March 14, 1991                 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS             Vol. XLI  No. 9


The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Development.

MR. FUREY: I wonder if I could ask the House through yourself, Mr. Speaker, to send condolences to the family of the late Mr. Wally Daniels who passed away just recently. Many Members know Mr. Daniels worked with the media in this Province and covered the Legislature for many years. I think he started work covering the Legislature in 1962, Mr. Speaker. He worked for NTV, a local station.

I knew Mr. Daniels personally for many years. I had always known him to be a very happy and very positive human being, and I know that he will be sadly missed by his colleagues in the media and by many people in this Legislature who knew him personally. I would ask that Your Honour, on behalf of all Members, send condolences to his wife Barbara, and to his children Leanne and Heather. I would ask Your Honour to do that on behalf of all Members.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, we would want to be associated with the message of sympathy and condolences as outlined by the Minister of Development. Those of us who have been around the House of Assembly for a number of years would have had some contact with Wally in one way or another. He had been around, as the Minister said, for nearly thirty years, covering Legislative activities, news stories, and so on. Like the Minister, I found him to have a great disposition and certainly to be a very friendly individual. He was without question a bit of an institution around these places and we, too, would like to express our condolences to his wife and family, and to his colleagues in the press gallery. It was a very untimely passing and he will be missed, particularly by those who knew him well.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to be associated with the remarks of my colleagues, the Minister of Development and the Opposition House Leader. Mr. Daniels, as a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, was well-known to anyone involved in the political world in this Province and I wish to offer my condolences, as well, to Mr. Daniel's family, particularly his wife and children.

MR. SPEAKER: Before proceeding to our routine business I feel an obligation to comment on a point of privilege that was raised yesterday, even though I made a ruling that there was no point of privilege. But for the further guidance and direction of the House, I think there is a responsibility on the Chair to make certain observations regarding that particular point of privilege. Because I think, sometimes, hon. Members are not aware of the process and procedure on a point of privilege, I thought for the future guidance of hon. Members I would make a couple of comments.

I want to use just two examples. Even though I could have gotten several, I just want to use two in which similar points of privilege were raised. I am going to take excerpts from a ruling made by the Speaker in our House in 1986. When making comments on a point of privilege raised by the Leader of the Opposition of the day, the Speaker at that time said, `On the matter of the use of unparliamentary language by the hon. Member in rising on a point of privilege, I must rule that doing so constitutes a breech of the rules of the House. I am certain that hon. Members' facility with the English language permits them to make their point by using words that are temperate and do not lower the level of decorum that we all wish to see maintained in this Chamber. To permit an hon. Member who rises on a point of privilege to state that another Member has lied to the House or has deliberately misled the House, would seem to me to permit that Member to say indirectly against another hon. Member what, according to the rules, he could not say directly.' He then goes on to quote Maingot about deliberately misleading the House, which I have done on a number of occasions.

Also, for hon. Members, I want make reference to a rather comprehensive ruling made in the House of Commons. Again, I am just going to take excerpts from it - rather, I am going to table the document. Hon. Members might want to read it, because it does point out some of the procedures for a point of privilege.

This particular point of privilege, without getting into the details, was a Member rose on a point of privilege to say that a particular Member had deliberately misled the House, and this is a resumé of what was said: He said, This gave rise to a discussion as to whether or not that language can be used in Parliament. And it led to the explanation by the hon. Member at the time that his use of the language on the previous evening was not designed to offend parliamentary practices, but rather had been calculated to put the matter on the record in order to test the rulings that have surrounded that particular language, and the rulings which surround the desire of a Member who may wish to call into scrutiny the conduct of another Member in the House. There has been, quite naturally, confusion in matters of this sort, since under the precedents it is clearly unparliamentary to accuse a Member of deliberately misleading the House.

Obviously, an action of deliberately misleading the House would have to be looked upon as being a most serious action indeed. If a Member is suspected of that kind of action the dilemma becomes, how does a Member call that conduct into scrutiny without using the words `deliberately misleading the House', since, in fact, the use of deliberately misleading the House - as hon. Members would be aware - is a less harsh term than saying that a Member lied? So the question then, how does a Member bring this kind of conduct into scrutiny without using the words `deliberately misleading the House' since, in fact, the use of the language is in itself unparliamentary and therefore prohibited?

