway

agreement, Regional Trunk Roads agreement, and Strategic Highway Improvement

agreement, in accordance with the lists of projects on file with the Clerk of

the Executive Council.

Petitions

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

Extern.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to stand in my place and

present a petition on behalf of the people of Bell Island. The prayer of the

petition reads: To the Honourable House of Assembly, in the Province of

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

undersigned of the District of Mount Scio - Bell Island:

WHEREAS the residents of Bell Island rely on this service as

their economic lifeline for both economic and social aspects; and

WHEREAS the increase proposed for Bell Island is from 150 per

cent to 450 per cent; and

WHEREAS the Liberal Government, as its Policy and Budget of

1989, page 26 stated: It does not endorse a ferry rate policy for island

communities which penalizes the residents and hinders their potential for

economic growth;

THEREFORE

BE IT RESOLVED that the Bell Island ferry service

be treated with the same percentage increase as other provincial services in

Newfoundland, and as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, I attended a meeting of over 600 people last

night on Bell Island. I think it was probably one of the biggest gatherings that

I have ever attended with respect to an event or for public opposition to a

certain policy of an administration - of this Administration in particular.

There are people in the galleries here today from Bell

Island. They were bused over in three or four different groups, on the ferry

system, and there are people outside waiting to get in, from what I can

understand. I was outside earlier, about 1:45 p.m., and I think the upper

galleries outside were pretty well filled up and there were two or three more

bus loads of people who came in from Bell Island. Let me tell you, it gives a

person a good feeling to see a group and a community come together to oppose

something they feel is not justified.

Last night at the meeting, I was impressed again with the

numbers. In the room itself last night you could feel the emotion. It was a very

well run meeting. The Mayor and deputy Mayor of Bell Island, Mr. Gosine and Mr.

Craig, I believe, ran the meeting, and they did an excellent job. The people

were really quite orderly, quite civilized, but you could feel the emotion and

you could feel and see that the people were visibly upset; yet, they controlled

themselves. They were quite upset with the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation on this issue. They felt that they have not been treated fairly.

They were even embarrassed, I believe, for the Member for Mount Scio - Bell

Island, who didn't know anything about this until last Thursday, and the member

himself was quite embarrassed, and he publicly stated that he was embarrassed.

The people at the meeting last night came to the microphone.

They were all ages, from young teenagers, students, to seniors. They had

concerns, the students with respect to their cost of going back and forth.

People who do not actually live on the Island attended the meeting last night

because they come to Bell Island as students, they come to Bell Island to teach,

and these people attended the meeting last night.

I am glad I went to the meeting. As I said, the people were

upset, and rightly so. The increases that are being proposed - not proposed, but

implemented - take effect tomorrow, and the people only had four days notice of

this. Now, that in itself is unfair, let alone talk about the rate of the

increases themselves, but four days notice is unfair.

I brought questions to this House on Monday. The Member for

Green Bay brought questions on Tuesday, and I did yesterday and again today, and

it seems that we just can't sink it into the head of the Minister of Works,

Services and Transportation that this is going to have a drastic, drastic,

impact on the people of Bell Island. And it will have impact not only on the

people of Bell Island, there are increases in other ferry systems across the

Province as well, but in particular, it will impact on the people on Bell

Island. We have people over there now, as I said, students, who will have to pay

$100 a month to go back and forth, that is $1200 a year. Now, that is hard

enough on students but we have parents on Bell Island who are students and who

are trying to maintain and keep a family, Mr. Speaker, and what are these people

supposed to do? If they are only earning a basic income, $1200 a year is a fair

percentage of their income and it is just not right in any sense of the word.

Now, the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation got

up today and said he has to make hard decisions. Well, all well and good if we

have to make hard decisions, but we have to look at the impact it will have on

people's lives, Mr. Speaker. The road system in this Province and the road

system in any province is a part of the responsibility of the government. Now,

the government can say what it wants and can try to bring in a user-pay system,

and that is what they are trying to do. They can say what they want but that is

the first step towards it.

This government, and all governments, receive money. They

receive money from the RST, the retail sales tax -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. J. BYRNE: By leave, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

They receive revenues from the RST, the GST, and people's

income tax and a certain percentage of these monies goes towards the cost of

running the transportation system in this Province. Now, I can go on and on with

respect to a lot of different points and there are going to be more petitions

presented, I am sure, as days go by.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the extension to my time, and I

am sure other people will speak to this petition.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Green Bay.

MR. HEWLETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to rise in support of the petition of my

colleague, the Member for St. John's East Extern. This is a matter that is also

near and dear to my heart. The District of Green Bay has two island communities

that depend on ferry systems run by the hon. minister's department. One of the

island communities, Little Bay Islands, has a considerable steam of forty-five

minutes and they have had higher rates all along, but even they are getting a 50

per cent rate hike out of this. And the other island, Long Island, is in the

same category exactly as Bell Island, Conception Bay, and we are seeing a really

drastic fare increase, for the most part well in excess of 150 per cent in most

categories.

Mr. Speaker, given the reality of the economic times, this

sudden jolt is totally uncalled for and is totally unconscionable. Some years

ago, this government took away one of the ferry boats serving the islands out in

my district, and the locals out there got rather worked up to put it mildly.

They couldn't come to St. John's and sit in the galleries, but what they did,

was they sat on the ropes and sat on the wires and would not let the ferry move.

They caused this government more money in police and helicopter time than they

ever hoped to save by taking one ferry off the run. And, in the end, this

government backed down and put a boat back on to each island because it was

physically impossible to really, in any civilized way, service two islands with

one boat.

The people, if they stand up to this government, can make a

difference. To the people of Bell Island in the gallery, the people outside, and

the people who will be coming over the next number of days, it is good to see

people stand up once and for all. For too long, Mr. Speaker, people in this

Province have been beaten down and afraid to stand and speak up for what they

think are their rights, so it is about time the people of Bell Island, maybe the

majority of whom supported this government and elected a member to the

government side, should expect to get some service from the government they

helped elect.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEWLETT: Mr. Speaker, it is time this government

learns that it just can't play with its pocket calculator, make sudden and swift

decisions in the Cabinet room, and expect the people on the street, the people

on the ground, the people on the ferry boats, and the people going to and from

their island homes, not to have some adverse reaction to it, not to be angered

by what they are doing, and not to stand up and say: Not anymore. I am not going

to take anymore.

It is about time that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador

in general, and in many other coves, inlets, and islands in this Province took a

lesson from the people of Bell Island and said: No more, enough.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation.

MR. EFFORD: A good motivating speech, believe me.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: I can do it. I can stand equal to anybody on

the opposite side of the House and give an equal or better motivating speech,

and call up the troops. There is some accuracy in what he is saying that people

stand up for themselves. I've always been an advocate for people standing up for

what they believe in - no argument, Mr. Speaker.

Here is the reality of what I am faced with. We, as a

government, were elected by the people of this Province to administer the

affairs and services required by the people - with monies. Where do we get the

monies? Two ways: revenues or transfer and equalization payments from Ottawa. We

can't borrow any more, the debt is too large. There is the bottom line. We

cannot borrow any more. Revenues are less because of the economic conditions,

the job opportunities, the fishery and everything else. Revenues are less from

Ottawa. The services are no less. The people on Bell Island deserve a service;

the people on Long Island deserve a service; the people on Fogo Island deserve a

service.

Here is what I have, a total budget. The ferry operations

around the Province, the provincial system, last year, cost the taxpayers of

this Province $12.7 million. We have to find that money. The total revenues

returned on all the operations: $1.3 million. Almost an $11 million deficit,

over a $10 million deficit. If I had the money, as minister, in my budget, to

provide a free service to everybody living in isolated communities, I would take

great pleasure in doing it. We don't have a magic pot at the end of the rainbow,

we don't have a leprechaun in our midst, we don't have the money. There is the

bottom line. We are honest with people, we are truthful with people, we aren't

misleading them.

