November

10, 1992

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol.

XLI No. 61

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): Order, please!

Oral Questions

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in response to questions asked by my

colleague, the Member for Fogo, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations

said that the 22 per cent unemployment rate for October was, and I quote: 'just

another piece of information that allows us to verify that there are problems

and that we are still looking at them.' Now, Mr. Speaker, from October, 1990 to

October, 1991 we lost 7,000 jobs; from October, 1991 to October of this year, we

lost another 14,000 jobs, that is 21,000 in only two years, not counting I

suggest, the jobs lost in the cod moratorium area, contrary to what the minister

says. I want to ask the minister: When is this minister and when is this

government going to stop looking and start doing something?

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

Labour Relations.

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

I appreciate the question because it is a matter that

deserves some public attention.

I want to point out that while these numbers, when stated

boldly as just raw numbers and not put into any context, seem to be severe and

drastic, when you look back to even 1984 and 1985, these numbers, at that point

in time, where we were not into any kind of a recession, are not unusual

compared to what happened then. If you want to take a statistic and use

statistics for whatever political purpose, the unemployment rate in the Province

at that time, when we were supposed to be at a fairly good economic point, was

well over 24 per cent.

Back in 1981-1982, the numbers were higher than they are now

and we had the same kind of recession going on in the country and in the

Province, but it wasn't compounded by almost the total closure and downturn in

the fishery. At that time we were dealing with a similar set of circumstances

economically in the country and in the Province but with a fishery that was

recording high fish landings and fairly high levels of employment. It is only

because of the good management, the good practices followed by this government

that the recession has not had a more severe impact in the Province and

everybody in the Province understands that.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, if it wasn't so serious it would

almost be laughable, Mr. Speaker. The minister suggests also - and, by the way,

we are not talking about 1981-1982 or 1983-1984, we are talking about 1992, and

the people out there are concerned about 1992-1993, that is the concern.

Yesterday, he made some suggestions - I think he implied that the Stats Canada

figures are wrong, because they did include people who were also involved in the

cod moratorium and they continue to show up in the stats. That is what he was

suggesting yesterday.

Now, first of all, the minister would have to be very happy

that there is a package available for people affected by the cod moratorium.

Otherwise, the unemployment rate would probably be over 30 per cent in this

Province; I am sure he would agree with that.

Now, either people are working or they are not working, Mr.

Speaker. I am asking the minister today, would he stop trying to explain away

the problem, as he did yesterday and as he now is doing, and will he start

trying to solve the problem rather than try to explain it away? When is he going

to wake up to the reality that we have lost 21,000 jobs in this Province in just

over the past two years and his government have done absolutely nothing about

it? When is he going to change that?

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

Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you again, Mr. Speaker, to point out

that some of the information again as I indicated in the earlier response, if

you want to take a raw number and use it out of context, it can be shown to try

to mean anything. Twenty-one thousand jobs in two years is not an accurate

number. If you track back over the two years and so on, there is no indication,

for example, that the 14,000 this year are on top of another 7,000 from a

previous year and so on. When you look at it, it talks about year to year

comparisons and those types of things. You can have your own people go back and

check their stats again and check the numbers and see what happens, and if they

want to go and sit with the people in the economic research divisions and the

people who do research for our government, they are welcome to do so if they

want to get some real legitimate information with which to use.

I understand, as well, Mr. Speaker, that while the Leader of

the Opposition wouldn't want to talk about 1981-1982 or 1984-1985 and those

types of things, it has to be put into that kind of context if people are to

know that, in fact, this government has done a very good job in terms of trying

to make sure that things are not much worse as they are in most other provinces

of Canada. The impact over the last two years of recession, both in job losses

and unemployment numbers, has been significantly worse in other provinces of

Canada, including so-called rich and 'have' provinces like in Ontario, Alberta,

and British Columbia, than they have been in Newfoundland and Labrador.

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

supplementary.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I guess the minister is saying,

in essence, that things aren't that bad, and I have to tell him that the people

out around the Province just cannot agree with that kind of a conclusion. Now,

not only have we lost 21,000 jobs over the last two years - and these figures

are accurate figures and the minister knows it even though he might want to

whitewash it as much as he can. The next thing, he will be telling us we didn't

have another 11,000 people leave the workforce, that we haven't got 20,000 more

people on social assistance since this government came to office, even though

his own minister confirmed it the other day, and that this is the same

government whose leader promised to bring every mother's son home from the

mainland and provide jobs for them. I want to ask the minister this question -

yesterday he said things were not as disastrous. Today he said the same thing.

In fact, yesterday's quote was: 'We are dealing with it.' That is what he said

yesterday in Hansard.

I want to ask him, if he doesn't think this is a disaster,

what might be a disaster? But what is it exactly they are doing to deal with it?

That is what the people of the Province want to know. What can they expect to

see from this government in the next year, for example, in the way of jobs? Do

you have any plans at all to address the serious situation that this Province is

in right now?

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

Labour Relations.

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

It has been pointed out by a number of people responding on

this side of the House to similar types of questions from members of the

Opposition, that this government, even though we are now in the middle of a

short-term Emergency Employment Response program that is providing close to

4,000 jobs today that were not there unless an action of the government was

taken, that we have told the people of the Province consistently that we do not

believe that kind of short-term government intervention is the answer.

We have spelled out that, in fact, by doing everything we can

over a period of time, and taking into account the circumstances of the day, we

will try to make sure that everybody is on side with us in creating a climate

whereby there can be the proper levels of investment and economic activity in

the Province so that people can get jobs outside of the public sector.

Within the public sector, and with monies directly taken from

people through taxation, we continue to provide the services that are necessary

and must be made available, and we employ the number of people required to do

that at a standard that will make sure the people are not disadvantaged. All of

that, though, has to be done, and will continue to be done, recognizing the

economic realities of the days in which we live.

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

MR. SIMMS: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker, to pursue

this line of questioning with the minister.

I am intrigued by his thoughts, his philosophical thoughts, I

guess. He is really mouthing the philosophy of the Premier when he talks about:

We don't believe in short-term efforts and so on - even though they have done it

over the last couple of years.

I want to ask him: Does he consider a government that has

been in power now for nearly four years, to be dealing with it in the long-term

or in the short-term? Is three-and-a-half, almost four years now, long-term or

short-term? The bottom line is, the government has done nothing in almost four

years. That is the point that people out around the Province are making.

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

Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Exactly the contrary is true, and we will probably have to

produce the numbers here again to show that through the initiatives of this

government in the last three-and-a-half years, targeted at longer term,

full-time attachment to the labour force with a new program that was introduced

by this government to concentrate on providing opportunities through wage

subsidies to private sector employers who would like to hire people rather than

to give them money in the short-term and so on, that with those kinds of

initiatives, as I pointed out in the House in a statement a week or so ago when

the House first opened, even in this year alone we're approaching the 2,000 mark

in terms of people who are in the work force with some assistance from the

government through a wage subsidy program, one of three programs offered through

this particular department, that has provided for long-term attachment to the

workforce that otherwise wouldn't be there.

Every report that we have in terms of assessment of those

programs is people reporting to us that that is the right approach, and that

those kinds of things will stand everybody in better stead for the long run than

the short-term types of things that we are doing now out of total necessity, but

recognising that we're not meeting the full need, and have nowhere close to the

financial and fiscal capacity to meet the full need just out of government

sources.

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

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

the Environment Minister. The minister has often said that government will come

to a decision on the application of North American Resource Recovery to put an

incinerator at Long Harbour to dispose of imported American garbage when a

proposal has been received by the government and when a proposal has been made

by the company. Has a proposal yet been submitted to the government by the

company?

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

Lands.

MS. COWAN: Mr. Speaker, no such submission has been

received.

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

MR. DOYLE: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. North American

Resource Recovery has made it no secret that they intend to establish such a

facility at Long Harbour - that they want to establish a facility there. Can the

minister maybe expand upon that and tell us the current status of the proposal?

Does she expect to receive a proposal? Is the company still interested? Have

they been in touch with the minister or any of her officials, or any department

of government?

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

Lands.

MS. COWAN: I have heard nothing from them as Minister of

Environment at all. I think it's been six or seven months now since I first

started to hear about this and there has still been nothing. I do believe that

some officials did meet with the Premier, is that correct?... at one point

recently. Maybe a couple of months ago.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

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

MR. DOYLE: Can the minister tell us if the proposal, when

it is received, and when it goes to an environmental review, can she tell us

approximately how much it will cost for an environmental review? I'm just

wondering: hasn't the government yet gotten the message that the people of

Newfoundland do not want this particular project with or without an

environmental assessment? Why doesn't the minister do what the people of

Newfoundland have indicated they want, and give this proposal a decent burial?

Or is the government going to forge ahead, if a proposal is received, against

the overwhelming opposition of the people of the Province?

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

Lands.

MS. COWAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do not have a crystal ball. Sometimes it would be an

advantage, I must admit, other times it would not be. So, I have no idea if this

group plans to submit. I only know what I read in the newspapers.

Now, over the summer the flow of letters regarding the

proposed proposal from Long Harbour dissipated. There were a number I received

before, not from people all over the Island and Labrador but from very

concentrated areas, largely from St. John's, some from classrooms where teachers

were doing assignments on the environment. Since September, I believe, I have

had one letter. So I am not sure if the citizens of this Province have spoken or

not, Mr. Speaker, but certainly if an environmental assessment process ever does

come about they will indeed be consulted and listened to with care.

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

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

I have a question for the Premier, Mr. Speaker. I have

access to floors nine and ten. I believe that is the way it reads.

Mr. Speaker, could the Premier confirm that there are

renovations going on on floors nine and ten, were there tenders called for these

renovations, and does he have any idea what these renovations will cost the

Province?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, these are renovations that

were all part of the plan that the former government had in place, including the

construction of this Chamber. All of these renovations to the building were part

of it. In fact, one of the things we decided first was whether or not we could

stop the construction. We took a look at it and they advised us that the

contracts, having been let, for this Chamber, for example, it would have cost

more to stop the construction than to proceed with it. So we proceeded.

Also, as you will recall, they ran a new reinforcement wall

all the way up through. The Cabinet room is a firetrap, so they tell us, it does

not comply with the standards. There is only one narrow stair access that went

up by the stairwell. They are putting in a second access. They took corners out

of all of the floors all the way up through and ran a proper fire exit stairwell

all the way up to the tenth or eleventh floor. They took a corner of my office

and broke into that, and they're now running a separate elevator from the

seventh floor to the eleventh. All of those things were all in train and the

arrangements all made and we've continued with it.

Mr. Speaker, we perhaps should eliminate any that we can and

we're looking seriously at that now - eliminating anything that we can possibly

avoid doing at this stage. But these things were all in progress and we let them

continue on.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, the Premier looked at this

to stop it and he found that he couldn't do it. But he could have stopped these

renovations up there if he wished to, but he decided to go ahead with them.