It appears on the surface of it to give rise to a rather frustrating situation, but in any event the Member is not permitted to say it on a point of privilege. I will table the document for hon. Members if they want to read the full ruling. However, for the benefit of hon. Members I have given a précis of it and I have said this: "Speakers have consistently ruled that it is unparliamentary to use the words `lie, liar and lied' in reference to a Member in the House. If a Member believes that another Member has lied or deliberately misled the House, he or she cannot simply make the allegation. Rather, he/she must make a substantive motion on notice, which motion can contain the unparliamentary expressions. The motion will then go on the Order Paper and follow the usual course of business to be dealt with, either as a Private Member's Motion or under Government Business.

Having said that, I realize that one Member who spoke to this is not here today, but the Chair felt an obligation for the future guidance and direction of Members on this most important point to raise it today. Having done that, I will ask the hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains if he would, in the interest of decorum and the records of the House, withdraw his allegation that the Minister told a lie.

The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

MR. WARREN: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Statements by Ministers

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

MR. KELLAND: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Having established my turf yesterday in a somewhat lengthy fashion, I have a statement today, and with the good grace and rapt attention of the House, I should be able to finish it in less than two minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the hon. Members of this House and the residents of this Province of changes which will affect our Provincial parks system this coming season. First of all, I would like to state that Government recognizes the value of parks and their importance in providing outdoor vacation and recreation opportunities to residents and to the tourism industry. As such we have opted to maintain an 'all parks open' policy for the 1991 season.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KELLAND: However, faced with the current fiscal restraint program, several changes have had to be made to ensure all parks are open for the season.

In this regard all park fees have been increased for 1991 based on a number of factors. Increases were approved to offset inflation, the introduction of the GST and to ensure that the direct user of parks pay for the service provided. Fees are also rounded off to the nearest twenty-five cents. For example: the basic fee for camping has increased from $6 per night to $7 per night. All fees are also GST inclusive.

In addition, we have adopted a 'no fee exemption policy' for all parks. In this regard all park users will pay the same fee for the services provided.

To ensure all residents have equal access to parks and campsites, the seasonal campsite program and the free night of camping offered to those purchasing a weekly camping permit have also been eliminated.

Mr. Speaker, in conclusion it is Government's intention to introduce these changes and address the abuse inherent in the system. More importantly, the changes will allow Government to keep all Provincial parks open for use this season.

I would, therefore, like to table the fee structure for 1991 as attached to the statement.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

We can see this Government again is taxing the people of the Province to the tune of $200,000, Mr. Speaker, this $200,000 will be raised by increasing the fees in the parks.

And secondly I would like to say to the Minister: I think we have to give credit to the senior citizens for bringing the occupancy rate in the parks up to the degree it has reached over the past number of years. Mr. Speaker, by charging the senior citizens - the first time ever in our history - I am wondering if the Minister's actions will cause the parks to be less than full - with people going to the gravel pits more often. That is what the Minister is doing. By increasing this fee he is forcing the senior citizens out of the parks and into the gravel pits, Mr. Speaker. That is what the Minister is doing.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

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

MR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to the Minister also that not all senior citizens in this Province are rich. The Minister should keep that in mind, that not all senior citizens in this Province can afford what the Minister has now inflicted upon them.

Thank you very much.

Oral Questions

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the president of Memorial University had a press conference at noon today and announced a number of measures the university will have to take to live within the budget for the university, announced in this House last Thursday. The President of the University said today, and let me quote briefly, Mr. Speaker: the university will receive an increase in its operating grant of only $140,000 next year and needed, even when taking into account the wage freeze that was announced here, it needed an increase of at least $7 to $8 million just to maintain current programs. Now, Mr. Speaker, last Friday the Minister of Education announced in a press conference to all Newfoundland and Labrador that the operating budget for Memorial University would increase by $5.5 million this year. Now, I want to ask the Minister of Education, Mr. Speaker, who is right? Was the Minister misleading the people of Newfoundland and Labrador last Friday? Is the President of Memorial University misleading the people of Newfoundland and Labrador today? Will the Minister get on his feet and tell the truth? What is the operating budget increase for Memorial University this year?