Orders of the Day

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

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

The Chair has called Orders of the Day and has recognized the

hon. the Government House Leader.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, when hon. gentlemen opposite

are ready we will proceed.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The first -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, the first order of business for

the day will be to resume the adjourned debate on Order No. 26, which is

An Act

Respecting The Investigation Of Fatalities. My recollection is my learned

friend, the Member for St. John's East, adjourned the debate on Tuesday.

Assuming we get through that we will then work our way down through the Order

Paper, reading from today's Order Paper, Order Nos. 27, 28 and 29. If we get

through those by the time adjournment comes, we will have done a good day's

work.

We don't plan to sit late tonight because it is the hope, I

believe, of members on both sides that we will be able to address these four

bills and put them through a second reading by the time of the normal

adjournment at 5:00 p.m. We will then ask to have each bill referred to the

appropriate Standing Committee in accordance with Standing Order 84 so that

anybody affected by them or who wishes to be heard with respect to the details

may come forward and make presentations to the committees and have them dealt

with at that stage before they come back here.

If you would please, Mr. Speaker, Order No. 26 on today's

paper.

MR. SPEAKER: Order No. 26, Bill No. 36.

The hon. the Member for St. John's East.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I had commenced my remarks on Tuesday and was cut short by

the desire of all hon. members to hear the Governor-General speak as he did so

eloquently about the country of which we are a part. I will return now to my

remarks about this legislation, "An Act Respecting The Investigation of

Fatalities", which will probably be known as the medical examiner's act,

although it is called the Fatalities Investigations Act.

I support the act in principle. It does provide a

modernization of our various laws, inadequate laws, I must say, with respect to

the examination and investigation of sudden deaths - I suppose not merely sudden

deaths, but deaths in circumstances where an investigation is required or

desirable in the public interest. These are cases of suspected suicides and they

are listed in the act, the types of deaths resulting from work-related injuries,

violence, accidents, suicide, unexpected deaths where a person is apparently in

good health, where the cause of death is undetermined or there may be improper

or suspected negligent treatment of a person that results in a death and the

notion of course is that the public has an interest in ensuring that fatalities

of this nature receive a proper investigation and that that investigation can

take place quickly, that it can take place in proper circumstances where the

body is not interfered with, or at least to the extent that the law can do so,

that the appropriate and properly trained persons can have immediate knowledge

of and access to the body to conduct a proper investigation.

Now, some of the inadequacies of the present system are not

dealt with in this act, and I am going to outline some of them. This does still

separate out the investigation of a death with the possibility of a judicial

inquiry. We are still leaving the decision about whether there should be a

judicial inquiry in the hands of the Minister of Justice or with the Ministry of

Justice, and that seems to be still a little bit of a problem and has been a

problem in the administration of the judicial inquiries.

I am aware of a circumstance a few years ago where a judicial

inquiry was not called for except after several months of urging and exhortation

by the family of the deceased and finally, the Director of Public Prosecutions

of the day, did order a judicial inquiry. A judge was appointed and time was

passing and inquiries were made and finally the end result was that the family

was advised: oh yes, we had a judicial inquiry into the death; we had it several

months ago. The family wasn't told about it; the judge went ahead and had the

inquiry and finally a report was produced so there are inadequacies in that part

of the system as well.

This act of course, doesn't deal with the actual judicial

inquiry segment, that's still left under the

Summary Proceedings Act, and I

would urge the government to consider the whole process while it is dealing with

the investigations of death. There are, under our laws some, perhaps overlapping

jurisdictions in terms of the investigating of death, whether it is an air

crash, the federal Department of Transport has an investigative procedure under

aeronautics fatalities, whether they are deaths at sea or involving boats or

wharves.

There have been for example deaths at the ferry dock in Bell

Island, where an individual, a number of years ago, fell from a gang plank on

the Bell Island ferry and went down between the vessel and the dock and was

drowned. That happened late at night and in fact it was a crew member of the

vessel. These events occur, there are provisions for investigations into these

deaths by the federal Department of Transport as well, so there are some

overlapping types of jurisdictions, but this particular legislation deals with

the investigation at first instance and the procedure for making sure that a

proper person is notified immediately.

The appointment of a medical examiner and particular

pathologist under his direction, in fact I am not sure they have to be a

pathologist; they have to be physicians but only the chief medical officer has

to be a pathologist, so I would hope and expect that there would be only a few

people appointed as medical examiners under this chief pathologist and perhaps

the minister is aware -

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

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

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In response to that point I am assured by Dr. Avis that he

intends to appoint - or the appointment may actually rest with me as the

minister formerly but if so, that would be on the nomination of course of Dr.

Avis that he intends to appoint an adequate number of examiners throughout the

Province to meet the need. I believe he is intending to appoint them at each of

the regional centres; St. Anthony, Happy Valley - Goose Bay, Corner Brook,

Gander, Grand Falls and St. John's but I am assured by Dr. Avis there will be

sufficient to do the job.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I was concerned as well about training because the whole

point of having the medical examiner in place is to provide not only the

investigation of the death being done by a particular individual or official but

that that person is specifically trained in making sure that all of the evidence

that might help determine the cause of death is, not only still present and

available, but is also taken care of and secured for the purpose of perhaps

later criminal trials, if that is indicated or for other purposes that families

may be interested in with respect to civil matters.

One of the difficulties that I have heard expressed by - not

by Dr. Avis but by his predecessors and by individuals involved in Crown

prosecutions, is that often when a death is reported, it is reported to the

police. The police show up and they may, in conducting their own investigation,

in fact, disturb evidence and disturb the body. Disturb evidence that could have

led to a better understanding of how the death occurred and certainly from a

point of view of a court case, better evidence that was properly identified,

properly sealed and secured and free from contamination by other people.

I suppose we are familiar with the OJ trial but there have

been similar trials here where, in fact, one could not tell at the time of the

trial whether certain footprints, blood marks or prints on the floor of a room

where a body was found arose before or after the death. You could not tell

because the scene had been contaminated by police officers, well meaning in most

cases, well meaning police officers, certainly here to my knowledge, well

meaning police officers conducting an investigation but not all properly trained

in how to deal with circumstances where there is a fatality. That is one of the

inadequacies of the act. I think it has come up - my friend from Humber Valley

in his speech made reference to a particular situation involving hospitals where

there may be a fatality during an operation. What happens to the scene in the

operating room?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Well, I am not sure it is. My friend from

Humber Valley suggested that it was. There is something about interfering with a

body in

Section 20 of the act but I was concerned about something that was a

little bit more specific in terms of securing the scene and sealing the place

where the body is found. I have not found that there, perhaps someone can point

it out to me but my own reference to the act allows the medical officer to

cordon off or secure the scene under

Section 12.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Yes, I understand what the minister is

saying. I suspect though that the delay that we are talking about here - I

prefer to see a duty on the people in the hospital facility for example, to not

only report the death but also to seal the operating room perhaps and there may

be circumstances of course where that might run afoul of some other

life-threatening circumstance where perhaps you cannot necessarily close down an

operating room if there is only one operating room and you have someone else in

an emergency circumstance, but I do see a problem where, as happened in the

situation involving the Leatte Moores case where - this was in St. John's; there

was no question of travel - by the time the pathologist had been advised of the

circumstance some several hours later, the operating room had been cleaned up,

the materials had been thrown away and destroyed, discarded, and the examiner

had to rely on reports from -

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) the person that was done during

the course of the - it was an attempt to respond to the emergency. That was the

problem there.

MR. HARRIS: I understand that, that certain things took

place at the time, but if I may read for a moment - and this is perhaps for

other deaths as well - if I may read from the presentation made to that judicial

inquiry by the family, in exhorting the Province to have a coroner or medical

examiner system, they suggested that the hospital director or other party in

charge be required to notify the coroner or medical examiner immediately of

reportable deaths so that an independent investigation can then be carried out,

and that is included in this act, of course.