Renovations are also going ahead on the eleventh floor, as

the Premier said. That floor was only renovated several years ago, in my time,

that I was there. Could the Premier tell us what is the cost of the

re-renovations of the eleventh floor, Mr. Speaker, and is that done under a

separate contract? Or is it a part of the ninth and tenth floor?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: The renovations to the eleventh floor are

also part of the fire renovations that had to take place - the stairwell, the

access to it, the elevator access. It's being refurbished, the whole chamber,

because it's going to become, I expect, a permanent Cabinet room now that the

stairwell is in proper place.

As to whether tenders were called I'll check and make sure,

but I have every confidence that the Public Tender Act was met. I can't imagine

that we would have been proceeding without the calling of tenders. So I'm

operating on the assumption that they were but I will ask the minister to take

the question under advisement and we'll provide the information to the House.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, the Premier just confirmed

that not only are there safety renovations going on to the eleventh floor, but

the floor that was already done -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is on a supplementary and should ask the

question.

MR. R. AYLWARD: - is being re-renovated for a Cabinet

room.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

All hon. members know that on supplementary questions there's

supposed to be no

preamble. In any event, members are falling into the habit of

commenting on answers and debating them. That's not supposed to happen. Hon.

members know that. So I ask the hon. member to ask the question.

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

the Premier confirm that besides the ninth and tenth floor, which were in the

plans for this building, the eleventh floor, which is getting a re-modelling,

which was only done a few years ago, for a new cabinet room, will the Premier

also confirm that the eighth floor, the deluxe suite of offices that were there

when the Premier came into office, are being renovated to become a super deluxe

suite of offices? Will the Premier confirm that there is some $70,000 worth of

wallpaper, the majority of it going in his office? There is hardware for doors.

At least one door, the hardware will cost some $600 for a doorknob and a few

hinges. Are all these a part of the contracts that the Premier is talking about?

Or are the eighth floor renovations a separate contract between the ninth and

tenth floor? Or are the renovations to the Premier's office hidden away in the

other contracts, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I won't confirm any of the things that he

suggested, Mr. Speaker, but I'll tell the House what in fact is happening, if

the House is interested.

As I indicated, they were putting up a separate stairwell, so

we lost an entire office in the corner and part of my secretary's office. Other

parts of the building, the access to the elevator that will go by, that had to

be done. There was a little meeting room where people who would come to see the

Premier had to meet. No windows, no light, just a little cubbyhole. Anybody

who's ever met in there knows if you have more than two people in it, it becomes

an insufferable circumstance. There are times when there are anywhere from six

to fifteen people meeting with the Premier, and I have to have a place to meet.

So, Mr. Speaker, we've provided for a meeting room that's now

been largely done. That renovation is being done. It's necessitated renovating

the whole central corridor. The whole of the floor has really been restructured

in that sense. They're refurbishing the Premier's office. To call it deluxe, I

call it - well, I'm hesitant to say what I call it. I couldn't even read in

there, the light was so bad, with the bamboo ceiling that somebody had put in, I

mean, it was just totally -

AN HON. MEMBER: They used it to grow cucumbers

(Inaudible).

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

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible) the bamboo curtain that Joey had

for Valdmanis -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair has recognised the Member for Kilbride.

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

Will the Premier confirm that the chairs that are now being

ordered for his meeting room, I believe, through a Newfoundland company, will

cost approximately $3,000 a chair? And does the Premier really think that he had

the power to stop these renovations in these hard times when there is a 50 per

cent increase in social services - 20,000 less people working in this Province?

We have a closure in our fishery - that he could not have put off these

renovations until things got a bit better in our Province, so that he would not

be creating for himself a superdeluxe suite of offices which had only been

renovated less than five or six years ago?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, on reflection, if I had known

that the circumstances would continue to be so difficult for so long, and the

recession would have persisted for so long, and the effects of the fishery - if

I had known and foreseen all of those things, I probably would have tried to

stop the contracts and stop the renovation that was in place.

The safety features of it would be difficult to stop, because

you have to consider the lives of the people who work there; but it may well be

that with hindsight I may well have tried to stop some of the other things. As a

matter of fact, I have given some instructions now to take a look at what

remains in the

schedule of renovations that was originally developed for this

building, as to what remains to be done and whether or not we can stop some of

those and allow the building to function safely without going through with those

renovations.

Mr. Speaker, we cut out the things that we knew were totally

wasteful and unnecessary. The $75,000 that it cost to run the Premier's private

dining room, where he entertained people - we cut all of that out. I run and

operate the office from my office. I do not run a suite of dining rooms where I

have stores of liquor and cigarettes and cigars and so on in there. I will

produce the invoices if people want to see it, and want to see the cost of it. I

have cut that out, and we hope we will be able to run this building in a

reasonably satisfactory way, and have reasonably presentable accommodation for

people when they come to meet the Premier. If you have six or eight or ten

people, you need to have reasonable accommodation, and we are putting that in

place. I suppose there is nothing wrong with doing that in these circumstances.

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

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

the Minister of Education, concerning student aid.

Does the minister know that hundreds and perhaps thousands of

students are unable to register for the winter semester courses at Memorial

University because of this government's student aid policies? They have not paid

their current fall tuition fees because they have not had their appeals heard

from student aid, and therefore they cannot get their money. How many students

have their appeals now outstanding; and can the minister tell us whether or not

he has instructed the departmental officials not to release this information to

the public or to MHA's?

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

MR. DECKER: No to the first question, Mr. Speaker. I am

not aware of hundreds of thousands of students.

The second part of the question I will certainly take under

advisement, to get the precise number of people who are having appeals.

The third question, no, I have not instructed anyone not to

release the information.

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

supplementary.

MR. HARRIS: So if the minister does not know, he should

find out; but he should also know that the appeals process is in a disastrous

state because of his policies. I will ask him whether he knows that the root of

the problem is his department's policy of assuming that any student who works in

the summertime makes at least $2,000 and giving them student aid accordingly.

Why does the minister not tell students that they will assess

your need based on your actual income, and give it out accordingly, instead of

forcing students to appeal, and hundreds and thousands of them are forced to

appeal each year. It is now the middle of November, they still have not got

their money for the Fall and they are in dire straits. Why doesn't the minister

do something about that?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, there is not a whole lot that

any provincial minister can do about that. There are guidelines which are in the

Student Aid Program which are dictated by the Student Loans Program, which is a

federal program basically, that we administer. One of the guidelines states that

a student who is single and away from home and working must have a certain

percentage of his money saved. There is a different allowance made for a student

who stays at home and works.

I have to agree with the hon. member, that the assumption is

there that a student who works will save some money and their loan has to be

processed based on that. Sometimes when there is an appeal, there are

extenuating circumstances as to why a student didn't save 40 per cent, and

hopefully that is picked up. But I have to admit that it is a long, drawn out

process, Mr. Speaker. But on the other hand, 10,000 people descended on the

student loans office in a period of about a month and I would challenge any bank

in this country to deal with 10,000 applications in such a short time period and

not have some problems, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Why doesn't the minister monitor the situation with student

appeals more closely, and why is he not aware of the hundreds and thousands of

students who are, every day, trying to get an answer from his department as to

whether they are going to get their cheque? Why is he not on top of that?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I said I am not aware of the

hundreds of thousands of students who are having problems with student loans. I

was frankly being facetious because the reality is there are only 18,000 all

over Newfoundland and Labrador attending university and other schools. So there

are not hundreds of thousands of people having trouble. That is why I said I am

not aware of it, Mr. Speaker, and if I have to spell it out for the hon. member

I will. The reality is there is a problem, and I am quite willing to admit it.

The actual number, Mr. Speaker, I don't carry that around in my head. If the

hon. member wants a society where ministers make decisions about who is going to

be appealed, who is going to get loans and all this sort of thing, he is not

talking about an educational system that is arms's-length from government, he is

talking about political interference into the educational system, Mr. Speaker,

and I will have no part of that and this administration will have no part of

that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Premier. Is the

Premier telling people that it is only right and proper for a man who needed a

$50,000 a year salary supplement to be Leader of the Opposition to have hundreds

of thousands of dollars of the peoples' money spent to redecorate his suite of

offices so that he doesn't have to put up with 1986 style with the bamboo

ceiling, but so that he could have 1992 designer, decorator, high fashion

colours -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Would the hon. member get on with the question?

MS. VERGE: - and wall paper and door fittings?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS. VERGE: Is that what the Premier is saying?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind hon. members that when the Speaker stands there is

supposed to be silence, and the Speaker's decisions about Question Period are

not to be appealed.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, silence.

MR. SIMMS: Not silent.

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, silent.

Would somebody get Sir Erskine May for me, please, page 180,

and I shall quote it for the hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Hon. members know that when they are asking a question the

preamble is supposed to be short, and the hon. member was rather lengthy on the

preamble.

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I would like to answer all aspects of the

question raised.

The necessity that I would have a $50,000 supplement to my

salary as Leader of the Opposition, most of which was made necessary because the

government in which she was the Attorney General and Mr. Peckford was the

Premier kept the people of this Province waiting for six months and wouldn't

call the by-election after the Member for Windsor - Buchans resigned, in order

to prevent me from having any income. I hope she is proud of that democratic

approach. I hope all hon. members opposite are equally proud of the fact that

the Member for Windsor - Buchans resigned in June of 1987 and they waited until

December to call the election.

Now, Mr. Speaker, maybe they will examine their own selves

and see what all of this relates to.

Mr. Speaker, let me answer the second aspect of the question:

No, Mr. Speaker, it was not just the bamboo ceiling, it was the fact that the

bamboo did not let any light through it. You could not read in there, you could

not see. It was like a dungeon. Now maybe, if all you did was smoke cigars all

day long, that is okay.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has expired.

Reading from Sir Erskine May, page 180. I am just taking a

section from it. This is Erskine May, the 21st edition. It says, talking about

the Speaker: "When he rises to preserve order or to give a ruling on a doubtful

point he must always be heard in silence ...".

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, be heard in silence.

Presenting Reports by

Standing and Special Committees

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and

Technology.

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to table the annual

report for Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador, pursuant to the Act.

Notices of Motion

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

Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on

tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The

Occupational Health and Safety Act."

Orders of the Day

MR. ROBERTS: Motions 1 through 4 to begin, please, Mr.

Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Motions 1 through 4.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Finance to introduce a bill,

"An Act To Amend The Gasoline Tax Act," carried. (Bill No. 49).

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Finance to introduce a bill,

"An Act To Abolish Certain Fees," carried. (Bill No. 51).

Notion, the hon. the Minister of Finance to introduce a bill,

"An Act To Amend The Financial Corporations Capital Tax Act," carried. (Bill No.

52).

