May

12, 2011 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLVI No. 24

The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

Statements by Members

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Today, the Chair welcomes the following members' statements: the hon. the

Member for the District of The Straits & White Bay North; the hon. the Member

for the District of Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune; the hon. the Member for the

District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi; the hon. the Member for the District of

Humber Valley; and the hon. the Member for the District of Lewisporte.

The hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this hon. House today to congratulate a Newfoundlander

who refuses to "WIPEOUT". He is known as Trent "The Sailor" Taylor on the

National TV show Wipeout Canada . The show is a spinoff of the American

version where contestants run the world's largest and funniest obstacle course.

There were twenty competitors who tackled the course but only two can make it to

the final round in an effort to be named Wipeout Canada Champion.

The episode titled East vs. West aired Sunday, May 8, where Trent "The

Sailor" Taylor, representing the East, came out on top completing the obstacles

Sucker Punch', Big Red Balls' and The Sweeper'. Having accomplished all of

these, he was the last one standing and therefore got an automatic "bye" to the

Final Wipeout Zone. In the Wipeout Zone, the contestant who reaches the final

platform and hits the buzzer in the quickest time is declared Wipeout Champion

and takes home the spectacular grand prize of $50,000.

Trent is a former resident of Raleigh, a small fishing community on the

Northern Peninsula. He now lives in Torbay with his wife and six-month-old

daughter and has a career as a second officer on a ship. He watched the show

faithfully and wanted someday to take the obstacle course for himself. When

auditions for Wipeout Canada , Trent got his chance and he went all the

way. He is now Wipeout Canada Champion and the winner of $50,000. As for what he

is going to do with his winnings, he intends for one-half to go towards his

daughter's education; he will have some fun with the rest, he says.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join with me in

congratulating Mr. Taylor on his accomplishment and to wish him well in his

future endeavours.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Fortune Bay-Cape la

Hune.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS PERRY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this hon. House today to congratulate the Bay d'Espoir Blizzards

for their outstanding hockey performance this year. During Easter, I had the

privilege of attending the opening ceremonies of the Provincial Hockey

Tournament for the Atom J Division, hosted by the Bay d'Espoir Blizzards at St.

Alban's. It was a very exciting event, and I was impressed with all the talent

and energy in the room.

There were six teams in attendance, and while all performed very well, the

Bay d'Espoir Blizzards won the gold honour. I would like to thank everyone

involved in organizing this tournament, especially the coaches who have done a

great job all year long: Mr. Randy Dollimont, Mr. James Skinner, and Mr. Karl

Inkpen. Special recognition also goes to Lou Willcott, former President of the

Bay d'Espoir Minor Hockey Association, for his unwavering commitment to

developing this sport for our kids over the last decade.

Not only did the Blizzards win the Easter tournament, they also won the gold

medal at the Mount Peyton Tournament earlier in January, and a silver medal at

invitational tournament in March.

Mr. Speaker, we have other stars in the region as well. On April 27, the

Harbour Breton Hurricanes Bantam division played an awesome tournament in

Torbay, and they, too, brought home the gold. In addition, the Bay d'Espoir

Bantam division also won gold at Harbour Grace.

Mr. Speaker, I think we should keep an eye out for these young players. Who

knows, maybe someday they will become Herder Champions as well.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this hon. House to join with me in

congratulating the Bay d'Espoir Blizzards and the Harbour Breton Hurricanes on a

spectacular performance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to stand in the House to recognize

and congratulate the Virginia Park Vaulters on thirty years of athletic

spectacle.

Mr. Speaker, the Virginia Vaulters are a gymnastic display team comprised of

students of Virginia Park Elementary, as well as some junior high aged members

who formerly attended Virginia Park Elementary and have remained interested in

being active members.

Over the past thirty years, the Vaulters have performed over 120 shows at

more than ninety different venues province-wide.

The show itself has grown over the years, going from a short display for

parents at years end to a fast-paced, highly charged forty-minute performance.

The members of the group perform skills learned as part of the regular

curriculum and are encouraged to perform the more advanced and challenging

skills they have learned in practice with the group. The show is comprised of

individual and group skills that take place on the floor and over vaulting

boxes.

Mr. Speaker, the opportunities this program provides to its participants are

amazing. These young people are learning the value of teamwork, practice and

determination, social skills, and commitment to a goal while being physically

active.

Mr. Speaker, I am very much looking forward to attending the Virginia Park

Vaulters meet and greet this evening where past members will be treated to a

performance by the current Vaulter team and have the opportunity to share

stories and experiences from their time as members. It is sure to be a very

entertaining evening.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members to join me in congratulating the Virginia

Park Vaulters on thirty successful years and wishing them all the best for

thirty more.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I feel privileged indeed to rise in this hon. House today and

formally recognize the winner of the Victor May Award for 2011. The Victor May

Memorial Award is an annual award presented each year by the Pasadena Winter

Carnival committee to a person who, in the opinion of the committee,

demonstrates carnival spirit.

Mr. Speaker, Victor was a member of the carnival committee and chairperson

for many years. He gave many hours of his time and efforts to ensuring a

carnival that the residents would enjoy. This award is held in high esteem by

the committee. Victor was a former colleague and close personal friend of mine,

and I was so pleased to be present when the award was presented by Victor's

wife, Sadie, and daughter, Melissa, to this year's recipient.

Mr. Speaker, this year's winner was Carol Parsons. She was a very deserving

winner. Carol was very active in various carnival events, but also she was

always there to lend a hand in running events for children, cooking and serving

meals, and serving at suppers. She always had a smile on her face and, like

Victor, was giving so others, too, could enjoy.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. colleagues to join me in congratulating Carol

Parsons, this year's award winner for her dedicated, unselfish efforts to

ensuring the success of Pasadena's Winter Carnival 2011 in the carnival spirit

she displayed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Lewisporte.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. VERGE: Mr. Speaker, I recently had the privilege of attending an

evening of food and drama at Lewisporte Intermediate School in Lewisporte.

The evening began with a sit down meal in the gymnasium that was prepared by

parent volunteers and served by students. Following the meal, all those in

attendance spent time viewing displays of student artwork in other areas of the

school, while the organizing committee transformed the gymnasium from a banquet

hall into a theatre. Upon re-entering the gymnasium, we were treated to an

evening of student drama performances.

Principal Terry Spurrell offered congratulations to the student body for

their first-rate performances. He also expressed appreciation to the many parent

volunteers who made the evening come together in a seamless transition of

teacher Ms Cole, in ensuring the night was a success.

Members of the House, please join with me in expressing thanks to all the

volunteers who make events like this happen. Also, let's join with Principal

Terry Spurrell in recognition of the tremendous effort expended by a very

dedicated teacher, Ms Pamela Cole.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Statements by Ministers.

Statements by Ministers

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, from May 5 to the 8, the theatrical talent of our

junior high and high school students was showcased during the Annual Provincial

Theatre Arts Festival, held at Pearce Junior High School in Salt Pond, Burin.

Ten schools and more than 140 students from throughout Newfoundland and

Labrador took

part in this year's festival. Performances were held at Pearce

Junior High, while theatre related workshops were held at the Burin campus of

the College of the North Atlantic. During the festival, the Burin region student

art exhibit was also displayed at the school.

Mr. Speaker, the provincial government is a proud supporter of the Provincial

Theatre Arts Festival, providing $80,000 through our $2 million annual Cultural

Connections Program. It provides our young people with opportunities, both on

stage and behind the scenes, to develop their talents and skills.

There is no doubt, Mr. Speaker, that some of them will choose careers in the

arts. Many of this Province's theatre professionals discovered their love of

performing arts during their school years, during regional competitions, and at

this festival. Our government is committed to strengthening arts and cultural

programming in schools.

Since the implementation of Cultural Connections, about $15 million has been

invested to increase the presence of cultural content in the school curriculum,

and to foster links between the arts and school communities. That funding has

been used to purchase equipment and resources, and to support such programs as

ArtsSmarts, the School Touring Program, the Visiting Artist Program, the Student

Travel Grant Program, and the Learning Partners Program.

Through our schools, Mr. Speaker, we are continuing to develop and nurture

the next generation of actors, writers, musicians, set designers and

technicians. They will ensure our reputation as a Province rich in creative

talent continues into the future.

I invite my colleagues in the House to join me in congratulating the

students, festival organizers, teachers, parent volunteers and others for their

commitment to making this year's Provincial Theatre Arts Festival yet another

unqualified success.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White

Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to first of all thank the minister for an advance copy of her

statement. It is good to see the theatrical talent of our schools being

displayed in competitions and so on. By all indications, the Provincial Theatre

Arts Festival that was held in Burin was a success. We would like to

congratulate the 140 students who participated.

I would like to congratulate those who helped to prepare for the festival at

the Burin regional school and the art exhibit, as well, that was put forth

there. The comments that I have been able to read on it were very encouraging

and to congratulate those who were a part of organizing the same.

There is no question that regional competitions and festivals are an

opportunity for students to get a feel for where they feel they should take

their careers and what talents they have. Being able to come together from

around the Province, rural parts of the Province in particular, and to be

exposed to a larger setting is always very positive. The implementation of the

Cultural Connections is an opportunity for students to develop their skills,

whether it is music skills or theatrical skills, visual arts and so on.

It is good to see the provincial government putting money into that and

supporting this program. I would wish all of the students and the organizers

well as they do it again in another year's time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I, too, thank the minister for an advance copy of her statement. It is so

important that we recognize the achievements of young theatre professionals in

the Province, whether they be actors or directors, technicians, whatever the

role that they play.

We currently have a lot of attention here on our Province with regard to our

actors, technicians and arts professionals, thanks to the popularity of The

Republic of Doyle . All the more reason to be encouraging our young people in

the involvement of arts, because opportunities for them are growing in this

Province and in the country.

Students involved in the provincial festival are primarily junior high and

high school aged students; however, there are also some younger students who

take

part in the festival. I understand, Mr. Speaker, that these younger

participants are not eligible for awards and recognition at the current festival

even though they are a part of it. I encourage the minister and organizers of

the festival to consider a separate event or a portion of the current festival,

which focuses on these younger actors. We should recognize their contributions

and talent, no matter what their age, and encourage involvement as young as

possible. Recognizing them in the festival would encourage them to continue as

they go into junior and senior high.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

The hon. the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS POTTLE: Mr. Speaker, heritage is vital to all of Newfoundland and

Labrador. This vast Province is rich in cultural diversity with strong ancestral

ties in each region.