In all cases of reportable death, the scene should be sealed,

and no person should interfere with the physical evidence, including the body of

the victim. Then the coroner or medical examiner should also be responsible for

determining which cases will be sent for autopsy.

They go on to say: We have heard evidence that this inquiry

suggested that if Leatte Moores was a sixty-five year old with other risk

factors, an autopsy would not have been performed and her cause of death would

otherwise have remained unknown.

This, I guess, is an example of the kind of circumstance that

can arise, that a person could die in a hospital or other facility. The death,

if it is not reported, if the area is not sealed, if it is not left to a medical

examiner to fully appreciate the circumstances surrounding the death, with all

the evidence available at his or her disposal, then deaths which ought to have

been further investigated may go unreported or uninvestigated.

The circumstances under the act, there is provision to allow

the medical examiner to himself/herself, seal the area. Now, presumably that

would take place upon the arrival of the medical examiner, who would then

instruct those present to seal the area and not let anyone there.

I am a little concerned about the period of time, perhaps,

and I am not thinking particularly of St. John's but of other parts of the

Province. If you have a circumstance where a death has occurred in an

institution, then perhaps there should be a duty upon those officials running

the hospital or other facility to in fact themselves seal the area awaiting the

arrival of the medical examiner for further instructions. I see that as a

weakness in the bill, and one that perhaps the government should take

consideration of before we finally pass the act at third reading.

In closing, I just want to say that I welcome the

government's attempt to regularize the investigation of fatalities, as they have

done in this act. It is something that successive pathologists - chief

pathologists certainly in this Province - have been promoting for a number of

years. Successive - well, I do not know about successive, but numerous Crown

prosecutors have raised concerns over the years, particularly in homicide cases,

of some of the difficulties with evidence that perhaps would not have been

present if there was a medical examiner, one or two individuals who were

investigating all deaths, and not just the officer who happened to first arrive

on the scene of the many Royal Newfoundland constabulary officers that we have,

with a variety of skills and training and not necessarily always attuned to the

very special circumstances that involve a death. That certain evidence must be

preserved; certain evidence that may not appear relevant to a police officer but

may be very relevant to a medical examiner ought to be preserved.

I think the Member for St. John's Centre talked about the

cost of this. I would suspect that the cost of this particular legislation would

probably not be excessive. In fact, as the minister says, it would probably be

less because there are less people involved in investigating deaths. In fact,

the administration of justice at the criminal end would be much more simplified

by having a proper investigation done from the beginning. There would probably

be less judicial inquiries because the medical examiner is required to produce a

report upon the request of the family. Many families would be satisfied by a

thorough investigation by a medical examiner who is considered to be independent

in producing not only an autopsy report, but also a report of his or her

investigation into the death. Many families would be satisfied with that if they

were satisfied that things were conducted properly and the call for judicial

enquiries would be less and that would reduce the expense as well.

I think it is a very positive step and an improvement in the

administration of justice in the Province.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just have a few

brief comments there. I'm supportive of this bill. In fact, I asked the Premier

back some months ago in the House here when they were going to bring in a bill.

I had called for it previously and I felt it was important. Because there are

many deaths in circumstances that need to be investigated further and

immediately before there is any opportunity to alter the circumstances around

that particular death, due either to people's neglect or unaware that they might

be affecting the results and any evidence that might determine the cause of that

particular death.

The Member for St. John's Centre expressed I think a concern

when this was discussed before. He talked about cost and bringing it in at such

a time. I don't feel we can afford not to bring it in, because the cost of this

- and the Minister of Justice said earlier - I'm not sure if it is this House; I

know he said it to me - that there would be costs associated with bringing in

such a bill. I did hear him saying recently, I think in response to the Member

for St. John's Centre, that there wouldn't be any cost.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) under this new one then under

the present law.

MR. SULLIVAN: Okay, so it is cheaper, in other words.

MR. ROBERTS: Yes.

MR. SULLIVAN: It would be cheaper to have this. I

certainly endorse it. I think it is very important. Because the cost of a life

is very important and if an investigation of the circumstances around that death

could prevent the loss of another life in the future it is well worth it, even

if there is a minimal cost to the system by bringing it in. I think it is very

positive, it is something that we should certainly move expeditiously to put

through this House and get on with it, and do something that is badly needed in

this Province. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. the Minister speaks now he will

close the debate.

The hon. the Minister of Justice.

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I take it that is

the wish of the House, and so I shall. I want to thank members who spoke for

their indications of support. I think it is fair to say that all who spoke

supported the principles of the bill and I welcome that. I believe it is a good

bill, as I said at second reading, and I'm glad it has won the support on both

sides of the House.

I think the only point I need deal with at this stage is the

issue of cost because other points we can deal with at Committee stage. If

members have questions as to why a particular phrase, or a particular clause is

there, then I will try to answer it and if there is a way to improve it, then,

of course we are always open to that, but let me just address cost.

My friend, the Member for St. John's Centre raised the point,

the gentleman, the Member for Humber Valley did, and my friend, the Member for

St. John's East did as well. These are the estimates prepared by my officials

which have been discussed with the Treasury Board staff, so these are the

figures that we, in government, believe to be correct. It is costing us, under

the existing system, about $438,000 a year to run the existing forensic

pathology system, and we estimate that the new system will cost $422,200, so

that is about $16,000 a year less.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Well, the salaries are down. I don't want to

get into individual salaries, and members will agree, but let me talk about the

subheads of this breakdown. The Salaries under the present system are $197,400

and they will be $149,200 under the new system, and I would be happy to speak

with members behind the Chair, as it were, to give them details of that, but

that is the information we are given.

The Transportation and Communications item will be $15,000

instead of $20,000. We believe there will be less need to move bodies around the

Province, and the reality is that we do frequently have to move bodies now for

autopsy purposes, and we believe there will be less such movements required.

Supplies are estimated to be $7,000 instead of $4,000, so there is an increase

there. In Professional Services, we estimate an increase of $62,000, from

$87,000 now to $149,000 under the new system.

Now, there will be approximately 150 autopsies a year

performed by outside pathologists, in other words, ones not directly employed,

and the two directly employed are Dr. Avis, who is the Chief Forensic

Pathologist, or the Chief Medial Examiner under the new one, and Dr. Hutton is

back on a part-time basis with us. He retired on a full-time basis, but I am

happy to say he is still working with us approximately half-time on a part-time

basis. We understand it will cost about $50,000 a year at $335 a case. That is

apparently the fee scale for an autopsy, and we have also budgeted for increased

medical specialist fees where we need them, so that is included in these

amounts.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: No, from $87,000 up to $149.000. These are

estimates for a full year. My hon. friend probably has last year's estimates.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Yes. We estimate this year it is $87,000 and

under the new system it will be $149,000. I am happy to give these to my friend

and let him deal with them as he sees fit. We are budgeting an increase as part

of that subhead for the medical examiners' fees, because remember now, there

will be medical examiners throughout the Province, and we estimate that will

cost us about $75,000, so you add together the two items, the autopsy fees and

the medical examiners' fees and you come to $149,000. The Purchased Services

will be down somewhat, from $119,000 to $92,000, and the Property and Equipment,

the stuff they need, the real property idea, will be the same at 5K, so the

totals are marginally less.

Now, are these figures correct? I cannot say. They are the

figures that have been provided by my officials and they have been checked by

Treasury Board.

MR. HARRIS: May I, Mr. Speaker?

MR. ROBERTS: I will yield, of course.

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

leave.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I was interested that the actual figures for the operation of

the Medical Examiner's Office is in fact cheaper. Although the minister has read

out the figures, he hasn't told us why it would be cheaper, other than perhaps

government cost-cutting. I could see how the transportation costs would be down

because there will be medical examiners around the Province, and therefore, the

very expensive cost of transporting bodies to St. John's for an autopsy, for

example, I can see that being cut down. My thought was that the cost-cutting

might be on the other end, on the judicial inquiry end, and on the prosecutions

end of the Department of Justice where, if a proper investigation is done at the

beginning, there will be less call for judicial inquiries, perhaps, if the

medical examiner is doing a very thorough job, and also at the prosecutorial

end, more efficient prosecutions and having less witnesses and people waiting

around to testify and things like that.