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

DR. WARREN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have not seen all the details from Dr. May but I accept his figure that operating expenditures, other than salaries, increased by that amount. We gave Memorial University, I think it was $5.5 million this year of the $12 - $13 million that they asked for, but then we, as a result of the freeze, deducted $4.85 million.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, we did freeze salaries. They asked for $12 to $13 million, Mr. Speaker. I wish honourable members would listen so that I could give them the facts.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, if they had a little pencil they could write it all down. Last year we gave Memorial $103,900,000 and we added a payroll tax of $1.2 million, that is $105,105,000. We annualized the payroll for another $500,000 and we gave a grant of $5.5 million. If all this were added up, Mr. Speaker, the initial 1991-92 grant was $111,105,000. Then when we decided to freeze the budget we took $4.8 million from that and that left a Budget of $106,246,000 as are in the estimates. As I said before the increase was $5.5 million of the $12 million but when we decided to freeze, of course, we took away $4,859,000 so that explains the figures that Dr. May has. So, it is $140,000 of the $7 million that they requested on operation other than salaries.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: So, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Education has now proven beyond a doubt that it was he who mislead the people of this Province. The University is getting a $140,000 increase in operating budget, no more or no less. Now, Mr. Speaker, the President of the University announced today that he has to do some drastic things at the University. He has to increase tuition by 15 per cent, he has to increase resident fees from 5 to 10 per cent. Tuition has actually increased by 30 per cent since this Minister took over as Minister of Education in this Province. Now, Mr. Speaker, how can that Minister, a prominent educator, stay in this portfolio and preside over the transformation of Memorial University into an institute that will only be able to accommodate the wealthy elite of Newfoundland and Labrador? How can he do it and still have a smile on his face, Mr. Speaker?

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

DR. WARREN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, when I said that we gave $5.5 million, we were talking about $5.5 million of a $12 million request, and when we froze the budget therefore that request dropped to about $7 million to $8 million.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: I can do my sums as the hon. Member talks, and Dr. May can do his sums.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

DR. WARREN: He can.

Mr. Speaker, on his second question I want to be very serious here. I was smiling about how he juggled the figures, but I want to be very serious. Mr. Speaker, these are tough times. These are tough times for the Government, and for all our institutions. And Dr. May and his group and the Board of Regents have taken our request very seriously that they take every possible action this year to reduce costs. And they are reducing costs by a substantial figure. I do not have the total figures yet.

AN HON. MEMBER: And they are increasing revenues.

DR. WARREN: And they are increasing revenues.

Mr. Speaker, they are doing what the colleges are doing, what the school boards are doing, and what the Government is doing. The only thing they cannot do, Mr. Speaker, is borrow. They must come in with a balanced budget. So they have increased their fees and they have cut their expenses. Precisely what we have done, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

DR. WARREN: Let me give you some figures on fees.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I will ask the hon. Minister to please not try to get into too many details about policy. I have said in the past that questions must be brief and answers must be brief. So I would ask the hon. Minister please to clue up very quickly.

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, the fees at Memorial this year 1990-91 were $1,344 and this was by far the lowest in Atlantic Canada. The next one is St. Thomas -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

DR. WARREN: - $1,710; Dalhousie $1,770. The average for the Atlantic Provinces $1,918 for two semesters. In Newfoundland it is $1,344.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that we have to increase fees.

But let me tell the Opposition one additional thing, Mr. Speaker, because you asked me to be brief. We have included in the Estimates this year increased funding for student assistance.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

DR. WARREN: Those students who are going to pay a little more, 15 per cent more than they did last year, will get additional help from student assistance, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. RIDEOUT: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SIMMS: What world are you living in?

MR. RIDEOUT: The Minister has the nerve to talk about a little increase when he has increased tuition fees 30 per cent over the last two years, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SIMMS: How is that for you. That is a little increase.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, the Minister might not be very good at doing his sums, but he is certainly a master of verbal trickery.

MR. SIMMS: Right on!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Let me ask the Minister this, Mr. Speaker. What is the Minister's response to the announcement by Dr. May today that Memorial University will be closing out extension services totally? What is the Minister's response to that, in light of the fact that the extension service has played a vital role in helping rural communities in this Province survive. Is this another example of this Government's determination to withdraw all support from rural Newfoundland and Labrador? Is that what you are up to?

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, when the Government made its cuts in education this year - the few that we did make - we made it with a 'students first' strategy. I have not seen the total statement from the University, but I was briefed yesterday that Dr. May said: any reductions would first protect the student. So they looked at things that were not academically oriented. They looked at these first, Mr. Speaker.