Within the Inuit culture, heritage helps to define us, both as individuals

and as a people. It is in the way we speak; it is in our art and in our songs.

We witness it in our traditions, our hunting and gathering, the way we use the

land, and the way we treat the gifts the land and sea provide us.

Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to inform this hon. House of the

Nunatsiavut Heritage Forum that took place in Hopedale during the first week of

May, where I had the opportunity to address the delegates and attend the

sessions.

This was the second year for the forum, which was organized by a steering

committee with representation from the Labrador

Interpretation Centre, the White

Elephant Museum of Makkovik, the Labrador Institute, and the Torngsok Culture

Centre. Representatives from the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and the

Nunatsiavut Government participated with leaders of the five Inuit communities,

non-government organizations and groups who were provided an opportunity to

discuss heritage related issues, concerns and priorities.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador recognizes and celebrates the

many pieces that weave the fabric of our society together. It was just this past

February in Happy Valley-Goose Bay that I was joined by my colleague, the

Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development, when we announced a

partnership between the Nunatsiavut Government and the Government of

Newfoundland and Labrador seeking to foster a better appreciation of the Torngat

Mountains National Park and the richness of Inuit culture through the Torngsok

Cultural Centre.

As well, through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, the

provincial government continues to fund the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage

Program, which is designed to address the increasingly urgent need to preserve

Aboriginal culture throughout our Province.

One notable outcome of the Nunatsiavut Heritage Forum will see the Torngsok

Cultural Centre act as an umbrella organization for the heritage groups in

Northern and Central Labrador. As well, there was discussion concerning the

holding of heritage workshops throughout the five Inuit communities.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud of my Inuit heritage. While it is important to share

it with the world, it is also important for Inuit people to share and celebrate

who we are within our own communities. I encourage the Nunatsiavut Government

and other Aboriginal groups throughout our Province to continue their work in

preserving and celebrating their culture and heritage.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for an advance copy of her statement.

Mr. Speaker, a sense of pride has been felt all across Newfoundland and

Labrador in all aspects of our culture. Many regions throughout our Province

hold festivals that celebrate song and dance, celebrate craft and art, celebrate

the very fibre of who we are as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. I am happy to

see that the Inuit people of Labrador have developed a festival and a forum in

the Nunatsiavut heritage forum. I certainly encourage them in their communities,

Mr. Speaker, as they come together and grow this festival over the years to

ensure that it is a full showcase of the unique and wonderful culture of the

Aboriginal people of Northern Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, the Inuit culture signifies a people who are no doubt harmonious

with nature and with the land but also people who are united within themselves

and within their community. They are people of relentlessness, generosity and

deep spirituality. I have had the opportunity and the very great privilege, Mr.

Speaker, to spend some time in Northern Labrador, the opportunity to tour

historic sites, like the one in the minister's own hometown of Hopedale, the

opportunity to be able to camp and hike in the great Torngat Mountains, to learn

how to fish with the Inuit hunters, and to learn how to cook char and caribou

with the women of the villages.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that it is a wonderful experience. I would not

only encourage the communities of Northern Labrador to celebrate their culture

and their heritage but I would encourage the people of the whole Province to

share in that celebration, to learn the great culture of the Inuit of the North,

because, Mr. Speaker, until you have walked their land and touched their hand,

it is really not the same as watching it from afar.

Thank you very much.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for the advance copy of her statement.

I certainly congratulate everyone who took

part in the Nunatsiavut Heritage

Forum, and all those who were there from both governments. It is a wonderful

time in our history that we can have the self-government of Nunatsiavut

celebrating with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. I remember when I

was on the Voisey's Bay Environmental Assessment Panel, which is almost fifteen

years ago, that this was the kind of thing I was looking forward to for the

Aboriginal peoples in Labrador to be self-governing, and to be able to stand

with pride in who they are.

I agree with the urgent need to preserve Aboriginal culture throughout the

Province, and for the whole Province to celebrate the culture of the Aboriginal

peoples. I hope, sincerely, that the discussion concerning holding heritage

workshops throughout the five Inuit communities will lead to that happening in

the very near future. I think each community needs to celebrate the heritage of

the whole community. I also wish the Torngsok Cultural Centre all the best in

its new role as umbrella organization for heritage groups in Northern and

Central Labrador.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers.

Oral Questions.

Oral Questions

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I was sitting in my seat and I was saying Muskrat Falls is not

even on stream yet, and we have the heat shutdown in the House of Assembly. So,

I hope, Premier, I do not freeze up halfway through Question Period today.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the House of Assembly, the Premier said something

that was wrong. When I asked her why she was enforcing a moratorium on wind

energy projects in the Province, she stated that wind power is always more

expensive than hydro. Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the Premier that the

wind farm that she rejected at Argentia would have cost $2.2 million per

megawatt of power, compared to that of the $7.5 million per megawatt that her

Muskrat Falls plan will cost.

So I ask the Premier today: Why would she leave the impression with people in

the Province that wind is more expensive than hydro, when in all cases, it is

clearly not?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, wind is a green form of energy of which we have an abundance in

Labrador and in Newfoundland, Mr. Speaker. Once we develop our vast hydro

resource, Mr. Speaker, that commodity becomes even more valuable because we will

not need to go beyond Newfoundland and Labrador to find the capacity to back

stop wind.

Mr. Speaker, she talks about the cost of the wind project in Argentia, but

she does not talk about the cost of back stopping that wind, nor does she talk

about the cost of transmission that will be necessary to bring that wind around

the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

So, Mr. Speaker, as in most of her questions, they are one-dimensional.

One-dimensional thinking does not address all the aspects of energy development

that is required in this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the government rejected the proposal without giving it real

consideration. That was the wind farm in Argentia. We know that it could have

reduced fuel consumption at Holyrood by 330,000 barrels a year. Mr. Speaker, the

government spent over a year trying to find a way to reject this proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Premier today: Why are you insisting on blocking new

wind power developments in our Province, projects that could produce energy at a

fraction of the cost of Muskrat Falls and leave cheaper available power for the

people of the Province?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, this line of questioning is much the same as we heard from the

Leader of the Opposition yesterday when she talked about the Harris report,

which was based on the Shawmont study that she referred to in this House before

our Easter break. That talked about linking up ponds all around this Province,

Mr. Speaker, to provide energy at, she insists, a cheaper cost than Muskrat

Falls.

Mr. Speaker, she talked about the presentation to the environmental

assessment panel. What she neglected to tell the people of Newfoundland and

Labrador and neglected to tell the people here in the House is that Nalcor

appeared immediately after the Harris report was presented to the environmental

assessment panel, Mr. Speaker, and was able to repudiate all of the

recommendations that have been put forward.

Now, Mr. Speaker, either she is not paying attention to what is happening at

the environmental assessment or she is not prepared to provide comprehensive

information.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

You want to talk about one-dimensional thinking, I say that it is what we are

getting from the government and the Premier when they are not prepared to leave

themselves open to look at other options in the Province. Instead, they have put

a moratorium on all other forms of hydro and wind power development.

Mr. Speaker, my next question is for the Minister of Finance. Minister, this

year's Budget is seeing record amounts of revenue from oil and minerals, yet

because of your spending plan the Province's net debt and gross debt is still

going up.

I ask you today: How much more will the debt go up next year when you start

borrowing on the Muskrat Falls project?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury

Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, our direct debt is not going up, it is going

down. We are spending $400 million this year on our debt to pay it down. We

spent $400 million last year on our direct debt to pay it down, and the year

before we spent $367 million on our direct debt to pay it down. Direct debt is

going down.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, this government has not borrowed money for

operational purposes since the year 2004.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, Standard & Poor's, a credit rating agency

which has warned the United States of America about its debt and its future, has

given this Province an upgrade in its rating from A to A + -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: - because of its liquidity, because of its operating

surpluses, and because of its prudent financial practices.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A great speech by the Minister of Finance but you are not at the board of

trade now, Minister, you are in the House of Assembly, and let me ask you the

question again.

The net debt has risen this year, and I ask the minister again today if he

will tell us what that debt will climb to when we start borrowing funds for

Muskrat Falls?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, the net debt in this Province has gone from

just under $12 billion. At the start of this year it is down to $8.2 billion.

That is a decline of 31 per cent.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Our net debt has gone down. When the members opposite were

in government, how much did they put on the net debt? Not one dollar, not one

dime.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is all out of the spin documents of government. We know the net debt has

increased this year over last year. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I have asked the

minister twice now to tell us what it will mean when they start borrowing for

Muskrat Falls and, again, we do not see any answers.

It is an interesting scheme when you start borrowing millions of dollars so

that we can pay more for our own electricity, when subsidizing the same power

that is going to go outside of Newfoundland and Labrador. We understand that the

debt to equity ratio on the Muskrat Falls plant will be 60-40, and on the

transmission line will be 75-25.

I ask the minister, if he can tell the House what the total interest costs

will be on the borrowed portion and whether that is in addition to the $6.2

billion in construction costs?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury

Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question,

which is a very important one.

Our government believes very strongly that we want to keep hydro rates for

the people of this Province down. We do not want them to rise; we want them to

go down.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: If we do not get off oil, if we do not get off Holyrood,

which produces electricity based on oil, which is going higher and higher and

higher, people in this Province are going to have to pay higher electricity. The

way to stop that is to get off Holyrood and to go to the Lower Churchill River.

When we are ready to go we are going to get the guarantee from the federal

debt.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: When the deal is finalized and we are ready to go, at that

point the debt equity ratio will be known and then I can answer the member's

question.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister talks about keeping the rates down for Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians but people know the reality, minister. You are prepared to do a

deal today that will see the rates in Newfoundland and Labrador skyrocket while

the rates in Maritime Canada and places like Nova Scotia will be much more

cheaper on the same power source. Mr. Speaker, is that looking out for the best

interest of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians?