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

MR. ROBERTS: That cost is not one we factored in because

we don't keep our records. We don't keep a record of an individual prosecution,

how much it cost for the prosecution or, for that matter, an inquiry. The Crown

attorneys don't keep track of their time that way, perhaps they should. I have

been trying to bring a time recording and management system into the Justice

Department and my friend laughs, I tend with him to share his view, I mean it is

a difficult process, but we are getting there.

Certainly, he and I - I in a previous existence and he in his

present part-time existence, recording time is a fact of life for lawyers, it is

really all that we have to sell, as with plumbers, prostitutes and surgeons, we

sell our services by the each. The others, I would say, for the benefit of the

non-lawyers here, you give value for money, I make no comment about lawyers. But

the difference with respect to the direct costs, the costs that are shown in the

estimates that I bring to the House each year, is that we anticipate fewer

autopsies.

There are now many needless autopsies being conducted. The

medical examiners will see them. We estimate an autopsy of $335 and a medical

examiner, we estimate at $100 to dispose of a case on a non-autopsy basis. So, I

am told - now, a year from now, if I am here, I may have to say these figures

prove to be incorrect, but I mean, this is what I am given, and as I have no

reason to question, I accept them.

With that said, Mr. Speaker, I move the bill be read a second

time.

On motion, a bill, "An Act Respecting The Investigation of

Fatalities", read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole

House on -

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I -

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow?

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you. I move, pursuant to Standing

Order 54.23, that the bill entitled, "An Act Respecting The Investigation of

Fatalities" be referred to the Social Services Committee, and that motion, if

accepted, the Standing Order will provide when it can come back to the House. I

so move, Sir.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that this bill be

now referred to the Social Services Committee.

All those in favour?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

Motion, carried.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Would you be good enough to call the next

Order, Sir? It is Order No. 27, Bill No. 40, The Leaseholds in St. John's Act.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The

Leaseholds In St. John's Act", (Bill No.40).

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

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This bill, I trust, will not require much time of the House.

Last year about this time, we adopted a bill which was an amendment to The

Leaseholds In St. John's Act that, in my view - and I may add, everything that I

have heard since then, confirms that the view was a good one - disposed once and

for all, we hope, of the problem we inherited in this Province from the land

tenure system that was formerly in use in St. John's.

England, they long ago got into the habit of very long-term leases. Land in

England is frequently let on very long-term leases, 99 or even as long as 999

years, and that practice grew up here particularly after the great fire in 1892

in St. John's. Much of the land in the older part of the city, say generally

speaking in the area below LeMarchant Road, was held by people who had long

since departed this place and gone to England, held by estates and what have

you, and after the fire, many of the building lots owned by people in England

were let again on 99 year leases with very nominal rents, $2, $4, $10, $12 a

year, a lot more in 1892 than today but, with the freehold being held by the

people in England, and always the possibility that when the lease came out, the

freeholder would come in and not renew the lease.

Well, as long ago as what - sixty, seventy years ago, the

House began to address this by passing the legislation we now know, or our

predecessor legislation we now know as The Leasehold In St. John's Act, and one

legislative attempt after another made some progress but uncovered further

difficulties. And the members from the St. John's constituencies, I suspect,

have run into these from time to time. Certainly, anybody who has practised law

in this city, even in a non-conveyancing practice, as did I, has run into it on

occasion.

MR. HARRIS: It is a nightmare.

MR. ROBERTS: My friend, the Member for St. John's East

says it is a nightmare, and he is right. It is a very old-fashioned, antiquated,

ineffective and altogether quite useless system.

So, a year or so ago, my colleagues and I decided to bite the

bullet by bringing in a new bill, and the bill was adopted by the House about a

year ago. That bill, simply put, vests all the freehold titles, the reversionary

interests in respect of all of this land, in the City of St. John's, the body

corporate, and it provides that the people who own the freehold interest, if you

wish those entitled to receive the rent and at the end of the lease, were it not

for the act, to receive back the land, that those people go to the City and

collect their bit of rent in accordance with the formula that was first brought

in, I guess, thirty or forty years ago - twenty times on modern leases, forty

times annual ground rent on ancient leases - and that seems to work very well.

Now, a year ago the House, at my request, adopted the bill

and, again at my request, put a one-year sort of suspension on it before it came

into effect. It is to come into effect on January 1, 1996. The idea was to

allow, first of all, the City to come forward with detailed comments if they

wished and, secondly, anybody else to come forward. My understanding is that

nobody has come forward except the City, and I can say that these amendments now

before the House have been developed by my officials in consultation with

officials from the City of St. John's.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, of course.

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

MR. E. BYRNE: (Inaudible) land that is within the city

now, farmland, where there are long-term leases. Would there be any negative

impact as a result of this bill, or would it be more of a positive sort of

situation, from your point of view?

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, in my understanding, and I will

ask my officials to double check the point - I don't hold myself out as an

expert in any area of law, and particularly this one - the Leaseholds Act

applies, first of all, to building leases, so-called, so by definition it would

not apply to agricultural leases, but I will double check that. That being so,

assuming that statement is correct, then there would be no application, but the

leases to which my friend, the Member for Kilbride refers would be normal

commercial transactions. This doesn't apply to commercial leases either, except

in very special circumstances. Generally speaking, and we have seen a lot of

litigation on this, somebody who owns a commercial lease is not entitled to get

the freehold for the twenty or forty times annual figures. They are entitled to

get the freehold, but on a much different basis, essentially the true commercial

value at a current date.

Mr. Speaker, to finish the point, these sections here are

very technical. If the House wishes, I would be delighted to try to expand upon

them, but if not, I can simply assure the House:

a) In my judgement, as the

Crown's chief law officer for the moment, and on the advice of my officials and,

I understand, with the concurrence of the City of St. John's officials, these

represent an agreed approach and, if accepted, would enable the bill to take

effect on January 1, and we hope will once and for all put an end to this vexing

problem that affects a fairly large number of people and is quite troubling. It

can be a very difficult issue when you are trying to work it through. At the

very least, it runs up big legal fees where none are needed, and at the very

most, it causes aggravation and causes people to worry about titles to their

homes, and that type of issue, and that is not something people really should

have to be troubled about in this day and age. So I would urge the House to

adopt the bill. If there are detailed questions, I would be happy to try to

answer them.

Thank you, Sir.

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

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As the minister has already stated, I don't know if it was in

the last spring session or the last Fall session, in December, we passed, I

think, two or three amendments pertaining to this particular problem with regard

to freehold and leases and so on, especially around the St. John's area. And, as

the minister stated, it has to do with residential - primarily with residential.

However, in the first explanatory note, the last part of the paragraph, the

amendment would remove the requirements that the land had to be vacant land.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: Yes.

It is funny when you read some of the legislation here that

has been introduced in the House. I remember back in 1975 when I became the

mayor of a small community on the West Coast of the Province. Members around the

Province, and the Minister of Justice, especially, are probably fully aware, of

the 1945 settlement of the community of Cormack.

MR. ROBERTS: Under the old land grants.

MR. WOODFORD: Under the old land grants act. I had people

coming from all directions with problems, especially when they came in looking

for building permits. They went to their banks to try to get mortgages to build

homes. When they did the title searches they had no titles. They figured they

owned everything. What happened in those days was they gave them, say fifty

acres, a fifty-acre farm, but they only gave them a grant, after they cleared x

number of acres, on twenty acres for instance. I used the fifty-acre one and

they gave the grant on twenty acres.

After so long, five, ten, or after they had a percentage of

that particular land cleared, they would get title, they would get the right to

work the other thirty acres, and thereby get a grant to it. However, a lot of

those people never ever bothered. They figured that they had the fifty acres and

that was it. They worked their twenty, then worked their fifty. They kept on

clearing land, and over the years just took it for granted that they had title

to this particular property.