As far as the Extension Department is concerned let me make one statement quite clearly: The Extension Department played an important role in the development of this Province, including rural Newfoundland. But now, Mr. Speaker, twenty years after or thirty years after it was established we have community colleges offering all kinds of programs out there. We have the Economic Recovery Commission decentralized -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

DR. WARREN: - into rural Newfoundland. We have Rural Development Associations, Mr. Speaker, we have Rural Development Associations quite active all over the Province. So, Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the University had to make these reductions, but these are the reasons I understand why they made them.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. POWER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the most serious issues in this Province today is obviously [technical malfunction] (Inaudible) of our health care system. I want to ask The Minister of Health a couple of very serious questions. I also want to say to the Minister of Health that every person on this side of the House is equally concerned about health. We are not here saying: spend every cent the Government can raise and do all kinds of things. We are just saying that there is tremendous concern from the constituents that we represent about the health care system in this Province.

In the last week or so since the Budget we have asked a fair number of questions about health and we got some very vague answers. One of the questions we would like to ask today, Mr. Speaker, is: is there really a health care strategy for Newfoundland, is there a long term plan? In the Minister of Finance's Budget speech he says that the massive cutbacks in health care are consistent with the Department of Health's long term strategy and with the recommendations of the 1984 report of the Royal Commission on Hospital and Nursing Home Costs. Could the Minister of Health confirm to this House and to the people of the Province that there is in fact a long term strategy, and that the long term strategy is based on this very extensive report that was done in 1984?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I have to address one of the hon. Member's premises. He talks about the demise of the health care system. Now, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to tell the people of the Province that we just saved it in the nick of time. There almost was a demise in the health care system because there was no strategy. Because there was no plan.

MR. TOBIN: What about Port aux Basques, Placentia, Bonavista and Old Perlican?

MR. DECKER: Now, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to tell the hon. Member that we do indeed have a long term plan in place. It is to restructure and streamline the health care system. Now, the hon. Member will not permit me to outline that, but I can tell the hon. Member that everything we are doing in our long term plan is in keeping with the Royal Commission which was done in 1984. Nowhere are we contradicting the Royal Commission, Mr. Speaker.

In general terms we are making primary health care available to every Newfoundlander and Labradorian within an hour or so of where he or she lives, that is our first basic principle. Now we find there are gaps in the system which have to be filled in, Mr. Speaker, we want to address those.

The second principle is to have regional hospitals within three, four, five hours from wherever one lives, where they can get services and specialists - where they can receive surgery, Mr. Speaker.

The third principle is that we have in this Province a centre of excellence with a teaching school attached whereby we can deliver the highest possible health care system which is available in North America.

Now, Mr. Speaker, that in very general terms is the direction in which we are taking our health care system as we restructure. We have a very firm plan in mind. This was put in place shortly after I became Minister back in 1989 - we started to do it then. Because of the fiscal problems that we found ourselves in, because of the recession and whatnot, we have speeded up our restructuring programme, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. POWER: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for his answer and obviously to confirm that this report which was done in 1984 is the basis for future changes to the health care system, and I would just to like to ask the Minister one other question as it relates to the health care study. One of the recommendations of the Royal Commission in 1984 was that a bed study be done which was concluded in a fairly detailed document in 1986. Would the Minister also confirm that the bed study is an integral part of this long term strategy for health care?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, we have some difficulty with the bed study. I would not want to be the one to say it, but I have had suspicions for years that there might have been some political interference with that particular study. Any study can say what you want the study to say, Mr. Speaker. I fear there might have been some political interference, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: There is no need for all of that.

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

Hon. Members to my right have the chance to ask supplementary questions, and when a Minister is answering the question there is a tendency to bombard him with other questions. For the smoother direction of the House I would ask hon. Members please to restrain themselves from asking too many supplementaries from their chairs.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, I have some personal problems with that particular study and as we go about our massive restructuring of the system to ensure that there is a health care system at the turn of the century now that we have to pay the full shot ourselves, there are places where some of the recommendations of that bed count do not make a whole lot of sense. In cases like that, we do send in a group of people, as we did on the Burin Peninsula last year, and we found that the recommendations of the bed study were not in keeping with the reality.

The number of long-term beds that were required were a little different from the actual fact, so wherever we find there is a problem with that bed count - and we must remember, Mr. Speaker, it was done some years ago. Times change so we do send in people to make sure that we do not make a mistake, because the health care system is so important, Mr. Speaker, that we do not want to make any mistakes as we restructure it.

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

MR. POWER: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary for the Premier.