I ask the Minister of Finance today, if he can tell us what the total

interest costs will be on the borrowed amount and if it is included in the $6.2

billion or if it will be in addition to that?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, when the deal is ready to be put forward, then

we will know what the debt equity ratio is and then we will be able to do the

calculations; but, I can tell you this, is that from this project the revenue

that will come in will pay the operating costs of the project. It will pay the

cost of building the facility and it will provide money to the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador to pay any debt we have to take off and provide a

surplus that governments can use to either lower hydro rates further or to build

hospitals or to initiate progressive social programs for the people of this

Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is so ironic you know, this is a government that claims they do not know

if there is going to be overruns; they do not know what the interest rate is

going to be; they do not know what the actual final price of power is going to

be to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, Mr. Speaker, but they know

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: - they are going to make a profit for Nalcor. They are going to

make a profit for Emera corporation out of Nova Scotia, Mr. Speaker, they know

all of those things.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: I say to you, Minister, due diligence, tell the people of the

Province how much their electricity is going to cost and if the rates are going

to go up once the interest is calculated in this deal?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury

Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Leader of the Opposition talks about profits for Nalcor, the people of

Newfoundland own Nalcor.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Any profits they make are going to come to the taxpayers of

the Province. The hon. Leader of the Opposition should know that because when

they were in power they were over at Nalcor every second day gutting out the

money.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: We are putting money into Nalcor to build a project to

bring lower hydro rates to the people of this Province. It is smart public

policy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will tell you what we know of Nalcor, it has become a corporation that has

had the doors locked. You transfer hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers'

money into Nalcor corporation every year to be spent, God knows how, because no

one can get their hands on the books. That is the people's money, I say to you,

Minister.

Mr. Speaker, Emera Energy is going to get free power for thirty-five years.

It is also going to get 29 per cent of all of our power sales in Newfoundland

and Labrador. Perhaps the government can tell us what this projection is because

they do not have the answers around any of the other variables.

Can you tell us what the total amount of money that ratepayers in this

Province will have to pay Emera Energy over the life of this project for their

percentage in it?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury

Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with Emera because they own

transmission rights through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Untied States. We

are going to build a facility in Muskrat Falls to provide cheaper hydro rates to

the people of this Province. We are going to build a facility in Muskrat Falls

to have hydro to attract industry to Labrador and to the Island of Newfoundland

and Labrador.

There is going to be three terawatts of power left over. One of them is going

to Emera, because they are going to pay $1.2 billion to build a link to Nova

Scotia. The other two are going to be sold into the Maritime Provinces, into New

England, so that we can make a profit for the people of Newfoundland and

Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What the minister and his government are going to do is they are going to

double the rates of electricity for people in Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr.

Speaker. They are going to give away 29 per cent ownership of our transmission

capacity in Newfoundland and Labrador to a private company in Nova Scotia and

they are going to sell our power to Maritimers and people in the New England

states cheaper than they are going to sell it to our own people.

Let me ask you again, Minister: Have you thought far enough ahead, have you

calculated enough to understand today how much money Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians are going to have to pay out of their pocket to Emera corporation

to compensate for the 29 per cent shares that you have given to them?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury

Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: None - none. There is a regulated return that is going to

provide the people of this Province with about a half a billion dollars, on

average, from the day that project starts to the day it is finished - a half a

billion dollars a year, on average, which will be used to either lower hydro

rates even further, which will be used to build hospitals and daycare

facilities, and will be used along with revenues from Gull Island and the Upper

Churchill, when it comes back, to provide wealth and prosperity to our children

and our grandchildren as long as that river flows to the sea.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, what a shame! The only ones who missed out on the energy drinks

today were those of us sitting right over here. I guess we came through the

wrong door.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DEAN: Mr. Speaker, a twenty-one-year-old man had recently

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair is having difficulty hearing the hon. member.

The hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A twenty-one-year-old young man has recently graduated with an architectural

engineering technology diploma and is actively looking for work. He is disabled

and is confined to a wheelchair. He is running into issues that physically

Many of the companies he is applying to are physically inaccessible to him

because he is in a wheelchair. He is not able to access as many as half or more

of the companies to which he has applied.

My question to the minister is: What is your government doing to address the

issue of physical access for disabled individuals confined to wheelchairs?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and

Employment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the member opposite for his question. It is indeed a very important

topic, and I want to begin by offering my congratulations to the individual. It

is great to see. I had the good pleasure recently of attending an event at the

College of the North Atlantic with a number of individuals like that. I think

our record is very clear on how we feel about disabled people in the Province of

Newfoundland and Labrador. We have a provincial advisory council on the status

of persons with disabilities that I meet with on a regular basis. They have done

some tremendous work. We are on the verge of releasing a provincial disabled

person's policy that will guide a framework for how we are going to operate in

this Province.

Specific to the issue the member has raised, I do not know the individual you

are talking about. I can say I have had a discussion with a number of

individuals very similar to what you have described. My office is working with

those individuals and we are prepared to do what we can. The goal for all of us

to make sure, in this Province, the disabled individuals are treated the same as

other individuals, they have every opportunity to survive, work, prosper, and

have a happy and comfortable life in Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White

Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

One of the other issues this young man is facing is the issue of accessible

housing. Right now, he is staying at MUN on campus while he is looking for work,

but he has to find his own place in short order. The problem is a severe

shortage of accessible housing for people in wheelchairs. Even if he is lucky

enough to get in through the main doors of an apartment or a house, many times

these units prevent him from living in the unit, like doors swinging properly

and so on.

So I ask the minister: What are you doing to address the issue of accessible

housing for people in wheelchairs?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister Responsible for the Status of Persons

with Disabilities.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KING: I thank the member opposite for his question, Mr. Speaker, and

I will pick up where I left off in my last remarks. We are very committed to the

disabled of the Province. That is why in our recent Budget we made an

announcement of significant investments for the Newfoundland and Labrador

Housing Corporation.

The member may be aware that just about ten days ago I made a significant

announcement at the Easter Seals building here in St. John's of a provincial

program for disabled persons to apply for grants free money from the

government to make modifications to their housing accommodations to provide

for things like ramps and other necessities that allow them to live in homes

comfortably. In some instances, Mr. Speaker, there are persons who might

otherwise have to leave their homes because they are unable to be accommodated

there. We are providing an opportunity, through free money, for them to upgrade

their home so that they can live there and live comfortably.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White

Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We know also that government regulations do not require buildings that were

conform if they are doing renovations of 50 per cent or more of the building.

Mr. Speaker, we know of many businesses that are doing renovations that change

basically 47 per cent or 48 per cent of their building, just under the 50 per

cent mark.

I ask the minister: Are you looking at changing the legislation to reflect

the need to make buildings more accessible to disabled people?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister Responsible for the Status of Persons

with Disabilities.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I thank the member opposite for the question. This is an important

topic. I am very pleased that you bring it to the floor of the House of Assembly

because I think it is one, sometimes, that gets overlooked.

As I said a few moments ago, we are very committed to supporting the

inclusion of persons with disabilities in society, and I acknowledge, as the

member said, there are many buildings throughout the Province of Newfoundland

and Labrador that are not accessible. It has been the practice of our government

that when we build new buildings and we do renovations that we provide that. I

can also tell the member that we have had extensive discussions with disabled

groups, and contractors and others who would be a part of that process,

throughout the Province, as part of the development of our provincial strategy

for the inclusion of persons with disabilities. That certainly is going to be a

key part of it.

I will reassure members in this House, Mr. Speaker, that through the

leadership of Joanne MacDonald, we have a tremendous provincial advisory council

on the status of persons with disabilities, and I can reassure everybody here

that I hear from Joanne, literally, on a weekly basis about issues affecting

those persons and (inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White

Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in the House yesterday, I questioned the Minister of Fisheries

on the desperate situation at New Ferolle. The minister said he followed up on

his commitment to look into the complaints that the plant was far from ready for

production. He stated yesterday that he hoped that people are in there

assembling equipment, and he also said that he hoped that the plant will be in

production.

I would like to ask the minister today: Can he tell the House where he

obtained his information about what was taking place in New Ferolle?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, I directed staff to make an inquiry as to what

was happening in New Ferolle, and that is what was reported back to me. I cannot

say anything more than that, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White

Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

According to the people of the community, the Minister of Fisheries is being

pumped full of lies that is basically how they term it regarding the New

Ferolle plant, and it seems indeed that the minister was misled by someone.

I ask the minister, has he or his staff visited the plant to see first-hand -

because I have photos here that were taken just yesterday of the plant. It shows

it empty, it shows it barren, it shows they have no equipment, and basically it

is nowhere near getting ready for processing of fish and so on. So I ask the

minister if he is aware of that situation.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, I certainly hope the member is not insinuating

that we are attempting to shirk or whatnot. We want to do what we can for the

people of New Ferolle, the people on the Northern Peninsula, people in the

entire Province. He has photos there. I will certainly look at them after

Question Period and I will follow up on the situation again, Mr. Speaker. We

want to do what we can

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. JACKMAN: Do you want an answer or do you want to banter back and

forth?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

MR. JACKMAN: I certainly will commit to taking the information and I will

follow up further, Mr. Speaker. I have met with the people in New Ferolle on a

couple of occasions. In fact, last year I visited the plant. I am not averse to

doing that again, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White

Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Mr. Speaker, I am not trying to play with it again as I said

yesterday, this is an important issue. I know from looking at the pictures last

evening there is room enough in that building vacant space for this

government to have a caucus meeting. It is not something that is ready to do any

production.

Mr. Speaker, the solution is not a complex solution. The current owner has

not lived up to the terms of his licence. Whatever happened to the use it or

lose it philosophy

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DEAN: that should be attached to that and so my question again is:

Are you ready, as a minister, as a government, to rescind the licence, show

respect to the workers, bring in a processor that is going to do something and

put people to work?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, we continue to assess the situation in New

Ferolle.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Maloney legally owns the plant and there is a licence that

is attached to that plant. If we are going down this road there are legal

implications that we just simply cannot overlook. Mr. Speaker, as I said in my

last response, he has some information, I will certainly ask that he provide it

to me afterwards and I will follow up on the situation, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White

Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, twenty-four hours later the lobster crisis continues no

resolution, no resolve by the government. While the minister fails to act

lobsters are dying in crates tied on to wharves. Fishermen are making no income.

Communities are suffering. He said yesterday he expected a deal yesterday; it

obviously did not happen.

I ask the minister: What has he done since yesterday to ensure this industry

does begin to move forward?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the member opposite read the

paper or not today but I thought I was quite clear in the paper. One thing that

really did surprise me though, Mr. Speaker, the Liberal would-be candidate for

St. John's West, Mr. Joyce, the Liberal hopeful, out saying that I as minister

should not interfere in this process while negotiations are going on. Mr.

Speaker

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. JACKMAN: yesterday negotiations were ongoing. Second to that, Mr.

Speaker, they continued today. As I have said in the paper

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. JACKMAN: As it was reported in the paper this morning, if at the end

of this day a resolution is not found, Mr. Speaker, then I will make the ruling

on outside buying.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS MICHAEL: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health and

Community Services. In Estimates it was indicated to us that the Long-Term Care

and Community Support Services Strategy will be going to Cabinet in short order.