Lo and behold, when they started to move from different areas

of the community of Cormack back on to the main road through Cormack and so on,

and all throughout the byroads, started to build and went to try to get

mortgages and so on, they finally found out that they had absolutely no title to

the property. Now, from 1945 to 1975, Mr. Speaker, a lot of things happened, a

lot of people passed away. A lot of family members, even some families, left the

community completely. At that time it was just word of mouth or just a signature

here or there and you pass along a piece of property. I think, within the first

four years there was something like, I think it was, sixty-two cases that came

to my attention in the community, along those lines, people who figured they had

title and didn't.

Also in the community, someone mentioned - I think the Member

for Kilbride - the fact about the agricultural land. In that particular area,

and other areas in the Province, there is a new lease. The Department of

Agriculture came up with a new lease agreement - especially as it pertains to

agricultural land; it was in the late 1970s, I believe, or early 1980s - whereby

there are no more grants for agriculture. You get a fifteen-year lease. It is

what they call a short-term lease. You had to have 25 per cent of your land

cleared within a particular period of time; I think it was within the first five

years. If not that particular land reverted to the Crown, unless you could prove

that there was sickness or something like that in the family, or some other

really good reason whereby that particular land couldn't be worked.

The longest lease to do with agriculture in the Province

today is a fifty-year lease. That is a long-term lease that the government will

afford to an agricultural producer in the Province because of - say for

argument's sake someone is going to invest in a dairy business, or a broiler

business, which could cost up $1 million. You are talking about fairly big sums

of money. The Farm Credit Corporation especially, and now Enterprise

Newfoundland and Labrador where the Farm Loan Board is administered, they are

not going to loan money - no financial institution in this country is going to

loan money if, when they look at an individual coming in to look for, say,

$700,000, $800,000, and they don't have a title, because a grant is a grant is a

grant. That is what was always told us when we started first, and it is.

But a lease, the first thing the financial institutions will

say is: If you don't meet the conditions of this lease, you could lose your

property, so we have nothing. It is no good for you to offer me 200 acres of

land for collateral when someone else really holds title to it.

This is where a lot of farmers in the Province ran into

problems. I am saying that to just draw reference and use it as an analogy in

this case. In St. John's, some of the leases were ninety-nine year leases, I

understand, and probably longer. It goes right back to colonial days and the

people from Britain when they came over here first got it, grabbing up the land

and keeping it, and holding it forever and a day.

Getting back to the substance of this bill, I understand now

- the minister can correct me if I'm wrong when he stands to close debate - that

after this bill is finished, this passes all jurisdiction for those particular

freehold leased properties over to the City of St. John's.

MR. ROBERTS: Not the jurisdiction (inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: The freehold.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: Yes, in order to grant them title. The City

owns it, so the City can convey title to an individual.

MR. ROBERTS: Plus if they (inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: Meets a condition, yes but there is one - I

have been told that there are some twenty to thirty, maybe more; I know my

so-called learned friends in the House can definitely confirm that there are

some twenty or thirty names on some of those properties. As the Member for St.

John's East said before, it is a nightmare. It must be a real nightmare in

dealing with it. So this will now give, as I said and the minister has

confirmed, that the City of St. John's - people will be able to go to the City

and they will be able to look after the title to a particular piece of property.

There is one

section here, clause - the second explanatory

note, minister, that would also amend the definition of `building' to exclude

mobile homes and trailers. Would you - you can either do it now or later on -

explain that, because to me, a mobile home on a piece of property, I know it can

be moved but why, when passing this over, would it exclude that? It would still

cause some problems. So you can probably - I have my own beliefs on it but you

can give me yours.

MR. ROBERTS: By leave?

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend. The

amendment does what he holds it out to do. It would not extend the protection of

this act to a mobile home or a trailer. Now, the reason for that is very simple;

the act was intended right from the start, the Leaseholds in St. John's Act, to

deal not with the usual, not with trailer parks as such, but to deal with a

situation whereby - and I don't think any leases like this entered into it for

fifty or sixty years but we are dealing with a situation whereby one - instead

of buying a piece of land, which would be the normal way one would do it today,

in building a house or buying a house with the freehold land, where one acquired

a piece of land under the so-called building lease. In fact, the old act spoke

of building leases. You got the land so you could build a house on it and you

paid a very nominal annual rent which I have seen them as low as two dollars or

four dollars.

Now, the conclusion we have or the view we have is that a

mobile home that goes in - I don't know, I will just take a name which may or

may not be a correct one - the Annjeanette Trailer Park is different from

somebody on Casey Street whose predecessors entitled in 1893, took a building

piece of land. So it is simply a policy differentiation. We are not trying to

give people with mobile homes the right to acquire the freehold title because

their whole deal with the owner of the freehold title is a different one from

the leaseholds in St. John's that we are trying to address.

Now, I can be much more technical if my friend wants, but I

have tried to answer his question. I hope I have.

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

MR. WOODFORD: Well, to a certain extent, Mr. Speaker, but

I can see the difference between a trailer park and an individual who uses a

trailer as a home on a particular - say for instance, a 20,000 square foot block

or whatever, an acre or two acres, if that is their land and that is their home,

because some people live now for ever and a day in mobile -

MR. ROBERTS: They have to have some title in order to put

a trailer on it.

MR. WOODFORD: Yes, they have to have some title, but am I

to understand now that anything - so what about a trailer in a trailer park,

what would happen? The -

MR. ROBERTS: The trailer park would not be affected by

this, first or last.

MR. WOODFORD: It would not be affected.

MR. ROBERTS: And we want to make sure it isn't.

MR. WOODFORD: Yes. And also, from talking with some other

officials, this is one of the clauses and one of the sections of the act that

was probably not agreed to by the City of St. John's probably or one put in

there by the Department of Justice, in their judgement, when they did up this

particular act?

MR. ROBERTS: I have had no direct dealings with the City

but my understanding is that the City has, at the very least, raised no

objection to any of these.

MR. WOODFORD: Yes, but from my understanding, and when he

checks with his officials later on - I understand that this was not one of the

things that they suggested would go in there. But all the rest, as the minister

stated, has been done in conjunction with the City. It will make it a lot less

cumbersome for the individuals and the City themselves, rather than to be coming

back and forth to the Crown, the Department of Justice or whatever.

Mr. Speaker, without any further debate on this particular

piece of legislation, as far as I am concerned, it can pass second reading. I

know there are other gentlemen who want to have some comment. There is one other

thing the minister - I believe he has already mentioned it. When does this come

into effect? I think it is January.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: January 1.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. ROBERTS: With leave, I will deal with the last point.

The bill will come into effect simultaneously with the 1994 act. I just checked.

The 1994 act is subject to proclamation. It is, I believe, the intention to

proclaim both with effect from 1 January 1996, but that remains - one will have

to get through the paperwork. But a.s.a.p., to get the new scheme up and

running.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise with a few remarks on this particular amendment to the

Leaseholds In St. John's Act. The previous members, of course, have spoken, and

the minister referred to the leases that we are talking about here as building

leases. That is the important distinction here. These are leases of land, mostly

since 1891, in which one of the requirements of the lease was that the person

taking on the lease was required to build a house on the land within a certain

period of time. Although the rents may be nominal now - some of $4 a year, $6 a

year, in some cases $10 or $12 a year - they were by no means nominal in those

days when the houses themselves were selling for $800 or $600 or $300 or $1,200.

What has grown up, though, is that in 1984, for example, when

I was buying my house on Queen's Road, the house was subject to an 1893 lease

that was leased to some person. When I say a nightmare, when I used the word

`nightmare' before, in order to search title to that property - the leasehold

interest had been divided up into one hundred and twenty-eighths.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Yes, I have seen that title, too, that there

were 2,156 interests, or units, and someone may have owned ten of those, or half

of them, or a quarter of them, but it got that small. So it is a nightmare in

the sense of - as the minister said, it unduly increases the legal expense of

people dealing in those properties.