The Minister, in his answer to the question on the bed study raises some questions. Just a very brief preamble to my supplementary to the Premier: I mean, obviously, the whole credibility of this Budget process and the health care cutbacks, based upon the Premier's comments as quoted yesterday in The Evening Telegram, is that fairness and balance be done equally across the board and done without political interference.

I would like to ask the Premier, how can he expect the people of Newfoundland to have credibility in the health care cutbacks when the major recommendation made in this health care study, the bed study: the hospital that was recommended to have the highest number of beds reduced, was a hospital which happens to be in the Minister's own riding of St. Anthony, forty-six to fifty-six beds, and I would gladly table a copy and the page and give one to the Premier, if he wishes, but I mean, there is a very large number of beds recommended to be closed in St. Anthony.

A lot of persons in this Province, including Members on this side and Members of the Liberal Government are very concerned that there is direct political manipulation to make sure that the Minister does not take any heat in his own riding.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, ordinarily I would let the Minister answer this, but it refers to the Minister's own riding, so I feel I should do it. Just let me tell the House and hon. Members that the biggest cut, the biggest proportionate cut - and perhaps even the biggest in absolute numbers, I am not sure - the biggest cut is in the hospital in St. Anthony in the Minister's district, forty-two beds, forty-two acute care beds, cut out of the hospital in St. Anthony.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I recognize the hon. Member on a final supplementary.

The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. POWER: Mr. Speaker, a final supplementary to the Premier. He says to do our home work. One of the problems in doing your home work as a Member of the Opposition in this Legislature is that there are too many ways to (inaudible) the truth from that side of the House -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. POWER: - there is no mention in the Minister of Finance's document -

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

I will again remind hon. Members that I have given the hon. Member for Ferryland quite a bit of leeway, so I would ask the hon. Member please - he is on a preamble - to get directly to the question.

MR. POWER: Mr. Speaker, why wasn't the closure of the beds in St. Anthony announced in the Budget itself, and also Mr. Premier, why, why will you not order a veto of this closure of hospitals until such time as there is an impartial assessment to make sure that this Minister's and other Cabinet Ministers have not politically been involved in the process?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the closure of forty-two beds in the hospital in St. Anthony was not announced specifically in detail in the Budget, but neither was the closure of forty in the Waterford, neither was the closure of the beds in the Grace, neither was the closure of the beds in the Corner Brook Hospital, neither was any one in detail as I recall. I sat and listened to the Budget and there were no specifics for any particular hospital.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: Well, if anybody asked a question -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: - as soon as the question was asked, Mr. Speaker, the answer was delivered. There were forty-two beds closed in the hospital in the Minister's own district; he took a bigger cut in the hospital in his district than any other in the Province in absolute numbers, and in proportions that were probably two or three or four times that of many of the other hospitals.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

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

Would hon. Members please give their colleagues a chance to ask some questions in the proper fashion?

The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, my question as well is to the Minister of Health. I would like to ask the Minister: in light of the March 7, Provincial Budget, what impact will the Budget have on the Burin Peninsula Health Care Board's budget and what is the difference in this year's funding as opposed to last year's?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, there is an hon. Member who is concerned for his district and does his homework.

I am pleased to tell the hon. Member that as a result of this Budget we are making available to St. Lawrence $3.5 million to finish off the engineering work and to start construction of a chronic care facility to provide forty beds for that general area of the Province. In the Budget we also have $800,000 available to finish off the engineering and to begin construction of a multi-purpose centre to be attached to the nursing home in Grand Bank, which is right in keeping, Mr. Speaker, with our restructuring program to make multi-purpose centres available wherever we can in parts of the Province. So we treat the whole spectrum of health care, I say, from the cradle to the grave, the whole spectrum, and we are continuing with that, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would say to the Minister, with what he has introduced in this Province in the last two weeks, I think he is in a great rush to get them in the grave, and there are going to be more going in the grave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: A supplementary. To be more specific to the Minister, since he talked around the capital works which have been approved for the Burin Peninsula with St. Lawrence and Grand Bank, could the Minister inform the House what the difference in operating money for the Burin Peninsula health care system will be? How much less will the Burin Peninsula health care board get this year to run the regional hospital at Salt Pond, the clinic at St. Lawrence - the half clinic now - and the clinic at Grand Bank? What is the difference in this year's operating budget for that board?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, some Members have not gotten beyond the cradle stage. I do not carry around in my head all those numbers. The health care system in general received an increase this year of somewhere in the vicinity of 3 per cent total. I can tell the hon. Member that as a result of the restructuring which we began back in 1989, the number of dollars which are now being spent on the Burin Peninsula are giving the Province a maximum return, and our health care system is much better than it was when we took over in 1989. It is not yet as good as we want it to be, but I can tell the hon. Member that he will be pleased to know that we are working towards an improved, better health care system which will cost the Province less money in the long run. But if he wants the exact, precise figure, I do not carry this around in my head. I do not know what St. Anthony has, not the precise numbers, but the hon. Member can have that; I can pick it up from my Department for him, or he can phone down and ask the officials for it - it is public information.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you again, Mr. Speaker. I am not surprised the Minister does not have the capacity to carry the figures around in his head, Mr. Speaker, but I thought he would at least have a briefing sheet that would outline what money specific hospital boards in this Province are getting from this Budget.