Mr. Speaker, the people of this Province have been waiting a long time for this

strategy that they hope will fix problems in the system.

I ask the minister: Will he give the House and the public some timelines more

specific than in short order'

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS MICHAEL: around the release of the Long-Term Care and Community

Support Services Strategy?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask members on both sides of the House to kindly listen to the questions

asked and the answers given.

The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I indicated in Estimates to the member opposite a couple of days ago, we

have been taking all of the steps to implement the long-term care strategy

without actually finalizing the strategy. We have spent over $200 million, Mr.

Speaker, in infrastructure, in home care investments and personal care home

investments. We are building facilities, Mr. Speaker, in Corner Brook it just

opened, excuse me Happy Valley-Goose Bay has just opened. We are building

facilities in Lewisporte; we are building facilities in Carbonear and St.

John's.

What we are doing, Mr. Speaker, is we are investing in our seniors; $200,000

in age-friendly grants; a couple of hundred thousand dollars in wellness grants

for seniors. We are looking at the continuum from the time the person is in the

community until the time they are entering the long-term care facility and we

are taking a very preventative approach, where groups like the Random

Age-Friendly group are taking their fate in their own hands, looking after their

health with support from us as a government, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, and that is all fine and dandy, we still do not know what the long-term

strategy is though and we are still waiting.

One of the things government has done in this Budget is that they are raising

the home support hourly subsidy rate by twenty-five cents which they say will

raise the current salary rate from $1.75 to $2 above minimum wage. There is no

guarantee that home support workers will get that raise and even if they do, it

only brings them slightly above minimum wage. Mr. Speaker, home support workers

need higher wages and affordable training if we want to keep them working in the

sector.

I ask the Minister of Health and Community Services: Will the strategy that

we are waiting for include a plan for a publicly administered and delivered home

care system with better wages and training access for home support workers?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will give the hon. member a forty-five second synopsis of the long-term

care strategy. Keeping our seniors as healthy and happy in our communities and

in their home as long as possible -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: - prevention and wellness. Secondly, Mr. Speaker, we will

then look at the provision of home care to our seniors, again, in their homes,

to keep them in their homes as long as possible. We will then look into the

personal care home and community care home sector as to how we can assist people

in living healthy and happy lives within that facility that accommodates Level I

and II clients, Mr. Speaker.

We will then look at moving into the long-term care facilities with Level III

and IV recognizing that should be utilized only for those who need it so we will

use our interRAI tool to ensure that there is an objective assessment as to

which facility they should be in.

Meanwhile, Mr. Speaker, we will have medically discharged patients who are

taking up acute care beds in hospitals. We will look at moving them into the

community, Mr. Speaker to open up acute care beds.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I look forward to getting that in writing. I look forward to seeing what that

is going to look like in a budget, so I hope that the budget of next year is

going to have all of those details. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We know that hundreds of people are on wait lists for nursing homes, but the

new Hoyles-Escasoni facility in St. John's, for example, will only have

twenty-six additional beds over and above what exists now.

Mr. Speaker, government is putting up these facilities, like the ones in St.

John's and Corner Brook, without creating enough beds for people on waiting

lists and acute care patients in the present. We were told in Estimates that an

additional forty beds procured at Chancellor Park, and that has been out in the

public as well, for acute care patients.

Mr. Speaker, I would like the minister to tell us: Is government's use of

private nursing home facilities a temporary arrangement or a permanent

direction?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, what we are doing in building long-term care facilities, we are

projecting into the future and we are recognizing that we never have enough beds

unless we make changes at the front end in terms of keeping our seniors in their

communities.

Mr. Speaker, to paraphrase what the House Leader said yesterday, if we do

everything the NDP want to do we will never have enough money because that is

essentially what the NDP is saying. She is criticizing us for the money we are

spending, yet she is criticizing us for not spending enough.

Mr. Speaker, we have spent more than $200 million on long-term care

facilities. This year alone, in this Province, we will spend $140 million on

health care infrastructure this year alone.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time allotted for questions and answers has expired.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

Notices of Motion.

Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

Petitions

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand today to present a petition on behalf of the people in Labrador with

regard to the Trans-Labrador Highway.

WHEREAS the Trans-Labrador Highway is a vital transportation lifeline for the

Labrador communities, providing access, generating economic activity, and

allowing residents to obtain health care and other public services; and

WHEREAS Route 510 and connecting branch roads of the Trans-Labrador Highway

are unpaved, in deplorable condition, and are no longer suitable and safe for

the traffic volumes that travel this route; and

WHEREAS Labrador cannot afford to wait years or decades for upgrading and

paving of their essential transportation route;

WHEREUPON the petitioners call upon the House of Assembly to call upon the

government to provide additional funding for much needed improvements to Route

510 and connecting branch roads of the Trans-Labrador Highway.

Mr. Speaker, this is one of many petitions that I have presented in the House

of Assembly on behalf of people in communities from various regions of Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, you will notice from the petitions that they are signed by people

from the Island portion of the Province as well. That is because once you cross

the Strait of Belle Isle and you get in Blanc-Sablon and the Quebec side, then

the access to Labrador is by road, the entire highway network.

People who are doing business in Labrador, no matter what business they are

in, they have to have their merchandise, their goods, all trucked into Labrador.

People are using this road on a daily basis. There is any number of

tractor-trailers that are travelling over it. There are all kinds of people who

are using it and travelling over it. Mr. Speaker, the roads are not being

maintained to a standard that is acceptable.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, despite the fact that government is paying for grader

operators, graders, and contracts on a daily basis, there are many of them out

there telling me they are grading this road every single day. Yet, there is no

stone left on the road to grade. In most cases, you have bedrock coming up

through the road. They are actually hitting the rocks with their blades. There

are workers now, Mr. Speaker, grader operators who are actually off sick with

bad backs and bad necks because they have injured themselves in trying to carry

out their work on that particular road.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, there are so many people who live in the

area who have no other option only to use that road. They do not have any other

options. If they have to go to hospital, they have to drive out in many cases.

If they have to come home from hospital, like the patient I talked about

yesterday who could not be transported by ambulance because the road was so bad,

they had to be flown back into their community.

Mr. Speaker, is that acceptable for people who live in that particular area?

They have asked the government, in a meeting of their leadership of different

communities around Labrador, to look at paving this

section of road. The

government has said no, it is not on our radar, and we are not going to put it

on our radar until 2014. Mr. Speaker, that is unacceptable to people who live

there. They want to have their roads addressed and they want to have it done

immediately. At the very least, government should be looking at where they are

going to approve crushed stone for that

section of road this year so that you

can grade it and maintain it like a proper gravel road should be. People cannot

be expected to continue to travel over these sections of road without having

them maintained and looked after properly. It is far too dangerous and it is not

acceptable.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

The hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will read the prayer of the petition into the record.

To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in

Parliament Assembled.

The petition of the undersigned residents humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS the shrimp industry is in crisis for both harvesters and processors;

and

WHEREAS previously there was protection for Gulf shrimp plants and plant

workers through a regional processing restriction mechanism ("the cap") which

prevented landed shrimp from being trucked for processing beyond the region

where it was landed;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the

House of Assembly to urge the government to reinstate the regional processing

restriction ("the cap") in order to preserve the principle of adjacency for

shrimp processing and to ensure that employment opportunities are protected for

plant workers and the overall viability of communities in the region.

And as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased this afternoon to be able to stand and present this

again to the House of Assembly and before this government to say that again we

have a crisis in the fishing industry. We are seeing it around in every species

at the present time. The issue of adjacency, the issue of shipping shrimp past

idle plants is something that just does not make sense. It is not in the best

interest of the people. It is not protecting their jobs. It is putting their

livelihoods in jeopardy and so on.

Mr. Speaker, there was a process put in place back in the 1990s that worked

quite well, where this cap on the Gulf shrimp in particular was there. It had to

be processed locally. It had to be processed in the region where it was

harvested. Mr. Speaker, this cap was removed in 2006 approximately, when the RMS

discussions and debate began.

Mr. Speaker, we have come to a point where, with shrimp quota cuts last year,

more cuts this year, which we still do not know what the final outcome will be.

It is time, Mr. Speaker, that that cap be repositioned, that it be reinstated.

That is why today this petition is here in the House of Assembly. That is why I

am pleased to be able to present it today, to call upon this government, to call

upon the Minister of Fisheries in particular, to reinstate this cap that worked

well in the past and there is no reason why it cannot work well and protect the

jobs for this year and into the future.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

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

I take this opportunity to present a petition which reads as follows:

WHEREAS the Department of Transportation and Works of the Government of

Newfoundland and Labrador is responsible for funding and maintenance of roads in

the community of Cape Ray, in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador; and

WHEREAS the roads at Cape Ray are in deplorable condition, including the road

leading from that community to J.T. Cheeseman Provincial Park; and

WHEREAS the citizens of Cape Ray demand that the roads be upgraded;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the

House of Assembly to urge government to provide sufficient funding to complete

the necessary repairs to the roads at Cape Ray.

Now, Mr. Speaker, Cape Ray is a smaller community within my district, located

about fourteen, fifteen kilometres from Port aux Basques. They have paved roads

in their community and there is also a gravel road which goes from the community

around to J.T. Cheeseman Park, which is a provincial park. This is a park that

this government operates, pays for, and maintains annually. They encourage

people, people who travel from within the Province, people who travel from

without, visitors here from mainland Canada and the United States, to go there

with their travel trailers and so on.

The problem is you cannot expect people to come here if once they come here

they do not have proper roads to get around on. This is one such road. In fact,

the Department of Transportation and Works itself uses the road quite often and

yet, they are not maintaining the road in a fit condition. I would think if they

are using the road themselves - it is a public access road, it is utilized by

tourists who come to this area, it is utilized by the residents of the area

that they would undertake to keep it in a fit condition. Again, maybe the

minister can have a look at this and see if there is something that can be done

even under the annual maintenance program of his department to see that this

matter can be addressed rather than leave the people in the condition that they

are currently in.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

Orders of the Day.

Orders of the Day

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

MS BURKE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Before I call the order for today, I would just like to draw attention to

Motion 6 on the Order Paper, which addresses the tribunal recommendations on the

salaries and benefits of judges and the chief judge. According to that, Mr.