Quite often, even though the law said for some years that you

were entitled to obtain the freehold upon payment of forty times the ground rent

in case of the ancient leases, there were legal roadblocks, technical

roadblocks, financial roadblocks put in the way of people buying out these

freeholds for various reasons by owners of a portion of the leasehold interest.

Those of you who are familiar with old St. John's will

remember people talking about the absentee landlords. These were the people who

perhaps lived here one time, perhaps never did, but managed to get a grant of

certain land from King George or one of these people.

AN HON. MEMBER: They never ever came ashore, a lot of

them.

MR. HARRIS: Some of them never ever came ashore. Some of

them may have been ashore for a few years and got a grant from the governor of a

certain piece of land, and their descendants over in England have been

collecting rents on them for 150 years.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Wood and Kelly.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Yes, well, I would say to the hon. member

that having dealings with these leases has caused a tremendous amount of

hardship, and it has caused a lot of people in the legal profession to turn

grey, I may say, not just Mr. Wood and Mr. Kelly.

It has also caused a lot of trouble to householders who are

concerned about what might happen when their leases expire. Because many of

these leases have already expired, and it is only through the good graces of

legislation in the past two, three and four years in this House that these

leases have been continued, and some of the landlords, or some of their lawyers,

have been pretty creative and inventive in finding ways of stopping people from

getting access through the leasehold interest.

This bill, and its coming into force in January, provides a

very sensible resolution to it. If all of this ancient and modern leasehold land

vests in the City, it provides for the owners of the freehold interest getting

their money from the City upon demand, and it provides for the person holding

the leasehold interest to obtain his title from the City and obtain, in return,

a deed from the City so that he can have full access to his freehold land. And

it has caused - the minister has mentioned that it caused needless legal

expense, but quite often it was the amount of time that it took. You couldn't,

in fairness, charge to an individual when you were dealing with basically the

purchase of $1,000 freehold -

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) lawyer not able to charge

(inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I only wanted to say it so that hon. members

would know that lawyers don't always charge for all of their time. that

MR. ROBERTS: Be careful or you will get into lawyer

jokes.

MR. TOBIN: They charge too much for the time they spend

at it. There should be a cap on it - $5 an hour, maximum.

MR. HARRIS: I recognize the wisdom in what the Minister

of Justice is saying, based on the comments coming to my left, but I do say that

it is not only a nightmare for lawyers, but also a great nuisance for them and

for their clients in trying to get their property straightened out.

Now, there are a couple of features of this amendment that

are of great interest. Clause 2 provides for circumstances where there may be

overlapping leases underneath the house, and I am aware of a few cases of that,

and there may also be land that does not presently have a house on it, but in

fact may have at one time been leasehold land - the house may have been torn

down - and is now being used as a side yard or a backyard or a garden that is

associated with the house, and because it doesn't strictly conform to the

Leaseholds in St. John's Act, and the person who is occupying the property

cannot actually prove that there was a house on the property, the difficulties

that ensue there have been fixed up by clause 2. There are certain arcane

interpretations of clause 2 that may cause problems. We may have to wait and see

whether or not this actually works in a particular instance.

I have a concern, though, I say to the minister, about

section 4. There is a change from a payment for a lease being a charge on a

property, to an assessment.

MR. ROBERTS: That is at the City's request.

MR. HARRIS: Yes, I understand that. If it remains on the

books as a charge against the property, I have no difficulty with that, but by

calling it an assessment, does that invoke interest charges? That is what

concerns me.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) within

section 28l of the City

of St. John's Act.

MR. HARRIS: Yes.

MR. WOODFORD: Well, a municipality can charge interest

anyway on land that has been assessed, up to six years, under the Municipalities

Act.

MR. HARRIS: Yes, but my concern here is that what we are

doing is allowing the -

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) and I will deal with that.

MR. HARRIS: Well, if I may explain this, the land vests

in the City, and then the costs of that land become a charge against the

taxpayer, so if someone is looking for a tax receipt, or looking for a mortgage,

or looking at transferring the land, that would be cleared off as a debt against

the property at that time. What I am wondering - because the City charges a

reasonably high interest rate on overdue taxes for the purposes of encouraging

people to keep their taxes current.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: Prime plus three.

MR. HARRIS: Prime plus three, I am told. I am just

wondering, is that going to start running up big costs to householders who may

not be in a position to buy out the freehold as of January 1, 1996, and will end

up having a whack of interest added on to the value of the freehold until they

are in a position to actually buy it. I haven't compared that to the City of St.

John's Act but it seems to me that that's a difference from last year's act that

I hadn't considered when reviewing this, and it appears that one of the

implications of that may be, that a householder will now be subject to an

interest charge by the city on this assessment. Perhaps the minister can deal

with that -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I will let the minister deal with that when I

conclude my remarks.

I don't have very much more to say about it. I think there

was a particular instance, as I said a particular circumstance that caused me

concern this time last year, this legislation goes some way in dealing with

that; I am not certain that it deals with the actual technicality of the

particular individual's circumstance. I will find out though before we get to

third reading and if I am advised that this wording will still cause problems, I

will discuss it with the minister and see whether or not a technical wording

change may indeed deal with the problem where in a particular case, a part of a

house is on one lease and part of a house is on another and the second lease may

be a portion of a building lease held in fact by a third party.

I don't know enough about the actual specifics of it to deal

with it at this stage but we are dealing with it at second reading and in

principle, I agree with the changes that are made here, I think that the system

is workable with the city as nominal landlord or holder of the freehold, I think

the city will be a reasonable party to deal with in terms of householders

obtaining the freehold and there won't be the same kind of difficulties or road

blocks placed in people's way in obtaining the freehold to their property. I am

glad that the city having reviewed it finds the system acceptable and workable

within their framework. They have of course, as members from St. John's would

know, over the last number of years, engaged staff to assist householders in

acquiring the freehold and they have managed to clear up a fair number of

leasehold titles in the city and of course their work has also pointed out a

number of difficulties that had been addressed in last year's act and now in

this amendment here today, so with those comments, Mr. Speaker, I support the

bill in principle and would urge all hon. members to pass it.

Someone said that they thought I might deal with the word

`vacant', why the word vacant is being struck out in

section 2.1(A). That had to

do with the definition of the building lease and it gave rise because it said

that it was the lease of vacant land on which you were required to build a

house, and that gave rise to some people being required to prove that the land

was in fact vacant at the time that the lease was entered into; and the lease

may have been entered into on December 1, 1892, and how would you prove that the

land was in fact vacant in 1892 and some of the wordings of the leases were such

that it was pretty clear that the lease was actually entered into after the

person had started building the house so it could hardly be considered vacant at

that time, so there were certain little anomalies that crept up as a result of

these

interpretations and now there is no necessity to prove that the land was

vacant at the time of the lease being entered into.

There is a lot of technicalities of course in this

legislation but in principle, the legislation is good and ameliorative and

progressive legislation and I urge members to support it.

MR. WOODFORD: Will the minister permit me one

(inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, of course.

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

leave.

MR. WOODFORD: Something just came to mind and it is a

good time now so when the minister gets up, he can address it.

It is probably altogether and different and under the regular

Crown Lands Act. There is something that comes to mind now that I have run into

over the years and maybe one of the members, the Member for St. John's East or

the Minister of Justice can answer.

For instance, under the Crown Lands Act, if an individual,

say for instance in my area, Cormack, cannot prove, if he has no title to his

property and it goes back, and I understand there was an amendment to the Crown

Lands Act in 1987, anything before, I think it was October 7, 1987, any land

that was not - what did they call it?

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) title.

MR. WOODFORD: Yes, but you don't go Quieting of Titles, I

just forget now exactly the -

AN HON. MEMBER: Squatters rights.

MR. WOODFORD: Squatters rights, that's it.