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Justice to introduce a bill,

"

An Act To Amend The Residential Tenancies Act," carried. (Bill No. 50).

On motion, Bills No. 49, 51, 52 and 50 read a first time,

ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, Order 6: the adjourned debate

on the Avian Emblem Bill.

MR. SPEAKER: Order 6.

MR. ROBERTS: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank adjourned

the debate, but I gather he doesn't wish to resume the floor, Mr. Speaker.

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

West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I want to have a few words on

this piece of legislation, as well. As my colleague from Grand Bank pointed out

yesterday, while no one disagrees with the fact that it is nice to have a symbol

and it is nice for the puffin to receive the type of recognition that has been

proposed, it is unfortunate that at this time with the economic conditions of

this Province as they are and with this House in session for just a few days,

that the major piece of legislation, the incentive that the government brings

forth to try to do something for the economic conditions of this Province is

nothing but to bring the puffin in as the official bird of the Province.

AN HON. MEMBER: Can you eat it?

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, we all know the condition of this

Province. We have seen it day-in-and-day-out. We have seen the minister - and we

have the Leader of the Opposition asking questions about 21,000 less people

working in this Province today, and yet, the only bit of initiative that we see

coming from the government is the puffin act. Now, what is that going to do to

put bread and butter on the tables of men and women who are unemployed? What is

that going to do for the 21,000 Newfoundlanders that this Minister of Employment

and Labour Relations couldn't care less about, who skates around, who does

nothing for the people of this Province? - 21,000 - as pointed out by the Leader

of the Opposition today - less men and women in this Province working in the

last two years than the year prior to that and yet government gives us the

puffin act.

Now, why is that such an important issue? After six days in

this House - with men and women starving, with wind blowing through houses, with

snow beating in through windows, people without doors to their homes and the

government not giving a cent of money to alleviate the problems with their homes

that are being experienced by people on social assistance, Mr. Speaker - there

is not a piece of legislation here dealing with economic conditions, dealing

with the social problems facing people who are on social assistance today, yet

we have the puffin act coming before this Legislature. You can go through this

inside out and upside down, there is not one piece of legislation to address the

needs of the people in this Province who are unemployed.

There is not one piece of legislation, there is not one

feather from a puffin that is going to be able to prevent the wind and the rain

from beating into the home of a woman from my constituency who wrote me a letter

today which I forwarded on to the Minister of Social Services. There is not one

wing from a puffin -

AN HON. MEMBER: Table it.

MR. TOBIN: Yes, I will table it. I just might table the

letter, Mr. Speaker. The puffin act will do nothing for the people for whom

Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation are responsible. You fired

thirty-seven people last week. There were thirty-seven people fired by

Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation -twenty-seven people fired and ten

jobs made redundant, and not one wing, Mr. Speaker, a puffin would not keep

their families going for one day, not one day would they survive on a puffin.

And all of the people who now have social housing problems throughout this

Province, who are waiting days and years, weeks, months and years for the RRAP

inspectors to go and check their homes to see if they are eligible - the

minister lays them off, fires them, and yes, Mr. Speaker, he is part of the

government that brings in a puffin act. Where is the direction of this

government? Where is this government headed? Where are we going?

We have no problems with the piece of legislation that has

been brought in, but we have a responsibility as an Opposition to point out that

this puffin act is not going to do anything for the economy of this Province. We

have a responsibility to let the people know what the government's agenda is,

and we intend to let the people know the government's agenda.

The agenda of this government is to do nothing for the people

on social assistance, to do nothing for the students who are not getting student

aid, to do nothing for the people who have to lie in stretchers, to do nothing

for people who have to come all across Newfoundland to get their case fought in

the Legislature. There is not one piece of legislation proposed to come forward

in this session of the House that is going to address any of these needs, not

one, yet, Mr. Speaker, the third piece of legislation, I believe, or the fourth

to be introduced in this House, was the puffin act. What is that going to do for

the people in Placentia or the people in Conche or the people in Jacques

Fontaine or the people in Port au Bras or Baie Verte or Port de Grave. What is

that going to do for these people who are faced with hardship? What is that

going to do for a woman in this Province with three teenage daughters and no

door to her house? Social Services will not give her - the Housing will not give

her a door.

What is this puffin act and this piece of legislation going

to do for the woman who has no windows? - the glass broken out of her window

frames and she has to try to put it together with Scotch tape. What is the

puffin going to do for these people? That is what I would like to have answered.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible). What is it going to do for the

men and women who are trying to survive today on two dollars a day, Mr. Speaker?

What is it going to do for the men and women in this Province who have two

dollars a day to try to live on? That is the question I would like to have

answered. Do the people opposite, the Cabinet and the backbenchers, believe that

the most important piece of legislation, the number four piece of legislation to

be introduced in this Legislature, was

an act to deal with a puffin? -or, as the

minister said when he introduced the bill, a feathered beast?

The minister introduced this bill, saying said how honoured

he was to bring to this Assembly a piece of legislation to introduce a feathered

beast. Mr. Speaker, that feathered beast is not going to do much to put bread

and butter on the tables of the men and women and their families in this

Province who have nothing to eat - not going to do very much, I say to the

minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: It will.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Ferryland, Witless Bay and

Bay Bulls (inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: The people of Ferryland are waiting for the

puffin so they can put bread and butter on their tables.

MR. WALSH: Yes. There are a number of tour boat operators

down there (inaudible) designation to increase their own marketing capabilities.

MR. TOBIN: Well, I say to the minister, if that is the

answer - now the economic strategy for this government for this session is the

puffin bill, that's going to put bread and butter on the tables of the people in

Ferryland and the people in other parts of the Province. That is the economic

strategy of this government, says the minister.

MR. MATTHEWS: The Economic Strategic Plan.

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible) Jim Walsh.

MR. TOBIN: Economic Strategic Plan. The minister said it,

the minister just said it is going to do a lot to put bread and butter on the

tables of the people of Ferryland and the people of this Province. Now, if the

people of this Province in Port au Bras in my district, or Epworth, or over in

Lamaline or Lourdes Cove, have to go out tonight and decide that everything is

going to be solved, they are all going back to work, bread and butter is coming

on the table, yes, because the minister introduced the puffin act. How childish,

Mr. Speaker, for the minister to say it!

The fact of the matter is that we intend to let the people of

this Province know that this government has no economic plan. It is contained in

this book - the legislation that is to be introduced in this Assembly does

nothing for the economy of this Province. It does nothing for the 500 unemployed

Shipyard workers in Marystown who were working for seventeen years. In the last

three years none of them have worked. It does nothing for the 1,000 men and

women who are laid off from the Marystown fish plant; it does nothing for the

1,000 men and women who are laid off from the Port Union plant; and it does

nothing for the people who are laid off in Ramea, Gaultois, Harbour Breton and

other places in our Province. It does absolutely nothing.

I expected to see this government bring in some sort of an

economic plan, some sort of a piece of legislation that was going to do

something to stimulate the economy of this Province. That is not the case.

Speaking of feathered beasts -

MR. SIMMS: Speaking of what?

MR. TOBIN: Feathered beasts.

MR. SIMMS: Feathered beasts.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I'm serious about this. The

Member for Placentia, the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, should

take it seriously, as well. Because if he doesn't realize it, there are 21,000

less men and women working in this Province since you people came to office.

Now, if you take pride in that, if you support that, if that is all you are

doing, and the best piece of legislation you can bring in to deal with these

21,000 people is the puffin act, then I would say you are not much of a

government, and I believe the people of this Province would agree. It is

shameful.

MR. HOGAN: (Inaudible) get down to business.

MR. TOBIN: This is not government business? Now, the

Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs says: Let's get down to government

business.

Well, it wasn't the Opposition who brought in the puffin act.

It wasn't the Member for St. John's East who brought in the puffin act. It was

this government, the Cabinet that you are part of, that brought in the puffin

act and who made it the third piece of legislation to be called in this House.

That is exactly what it was, the puffin act.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) puffin.

MR. TOBIN: There is one thing about puffin, and there is

one person good at puffin. I say to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial

Affairs that rather than being in here yapping across the House, he should be

out supporting his constituents against - instead of being the only one in

Placentia that supports the importation of American garbage -

AN HON. MEMBER: Come down and try me.

MR. TOBIN: For what? I don't have to go down there. I

don't have to go down there to try you. The minister - you ran four times

already and only got elected once, so you shouldn't challenge too many to go

down and try you, I say to the member. Your record is one for four, so you

shouldn't be too loud and abrasive about somebody challenging you. Get elected

three times and ask us to challenge you. That is when we will take you

seriously. Anyone can get elected once, I say to the minister. Anyone can get

elected once. Getting re-elected is going to be your test.

I say to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs

that he should not get too cocky. I have seen people in this House before,

getting elected once and coming in and challenging everyone; but they weren't

around very much longer; and there are a lot of them over there with the same

attitude.

Speaking of puffin, you are only in the House for a couple of

years and you are taking on the world.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: The member for Twillingate, the Minister of

Fisheries, could give us all advice, I would suspect, on getting elected, and

how to stay getting elected, even though he switched parties a few times. He

could give us all advice on that. I say to the Minister of Municipal and

Provincial Affairs that the Member for Twillingate was not about to challenge

everyone after he got elected the first time saying, take me on.

I guess my time on this piece of legislation is just about

cluing up.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. TOBIN: No, I will not 'by leave' on it, but I will

say, and I will say to the Premier, that if he feels that the most important

piece of legislation, number three, I believe, or number four, to be introduced

in this Legislature was the puffin bill, then I would say he doesn't have much

of a plan.

In any case, I do not have any problem in supporting the

piece of legislation, but I felt an obligation to my constituents and to the

people of this Province to point out the lack of priority of this government in

terms of an economic strategic plan for this Province.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I did not intend to speak on

this, and I am not speaking on the puffin legislation. I am speaking on the

puffing I have heard from the opposite side, and I think it is necessary for me

to do it.

Mr. Speaker, this is not the most important piece of

legislation on this Order Paper. Its place doesn't have anything to do with it.

This, as I recall, originated when the former government conducted a lottery or

a contest throughout the Province as to what should be the avian emblem. So we

are following up and cluing up, and it was on the Order Paper last Spring and it

was left over because we did not give it all that much attention, and now it has

been left over for two or three years.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: So it is just one of those things on the

Order Paper.

For the hon. member to make those kinds of statements - who,

in God's name, would believe a word he says, if he asks people to give that

stuff credibility? Just look at the rest of the content. With no plan, he says;

we are not doing anything. What does he want us to do; pass

an act that restores

the codfish in the sea? Is that what he want's us to do? Is that what this

Legislature is going to do? Are we going to pass

an act to end national economic

recessions, or to make them inapplicable in Newfoundland? Is that what he wants

us to do? That is a good piece of legislation. That should really do something.