Speaker, it does say that under

section 28.2 of the act, we had to approve, vary

or reject the report within thirty days of it being tabled.

Mr. Speaker, we are going to continue with the Budget debate today. So, I

just want some agreement, by leave, with the Opposition that we will continue

with Motion 6 during this sitting of the House, but at a later date than today.

MR. SPEAKER: By agreement?

AN HON. MEMBER: By agreement.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader, by agreement.

MS BURKE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

From the Orders of the Day we would like to call, under Motions, Motion 1.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury

Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to have an opportunity to take

part in

this Budget debate once again, this time on the sub-amendment. You will recall

that as Finance Minister, after I read the Budget Speech and presented the

Budget to the people of the Province for this year, I moved a resolution that

this House supported the budgetary policy of the government, and we were

debating that, and then the hon. Opposition House Leader spoke to the debate and

then he moved an amendment that we not support the budgetary policy of the

government. Now, the Leader of the Opposition, in her remarks speaking to the

amendment, has now moved a sub-amendment to the amendment. That is what the

discussion is today.

It gives hon. members a chance to speak again. You have an opportunity to

speak three times, on the main motion, on the amendment, and also on the

sub-amendment. I do not know if you can have further sub-amendments. I do not

think I have ever seen that in the time I have been here, and I see the

Opposition House Leader is saying no.

So, I have had an opportunity to speak in this House, and I have had an

opportunity to speak in the City of Corner Brook about the Budget and to the

Board of Trade here in St. John's yesterday. Tonight, I am going to be in the

wonderful Town of Pasadena speaking to the Board of Trade and the Chamber of

Commerce there about what is in the Budget. I am certainly looking forward to

that because I know Pasadena has an interest in a new multi-purpose building in

their town. There is money, a block of funding, in the Budget to allow

communities in the Province that are looking for recreational facilities and

multi-purpose facilities to apply to access some of that money to build the

facilities that are very important to the residents of those communities.

Now, Mr. Speaker, when we first came into office, we indicated we had a very

clear plan of what we had to do. Governments had run nothing but deficits year

after year. When you run a deficit that means you are spending more than you are

taking in. There are times when that is good public policy to do that, and there

are other times when it is not good public policy to do that. Because when you

run deficits, you are going to spend more money than you are taking in, the

question, of course, is where you get that money. The answer is that you have to

go and borrow it. You have to go to the bank or you have to go to the bonding

companies and you have to borrow the money. When you borrow the money, it

increases your debt. Then, of course, when you are doing the Budget for next

year, now you have to pay the interest on that debt. That means you have less

money to spend on the things that are important to the people of the Province,

like progressive social programs and providing services.

The more and more you do that, the debt gets bigger and bigger, the interest

gets bigger and bigger, and it takes away from things that the people want the

government do and things that politicians want to do. Politicians on all sides

of the House want to do good things. You want to see your Province grow and

prosper. You want to see the people have benefits. We all want to do that, but

sometimes you also have to be prudent. You cannot just spend like there is no

tomorrow. Remember, if you keep running deficits and you build up a big debt,

your children and your grandchildren are going to have to pay it off and not see

any of the benefits of it. So, you have to be fiscally prudent.

When our government came into power, the first thing we did was get this

Province back into surplus. We have to stop spending more than we are taking in

each year. We have to spend within our means, the same as a family. I do not see

one heck of a lot of difference between what we have to do here in this House,

or what I have to do as Minister of Finance for this government, and what every

family has to do in running their own households. You have a certain amount of

money coming in. That is what you have to spend. You can spend that. If you

spend more, you have to go into debt. There is good debt and there is bad debt.

There is wise debt, like investing in a home. It makes a lot of sense. People

need a car, you invest in a car. Another good debt is investing in education,

investing in training, to train you to get a better job in society that earns

more income for your family.

So, we have to do that as well. We have to be prudent and we always have to

recognize - and I always like to say this - that although we have been elected

to be the stewards of the people's money, it is not our money. It is their

money, not our money, and that is why we have to ensure that we spend it wisely.

That is why we have to ensure that we do the complete analysis and ensure that

we spend that money wisely.

What we have done since we have come into office, the first thing, is to get

this Province back into surplus. Now, the Auditor General when he talks about

having a surplus says that is a very good sign of whether you are being fiscally

prudent. He says that a surplus is a sign that you are living within your means.

Like every family, we have to do that as well.

After a tough year, the first year in office, in 2005-2006, we finally turned

the corner. The previous government could not run surpluses, they kept running

deficits. They did have one surplus, but that was questionable. I understand

there was some money there that should have been spread over a number of years

and it was all included in one year and gave a surplus, but, in reality, I do

not know if it was a proper accounting practice. The practice we have been

following is to prepare all of our statements on a complete consolidated accrual

basis. In the words of Ms Anna Thistle, who used to be Treasury Board Minister

and served in this House for many years, she said: everything in. That is how we

do it, we include everything.

In 2005-2006, we ran a surplus - the first one - of $199 million. In

2006-2007, the following year, we had a second surplus of $154 million. In 2007-

2008, I had the honour to be the Finance Minister for the first time and because

of the $2 billion that Premier Williams negotiated with Prime Minister Martin,

the Atlantic Accord money, the Atlantic Accord of 2005, we had a surplus that

year of $1,421,000,000. The following year, 2008-2009, which was the year when

oil prices went very high - and we benefited. At least the government benefits

fiscally from high oil prices. On the other hand, as citizens we do not benefit

when we have to pay higher prices for gas and for heat. I am like everybody else

in that regard. As Finance Minister, high oil prices are great but as a citizen

I can appreciate what all citizens go through. We have our cars; we have to pay

for the gas. We have to pay for our heat, and that way we do not appreciate high

oil prices.

In the year 2008-2009, this government ran a surplus of $2,350,000,000. The

next year, there was a recession throughout the world. It was called the Great

Recession. The worst recession, they say, since the Great Depression. What all

governments throughout the world did is they stimulated the economy, because the

private sector was slowing down, because demand was not happening. Therefore,

there were no orders for businesses. Businesses had to lay people off and suffer

losses. Expansion plans were cancelled, they were put on hold. As a result of

that, government has to step in. It is called deficit spending. Government has

to step in, spend a lot of money. The federal government get it, they stimulate

it, and at their request we join with them, as did every other province and

territory in Canada.

We thought when we did the Budget that year we would have a deficit of as

high as $750 million; but, fortunately, the recession came to an end. The

recovery started, and in certain parts of the world it came back strongly. In

other parts of the world it did not. We know what happened in the United States.

The United States is still hurting. Americans are not working. They have high

unemployment in the United States. Americans have big debt on their homes, and

the values of their homes have gone down. They have negative equity in their

homes. Their governments and their citizens are running very high debt loads and

it is making the recovery in the US difficult. That is what it was back then.

Hopefully, we see signs now that things could be starting to come back and they

are encouraging but back then we had to have deficit spending. Fortunately, here

the economy came back and our deficit, instead of being three-quarters of a

billion dollars, our deficit was only $33 million, which was good news.

When I presented the Budget last year, we thought we would still have a

deficit. We forecast a deficit of $195 million, but the numbers came in a lot

better and we ended up with a surplus for 2010-2011 of $485 million. This year,

subject to some comments I am going to make later on, at Budget time we forecast

a surplus of $59 million.

Since 2005-2006, this government has run cumulative surpluses of $4.6

billion. That has enabled us to do some wonderful things in this Province, and

that has enabled us to turn the economic life in this Province around. It has

been six surpluses in the last seven years. Mr. Speaker, we know what has given

us the right to these surpluses is the oil industry in particular. The revenues

coming from the oil industry have provided us with the opportunity, for the

first time maybe in our history, to experience some real wealth and some real

opportunity.

I want to make a statement about surpluses. I heard from a man who thought

that when we ran a surplus we somehow kept the money, that government somehow

kept the money. Of course, that is not the case. The surplus is spent as well.

It is just not spent on programs. Instead, the surplus, if you do nothing with

it, will go automatically to paying down that $12 billion debt we had, which is

now down to $8.2 billion; or, you can use the surplus to fund or finance the

building of things known as capital, which are buildings, roads, harbours,

ferries, air ambulances, water bombers, long-term care facilities and hospitals.

The surplus will go to pay for those things.

I recently saw on the VOCM Web site a comment from Mary Webb - who is an

economist with the Scotiabank in Toronto who said that spending on

infrastructure is important. Infrastructure is the foundation of society;

infrastructure is the foundation of economic growth and development. If you

cannot get your products from the fish plant, for example, to market or to the

ferry to get them to Canada to sell, how do you have economic life? So you need

infrastructure, you need roads, you need wharves, you need airports, but we also

need things for our people. Our population is aging. We need hospitals, we need

long-term care facilities, and the surplus is spent to pay for those things.

This government is going through an infrastructure strategy involving $5

billion. We are doing that and we are not borrowing for it. We are paying for it

out of those surpluses that we run. We are paying down our debt. As our debt

comes due we pay it down. We have a certain amount of debt. It is called direct

debt, it is called public debt, and it is called borrowing. It is debt the way

everybody thinks of debt. That you borrow a sum of money, you have to pay

interest on it, and at some point you have to pay it back. We are paying that

down. We are paying that down out of this cash flow, out of these surpluses, but

we cannot prepay. I suppose we could prepay some of them, but we would have to

pay a very high penalty. So we are not doing that.

The strategy we have been following is that we, out of our cash flow, out of

our surpluses, pay down our debt as it comes due. As I said earlier today, we

have not borrowed for operational purposes since 2004. We did borrow to put

money in the pension fund. We borrowed, I think it was $982 million, just under

a billion dollars, but that was replacing one debt with another. Because we have

an unfunded pension liability, which is a debt of the Province, in the pension

fund. By borrowing a billion dollars and putting that money into the pension

fund, reducing the unfunded liability there, you are simply exchanging one debt

for another debt. For operational purposes, we have, thankfully, not had to

borrow.

Now, in the past when our debt would come due, when a bond issue that may

have been taken out twenty-five or thirty years ago comes due, the government of

the day would then go and borrow the money again and pay off that. It is like

rolling over the debt. We have not had to do that. Fortunately, because of these

surpluses, because of the cash flow of this Province, we can pay down the debt

as it comes due and that is what we have been doing.

At the same time we have been doing that, we are also funding the

infrastructure strategy. We have not had to borrow to pay for the

infrastructure. Now, how many water bombers do we have out there? Maybe the

Minister of Transportation and Works can tell me how many water bombers we have.