A final supplementary to the Minister. It is highlighted on page 21 of the Budget Speech that the community health centre in St. Lawrence will have its hours of operation reduced. I understand that was a departmental decision, deciding how much the operation would be reduced by. Let me ask the Minister, what will the hours of operation at St. Lawrence be in light of the March 7 Budget, and how many jobs will be lost at St. Lawrence?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, during the past year the department has kept constant study of the number of visits and utilization of that particular clinic in St. Lawrence. After considering the fiscal problems the Province has and the utilization of that particular clinic, it was the judgement of the department that nobody's health would be impaired if we were to reduce the hours of operation to 8:00 to 5:00, Mr. Speaker. Now, after the chronic care facility is attached to that building we will reconsider whether or not we will go with a 24 hour clinic, because one of the advantages of attaching a health centre to a chronic care facility means that it is not very expensive to carry on a 24 hour clinic - you have the nurses on staff, you have your staff there, the thing is open all night long, and for very little extra money we can deliver a 24 hour clinic. But as a stand-alone clinic we felt the demand did not warrant a 24 hour clinic at this time, Mr. Speaker. The actual number of layoffs, that is done by the board: the board will decide who is going to go; they have to talk with the unions; there are a lot of grievances they have to go by, Mr. Speaker. But these are details the local board can answer for him. It is all public knowledge, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the President of Treasury Board. The Minister will know that the pay equity agreement, signed on June 24, 1988, had its purpose to achieve pay equity by redressing systemic gender discrimination in female dominated classes. Mr. Speaker, sexual discrimination, as we know, is contrary to the Human Rights Code and the Charter of Rights. The Government has announced its intention to wipe out the provisions of this agreement which have retroactive provisions back to April 1, 1988. I ask the Minister whether or not he can confirm that this also includes wiping out the retroactive provisions in corporations, such as Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, the Newfoundland Liquor Corporation, and other Corporations of the Government which have, in fact, set aside money for this very purpose in their budgets. Can he confirm, for example, that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro has set aside $500,000 for this very purpose and the Government is taking out of it? Can he confirm that to this House?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: I would like to congratulate the Member on his Maiden Speech, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, Government will introduce legislation in this House to eliminate the retroactive provision in terms of the pay equity agreement. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, we are making a commitment to pay equity. We are concerned about pay equity in the public sector, and we are, perhaps, more concerned about the implementation of total pay equity in the public sector. We are more concerned about that than we are about the retroactive payments. We are more concerned about correcting the total problem than whether one segment gets the retroactive payments. This was a cost, Mr. Speaker, of $24 million that we simply do not have, and it is one of those situations where we had to look at our spending. That $24 million would have probably meant another thousand layoffs. We chose, rather than doing that thousand layoffs, to make our commitment to pay equity in the whole of the public sector, to implement pay equity immediately that the numbers come to us, but to not pay the retroactive payments.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not find pay equity as humorous as the Minister.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I am having great difficulty hearing the question being raised by the hon. the Member for St. John's East. Hon. Members have the chance to ask questions, but it seems as though they insist on asking them from their seats, and we cannot entertain that.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This pay equity agreement says that all activities relating to this pay equity agreement be carried on in good faith by the parties. Mr. Speaker, if parties such as Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro have set aside money in good faith to carry out the provision of this agreement, how can this Government in good faith tell them that they shall not pay over those monies to redress sex discrimination in the public service which is acknowledged by the Government?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, first of all, pay equity has not been introduced into the public service of this Province at this time. We will introduce pay equity. I have informed the co-chairs of the Committee working on pay equity that as soon as the figures are available, give them to us and we will immediately institute the pay equity from that point on, as soon as we get the numbers. The Committee, I assume, is working on it, and I was informed that it will probably take no more than a couple of weeks work. We will institute pay equity in the public service, and I would like to say to the Member that we do have the right to tell these organizations what they should and should not do.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, has the hon. the President of Treasury Board consulted with officials -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: Has the President of Treasury Board consulted with officials of the Justice Department to determine whether or not these actions are contrary to the Charter of Rights and The Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Code?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, a previous government had signed a contract. That contract included one provision that we cannot at this point in time live up to. In order to live up to it, it would cost another 1,000 jobs. We as a Government will put a bill before this Legislature to nullify that one provision of that contract signed by a previous government, and my information is, Mr. Speaker, that we have the right to do that.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has expired.