Maybe he would want us to pass

an act to halt federal

reductions in transfers to the Province of Newfoundland so as to entitle this

Legislature to have more. Maybe that is what he feels this Legislature should

do. Maybe he feels we should pass

an act to create another cucumber plant. Maybe

that is what we will do. Maybe this is the economic plan of the hon. members

opposite - a cucumber plant. At least the poor old puffin will not cost us $22

million - 'economic plan.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WELLS: They stand on the opposite side and say:

The government should do more. The government should pay the fishermen even

more. The government should pay pensions to people who want to leave the fishery

at fifty. This government is terrible. It is only going to cost this or that to

do it; why are they not taking advantage of it - instead of talking to their

cousins in Ottawa who are causing this problem.

What they do not do is stand and tell us from what citizens

pockets they want us to take the money, because that is what this Legislature

does. When it spends money, what this Legislature does is take it out of the

pockets of the citizens of the Province. Now what those hon. members opposite

stand and say is: Spend more money; give more money; but they do not have the

courage to say from whose pockets it is to be taken.

We would like to see more money paid, and like to see it

spent, and like to see the federal government take their -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I want to remind the hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West

that he has participated in the debate, and that he is continually interrupting,

and that is not permitted in the House of Assembly. It is not permitted in any

House of Assembly. So hon. members should know the rules. The hon. member has

spoken, and should extend the same courtesy to the Premier that was extended to

him when he was speaking.

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I heard him talk about the

numbers unemployed. Is the puffin act going to deal with the unemployed? As

though this is a new problem; as though there is something different about this

recession. Let me give you the figures. Here is the comparison, 1981-'82,

October over October, the same month for which we just got the figures: It is

noteworthy that an October over October employment decline of 13,000 or 6.9 per

cent was recorded in 1981 - the year for which the hon. member sat in the

Cabinet and had responsibility. In the same month of 1981 the size of the

October over October labour force declined by 7,000 or 3.3 per cent. This

compares with 3.3 per cent decline in this year - exactly the same.

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

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

West on a point of order.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the Premier cannot get up and

mislead the House like he just did, and he has to be corrected when he misleads

the House. I was not even elected to this Assembly in 1981, let alone in the

Cabinet.

MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) but let me say that it simply

seems, in the bad moments of the nightmare, that sometimes the hon. gentleman

has sat here forever. You will have to forgive us for that.

MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I do not think there is much order in

either comment, Mr. Speaker.

The numbers of unemployed in 1981, October over October, the

numbers of unemployed rose by 29.2 per cent compared with 17.9 per cent in this

year - quite remarkable. And the hon. member stands as though the national

economic recession - the international recession - is not occurring? When you

draw it to their attention all they say is: Oh, you are repapering your office.

You are spending some money. Really intelligent dealing with the economic

situation, I must say.

As well, Mr. Speaker, the October over October unemployment

rate of 1981 rose by 3.4 percentage points. Now, Mr. Speaker, an economic

recession is beyond the control of the Legislature of this Province. We cannot

pass

an act that will have the effect of stopping the impact of the economic

recession in this Province, we cannot pass

an act that will restore the northern

cod to the waters off Newfoundland and Labrador, and we are not going to be

passing acts to create phoney jobs in cucumber plants, to spend $22 million

doing it, pretending we are doing something.

Mr. Speaker, when you look at the circumstances in the

Province at the moment you will realize just how well the Province has been

managed in financial terms, that, notwithstanding the impact of the national

economic recession, notwithstanding the impact, Mr. Speaker, of the federal

cutbacks that have taken place consistently, year after year for each of the

last three years, notwithstanding what has happened in the fishery, we still

largely out-performed any of the other provinces of Canada. Mr. Speaker, other

provinces, Ontario, Alberta, Quebec, Saskatchewan, each of them have had their

credit ratings decreased because they have mismanaged. What do the hon. members

opposite say? Borrow! Borrow! Borrow! As though the people of this Province had

the ability to borrow endlessly and that was the simple answer. Mr. Speaker,

even the NDP are coming to realize that that cannot continue any more.

I was reading an editorial comment in today's Globe and Mail

reporting on a speech by Premier Romanow of Saskatchewan and commending him for

saying: 'Some say don't worry about it. Some say by showing your concern you are

betraying the social democratic truth. Just continue on and borrow and borrow.

Nothing could be further from the truth.'

Mr. Speaker, even the New Democratic Party is finally coming

to realize that you have got to maintain a sound financial situation.

Yet in a simple piece of legislation to provide for the

puffin as the bird of this Province, which should have gone through like that

with a brief comment from the other side, the members opposite stand up and do

this kind of grandstanding, the kind of grandstanding that they did yesterday

when they abused that poor man in the wheelchair and brought him out to try and

make political points on it. A shocking display, Mr. Speaker! Are there no

depths to which they will not sink, Mr. Speaker, in their efforts to try and

somehow cast some political aspersions on the government? A shocking display, a

shocking performance in all of the circumstances, Mr. Speaker!

If they had any sense or had any real concern for the

Province, they would simply say to the minister: We approve of your puffin

legislation. We originated the idea of having the puffin as the bird of the

Province. Take some credit for it, let it go through and let the House get on

with its ordinary business instead of this silly grandstanding.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is not hard to tell when the Opposition is getting to the

Premier. It is not hard to tell when he cannot deal with the arguments on their

merits. He always resorts to attacking the questioner and attempting to shift

the blame. He tries to blame the previous government, he tries to blame the

federal government, the unions and the news media, instead of owning up to his

own responsibility for the mess the Province is now in.

Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago the Premier had the gall to

accuse my colleague, the Member for Burin - Placentia West, of lacking the

courage to say from whose pockets he was going to get the money needed for

measures that are needed. This is a Premier who has lacked the courage to tell

the people of the Province from whose pockets the $50,000 salary supplement

came. He has never had the courage to tell from which businesspeople the $50,000

salary supplement came. This is the Premier who has not had the courage to own

up to the extravagant redecorating he is now having done in his suite of

offices, simply because he does not like the bamboo ceiling that was put there

in 1986. That surely would not do for a Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador,

high and mighty, in 1992, no.

The Premier tries to say that he did not have a choice, that

he inherited a plan for redecorating. The Premier did not have a choice I

suppose, when it came to providing support for single mothers and their

children. The Premier made a choice though; he cut social assistance for single

parent families getting child support. When it came to health care, the Premier

had a choice, he could have lived up to his campaign promises, he could have

opened more hospital beds, he did not have to close whole hospitals but he did.

When it comes to university education the Premier had a

choice, he made promises to immediately expand Grenfell College in Corner Brook

to establish a new university campus in central Newfoundland and then build new

university campuses in southern, northern Newfoundland and Labrador. He made

that promise in the winter of 1989, after he had been Leader of the Opposition

for a year-and-a-half going on two years; after he was here in the Legislature

with the financial statements of the Province before him, he did not have to

make those extravagant promises, he did not have to; he did not have to break

the promises after he became Premier, he did not have to put people in central

Newfoundland through the charade of competing to be the site for the new central

Newfoundland university campus but he did that.

Mr. Speaker, as I said in the beginning, it is not hard to

tell when this Premier is in trouble. There is a saying that there is no defence

like a good offence. Whenever this Premier is feeling cornered he goes right on

the attack, right on the attack. He disparages the character of the Member for

Burin - Placentia West, he faults the previous government, he faults the

government in Ottawa, he criticizes the news media, he condemns the labour

movement, he tries to shift the debate to Saskatchewan but he is very

uncomfortable dealing with the here and now responsibilities of the Wells

administration, very uncomfortable.

He lacks answers, he lacks a plan; he cannot defend the

staggering 21,000 job loss, not counting direct job losses from the northern cod

moratorium. He cannot answer for the doubling of the welfare rolls. He has no

answers, he has no plan, he has failed miserably in delivering on his campaign

platform. Much as he may try to recreate the election campaign of 1989 minus

Humber East, much as he may try to shift the ground back several years, he will

not succeed because the people of the Province are not interested in debating

what happened four years ago, ten years ago, fifteen years ago. The people of

Newfoundland and Labrador are concerned about how they are living today and how

they and their children are going to live tomorrow, and the people of the

Province are not going to put up with a Premier who refuses to own up to his

responsibility, who, Marie Antoinette style, is refurbishing his offices at the

same time as single mothers and their children cannot afford to have a

nutritious balanced diet. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador are not going

to put up with that.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I had no intention of speaking on this bill

but after the charade just carried out by the Premier, I felt I had to get up to

try to point out the transparency of his protests. The Premier has no answers to

the substantive criticisms of the opposition about his failure to manage the

provincial government, his failure to stimulate the economy. He has no answers

for the fact that ever since he set up an Economic Recovery Commission the

economy has been going down the tubes. This Premier has no hope to offer the

citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador and it is timefor this Premier to give it

up and allow people who have ideas and energy to manage Newfoundland and

Labrador and stimulate the economy here.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Before proceeding the Chair must remind hon. members about

what we're into here. Some members think it's rather nice and you can be rather

tricky when we're into second reading and doing other things, rather than what

ought to be done. The House has certain rules to be followed. Hon. members ought

to follow them.

Relevancy as we know is difficult to call but hon. members

will I think agree that we've been anything but relevant in the past little

while. When the Member for Burin - Placentia West started speaking, and started

bringing in economic matters, the Chair was rather lenient, and then was lenient

to the Premier as well, and lenient to the Member for Humber East. But the Chair

has to bring it to the attention of hon. members that second reading is for

debating the principle of the Bill. If hon. members want to do other things then

they should change the rules so that they can do them.

The Chair must remind hon. members that the debate for the

past hour was all irrelevant and not related to the Bill at all. Hon. members

should remember that in second reading we have to speak to the principle of the

Bill. Now if hon. members, as I said, insist on making things difficult for the

Chair, that's not the way it ought to be. Hon. members know the rules of the

House and they ought to follow the rules of the House. The job of the Chair is

to enforce the rules. The job of hon. members is to follow the rules.

As I've said, we can make this place a charade by constantly

disobeying the rules and trying to be - I don't know what we'd call it - trying

to evade the rules. The rules are there, and if we're to operate a good House

the rules must be followed in every respect and every aspect of the House.

If the minister speaks now he closes the debate.

The hon. the Minister of Tourism and Culture.

MR. WALSH: Mr. Speaker, in attempting to close debate

this afternoon let me simply say that there are a number of people out there -

and I mentioned earlier, in particular the people in the Witless Bay and Bay

Bulls area - who are looking to utilise the puffin as part of their promotion

package over the next twelve to twenty-four months. One of the things we have to

realise - and we talk about the puffin as the avian symbol for Newfoundland - is

that in Newfoundland we have the largest colonies and the largest sanctuaries of

such birds in North America. We've been utilizing it as a major promotional item

over the last number of years, and in actual fact about 95 per cent of all of

the puffins in North America breed in and around Newfoundland and Labrador.