We have paid for those and we have not borrowed. Maybe the Minister of

Transportation and Works can tell me how many ferries we have coming forward.

MS BURKE: Six water bombers.

MR. MARSHALL: Six water bombers, she told me, all going to be paid for.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MARSHALL: Four ferries coming. We just had the

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MARSHALL: Four water bombers.

I would have better off if I had kept to myself, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Two years ago we had an infrastructure, I think it was

somewhere around $657 million, somewhere in that range, and that has been paid

for without going into debt. Last year it was about $700 million. That is paid

for. All of that infrastructure has been paid for without going further into

debt. This year it is going to be about a billion dollars, and that is going to

be paid for without going into debt.

Mr. Speaker, we do not keep the surpluses. That is the point I want to make

to that gentleman, and that is the point I want to make to anybody else who

might think that: Why are you running surplus? We do not keep it, we spend it.

We just spend it in a different area, and we use it for a number of different

things. We can use it to pay down debt, as I just said. We can use it to lower

our taxes. We can use it to pay for infrastructure and we can use it to do

things like Poverty Reduction Strategies that provide benefits for people who

need help, who are vulnerable in our society; people living on fixed incomes who

are noticing that the cost of living is going up, the cost of food is going up,

the cost of electricity is going up because of the fact that a significant part

of electricity is constructed or produced based on oil prices, which are going

higher. If the oil prices are higher, electricity rates are going higher and I

will talk about that a little later on when I speak some more about Muskrat

Falls.

We have to diversify our economy. We have to get off oil and the way to

diversify our economy for the day when the oil is gone because it is the oil,

as I said earlier, and the minerals that are providing us with our wealth,

especially the oil. The minerals, the mining industry is doing very well indeed

but the revenue that government receives from the mining industry is very small

relative to what we receive from the offshore oil. Offshore oil: we get over $2

billion, I think it is $2.2 billion in revenue that we receive from that.

Diversification of the economy to provide for the day when the oil is gone is

extremely, extremely important.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we have been able to do, as I said

earlier, is that we could use the surplus to pay down some taxes. That is one of

the things that we have been doing to make the Province of Newfoundland a tax

competitive jurisdiction. We have to make ourselves competitive with other

provinces particularly those of our neighbours in Atlantic Canada.

Mr. Speaker, in terms of taxation for this year we have lowered taxes again

and we believe in making our tax regime competitive. We believe that government

has to take its hands out of people's pockets; because of rising prices, because

of the rising cost of food and the rising cost of oil and the rising cost of

electricity people need some help in paying their bills. One way government can

do that is providing cheques to people. Another way you can do it is take your

hands out of their pockets. Make their taxes lower so they have less money to

pay to the taxman and more money in their pocket to pay some bills.

Effective October 1, the date we are working for, we are going to eliminate

the 8 per cent provincial share of the HST on heat and light. That is the cost

to heat a residential home, whether it is oil, wood, or electricity. We are not

charging the tax on the electricity even if it is not used for heating. That is

going to help a lot of people. That is going to cost us about $38 million, Mr.

Speaker, from the Treasury.

In addition to that, we are going to maintain the home heating rebate program

that we have, which costs about another $17.6 million. That helps people at low

income, people with incomes up to $40,000. That is a net family income of up to

$40,000. They will continue to receive a cheque of $250 and $500 in Labrador. So

we are going to keep both programs. Both programs will help people everyone,

as a matter of fact, because it will apply to everyone. It will help people cope

with higher electricity costs.

It is not going to end it. If we are still dependent on Holyrood, the experts

tell us that that the price is going to go up. Until we get off Holyrood, the

prices are going go up, according to the experts, at about 4 per cent to 6 per

cent a year. They are also telling us if we go to Muskrat Falls and build

Muskrat Falls, after 2016 or 2017 the prices are still going to go up obviously

but they will go up about 0.7 per cent or 0.8 per cent less than 1 per cent a

year. That is a big difference.

In terms of taxes, the other thing we are doing, Mr. Speaker, is instituting

a non-refundable child care tax credit based on child care expenses which are

currently deductible from income. What we hope to do with that is provide

incentives for people throughout the Province to provide additional home care

spaces. We know that child care, or the lack of child care, is a barrier to

women who want to go to work. They cannot because they have to stay home to look

after their kids because there are not enough child care spaces.

We are hoping this will be an incentive to induce people to offer more child

care spaces in their homes. Instead of governments building buildings throughout

the Province and instead of governments hiring child care workers to work at all

these buildings, this will be incentive for entrepreneurs to provide these

spaces and it will be particularly effective in rural parts of the Province.

Another tax incentive this year is one we are going to combine with one the

federal government had announced in their budget, which is a new non-refundable

tax credit for volunteer firefighters the Volunteer Firefighters' Tax Credit.

Most of the members here have districts in which we have communities with

volunteer fire departments. I know in the district that I have the honour to

represent, Humber East, we have a volunteer fire department in Pasadena and in

Little Rapids it is a combined one between Little Rapids and Steady Brook

Massey Drive. Volunteer firefighters spend a lot of time in training and spend a

lot of time to be there to protect their families and that is why they are doing

it. They are not paid and they put a lot of time into training, they put a lot

of time into being on call. This is a way that governments can provide them with

some recognition for the great service that they provide to the people of their

communities and to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is also a way,

hopefully, that might induce some people who are not volunteer firefighters

maybe to decide to join the local brigade.

Mr. Speaker, the last tax credit we are giving this year has to do with what

is known as a Payroll Tax. It is the Health and Post-Secondary Education Tax

Act. Under that there is a threshold and businesses that have employees, they

have their labour costs, and over a certain threshold they have to pay tax on

their payroll. I remember when the threshold was $500,000, it was raised to $1

million and now we have put it up to $1.2 million. That is going to be

retroactive to January 1, 2011 and I believe that is going to remove ninety

businesses ninety employers in Newfoundland and Labrador that will no longer

have to pay the Payroll Tax. It will also provide some tax relief for about

another 800 or 845 businesses.

In the past we have done other things to give tax relief. I cannot seem to

find my notes here so I will have to go on memory. One of the first things I

remember Minister Sullivan did when he was Finance Minister, there was a

low-income tax credit. A lot of people in the lower income, it removed them

entirely from the rule. I think it was family income up to $21,000, individuals

up to a lesser amount, and they were totally removed from the tax rules. That

particular credit has been enhanced from time to time.

Another thing we did, and one thing I did as Minister of Finance - and I have

done it on three occasions - is enhance the Seniors' Benefit. The Seniors'

Benefit is a refundable tax credit. It is a cheque that seniors get in October

with their GST. It was originally given just to couples. Then, we changed the

law in one of our Budgets to give it to single people as well because we knew

that if a spouse died, the cost of living did not go down that much, and the

cost of living was just as high for the single person as it was for the couple.

We gave it to the widows and widowers as well. Then, from time to time, we would

increase the amount of the benefit. In last year's Budget, we increased that tax

credit to $900. That is a cheque that seniors receive in October. They get it

with their GST cheque, and it provides some help in dealing with the cost of

living. It is not a pension, it not based on how long they work. Like Old Age

Security, it is not a pension, it is not based on how long you work, it is based

on the fact that you are a resident of this Province, you have a low income but

you need help with the cost of living, and you qualify based on the fact that

you are a senior.

When you total these up - and this is what is so amazing - this year, the

people of Newfoundland and Labrador will pay, in taxes, $500 million less than

they were paying in 2007; and that is remarkable. That is a half a billion

dollars less in taxes that people are paying. That will help our people pay

their bills, pay the cost of electricity and the cost of food. It will help,

somewhat. It will help us attract to this Province the skilled people we need,

people in the medical profession, people with skilled trades because they look

at what is their after-tax income. They do not just look at what the gross

salary is, they look at what the tax rate is, the taxes they would have to pay

and how much they are going to have as disposable income, how much they are

actually going to have to spend.

Mr. Speaker, that is important and that will help us with the salary raises

that we have given to our employees, to the increases we have given to medical

professionals like nurses and doctors; this will help us attract people to the

Province and to the rural parts of our Province as well.

Mr. Speaker, one tax that was great to get rid of was the 15 per cent retail

sales tax on insurance. We did that a number of years ago. That was in a Budget

that I presented. I think it was the second Budget I did. In the first Budget

that I had the opportunity to deliver, we also gave the biggest personal income

tax cut in the Province's history. I think it was somewhere around $155 million

reduction. We reduced all the rates in all three tax brackets that we have. We

eliminated this surtax that people had to pay, a surtax which was a tax on tax.

We brought in indexation of the brackets. We brought in indexation of the

credits that are available under the act.

Then, the next year we reduced the rates even further. In the lowest rate,

the lowest bracket, the rate is 7.7 per cent, the lowest in Atlantic Canada,

lower than Nova Scotia, lower than PEI. The rates in the second and the third

bracket were tied with New Brunswick for being the lowest in Atlantic Canada. I

think New Brunswick may have gotten lower in one or two of their brackets this

year, but we are competitive. That is something we will do every year. We will

continue to look at our taxes. There are other taxes that we would, obviously,

love to eliminate, but you have to strike a balance. We also need revenue to pay

doctors, to pay our police officers, to pay our nurses. We need revenue to build

hospitals and whatnot. So, we strike a balance between reducing taxes and paying

for progressive public programs and services.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the other thing we do is we pay down debt. As I said

earlier, we have been paying down debt as it comes due. We have been paying our

direct debt continually and constantly, without taking on new debt, and we have

been doing that since 2004. That is called our direct debt. It is called our

funded debt. It is called our borrowings. It is what we think of as debt, but we

have other debt as well. We have a pension fund under which our public employees

who work for government are entitled to a pension, as determined by a formula.

It is called the pension promise. The formula, I think it is 2 per cent times

the number of years of pensionable service times the average of the best five

years of salary. The government has an obligation to guarantee that pension.

What happens, of course, is that an actuary is hired every three years to

come in and do what is called an actuarial evaluation of the pension fund and

calculate the contributions that the employee and the employer, in this case the

government, have to make into that fund to ensure that the money is there to

meet the government's pension obligations. Something called the funded liability

is the amount of money that has to be in that fund, assuming it is earning 7.25

per cent a year, that will be available to meet all obligations of the

government in the future as they come due. The obligations are not necessarily

now. The debt is not due right now, but it has accrued to meet the obligations

as people retire and, therefore, as the pension obligations comes due.