MR. HARRIS: Squatters rights against the Crown.

MR. WOODFORD: Yes, and before then and even after then

you had to prove -

AN HON. MEMBER: Twenty years.

MR. WOODFORD: Yes, twenty years, the previous twenty

years that you had worked it for instance, you had to go find a fence or a

corner post or something. I know I have had a lot of individuals go through the

Quieting Of Titles Act in order to prove that before the Crown would give them

anything. Does this come in there at all or is that altogether different? It is

altogether different, okay. It has nothing to do with that.

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. minister speaks now he closes

debate.

The hon. the Minister of Justice.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, in response to the gentleman

for Humber Valley, I say to my friend that this act has no bearing at all upon

the situation he describes. The Legislature in 1987, if memory serves me, ended

the running of prescriptive rights as against the Crown. They still apply as

between, or among private parties, but they preserved the rights that were in

place at that time if one had acquired prescriptive rights against the Crown,

but they no longer can run, and the reason for that in my understanding and in

my judgement is a sound one, is that there is so much Crown land in the Province

that it is unfair to expose the Crown to having people squat, as it were,

against it. Anyway, this bill has no bearing.

I think the only point I need to refer to is the one raised

by my friend for St. John's East who, while he is not in the Chamber at the

moment, I assume will hear what I have to say, and that deals with the suggested

Section 4. Now, that repeals

Section 5 (1) of the act we adopted last year. I am

sorry, 5.1 (1) to be precise, and 5.1 (1) last year gave the city a lien on the

property. Now, where land vests in the city - I am reading 5.1 (1) as it was

enacted last year, where land vests in the city under

Section 2.1 the

compensation that the city has paid the lessor shall attach to the land. In

other words it became a lien and ran with the land. We have changed that into an

assessment.

Now, my friend was concerned that somehow that might expose

people, the lessee, the person who has the leasehold interest and who wishes to

obtain the freehold from the city, to something unfair, and the answer is it

isn't because the obligation to pay the city does not arise until the city pays

out to the freeholder, at which stage it is only right and proper that the

leaseholder who will then get the freehold, should compensate the city. The city

is not meant to act as a banker for people holding leases. These amounts are

relatively small and we will leave it to the city to make whatever arrangements

they want. I understand from time to time in the past the City of St. John's has

offered extended credit terms to individuals in this situation, but that is for

the city.

The effect of the legislation would be to end the lien and

replace it with an assessment, and we have done that at the request of the city

officials. We accept it as being a valid request and I am told that this engages

Section 281 of the City of St. John's Act which deals with assessments and their

application, so I think it is a fair provision. The basic scheme of the act is

all leaseholds will vest in the city upon proclamation and then when the

individual leaseholder wants to come forward he or she can get the title and

then has to pay, and then the individual freeholder can come forward at whatever

time and collect the amount properly due to them under the terms of the act, so

we are not confiscating anything, we are just simply cleaning up a long-standing

anomaly that has caused a lot of grief and no good at all.

With that said, Sir, I move that the bill be read a second

time.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Leaseholds In St.

John's Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole

House.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I move pursuant to Standing

Order 54.2 (3) that the bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The Leaseholds In St.

John's Act," be referred to the Social Services Committee.

MR. SPEAKER: It has been moved that the bill be referred

to a committee, carried.

MR. ROBERTS: Your Honour, would you be good enough to

please call Order 28 on today's Order Paper, the Limitations Bill?

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

Respecting Limitations." (Bill No. 38)

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, this bill is a very technical

one in some ways.

MR. SPEAKER: Probably, before the minister gets into full

flight in his speech, and I would not want to interrupt him at 4:00 o'clock, I

can now read the questions for the Late Show. Question number one is to the

Minister of Works, Services and Transportation: re my question on

inter-provincial ferry rates and it is from the Member for St. John's East

Extern. Question number two is to the Minister of Fisheries, Food and

Agriculture and it is in regard to caplin harvesting and it is from the Member

for Bonavista South. The third question is to the Minister of Justice on air

traffic control from the hon. Member for Kilbride.

The hon. the Minister of Justice.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I say to my friend from

Exploits that he should give the gentleman from Kilbride another opportunity to

show he knows nothing about this.

Mr. Speaker, I move second reading of the bill and in doing

so let me very briefly describe what is in it.

When my friend from St. John's South is ready we will deal

with the limitations of which we have all evidenced. Mr. Speaker, if the House

wishes to pass the bill without any debate I am prepared to but I will say this

is not an unimportant bill. I believe it is a very good bill.

Mr. Speaker, the bill, in my judgement, implements a long

overdue reform of a much studied and a very much debated area of the law. The

limitations to which the title refers and with which the bill deals are the

limits prescribed by law within which the time limits - within which one must

begin a lawsuit and in this Province, generally speaking, one begins a lawsuit

by issuing a document called a statement of claim. By simply preparing it,

taking it to the registry of the court, filing a copy, having it noted received

and from then the rules of the court and the substantive provisions of statutes

take over.

The bill deals with the period within which a party to a

lawsuit, be it an individual, a group or an incorporated body must start the

action.

Now, Mr. Speaker, there are a number of very significant

points in this which I would draw to the attention of the House. First of all,

the act applies to the Crown and that is provided in

Section 4. Now, Mr.

Speaker, that is a very great step forward, in my opinion. Traditionally the

Crown, because the Crown was the law, in our legislative and political theory,

constitutional theory, the Crown is the law. The Crown is above the law unless

the Crown subjects itself to the law. Traditionally the Crown was not bound by

any law including, in this instance, the limitation periods. Now what that meant

is if Your Honour had the misfortune to incur a debt to the Crown 104 years ago

when Your Honour was a very young man indeed, the Crown even today, can still

maintain a proceeding in debt and yet, if it is a debt among private parties

very different limitation periods apply. Well we are ending that. We are asking

the House to end that. If this bill becomes law the Crown will be subject to the

same limitation periods as any other person in this Province. The Crown will

stand before the courts of this Province and in the eyes of the law of this

Province, in this regard on exactly the same basis as any other person, be that

a natural person or a body corporate recognized by law as having a personality.

I think that is a step forward and I commend it to the House.

The general scheme laid out by the act is found in part one

which begins with

Section 5. It provides as a rule, three separate types of

limitation periods. There is a two year period, that is found in

Section 5.

There is a six year period, that is found in

Section 10. There is a ten year

period which is found in

Section 7. These differ in some instances from the

present law but we suggest they are all united by a principle.

If my friend from Placentia really does not mind could he

please carry on his - I am sorry, I can yell but it does not help and the hon.

gentleman has the most penetrating voice, as he demonstrates to us on occasion.

But there is a principle underlying all of these and I would

refer members to the report, a very extensive report of the Law Reform

Commission, if they wish to get into it. The Law Reform Commission did a great

deal of work on this but we are grouping causes of action, generally speaking,

into three groups; two years, six years and ten years and that is spelled out in

detail in each of the individual sections.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of actions for which there is

no limitation period. These are set out in

section 8. The first group in 8(1)

are court actions and personal actions, such things as a declaration as to

personal status. Is one married, for example. One can go to court and get a

declaration as to whether one is married. That can be very useful. That is not a

divorce. That is a different thing altogether than a divorce proceeding. Forcing

an injunction. There is no limit on the time period for enforcing - if an

injunction stands it can be enforced as long as it stands. For declaring title

to property. These are items which I suggest in themselves commend themselves to

this.

Even more significantly I draw members' attention to 8(2),

that: "Notwithstanding sections 5, 6, 7, 9 and 22, where a person who commits

misconduct of a sexual nature against another person..." is in a position of

trust, or has a financial or other dependency relationship, or has charge of the

person, there is no limitation for the bringing of an action - and we are

talking civil actions - the bringing of a civil action arising from that

misconduct.