Notices of Motion

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

MR. KELLAND: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Repeal The Unimproved Lands Redistribution Act". (Bill No. 20).

Answers to Questions

For which Notice has been Given

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday in Question Period the Opposition Leader was asking questions concerning the salary savings. Considering that this is a matter that is dealt with by Treasury Board, I will now, today, provide the detailed answer for the hon. gentleman.

In his question he indicated that salary estimates for bona fide civil servants employed in departments are $300.1 million for 1990-91; and $298.8 million for 1991-92, a difference or a saving of $1.3 million, and then went on to ask questions about 650 people who were losing jobs and how come we are only making a saving of $1.3 million? If I understand it, that is the gist of the hon. Member's question.

The figure of $3.1 million is correct. That is the adjusted base for total salaries in Government departments for 1990-91. Let us assume, Mr. Speaker, we were to keep these same positions in place. We would need to annualize the second half salary increases for 1990-91 at a cost of $4.5 million, and that brings it up to $304.5. There would be about 1.5 per cent provision for steps, reclassifications, annualization, new positions and this kind of thing for another cost of $4.5 million.

In addition to that, we have also provided new salary funding and this would reflect commitments under cost-shared agreements that are coming into effect, positions of the Round Table, the Economy and Environment, the Fisheries Directive, the new Whitbourne Youth Centre, positions for Hibernia Construction Site and Environmental Management Committee; a program for persons with disabilities. A fairly large amount of that $5 million, or some of it, would be retroactive payments for contracts under arbitration and negotiation and so on, and there are some small amounts of severance pay included.

So, Mr. Speaker, the total cost of that level of service, this number of people for this coming year, before the impact of layoffs, would be $314,412,600 because of these adjustments that would have to be made. In actual fact, Mr. Speaker, instead of providing $314,412,600, we have provided salary funding for the coming year of $298,757,800 for an estimated salary savings, Mr. Speaker, of $15,645,800, and that is the saving that applies to the 650 positions. There is one other factor that comes in here which has to do with the vacancy factor that also has an effect on these figures.

So, Mr. Speaker, if the Leader of the Opposition is concerned about sums, I would like to table these sums so that he can have the correct answer and realize that things are not as simple as they sometimes seem.

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER: Before recognizing the hon. Member, the Chair would like to make a few comments about petitions for the future guidance and direction of hon. Members. I will say to the House that I have some concern with petitions, inasmuch as that in the last few months we have been rather flexible with petitions. And once that happens, of course, it is very difficult to enforce our Standing Orders - once we have been flexible - unless hon. Members realize that because we have been flexible, there is even more necessity to be courtesy in terms of abiding by the rules. Because we are doing it by leave of Members.

I want to give some past practices with respect to the presentation of petitions, and I do this because of some confusion if you will, or some debate the last time we dealt with petitions.

I just want to refer hon. Members to a couple rulings by some very efficient Speakers, and I want to make one ruling when we talk about certain things about a petition. Invariably when we have raised the matter of petitions, Standing Order 92 was always quoted by Speakers. I refer to one ruling by Speaker Simms. He says, in talking to the Member, `again the Member puts the Chair in a very difficult position. Because the rules are clear. You must confine yourself to the prayer of the petition and to the number of signatures attached to it.'

Now the question arose as to whether or not a Member ought to read the prayer of the petition. Quite obviously, if the Member does not read the prayer of the petition the House has no way of knowing whether or not the Member is confining himself or herself to the prayer of the petition, and we have no way of knowing the numbers, this kind of thing.