When you subtract from that liability, the amount of money in the pension

fund which is about $6 billion - I think it is actually $6,044,000,000 - that

gives you a number called the unfunded pension liability, which is a debt of the

Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. While the contribution does not have to

be paid every year, the contribution is not guaranteed but the benefits are

guaranteed. Government has an obligation to pay that pension. Fortunately,

because of efforts that government has made to put money in that pension fund to

reduce the unfunded liability, all of our employees are receiving benefits based

on the contributions that they and their employer happened to make. They are

getting the benefits that the pension promised that they would receive, and it

is partially indexed. There is indexation; I think it is 60 per cent of the

rising cost of living capped at 1.2 per cent.

The unfunded liability continues to climb. There is an unfunded liability

there now, and that unfunded liability is supposed to earn 7.25 per cent a year.

There is no money there. If it is unfunded, it is obviously not making the 7.25

per cent a year; therefore, the interest costs go up. It is an imputed interest

cost and, therefore, the unfunded liability gets bigger. Now, if the money in

the pension fund earns more than 7.25 per cent, which many years it does, that

reduces the unfunded pension liability. Fortunately over time, since its

inception, the pension fund has, in fact, earned an average of about 10 per

cent.

The unfunded pension liability right now is about $3.9 billion. That is the

debt of the Province, it is the debt of the people of Newfoundland owed to

retired government workers, and it will have to be paid as the pensions come

due. That amount is rising every year. Even though we paid down, I said earlier

today that we paid down our direct debt last year about $400 million. We are

going to pay it down again this year another $400 million. Two years ago we paid

it down $367 million. The unfunded pension liabilities have gone up.

If you add the two together, our direct debt and our unfunded pension

liabilities, which are the total liability of the Province, if you then subtract

the cash we have, that gives you your definition of net debt. The unfunded

liabilities have been going up. Fortunately, because of the surpluses we have

had, we still have, we were told last night in Estimates, about $2 billion in

the bank. That reduces our net debt.

So when we build infrastructure like we are doing when we are building the

hospitals and building the long-term care facilities, we do not have to borrow

but we are using the cash to pay for these things. We do not have to go into

debt for it, but we are using the cash. Therefore, by the definition I just

mentioned, because cash would be expended, the net debt goes up. That is

certainly what has happened this year.

Mr. Speaker, I said earlier that a lot of our wealth was dependent on

offshore oil. That has given us the benefit of doing the wonderful things we

have been able to do in terms of lowering taxes, in terms of paying down debt,

and in terms of building infrastructure throughout this Province. Some people

will say: Well, the people in St. John's and the people on the Avalon are

benefiting from the oil and gas because they are the base for the offshore oil

and gas. That is true, but the revenues that are coming in from the offshore are

being spent by government throughout the entire Province.

For example, I will use my hometown of Corner Brook. We all see

infrastructure. We all see it in our districts and in our homes. There is a new

hospital being built in Corner Brook and I am told the cost of that could be

about $500 million. There is $18.5 million in the Budget this year to be spent

there. The oil money is going to help build that.

Regina High School is a school where I went in what we called Grade 12 many

years ago. It was first year arts in St. Francis Xavier University at Regina

High School. It is just a wonderful school. That is now going to be extended and

renovated to become a new junior high school in the City of Corner Brook. It is

going to replace Presentation Junior High School. They are going to be very

sorry to see Pres go, but they are going to have a new school. It is the oil

money and the wealth from the oil and minerals that is giving government the

ability to do this.

At Grenfell College I am sorry, I am using the wrong name, and I hate it

when people use that name. At the Grenfell Campus of Memorial University of

Newfoundland and Labrador, there is an academic building built with $27 million.

That is in addition to another $6 million we gave to Grenfell last year to help

it grow and to help it recruit students throughout the world. I cannot remember

how many extra staff were hired on to accomplish that. There was some good news;

I saw President Kachanoski, Gary Kachanoski, the President of MUN, indicated

that applications to Grenfell College were up 15 per cent. So, it is working.

In addition to the hospital, and Regina, and the academic building, there is

a new $22 million residence that I understand they are going to call tenders on

very soon 200 units. That will have a big impact on housing in the City of

Corner Brook, because that will free up other accommodation throughout the city,

and make that available for other people, because the vacancy rate is extremely

low.

There is $3 million for the long-term care facility to open up a wing that

was going to go to Grenfell College, but now needs to be fitted up to be used

for long-term care beds. There are about fourteen or fifteen beds on that

particular floor.

There is another $626,000 most of that money was in last year's Budget, but

it is going to be left there and re-profiled, together with another

approximately $200,000 in money that is going to provide for a higher level of

care in one of the protective care units in Corner Brook. There are four

protective care units, and one of them was empty, but now there are funds that

are going to free up another ten beds. The protective care units were originally

intended for people with mild to moderate dementia, and then the nursing home,

the main facility, would be for people who have serious dementia. This unit

number four will now be used for people between just above mild to moderate,

but not necessarily to go into the home. So that is a great expenditure of

public funds. We need facilities for our seniors, and we can do this with the

oil monies and the mineral monies that we have earned.

There is a child exploitation prevention unit of the RNC going to be opened

up in Corner Brook. There is $450,000 to be invested in that centre of winter

tourism on the West Coast, Marble Mountain. There is the $30 million in block

funding that I mentioned earlier, so that towns that are looking for

recreational facilities and multipurpose buildings I mentioned Pasadena in

particular looking for rinks, could apply for that fund.

This, in addition to the Corner Brook High School, which was built the old

Herdman Collegiate, which is now renovated and redeveloped into a beautiful,

beautiful facility; the long-term care unit itself; the four protective care

residential units; the addiction centre that was built there; the new court

house that was built there; the Joe Mullins Building, which is the headquarters

for Newfoundland and Labrador Housing on the West Coast; the new city hall I

think 70 or 80 per cent of the money for the new city hall has been provided by

the Province to the government of the City of Corner Brook and the people of the

City of Corner Brook to build that new city hall. In addition to helping pay for

it the government has decided to move the library from the Sir Richard Squires

Building. That library is going in the new city hall and government is even

going to pay rent to the city for using a facility that it has already

contributed 70 or 80 per cent of the cost to.

There is also a new eye centre that has been opened in Corner Brook. Dr.

Wijay, it was his idea. He was very wise, a lot of foresight there. He wanted to

make sure when he retired there was a successor to take his place. Now, a new

facility has been built over on Herald Avenue, over in the former Canadian Tire

Building where we have an eye centre to provide eye care to the people of the

West Coast.

The list goes on and on; the new Medical Transportation Assistance Program.

It is going to help people pre-pay. They will be able to go to a facility like a

travel agency and the government will pay 50 per cent of the cost of travelling

if they have to go to St. John's or wherever, without having to pay the full

amount upfront and then finally later on to get reimbursed and wait for the

cheque. They will be able to get 50 per cent of the money upfront. Also, if

people want to use their cars to travel to a facility if someone was coming

from St. Anthony into Corner Brook, or from Corner Brook into St. John's the

5,000 kilometre threshold is now going to be reduced to 2,500 kilometres so you

would make one trip to St. John's and after that you would certainly be eligible

to quality for the kilometres. These things are very, very important.

The elimination of the patient fees; if someone was in a hospital or in a

medical facility and they had to transfer to another facility, whether by air or

by road ambulance, they had to pay a fee I think it was $130. We have

eliminated that fee. Thank God! To make seniors or make people have to pay a fee

I am told that some people would not go in the ambulance because they could

not afford, or did not want to pay the $130. We have eliminated that fee so we

do not have that situation anymore.

Mr. Speaker, when we do the budget, one of the things that obviously impacts

heavily on us is the revenues we get from oil. One in every $3 of our revenue is

coming from the oil industry. As I said, we are spreading it around the Province

in terms of our infrastructure spending. I think 80 per cent of the spending of

infrastructure is happening outside the Northeast Avalon. The wealth from oil

and gas is spread around the Province and into Labrador as well.

When we do the Budget, we have to budget for one-third of our revenue based

on oil royalties, which in turn are based on the price of oil which is very

volatile, set in the world market, something over which we have no control

whatsoever. It is based on the exchange rate of the Canadian dollar vis--vis

the US dollar, which is something we do not have any control over. It happens,

it is also volatile. It is based on production. It is based on the number of

barrels of oil that come out of the ground in any year. Obviously, the more that

come out of the ground the more royalties will have to be paid to the Province.

Of course, it is based on the royalty rate, how much would have to be paid to

the government by the oil companies when they take the oil out of the ground

because the oil belongs to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. If any

company wants to explore and extract that oil, once they find it, from the

ground, because it belongs to the people of the Province, not only do they have

to pay income tax but they also have to pay a royalty, a percentage of the value

of the oil they are taking out, and there are different royalty rates.

We have talked about the fact that the producing oilfields in this Province

are aging, therefore they are depleting. We have Hibernia, we have White Rose,

and we have Terra Nova. They have been around a while. I always quote Mr. T.

Boone Pickens, an American oilman, who talked about that after you discover oil,

once you start pumping it out - it takes a long time to find it. He says it

takes a long time to get ready to take it out because you have to build a

production facility which in the offshore industry can take a heck of a long

time, but once it starts coming out, it comes out pretty quickly.

In last year's Budget, 2010-2011, we were very surprised at the end of the

year to find out that the amount of oil that had come out of the ground was 8

million barrels more than we thought it was; which did not seem to make sense

given the age of the fields. I understand through new technology and through

something called reserve growth that they are managing to extract more. This

year, in doing our calculations, we projected that the oil production would go

down by 18 million barrels. We based our revenues on that.

Included in that was the fact that the Terra Nova FPSO, which is owned by

Suncor, had announced that that particular rig or FPSO would have to come into

St. John's this year, in the year 2011-2012, in order to have repairs done on

its swivel. When we did the Budget we double checked, because there had been

some stories reported in the paper that they might have conversations with their

partners and they may have deferred that decision to come in for another year.

At Budget time, that decision had not been made. Therefore, we have to budget on

- we cannot budget on something that might happen. We had to budget on what the

plan was, and the plan was to bring that FPSO in for repairs. That should take

about three months, it would take 105 days. While those repairs would be

happening, they obviously would not be producing oil. We calculated that. That

was obviously involved in our forecast for production for the year, and our

Budget was based on that.