So for those reasons we have an opportunity to see tremendous

spin-offs in terms of the various items that can be marketed. All the way from

shirts, caps, pins, and so on. So we have an opportunity also, with this Bill

being put in place today, to utilise the bird also in our promotional activities

henceforth, and that we will use it.

I want also to give full credit to the members on the

opposite side who actually began this process some five years ago when they had

their contest, in terms of asking the people of Newfoundland to try to identify

an avian symbol for the Province. The end result was the puffin. I'm a little

disappointed that I've heard more noise here concerning all the other subjects

than the one that we were trying to deal with than one would hear if they were

actually going to visit one of the colonies off Witless Bay or Bay Bulls.

So with that, Mr. Speaker, I move second reading on Bill 21.

On motion, a bill, "

An Act Respecting An Avian Emblem Of The

Province," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole

House on tomorrow. (Bill No. 21).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, the Opposition can really get

their teeth into the next one. Order 7, Bill No. 20.

MR. SPEAKER: Order 7.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Waste

Material Disposal Act". (Bill No. 20).

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

Lands.

MS. COWAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I'm not

quite sure this is the sort of thing you'd want to get your teeth into,

literally.

Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased today to be able to introduce into

the House of Assembly for second reading Bill 20, "An Act To Amend The Waste

Material Disposal Act." The main purpose of this Bill is to increase the present

maximum fine under the Waste Material Act from $2,000 to $500,000. I'm sure that

members of the House would agree with me that $2,000 is not a realistic fine in

today's world. Certainly back in the '60s or '70s when this bill was put in

place I think that such offenses as illegal garbage disposal, littering and

small scale industrial discharges might have been in mind, but it is important

that there be substantial increase of the maximum fine to allow for the worst

case scenarios, repeat offenders and offenses by large industrial polluters.

Mr. Speaker, today there are many situations in Newfoundland

where the Newfoundland industry could dump waste material illegally and absorb

the fines as saving over actual disposal costs. In the present climate of

greatly increased awareness and concern for the environment it is considered

that a maximum fine of at least $500,000 is necessary to act as a deterrent to

potential major polluters. This amount puts the province's environmental penalty

provision in line with most other Canadian jurisdictions. Harmonization of

environmental legislation across the country is identified as a goal of all

provinces and the federal government.

Mr. Speaker, the amendment proposed in the bill will also

allow for the court to order cleanup upon conviction for a disposal offence.

This will rectify an omission in the act as currently written. The lack of such

a provision has been expressed as a concern by several judges.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present the bill to the hon.

House and urge its full support by all hon. members. Thank you.

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

MR. DOYLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Contrary to what the

Government House Leader might think, I think this is a very good piece of

legislation, or it is at least better than what was there before. At least there

is a little bit of a deterrent built into this piece of legislation in that the

fine now goes from $2,000 up to $500,000. I don't know if that is a great

deterrent, but it is certainly better than what was there before. Two thousand

dollars certainly wasn't any great deterrent to a company like Albright and

Wilson. I mean what kind of an effect would a $2,000 fine have on a company like

Albright and Wilson if they wanted to act irresponsibly and if they wanted to

continue to scar the environment the way that they did do over the number of

years that they were operating in Long Harbour.

I think another good aspect of this bill, incidentally, is

that now, at least, the bill contains a further deterrent in that the courts now

have the ability to actually go to the company and say: not only are you going

to pay a fine of $50,000, $100,000, $150,000 or $500,000, but now you have to

restore the site to its original condition. I think even that would be the

larger deterrent if it came to ordering a company, again, like Albright and

Wilson - and they are the companies that come to mind, the companies that do the

most environmental damage. So if you went to a company like Albright and Wilson,

even a $500,000 fine may not be a deterrent for them, but having to restore a

site and put it back in its original condition is certainly a deterrent for any

individual or company who does the job on the environment that some of these

companies have been prone to do and have been known to do. A lot of them are

acting very irresponsibly, and I don't think there is anything more important

from my own point of view.

Certainly when you watch the television sets today and you go

into the schools and you see the projects that the schools are undertaking, you

see how important the environment is today. You know, if we all don't start to

smarten up a little bit, right around the world and here in our own province, we

are going to be faced with some major, major environmental disasters in years to

come. I think it is necessary to hand something over to our children. We are the

people who are being irresponsible. We are the people who are causing all the

problems on this planet environmentally. I think we have to act responsibly and

we have to think of the other generations, our own children who are coming

along, and we have to think about what we are passing on to them.

So I support legislation like this. It is good legislation.

Anything that improves it and strengthens it and gives the courts the ability

and the teeth that they need and the power that they need to bring some of these

groups to task will certainly get my support, Mr. Speaker.

Before, as I said, all we had was the punishment. We didn't

have companies being forced to make restitution and restoration of the property.

I visited - and the one that comes to mind, which most hon. members have seen, I

suppose, especially the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, is the one

at Long Harbour. Just about four or five months ago, when I was part of the

committee on the incinerator project for Long Harbour we went down there and we

had a look at that site down there. It's absolutely amazing.

I hadn't see the site in about seven or eight years. It's

absolutely amazing what Albright and Wilson have done to that landscape in

there. Now granted, they've created a lot of jobs and they've given people a lot

of employment over the years. As a matter of fact I worked in there myself at

one point in time. But it's absolutely amazing what that company has been

allowed to do. I know the type of operation that it is, it's a phosphorus

operation, which is bad for the environment anyway. But how they have been able

to get away with what they've been able to get away with over that time period

was absolutely amazing.

Now I realize that we were in power at the time when all of

this was going on, but I remember somebody saying -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: Well, maybe. The problem is, I suppose, maybe

it looks a whole lot worse than what it really is. But it certainly looks like a

very major scar upon the landscape. I tell you, if I was living in Long Harbour

I wouldn't want to be looking out my window every day and seeing that kind of an

environmental scar next to me.

I remember somebody saying at one point in time, back about,

I don't know, maybe four or five years ago, that it would have been better, and

it would have been less costly, for the Newfoundland government to provide every

single employee on that job with a salary of about $25,000 -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: - it would have been less costly to give them

all a salary of $25,000, in comparison -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: Wait now. In comparison to what it was costing

the Newfoundland taxpayer in terms of electrical subsidy and everything else.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: There was. So that was the information that I

received back around four or five years ago when we were in government, that it

would have been less costly to the Newfoundland government had we provided every

single employee in Long Harbour with a salary of $25,000, as compared to the

subsidies that were given to the company to run that operation, in terms of

electrical and everything else.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)!

MR. DOYLE: That's exactly what I'm saying. Mr. Speaker,

it was certainly not a good project, from an environmental point of view. I

think we can all agree on that. I think it's time that we did put a little bit

of teeth in the Act. I think it does at least that much. If you raise the fine

from $2,000 up to $500,000 it's certainly more of a deterrent.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: Pardon me?

AN HON. MEMBER: It sends a signal.

MR. DOYLE: It sends a signal. The courts having the power

to force the company to restore a site now certainly sends the signal to any

potential invader of the environment, let's put it that way.

At the same time I would say to the minister, while she's

done something very good here in my view, I think she should as well be on her

guard about other potentially hazardous environmental projects that might every

now and then raise their heads here in the Province. I'm referring, as the

minister knows, to the incinerator project which is slated for Long Harbour.

Let's hope that we don't see another major scar upon the environment in the same

place, in Long Harbour. I think the people of Long Harbour can do without that,

although they deserve the jobs and they deserve the employment that they should

have, especially since they lost Long Harbour. But I think we should be on our

guard against questionable environmental projects that might come along, like

the incinerator project.

I believe government knows enough about that project right

now, I would say to the minister, that they could actually say that they are

going to shelve that project. If I am not mistaken there is a precedent for

that. I think back in 1988 - and I forget the name of the company right now -

there was a company that was going to store oil in the abandoned mine sites over

on Bell Island. They put an application or a proposal before government and

there was quite a hue and cry at that time, I say to the minister, about that

proposal. I think an awful lot of the people of Bell Island were very concerned

about it. They didn't want to see it go ahead. As a result, we shelved the

project. We didn't submit it to an environmental process or environmental

review. I suppose the company could have asked for an environmental review at

that time but, because there was so much environmental concern, because there

were so many people on Bell Island and the neighbouring area who were against

that project, we said: Okay, we will shelve the project and there will be no

storage of oil at the Bell Island site.

So maybe it is time that the minister had a talk to her

Cabinet colleagues and said to them: you know, we are going to get a proposal on

this project fairly soon. There has been a committee travelling all around the

Province which has received an extensive number of briefs, in St. John's, in the

minister's own area, in Dunville and Long Harbour and the people, almost

unanimously, were opposed to that project.

You know, the very idea of importing American garbage to our

soil was really repulsive to a lot of people. I remember we received roughly

about forty-eight briefs on that subject. If I am not mistaken I think there

were possibly two people out of the forty-eight briefs who said: Well, let's

wait until some kind of an environmental review is done on it and then we will

form an opinion. For the most part, out of the forty-eight, forty-six briefs,

most said: reject it, shelve it, kill it, we don't want to see it here in the

Province.

Mr. Speaker, I am a little bit concerned that the Province

remains silent on that subject. Surely the environmental people in the

minister's department know enough about that project right now that they can say

AN HON. MEMBER: What project?

MR. DOYLE: The project at Long Harbour, the one that is

slated for Long Harbour, the incinerator project.

MR. HOGAN: The one that the press is talking about.

MR. MATTHEWS: Don't you talk about it now?

MR. DOYLE: Well, I would say to the minister, if it is

only the press that is talking about it, then maybe it is time that the

government made a statement on it. Why doesn't the minister and the government

make a statement on it and say: We are going to wait for an environmental

review; if a proposal is submitted to the government, we will put it to an

environmental review; that we will kill it. Make some kind of a statement on it

because there are an awful lot of people around Newfoundland who are very

concerned about it. Right now here in St. John's there are quite a number of

people going around with a petition. They are going to have their concerns on

that particular issue expressed here in the House of Assembly, I would imagine.

So I think the government knows enough about that project right now that they

should shelve it, they should kill it, or at least make a statement on it,

because they remain very, very silent.