What that would mean, to take an example which is only too

real in the recollection of members of this House, and the people of the

Province, is the Mount Cashel incidents. Some of these are before the courts so

I won't talk about them in detail, but many of these arise out of conduct which

occurred twenty years ago. Normally they would be caught by the two-year rule,

because these are actions based in tort. But given that some cases at least,

arguably, and I don't want to get into the merits of any individual actions for

proper reasons, but arguably for the purpose of this these actions arise out of

a situation where there was a fiduciary, a trust relationship. There is no bar

at all on the limitation periods in respect to those actions. Whenever they come

to light then they have to be dealt with.

Those are the general period, the general rules.

Section 9 is

a catch-all

section that says if any cause of action that is not caught by one

of the other specific sections shall be six years. That is the fall back

section. So if for some reason a cause of action is not covered - and new causes

of action are being invented all the time by the courts or by statute, so we've

put in that catch-all provision.

There are three other principles which apply to limitation

periods.

Section 13 tells us when a cause of action arises. I suggest to this

House this is simply a restatement of the existing common law as it applies

today in Newfoundland and Labrador. That says when the cause of action arises.

What does that mean? To give an obvious example, a cause of action for a

tortious claim arising out of being run down by a motor vehicle occurs when one

is run down. But then there could be others. That is the basic principle.

Then we come to what we call the discoverability section, and

this is number 14. Where one doesn't know or cannot know that a cause of action

has arisen then the time limit doesn't begin to run. The way we put it here, and

I'm reading now from the last part of

section 14(1): "...the limitation period

fixed by this Act does not begin to run against a person until he or she knows

or, considering all circumstances of the matter, ought to know that he or she

has a cause of action." That is the discoverability rule.

I'm not sure it has ever been written in a statute in this

Province before but it has been developed by the courts, including the Supreme

Court of Canada, over the years. It makes very good common sense. If you don't

know you've been hurt contractually, for argument's sake, the six year period

which applies to contract actions doesn't begin to run until you know or, and

I'm paraphrasing now, could reasonably have known that you had a cause of

action. That is a very straightforward and I think a very appropriate rule.

But there is a ten-year cap on that. You have to discover

within ten years. Why ten years? That is a balancing. The whole law of

limitations is a balancing between the right of the person who is aggrieved and

has a cause of action to seek redress by means of a lawsuit, on one hand; and on

the other hand, the right of the person who is responsible, or who is the

defendant in the proceeding, to get on with one's life. There has to be an end

to everything.

The other principle, of course, that varies this is what we

call a disability rule, and that is

section 15, where a person is under a

disability, and there can be different types of disability. There is a

disability of age, there is a disability of lack of mental capacity, and these

are all dealt with in here. You will note a most interesting exception, 5(c),

and I am reading

section 15.5(c), dealing with sexual misconduct, and that

addresses what I understand from the best of authorities, from the courts and

from the academic work, is the reality of the situation. Again, the

discoverability rule applies in the case of sexual misconduct only when one is

capable of realizing one has been sexually maltreated. The literature, I am

told, and the case law, is filled with cases where people come forward after

twenty or thirty years and bring a case, and it turns out it is well-founded.

The theme running through this act, very clearly, is those

who wreak sexual misconduct, those who inflict sexual wrongs upon others, are

never going to get away civilly. They can be held to account, under the law,

whenever it comes forward, and we believe that is a very appropriate principle,

and there are two applications. One is the trust situation is forever. The

second is the discoverability one, where it doesn't begin to run until one can

be aware of it, and that applies whether it is a trust situation or not, and

members will know that the fiduciary relationship has been extended quite widely

by the courts.

Mr. Speaker, there are special rules for land. They are set

out in sections 19 through 21, and these again are essentially a restatement of

either common law or existing statute law. I can go through them in detail if

one wants, but I suspect members would just as soon be spared that. No lawyer

would find these to be strange or unusual, in my understanding.

That brings us to what I call the long stop. There is an

ultimate limitation period which overrides the discoverability rule and

everything else, overrides everything except the sexual assault in the fiduciary

relationship situation, and that is thirty years, so there is a thirty-year long

stop rule. Now, I may have confused members very thoroughly, but the scheme is

quite simple. The discoverability postpones the running of the term, but there

is still an ultimate thirty-year limit. In other words, if I hurt somebody

thirty years ago, and it is not discovered for that period, then I am away, as

it were; I cannot be sued. There has to be an end somewhere in this world, and

that is what the end is, and that is what

section 22 says.

Section 22, the

drafters put it in legal terms; I have tried to explain it in, I hope, equally

correct but non-legal terms.

Another feature of the act that I commend (inaudible) because

it is a change in the substantive law, is that we are changing the age at which

minors can be held liable for contracts. The common law, which is still in

effect in this Province, is that somebody under the age of nineteen cannot be

held liable for a contract which he or she makes, although he or she can hold

the other party to it liable. In other words, if a seventeen-year-old child goes

out and buys a motor vehicle they cannot be held liable to pay for it, although

they can sue the dealer. In other words, it is a one-sided contract, and that

reflects the old concept that somebody under the age of majority, which was

twenty-one and is now nineteen in this Province, wasn't able to carry on his or

her affairs.

Section 25 makes it clear, it is sixteen. Somebody who is sixteen

years old can be held to a written contract, and that is what

section 25 says.

It is a change in the law. Again, we believe it is a reasonable one.

Mr. Speaker, the other point I draw to members' attention is

the consequential amendment section,

section 30, which amends a number of

special sections which appear in the various professional incorporation acts.

By-and-large, we are not varying any of them, particularly when one takes into

effect the discoverability rule which, although it is not yet in statute, is

very much part of the law, the effect of these will be to make them uniform, so

if - and I just single this out; I don't have a knowledge of a direct exception,

but if, for example, the Optometry act had some different provisions than the

general limitations rule respecting actions against optometrists, or arising out

of optometrical services, then those will go, and the special ones will go. The

general one will prevail. We think that is a sound principle, too. Again, the

Law Reform Commission, in my recollection, recommended that. So, we are amending

the special limitation ones that have crept into our statutes over the years.

From now on, all the statute law of this Province with respect to limitations

will be in this one act.

I think the act is a significant step forward, Mr. Speaker.

It is not one that we are going to have public meetings about or petitions

about, but it is one which I believe will represent an advance in the

administration of the affairs of people who live and work and do their business

in this Province.

The only other comment I would make before I move second

reading, Sir, is that we shall ask to have this bill, too, referred to a

Standing Committee. There may well be groups who wish to be heard on detailed

provisions, and the Standing Committee mechanism affords them an opportunity to

do so. Nobody can say this bill is new. The speaking notes I've been given,

which I haven't referred to, said that the first draft working paper on

limitations of actions was made public by the Law Reform Commission in 1985, all

460 pages of it, and their final report was filed in December 1986. I don't

think anybody can say we are taking them by surprise on this one. This project

has been on the go for at least ten years, and, in my view, it is time we

brought it to an end. With that said, I move the bill be read a second time.

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

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I found it rather interesting, to say the least, when I

started to do a little bit of research on this particular piece of legislation.

I can understand when the minister says that it has been on the go for some ten

years, why he would want to do something about it and bring it to fruition and

get it out of the way and try to clean up, really, the so-called limitations,

the law respecting limitations.

Looking back at the Law Reform submission of 1986, it

identified some ninety special limitation provisions in that particular act.

When you look at what they identified and what they recommended for repealing at

that particular time, and look at some of the - on all the limitations that are

now one year, there are two years, there are some that are four years, I think,

for some others. The minister has mentioned some others as well. Looking at this

act really, like he said, there are two, six and ten years. I looked at, I think

it was the Alberta law reform limitations, and that is one for members if they

want some nighttime or bedtime reading. If you think ours is a bit cumbersome,

have a look at that particular one, and the proposals for new limitations of

actions in the Province of Saskatchewan in 1989, some of the recommendations

that were made there.

I don't want to belabour this particular piece of

legislation. As I said, I'm no expert on any of it. I just glanced over it. I

did some research on it. As the minister has already stated, I don't there would