Since the Budget came down, we have now learned that Suncor and its partners

have decided that they are going to defer having the FPSO come in to do the

repairs. They are going to defer that, and I understand it is to the

third-quarter of the following year. That means oil production is going to be

higher than we had anticipated. We are still running the numbers, but an order

of magnitude could be that the revenues, the oil royalties for this particular

year could be in the range of $150 million, $200 million more than we were

anticipating, which would mean that this year our forecasted surplus of $59

million will now be significantly higher than that. Of course, it also means

that in the following year the number will go the other way, because it will be

in the year 2012-2013 that the FPSO will come in to have the repairs done.

Mr. Speaker, in commenting on things which will affect our Budget, normally

we comment at Budget time and we comment when we do what is called our mid-year

report or our fall report, and not comment during those periods of time because

we would be commenting every day based on what has happened that day and how it

is going to affect the price of oil. If some foreign despot happens to die, we

could get a call saying: What will that do to the price of oil? If NATO attacks

a country in the Middle East or in Africa, how is that going to affect the price

of oil?

When oil takes a bump or drops, the media will call and want to know our

comments on: What is this going to be? How is this going to affect the deficit

or the surplus, as the case may be? Normally we do not comment, but in view of

the fact that these numbers are potentially significant, we felt that it was

appropriate. I guess most people who follow the industry have realized that,

based on the decision by Suncor to defer bringing the FPSO in to repair the

swivel, production numbers will be higher. That will impact positively, all

other things being equal of course. Because there could be changes in other

things like the price of oil, the exchange rate, and production numbers from

other fields that could impact it differently.

Mr. Speaker, remember I said we can use the surplus to pay down debt, we can

use the surplus to pay taxes, we can use the surplus to pay for much needed

infrastructure, and we can use the surplus to bring in strategies like the

Poverty Reduction Strategy to help people who are vulnerable and who need help.

We also, I said, have to diversify the economy. What is giving us our wealth is

the oil. That is what is making us wealthy right now, and it is a non-renewable

resource. We all know, and it is very important that we remember, that the oil

is going to be gone one day.

The other industry that is sizzling right now is the mineral industry.

Because of demand coming out of China and out of India, the iron ore industry in

Lab West is absolutely sizzling, and of course on the Baie Verte Peninsula as

well. These are non-renewable resources. Some day they will be gone. What do we

do then? What are we going to do when those revenues that are providing us with

our wealth, that are keeping taxes low, that are allowing us to build all of

these new facilities, that are allowing us to put money in people's hands so

they can deal with the rising cost of living, what happens when it stops? One

day it will stop. So we have to diversify the economy. It is easier said than

done.

The plan that we have - it is an agenda, it is not a hidden agenda, it has

been set out in our blueprint, it has been set out in our campaign platform, it

has been set out in our energy plan, it is on the Web, anyone can see is to

use the revenues that are coming from the oil industry and from the mining

industry, from the non-renewables, and to use those to develop renewable revenue

streams based on the hydro power of the Lower Churchill River, based on other

small hydro projects that can be built in the future, based on wind, and, of

course, natural gas that is off Labrador that will be available.

Then we can use those energy sources to heat our homes, to light our homes,

to give us low electricity rates in Newfoundland and Labrador. We can use it to

attract industry to our Province, to Labrador first and to the Island portion of

our Province. Then, what is surplus to our needs can be sold down through the

Maritime Link into Nova Scotia, into New Brunswick, into Prince Edward Island,

and into New England. We can do that because Emera has the transmission rights

and Emera can give us we do not have to build a pipeline down to the New

England states, it is already there, it is already built. I do not think a lot

of people saw that. I think a lot of people thought that we would have to build

a transmission system from the Island of Newfoundland or from Labrador down into

the US, but it is already there.

Premier Williams had the foresight to recognize that it was there and to

recognize that we did not need to own the transmission pipe, we just needed the

right to shoot our electricity down through it. It is like any business. If you

have a business here, you want to ship your goods somewhere else, you do not

have to own the ship that ships it, you just need a ship that you will charter

to do that for you. That is why Emera is such an important partner here because

they are going to give us the transmission rights to ship our power down.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the Lower Churchill, we are doing the Muskrat Falls. We

want to do the Muskrat Falls for one reason: to provide cheaper electricity

costs to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. That is it. We are not doing

it to export. We are not doing it for any other purpose. We want our people to

have low electricity costs. Right now, a significant part of the production of

electricity in Newfoundland and Labrador is coming out of Holyrood and it is

made from oil, and oil is expensive. The experts we use tell us that oil prices

are going to stay high and they are going to get higher because it is hard to

find. We know the price of something is based on demand and supply, supply is

limited, oil is harder and harder to find. It is not in shallow water close by,

it is further offshore. The demand is going up from China and India, and the

other emerging countries, as their population comes out of poverty into middle

class. They are demanding more energy, more cars, and more machinery that use

oil.

So, the demand is going up which means the price is going up, and we have to

get off that. We have to shut down Holyrood. Instead, we have to have clean

hydro rates, clean power, environmentally friendly, green power, but, more

importantly, cheap power. We know that if we do not do the Lower Churchill, if

we do not do Muskrat, that our prices are going to go up, and our hydro rates

are going to go up between 4 per cent and 6 per cent a year. That is what our

experts are telling us. Those experts work for us, they work with Nalcor, and

the people of Newfoundland and Labrador own Nalcor.

The Muskrat Falls Project can produce five terawatt hours of power - five. We

need two to service our needs. We need two to replace Holyrood and to meet new

demands from things like the Vale Inco processing plant. There are three left

over that we do not have to produce and, as they say, you can spill the water,

which means do not produce the other three. We can take the other three terawatt

hours - and Emera said that they will build a Maritime Link for $1.2 billion.

They are going to put $1.2 billion to build that link - $1.2 billion - and we

are going to give them one of those terawatt hours in payment for that and we

are going to own it after thirty-five years. Then, we still have two terawatt

hours of power left over. We are going to take those two terawatt hours of power

and we are going to ship it through the Maritime Link, free, with priority

transmission rights and then when we get into Nova Scotia, we are going to pay

Emera to transfer through Nova Scotia and through New Brunswick, and if

necessary into the United States, where we are going to sell that power, that

surplus to our needs.

Mr. Speaker, if we need it, we will keep it. If we can get a plant or an

aluminium smelter to come to Labrador, they want power and we have it, then that

will be our first - we want power for the people first for cheaper electricity

rates; secondly, we want power to attract industry to Labrador, we want power to

attract industry to Newfoundland and Labrador that will offset the lower costs

of labour in places like China and India and make our industry competitive once

again.

Beyond that, over and above that, when Gull Island comes on and the Upper

Churchill comes back, we will now have power to sell into the US market to make

our kids and grandkids wealthy. That will replace the oil and that will provide

us with the wealth to make up for the oil that is going to be gone. That way we

are going to have the prosperity and wealth for our children and our

grandchildren. If we do not do that, what are we going to do when the oil is

gone?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: That is the key to our energy plan. That is key concept of

what we are trying to do because we know the oil is going to be gone, we know

the minerals are going to gone, someday. There is exploration going on and over

the years there will be more exploration. Hopefully, there will be more fields;

more fields will be more money. Someday, I do not know when it is going to be,

it might be ten years, it might be twenty years, it might be thirty years, but

someday it is going to be gone and that is why we have to have the hydro so that

our kids and our grandkids can be wealthy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER (T. Osborne): The hon. the Member for the District of The

Straits & White Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is always a privilege to stand in the House of Assembly and speak to any

issue or to ask any question, and certainly none more than being able to stand

in response to the Budget that we have been debating for the past number of

days.

I enjoy listening to the Minister of Finance. He is a great speaker, a very

knowledgeable man, and certainly presents his piece very well. I think it is

great that we are looking at acknowledging the fact that oil revenues are

non-renewable, that mining revenues are non-renewable and that, at some point in

our future, in the future of our children and in the future of our

grandchildren, the day will come when these non-renewable resources may not be

there, we may have exhausted the end. The new finds may not be what we would

anticipate or like them to be. Obviously, it is important that we look at

renewable resources.

We have debated the Muskrat Falls deal much in this House in recent days

again, especially through Question Period and debate. Certainly, as an

Opposition, we have no issue at all with developing the Muskrat Falls. We would

love to develop both Muskrat Falls and Gull Island as a Lower Churchill energy

project that we have always wanted to see, but the issue we have had with that

project, Mr. Speaker, has been the fact that this excess power the minister was

just referring to, that we are going to pay Emera to transport for us through

their grid and possibly into New England and so on, is going to be sold,

potentially, into that market for a price today that would appear to be far less

than what we would be paying ourselves. That is, in essence, the sore point in

this whole deal; that we are willing to allow our rates to escalate, and at the

same time, understand that the excess power that otherwise would be spilled over

the dam, as they refer to it, that we will take it and sell it at a subsidized

rate.

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, in the few moments that I have, I want to talk

about two or three things in terms of what I see as shortfalls in this Budget. I

want to talk, first of all, about health care. Mr. Speaker, long-term care is

one of the most pressing issues in terms of delivering health to the residents,

the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2008, three years ago now basically,

this government announced they were going to do a long-term care strategy.

Obviously, the idea of that strategy was to really look at the whole delivery of

long-term care, of the need for long-term care, of where the demographics were

going and the requirements of what that would be as the future unfolded before

us.

Again, this year, Mr. Speaker, it has been disappointing to see that we do

not have a long-term care strategy for this Province. There basically have not

been any monies specifically allocated for that plan. It is not addressed in the

Budget again, so it questions whether or not it is the priority that it should

be, and at times the government members and the Minister of Health would profess

that it is. We are going into another year not certain of where that whole piece

is. Certainly, all over Newfoundland I am sure, but each one of us as MHAs, we

speak more specifically to our own area because it is the area that we know

well. While we may have an understanding of what is taking place across the

Province, it is our districts that we live in, it is our older folk that we see

everyday, it is those who we have grown alongside of for a number of years that

really are near and dear to our hearts.

I know in my District of The Straits & White Bay North, in St. Anthony for

example, where I live, I know at the John M. Gray and I have brought this

issue to the floor of the House before, but at the John M. Gray right now it is

filled to capacity. At the same time, while there are no beds available, there

are literally several, if not ten, twelve, perhaps more people who are in the

hospital, who are just waiting, who are medically discharged and basically are

there because they have nowhere to go. They are lying in their beds day in and

day out, or they are requiring the assistance of a nurse who is there working on

the medicine floor as well, or some other area of the hospital, Mr. Speaker, and

just not able t