I would like to know from the minister, maybe when she closes

debate on this subject, that if a proposal does come in to the government and it

is put to an environmental review or an environmental process, and if the

environmental process says: Okay, we recommend that the project go ahead. Is the

government still prepared to go ahead with that project despite the opposition

that the people of the Province have voiced to the government?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: Apparently not. Anyway, we have had our debate

on the incinerator project here in the House of Assembly back about three or

four months ago, we still have not heard too much from the government. But I

will commend the minister on this bill, it is a good bill and as I said,

anything that gives a little bit of strength to the minister's department, that

gives strength to the law in cleaning up the environmental problems in the

Province will certainly receive my support.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to speak on this bill which in principle I suppose,

can be supported in that it does increase the deterrent effect of certain acts

committed that lay waste to our environment. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, whether it

will really be a deterrent, however, to people who have been guilty of throwing

garbage into the woods, leaving garbage around, dumping in unusual places and

uncertified places. We have had a fine now of $2,000 for people and perhaps the

minister can tell us how many individuals have been charged under the Waste

Disposal Act for illegal dumping, in small amounts, let us deal with small

amounts now, you see the signs all over the place: No Dumping, Solid Waste

Disposal Act, maximum fine $2,000. How many individuals and what is the history

of prosecutions under that act, and I ask the minister when she gets up in her

reply, to tell us what the history of prosecutions has been under the Waste

Material Disposal Act when the fine was $2,000, because I am sure, Mr. Speaker,

an individual who may be tempted to toss a few garbage bags in the woods or

leave things dumped - and I have seen these unofficial dumps here and there in

the woods, and signs saying: No Dumping - Fine: $2,000. How many prosecutions

have there been under the existing legislation against individuals?

I can see how a large company, if they flagrantly violate the

act, you know a fine of a half-a-million dollars might be considered by a judge

and there may be cases as the minister has indicated, where judges have been

dissatisfied if they do not have the power to order a cleanup. I think that is a

very wholesome, if I could use such a word in this context, provision in the act

to give that power because it is sometimes more of a deterrent to have to go

about and undo that which you have done rather than just pay a fine and pay a

fine by a company in many cases with these half-a-million dollar fines. Why does

not the minister go further and make these fines assessable not only on the

company itself but upon the officers of a company who may be responsible for

these kinds of flagrant acts?

Mr. Speaker, if the minister thinks that this kind of action

is so despicable, and I agree that the kind of flagrant violation of the

environment and of our fellow citizenry that this kind of violation would

contemplate, that is so drastic as to require a half-a-million dollar fine,

which is a significant amount of money even to a large company, why doesn't she

hold the people who are responsible for those kinds of decisions, personally and

individually liable?

Why not put a real deterrent on the individuals who are

controlling these companies? I suppose one might ask why only make the penalty

be paid by the shareholders?... if it were Abitibi-Price. The Minister of

Forestry and Agriculture is very interested in this and some large companies in

his riding. For example, if Abitibi-Price were to violate this act, why penalize

just the shareholders of Abitibi-Price, why not the people who are actually

making the decisions that do that, why should just the shareholders have to pay

for the cost of the officers or the actors in that company causing the violation

of this act, and I want the minister to answer that question because I think it

is a legitimate question. It is all very well to come in here with a little bit

of piecemeal legislation on the Waste Material Disposal Act, but why does she

not address the real problem, which is the decision makers in these companies?

We have a couple of bills before this House. This bill, Bill

20, talks about one

section of the act. We have another bill, Bill 42, adding

another

section to the act. Why do we have a little hodgepodge? We are going to

have another one next week or the week after, talking about containers. Why does

the minister not take the bull by the horns and come in with an overall policy

on solid waste disposal problems? Why does she not resolve some of those

problems? I know she has been dithering with them ever since she has had the

position of Minister of the Environment. She has not yet had the courage to come

forth with a policy that is going to seriously resolve the problems of beverage

containers in this Province. We have not had that. We have had a lot of talk

about it, but we have not seen any action yet on that.

There is a very serious problem with solid waste disposal in

this Province, and I do not think it can be addressed by a simple act of

increasing the fines. That is a favourite act of this government: Let's wield

the big stick and make the big stick bigger. Well that is not good enough. That

is not going to solve the problems when there are, in fact, more creative ways

of doing it. But we are not seeing it from this government because this

government does not seem to be willing to provide the kind of leadership in

these fields that is necessary. It does not involve spending an enormous amount

of money. We can banter back and forth all day as we did today and yesterday and

the day before about how much money the government is spending or can spend or

will spend, or where they are going to get it, but this is in the area of

regulation of the environment, Mr. Speaker. It is an opportunity for the

government, even in times of recession, to show some leadership and some

creativity in dealing with these problems. The government is letting the time

slip by and letting the opportunity slip by, and in the meantime the situation

is getting worse and worse and worse.

I say that the government speaks with a forked tongue when it

comes to the environment, because on the one hand we have the minister bringing

in this kind of legislation, claiming that it is an important move or important

act to try and solve the problems, even though it is not directed at the people

who caused the problems, but rather at the shareholders of companies who

themselves have no control over the day-to-day activities of what the directors

do, or what the CEO does, or what the person in the field does. They make the

shareholders pay, but that is not going to solve the problem.

What about their position on a serious matter of waste

disposal with respect to - not our garbage, Mr. Speaker, but the American's

garbage - the garbage produced in New York and New Jersey? What about some

leadership from this government on that?

The Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs was just in

the House saying: What proposal? You mean the one that the press is talking

about?

Mr. Speaker, that is the kind of hypocrisy that this

government is trying to get on with. They are trying to turn a blind eye to the

realities. Everybody in this Province knows that the North American Resource

Recovery - which is the name under which this company is operating - want to

dump American garbage into this Province and leave behind the ashes and

chemicals and residue and waste. Leave it here, because they will not take it in

the United States of America. They will not allow it. That is why they want to

bring it here - and this government is encouraging them. I say that as a

challenge - that they are encouraging this project. They are encouraging it

every day. Why - and I have to criticize the environment critic for the PC's -

why did he not ask the Minister of Environment what was said by the Premier in

these meetings with this company, or one of their affiliated companies? What was

said there?

If we see a proposal after these meetings with the Premier,

these secret meeting that the minister will not talk about - maybe she does not

even know about them - I will say it is because the Premier encouraged the

proposal to come forth. He did not tell these people that we will not tolerate

it in this Province. If we now see a proposal, it is at considerable cost to

this company, some $4 million or $5 million I am told they will have to spend to

put this proposal forward and go through the environmental process. That is a

figure that has been quoted, that it will cost them a considerable number of

dollars to do this. I hope they don't get it from ACOA. The federal Tories have

already given them nine hundred and some-odd thousand dollars to promote this

proposal. Now if they come forward with a proposal - I challenge the Minister of

Environment when she gets up to respond to this. If we get a proposal from that

company, it will be because this government, the Premier, the Premier's Office,

the backbenchers and the Cabinet have encouraged the proposal. They have said:

Go ahead. They are encouraging them to go ahead and put a proposal before the

government because they are giving them some succour that they will, in fact,

look upon it favourably.

Why are they meeting with the Premier, if not to get the kind

of assurance that they want to be able to take the next step and spend the money

to put together the proposal? So maybe the minister wasn't involved in these

discussions. Maybe she's left out of the big decisions about this. She says she

hasn't had any meetings. Maybe the Premier didn't tell her what he said to North

American Resources Recovery, or one of their affiliates. I don't want to split

hairs over this. It may not have been the board of directors of North American

Resource Recovery. It was a parent company, or a holding company, or a related

company, or somebody involved with the project who met with the Premier. What

were they seeking if they weren't seeking assurance that their proposal for

importing American garbage was going to be looked upon favourably by this

government and given a chance, provided the environmental hoops are jumped, that

that will go forward and they will be responsible for setting up a project to

import American garbage into this Province?

There is a simple answer. The simple answer is found in the

name of the group that is formed to oppose this project. The simple answer is:

Say no to American garbage. It is very simple. If this government is opposed to

it they have to tell the proponents and their companies that Newfoundland is

saying no to American garbage. If they are not prepared to say that, why are

they having these secret meetings with the Premier?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Now the Minister of Environment is bored. She

is so bored, Mr. Speaker, she wasn't at the meeting with these people. She

appears to know about it but she wasn't there. Maybe she knows what was said and

maybe she doesn't. Perhaps she should wake up from her boredom and pay a little

bit more attention to what is going on. If the Premier is having meetings with

people maybe she should wake up and say: Mr. Premier, I am not satisfied with

your having meetings with people and my not knowing about it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I am not satisfied with that. I want to do my

job. I don't want my job to be taken over by you. If I am going to be the

Minister of Environment I want to have some say. I want to be involved, not just

shuffled off and treated as someone who does what she's told when the Premier

speaks, and is so bored about environmental issues that she has to yawn in the

House when people are speaking about these things that are important to

significant numbers of Newfoundlanders, Mr. Speaker.

Those are the kinds of problems we have in this government.

That is why we are getting piecemeal legislation - change one

section now,

change another

section next week, have another bill maybe next year when the

minister figures out how to handle bottles and keep everybody happy; keep the

companies happy, keep Browning-Harvey happy, keep Coke happy, keep everybody who

wants to continue to import bottles happy. That's what she wants to do, keep

everybody happy, not try to solve the environmental problems of this Province.

This bill here is not going to do it. It is a piecemeal

approach that deals with one single little issue. We will increase the fine but

we won't get at the real source of the problem, which is not the shareholders

who are going to have to foot the $500,000 fines, if we ever have them. The real

problem is the people who are causing the problems, the directors of the

operations, the people who make the decisions, and who are causing the

environmental damage.

So while the principle of the bill - if we ignore the bill

and look at the principle, the principle is to help the environment. I agree

with that. Who wouldn't? But this bill doesn't do very much, Mr. Speaker, to

help the environment. Thank you.

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

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to have a few

words on Bill 20, "An Act To Amend The Waste Material Disposal Act." I think any

Newfoundlander would have to agree with the intent of this bill, to increase the

fines from $2,000 to $500,000. Perhaps more important, is the second part,

empowering the courts to order clean up and restoration of the environment by

the offender.

Mr. Speaker, anyone who has been to rural Newfoundland or any

part of Newfoundland can see the waste disposal sites that were created

helter-skelter throughout the country.

AN HON. MEMBER: When?

MR. WINSOR: How long? It has been going on for at least

the past fifty years and perhaps longer, Mr. Speaker. If you were to spend some

time in the country, as I like to do on weekends, you would see sawmill after

sawmill that was abandoned thirty or forty years ago -

MS. COWAN: Do you bring your garbage back out when you

leave?

MR. WINSOR: I bring my garbage back out, yes. I certainly

bring my garbage out, Mr. Speaker. Talking about garbage, we can look no further

than the Environmental Partners Program in the Gander Bay area, and perhaps the

one that has been most effective has been in the Indian Bay ecosystem, where

last year on a project with the environmental partners, they took 6,000 bags of

garbage out of the country. Six thousand bags of garbage came out of perhaps one

of the finest fishing resorts in this country. The waters of Indian Bay have

been legendary for their big fish, and in the past three years, major work has

gone on with the joint efforts of the Cape Freels Development Association in

Gambo, Indian Bay to clean up that area, Mr. Speaker. In fact, I think Search

and Rescue became involved in bringing out tractor parts, old car wrecks and

numerous other things that had been left there. Mr. Speaker, I particularly like

that part of the legislation that is going to require the environment to be

cleaned up.

Mr. Speaker, we also have another pressing problem. Every

municipality where they have been forced to have a waste disposal site, garbage

is just thrown on the ground. Very few municipalities have the financial

resources or the equipment that can adequately take care of a waste disposal

site. I know, just recently, in the past two weeks, environmental people have

come to at least two municipalities in my district to tell them that their waste

disposal sites need to be cleaned up.

Mr. Speaker, that is an ongoing problem, a great concern to

everyone in the Province, that waste disposal sites that this Province, this

government, and previous governments have authorized, have been left in a

terrible mess. They have hardly ever been cleaned up in a fashion that is

satisfactory to any environmentalist. Mr. Speaker, while there is now a

provision for the courts to order it, I think the government, at both levels,

must continue to make sure that the environment we have already destroyed is

restored to what it used to be.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things we talk about that this

Province has to offer is the pristine beauty of the countryside. And having

walked quite a bit through the country this weekend, Mr. Speaker, I was appalled

by the amount of garbage that you continue to find in all the little crooks and

crannies, the little side roads that someone has gone in where they have been

moose hunting and they have left their garbage everywhere. It is very difficult

to fine these people. You are certainly not going to fine them $2,000 or $5,000

or $50,000. What must come with this is an education program so that ordinary

citizens, not companies, ordinary citizens who go into the countryside will

bring their garbage back.

Mr. Speaker, I will tell you one of the places - if you want

to see it really happen - is the last day of school when students leave school.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that ever true.

MR. WINSOR: Anyone who has ever been around a school

building on June 21 when school closes, has watched the number of children who

will clean out their lockers, take their paper and let it blow helter-skelter

all around the school grounds. Mr. Speaker, that has been going on and continues

to go on. An important part of education on waste disposal must rest with an

education program for citizens at all levels.

Mr. Speaker, the minister said - I think it was the Minister

of Development who originally proposed it - that he was going to have this

Province go to recyclable bottles. We were going to eliminate cans. That was a

year or a year-and-a-half ago.

AN HON. MEMBER: Ban the can.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: The minister can go back and check the Speech

from the Throne two years ago. Go back and see what the minister had to say -

'This administration will move -'

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: The Minister of Development can take

part in

this debate when he wants to.

Visitors to P.E.I., most of them, remark how they could go

anywhere around the countryside and find little evidence of garbage, very little

waste. The question is: Why does the same thing not happen in this Province? Are

we somehow different? Why, in P.E.I. is the countryside so beautiful, so clean?

You hardly find a gum wrapper.

AN HON. MEMBER: All returnable bottles.

MR. WINSOR: All returnable bottles, all sizes. No cans

allowed. It is certainly a factor, Mr. Speaker.

It is now time to just not say to companies and major

offenders - I, too, visited Long Harbour and saw the destruction that had been

done to the environment there. My colleague from Harbour Main addressed it, and

I don't want to; but I have to tell the Minister that an education program must

start with all levels of society, and I think that prevention is better than a

fine afterwards, and one of the things that she should do is consider a sound

education program to make people cognizant of the need to protect the

environment.

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

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

I would like to say a few words about this particular bill

because to me it would seem to be a piece of legislation that is long needed.

Now as the Member for St. John's East said, it may not do

everything that needs to be done. It may not be the end-all to cure the problems

associated with the environment, but I would suggest to the hon. Member for St.

John's East that this government, for the first time in the history of this

Province, has taken upon itself to pick up on, without question, one of the most

important areas in our future - besides health and others of importance, there

is development.

I want to say this, and I want it to go on record: When first

we got information that there was indication of a proposal to bring garbage from

the United States into this Province, I was the first to disagree with that

proposal.

MR. WARREN: Not true.

MR. MURPHY: The Member for Torngat Mountains can bawl out

'Not true'. Perhaps he should spend some time looking for that department that

he hasn't found yet, the department-at-large.

It is true. I tell the hon. member that it is true, that this

hon. member was the first - the very first.

MR. WARREN: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Well, I will debate that with the hon. member

some other time.

The reason I am against that particular proposal, and

adamantly against it, is because irregardless - it does not make any difference

- you have a toxic waste that will come into this Province. We will have waste

that even may be more dangerous than what we consider as normal domestic

garbage, because I don't think, personally, that there is any possible way to

monitor that amount of garbage leaving the United States of America, in the

proximity of, very close to, nuclear waste and all other kinds of chemical

waste, and there is just no way for us to monitor and control the type of

garbage that would get here.

The second thing we need to understand is the minute that

particular garbage would be incinerated we have two problems. We have a fly ash

that would contain that toxic, and/or nuclear and/or chemical by-product. We

must scrub and/or contain - we must contain that fly ash.

The second problem we would have would be the bottom ash,

which would also contain all those by-products endangering the people of this

Province, the environment of this Province, our wildlife, and our possibility of

offering Newfoundland as the tourist attraction and/or the tourist mecca of

North America.

Now I have a great deal of difficulty with hon. members

opposite standing up, because remember, it was ACOA, through their friend, John

Crosbie, who provided the million dollars to do an environmental impact study.

Now, I would ask the hon. members who got in their place today and went on about

- during the puffin legislation - all the problems we have. If I said to each

and every member opposite: Here's a million dollars for you, to put in your

district, you would be elated, and you could find something very serious to do

with it. You wouldn't have enough then, if you had a million dollars, but you

would be glad to get your hands on it. So this company got a million dollars

from the friend of the friends opposite to do an environmental impact study.

Now, we also heard, Mr. Speaker, of the tremendous number of

units that are presently incinerating garbage throughout the world, and the

success of these. Now, I find it very difficult to believe, if there are units

throughout the world incinerating all types of garbage, that the bottom ash and

the fly ash are not causing a problem, and if this particular project can be

done with the same viability as all the others throughout the world, then why do

we need to do an environmental impact study?

Let us go get the data from all these great plants that are

now burning garbage - get that data and lay it on the table, and say: Well, here

is the data that belongs to all these successful incinerators that are

generating electricity and what have you. Lay it down. That company took an

awful lot of people from the Long Harbour area, brought them up to the United

States, and showed them all these successful plants. So again I ask, why the

need - I ask the Member for Humber Valley, who has great difficulty with

incinerating the garbage generated in his district, or finding the landfill to

bury it up. Not only now, but when the hon. member was a minister in government

he had the problem. The same for the Member for Harbour Main, the same for the

member for - finding a way to incinerate our own garbage, and do it properly,

and to landfill and bury up our own garbage.

That is what the minister has done here today. She has shown

some leadership in bringing in a piece of legislation to deal with the

seriousness of the problem associated with our own garbage. Each and every

member opposite knows full well, when you look at the moratorium problems, the

fishery problems, when you look at it all, that we do have some chance for an

economic base in the area of tourism. If, with the Caribou or whatever vessel,

we are going to bring people from North Sydney into Argentia, and on the way

along, those people are going to look and say: What's that over there beside

those nice hills? What Is that smoke we are seeing? - and somebody responds:

That's an incinerator we have burning New York garbage, I would suggest that we

will have a 'walking negativity' to our tourist trade throughout this Province.

So, I said before, Mr. Speaker, that this government has

received a proposal. The proposal has not been passed. The hon. member was asked

a question today -

AN HON. MEMBER: She said you never received (inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: She was asked a question today, and she has

not received it. Your friend, Mr. Crosbie, through ACOA, has found a million

dollars to give these people. Now, Mr. Crosbie hasn't found a million dollars to

give the opponents of the project to help them do some research or some seek and

find. So it is all one-sided.

This government has now, through the minister, taken some

initiative to address the seriousness of environmental control. So I think hon.

members should compliment the government, compliment the minister, for taking a

first step in the right direction. Because a lot of the hon. members opposite

were Ministers of the Crown in the previous government, and did absolutely

nothing to protect the environment of this Province.

They have done it in Labrador. The hon. member knows it. He

has seen waste left in Labrador for years at the radar sites, all kinds of

wastes, from PCB's to toxic waste and materials, and we had to bring a mobile

incinerator into Goose Bay only a couple of years ago to destroy them.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: I can tell the hon. member that his district

is not without them either.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not without what?

MR. MURPHY: Without PCB's, I can assure you.

The member and I know, and we will just leave it alone. When

the time comes we will discuss it; but I would say that you should get up, stand

in your place, and support the minister for her efforts. I am sure we will see -

and the Member for St. John's East saying: a little piece here and a little

piece there - is totally incorrect, because the minister is now on a course of

bringing down legislation as fast as possible to clean up the environment.

With those few words I just want to reinforce my position as

a member of this House, and I remind hon. members that first off the mark was

yours truly. I will fight against that project and continue to fight against the

project. As a matter of fact, the hon. member for Harbour Main told me that he

supports my position, and anything that he can do to help me he will be glad to

do it.

So, Mr. Speaker, with those few words I want to congratulate

the minister and hopefully we have heard the last about this good bill.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

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

After just listening to the hon. Member for St. John's South

I want to say also that I, for one, support this piece of legislation. This

piece of legislation, I think, is long overdue; however, it is not going to go

far enough, because I think there should be some initiative in this piece of

legislation enabling the Member for St. John's South, or Tom Jones, or anybody

else, to encourage the reporting of people who discharge their waste in unlawful

areas.

I want to say that I think what we need in this Province is

something to entice our citizens to be more conscious in reporting other people

making mistakes with our environment. I think that is what is needed. You see a

sign on the road now that you will be charged $500 if you unlawfully throw

garbage on the side of the road. That is okay. That is there to tell the citizen

that he should not throw garbage on the side of the road; but, on the other

hand, where is the sign saying: Please report so-and-so, or get the licence

plate of a car or a truck that discharges such material, and have some kind of

an enticement for people to report those offenders. That is what is needed.

I listened to the hon. Member for St. John's South saying

that he was the first off the mark to condemn the proposed incineration at Long

Harbour. I want to say to the hon. member that I have the exact date when the

hon. member made his press release. Mr. Kirby, and another gentleman with Mr.

Kirby, met with myself and the Member for Harbour Main two weeks before that. We

expressed to him that we were against it; so it was two weeks earlier than the

hon. member went public with his press release. It was two weeks earlier that we

indicated that we were going to fight this. The hon. member knew that we were

going to take this head-on.

Furthermore, I am surprised he has not convinced his

government, because I would have hoped today that the minister would have come

in and answered the Member for Harbour Main by saying: We are opposed to North

American garbage in Long Harbour. The minister could have said that today and we

could have stopped everything as it is. There would be no imported garbage in

Long Harbour.

Now, Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague for St. John's South also

mentioned about the great portion of this wonderful Province of ours, Labrador.

And yes, Mr. Speaker, I must say that the American Air Force, on the bases at

Makkovik site, at the Hopedale site, at the Cartwright site and numerous other

sites have left a complete mess. Again we had to get an incinerator into Goose

Bay to destroy the PCBs, but he said I understand, and Hansard will record it

tomorrow, we had to get an incinerator in there. No, this government did not

bring the incinerator in there. It was brought in, paid for by federal money,

not by the Province at all.

Now, Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague will say: we had to. He

used the word 'we,' but, Mr. Speaker, let me continue. I spoke in this House on

several occasions since the hon. member was here concerning the mess, the

absolute mess at Kitts-Michelin with respect to the uranium deposits that were

left there and I am happy to report today, with respect to all the difficult

times I had with the Atomic Energy Board, a British Corporation, and with the

minister at the time, the former Member for Naskaupi, and the difficulty I had

with those three groups, I am pleased to report that as of last week, those two

sites have been cleaned up at the cost of something like $600,000, Mr. Speaker,

by the people coming to me in Labrador wanting to get some action, but no action

from this government.

I should say what is most interesting is that a small private

contractor in Postville got the main contract in cleaning up this particular

site; most interesting. A small private contractor was one of the major

components in cleaning up this particular site so I want to, in my concluding

remarks to Madam Minister, I want to say it is a good piece of legislation, but

I hope that - not tomorrow because we are going to break tomorrow in honour of

Remembrance Day, but I hope on Thursday the minister will come into this House

and announce to all the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, right

straightforward, at two o'clock or 2:15 on Thursday, that we as a government,

are not going to support the importation of garbage at Long Harbour.

Now if she would do that, Mr. Speaker, I would be so kind to

the hon. lady for as long as we are in this Legislature, because I think then

she will be doing something that she believes in, but the reason she is not

doing it now is because the Premier and other members of her Cabinet do not want

her to act in this positive manner that would satisfy the people of Newfoundland

and Labrador, not to see the importation of American garbage into this great,

wonderful, beautiful Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HEWLETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I too, would like to register my support for this particular

bill. I seem to remember some years ago when I worked for the Minister of

Municipal and Provincial Affairs, and I do mean some years ago, there was always

a problem with councils in the Province with delinquent taxpayers. They could

take people to court, the court would levy on them a token fine but the problem

that the council was dealing with i.e. back taxes and what not, was never ever

taken care of because the court in that particular instance had no power to

force a redress for the council and I believe that has been changed these days

in municipal legislation.

I am pleased to see a similar provision in this environmental

legislation. It is one thing to fine someone for making a mess, but it is

another thing to make it a substantial fine, which this particular legislation

has done, and the other thing is to give the courts the right to order someone

to restore a given site to proper order, in addition to a fine. All the fines on

the face of the earth, Mr. Speaker, will do nothing for the environment per se

except fatten the treasury, and it may or may not get respect in environment.

Making restitution of a given site that's been messed up by one company or

individual or another is indeed a positive step. So in that regard I think this

particular piece of legislation is well put together and long overdue.

On a more general note. A number of people in this Assembly

have addressed themselves to a current issue of public policy in this Province,

and that has to do with a particular site in Long Harbour that is under

consideration by a company for the importation and burning of garbage from

overseas. I am also reminded of when I worked for the government some, I guess

probably ten years or more ago, in the early years of the Peckford

administration. There was in Labrador a mining venture proposed to be started

that my friend for Torngat Mountains made reference to a few moments ago. The

uranium development in the Kitts-Michelin area. That BRINEX company at the time,

certain corporate interests were really pushing very hard.

The government of the day, sort of I guess tuning in to a

growing awareness of environmental concerns in North America generally, took a

long, hard look at that particular proposal, and in the end decided no, they

weren't going to go with it. For reasons over and above the environmental

protection act, the (inaudible) act that was in place at the time. It was

decided as a matter of public policy that uranium mining, whether it passed the

environmental standards or not, was not the sort of mineral activity that this

Province wished to get into. It was on that basis that the particular mine was

refused a permit to develop.

Similarly, given the state of our renewable resources, and

given the potential we have with regard to tourism, I think it is a fundamental

error on the part of this government or any government that would be in power,

not to, based on a fundamental public policy consideration, to just say: this is

not the sort of industry we wish in this Province. It's probably not good for

our health. Even if current standards with regard to health are met in any

technology employed there, the damage that this thing could do vis--vis its

image to our tourism industry - which is one of our larger and one of our growth

industries - would be irreparable. I do not believe that this is the sort of

industrial development that this sort of jurisdiction should be pursuing. The

same as I think the former, former government of Premier Peckford was correct in

saying that uranium mining was not the sort of mineral activity that the people

of this Province should be pursuing.

The government has said that they really don't know what

public opinion on this matter is. I find that very difficult to believe, because

I know, I would assume, that the government is well tuned in as to what

pollsters are saying on many issue, and environment is always an issue on polls

these days. So no doubt the government has a very good idea what the general

public thinks of this particular matter. If one has ears to hear and eyes to

see, I guess you can listen to the media. It's very obvious what the general

public thinks of this particular venture with regard to its environmental

impact. People don't want this kind of industry.

It may be that certain people in and around the immediate

site want it because of the devastation wreaked upon them by the shutting down

of the phosphorus plant at Long Harbour. But the body politic in general

Province-wide I would think has spoken fairly clearly, that this is not the sort

of industry that we want. I think considerations for the larger picture of our

Province's development would indicate that this is not the kind of industry that

we should be pursuing.

For some reason this particular government appears to be

putting its head in the sand and proceeding on, a slave to the environmental

process. It could stop this before it gets started but it seems to be wanting to

go through the process similar to the way they handled the amalgamation issue.

Once they kicked off the issue they appeared to be an absolute slave to the

process. Perhaps that bespeaks the mind-set of the current leader of this

government, Premier Wells, in that being a lawyer and with a legalistic mind-set

he has a tendency to be hung up on process.

Process for process sake is fine for the people who make

their living down on Duckworth Street who hang out in and around the Supreme

Court arguing legal niceties, but I think with regard to this matter, greater

considerations of environmental protection, considerations of health for our

people, and considerations of an industrial nature with regard to the type of

industrial development we need to have in our future, particularly as it impacts

on the tourism industry. These considerations, I think, should be overwhelming.

Why we would feel compelled to subject this particular project which, generally

speaking, the public has spoken fairly clearly on and against, I do not know why

this particular government seems to be hung up on the process here.

The Premier, when we were going through the referendum

debates, the two debates that we had in this House; on Meech Lake the Premier

condemned that roundly, partly because of the content of the agreement but

partly because the public were not widely enough consulted. There had not been a

referendum, et cetera. We just went through a more recent process with regard to

the constitution, and we had a referendum and the people spoke. The Premier was

also quite proud of the fact that Newfoundlanders voted 'yes' in support of his

position on the referendum.

Obviously the man is very much committed to the idea of

sounding public opinion, and going with public opinion on major public policy

issues. Yet, in this particular proposed development it is obvious to all but

the blind and the deaf, and only those being blind and deaf who refuse to hear

and see, that the people do not want this type of industrial development. It is

about time that the government made a fundamental policy decision and said: No,

thank you... to this sort of thing, and got on with doing the sort of thing that

our people can support and that would stand us well in the future.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: I support Bill 20. I agree with the

increase to $500,000; however, in many instances it is not the level of fine

that is going to be the significant factor, I think, in cleaning up our

environment. Granted, the high fine will be a deterrent to some major industries

in certain select areas of the Province.

The biggest concern to me is that mechanisms must be put in

place to ensure that the environment is not polluted all across this Province -

not only where there are major industries, but in every single community. I

think it is very sad to drive through communities and see the roadsides littered

with garbage.

I have served for the past seventeen years as a Justice of

the Peace, and I have signed thousands of summons and informations, and numerous

items to go before the courts, and I cannot recall one particular item to deal

with throwing garbage out of cars, or polluting; garbage trucks dropping garbage

bags and continuing to drive on and not stop to pick it up.

There is garbage all over the environment, and we are here

trying to create a Province where it is going to be enticing to tourism, and to

have people come here and find a nice, clean environment.

I have visited every Province in Canada on numerous

occasions, and spent hundreds of days actually in different Provinces of Canada.

I have seen it in Alberta, and I have seen it in P.E.I., and I have seen it in

just about every other province across this country - the environment is clean.

The roadsides are not littered. The small, little rural communities are not

littered.

Here in this Province, and I see it in my own district - I

can drive through my district and you would not put in ten tandem trucks the

garbage that could be found along the roadsides. It is not possible to do it. We

started a drive at the school to clean up garbage each spring. We get 600 bags

of garbage in three hours, which the students pick up within a ten or fifteen

mile distance. Back next Spring it is just as bad again.

People throw out beer boxes now because I guess drinking and

driving, and having beer in a car is a problem, so they litter it with bottles

to get it out of the car. They throw out the cases. Boxes of chicken. It's

happening. I'm sure it's not only in my district, I've seen it elsewhere. It's

just utterly disgusting. I think something must be done to improve our

environment. It's the little things that are going to affect tourism.

Granted, the Long Harbour thing, it's not very pleasant to

have a site there, but it is not going to be as detrimental to tourism in this

Province as looking at every single little community across this Province and

drive down the streets and see it polluted and -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes. I think that's what we have to do, and

I think there's a mechanism in place within the authority of the law to do

something about it, and I think it's all these little cases that should be

addressed. I think it's about time we started doing that. The hon. Minister of

Environment could pursue and pressure the people to start enforcing these

particular areas that are more detrimental to our livelihood here than a few

major industries scattered in certain parts of the Province.

I'd like to comment also on the incinerator. It's not the

principle of incineration that's posing a problem. I think it's the importation

of garbage for the purpose of incineration. In my district there are numerous

landfill sites that are in very poor shape. There needs to be improvement. I

know the scientific evidence to show positive aspects of incineration and there

certainly have been documented cases. I've read documented cases of incineration

where it's proving to be very successful. I think we have to concentrate, if

we're going to direct funds. I don't disagree with a million dollars for

funding, not for the importation, but to assess our long-term needs in terms of

the environment and landfill sites and garbage, where we're going to be in ten

or fifteen years. Maybe a regional incinerator might be necessary in the future.

I think we should worry about our own garbage here in this

Province and try to put in place things to deal with our garbage, and let people

in the US worry about their garbage. We'll complain about it if it affects us,

but I don't think we should be responsible to spend money, time and effort

worrying about what happens there. Their garbage should stay in the US and our

garbage should be disposed of in a proper and decent manner that doesn't affect

the environment.

I think that's where our focus should be