I just want to make another further ruling by Speaker Ottenheimer, who, again, is talking about the prayer of the petition. I will just read a few excerpts. Speaker Ottenheimer said at that particular time: "Standing Order 90 I think is particularly relevant here. A petition to the House shall be presented by a Member in his place who shall be answerable that it does not contain impertinent or improper matter." And I might say, that again is substantiated by Erskine May, that when a Member recognizes that a petition is not proper, the onus and responsibility and obligation is on the Member to inform the House that the petition does not meet the requirements. And I think we have been fairly flexible when Members have done that.

Then Speaker Ottenheimer goes on to say: "A petition may be either printed or written, and if more than three petitioners sign it, at least three signatures must appear on the page containing the prayer of the petition."

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

And, of course, he talks about the prayer of the petition. "The petition", he says, "must have a prayer. Otherwise, it is a communication or a letter or any number of things. But in the parliamentary sense a written petition must have a prayer. And the format for a petition is as outlined..." - I will not get into that. But he goes on to say: "So there must be a prayer." And he goes on to say that the petition must be designed and presented according to the rules of our House which he says are clear.

All I wish to say here is that either we should amend our Standing Orders or else hon. Members, especially when they are involved in the citing and collection of the petitions, should do it in accord with the rules. The rules are there and they are as binding on me as they are on Members.

Finally, I just want to cite a petition, which was the practice used in our House. 99.9 per cent of the time, this is the format that was used. In this particular time, in 1985, when the Speaker called for petitions, the Member rose in his place and he said: `Mr. Speaker, I am pleased and honoured today to present to the House a petition signed by approximately 2,300 people, most of them I believe from around the Baie Verte Peninsula, but certainly relative to a subject that is very important to the people of Round Harbour and Snooks Arm in my district. The prayer of the petition, Mr. Speaker, is as follows:' That hon. Member, I think, was following the practice of the House, knew how to present a petition, and that is the present Leader of the Opposition, in 1985.

I just say to hon. Members, that generally was the format followed. So I say to hon. Members, as I have stated in the ruling made by Speaker Ottenheimer, that there is an onus on the Members to follow the rules, as there is an onus on the Speaker to enforce them.

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand in my place today and present a petition to the hon. House that is signed by 151 people, most of them from around the Burin Peninsula, on an issue of particular importance to the constituents of Marystown, Burin, Rushoon, Parkers Cove, Baine Harbour and other areas in my district. The prayer of the petition, Mr. Speaker, is as follows:

We, the undersigned, representing children of the Burin Peninsula Roman Catholic School system, object to any educational cutbacks. Our children already suffer enough through the lack of some vital necessities conducive (inaudible). If further reduced, the level of education will only serve to reduce our children's hope of becoming strong and productive adults. We back this statement with the words of our Minister of Education, the hon. Dr. Warren, when he said, `Newfoundland and Labrador's development depends on improving the quality of education, and future economic success depends more on improvements in education than on any other single factor.'

Mr. Speaker, my friend for St. John's East just made a very, very important contribution to the petition I am presenting when he said that anything dealing with educational cutbacks will certainly need prayers. I believe the prayer of the petition is well placed here today.

Today is a difficult time, I guess, to present a petition in the House as it relates to educational cutbacks, when one recognizes the fact that the President of Memorial University held a press conference approximately three hours ago where he made it clear to the public of Newfoundland and Labrador that only students whose parents are financially secure, who come from well-to-do families will be able to avail of the educational institutes in this Province. That, Mr. Speaker, is unfortunate but it is reality. This Government has made educational services in this Province available only to people who can afford it. For the thousands of unemployed residents of Newfoundland and Labrador, and for the people living in outport Newfoundland and Labrador in particular, who depend on university residences and other places in order to improve their educational programs, it will not be available.

I must admit that I thought the last person to participate in educational cutbacks would be the Minister of Education. I would suspect, Mr. Speaker, that the petitions I presented in the last week had in excess of 4000 or 5000 signatures. I do not know what to do to get word through to this Government and to this Minister as it relates to educational cutbacks and the negative effect it is going to have. It is fine and dandy, Mr. Speaker, for the Minister of Education to make the statement I just quoted, that future economic success depends more on improving education than on any other single factor, it is great for the Minister to make that statement, but it is far more important for the Minister of Education to follow through on that statement. When the Minister spoke today I could not believe it was the same person who so many people respected in their days at university, and I am sure still do. But when the Minister announces that $5.5 million is now $140,000, it is something that is difficult for all of us to comprehend, I must admit. The educational needs of those students and those parents who asked me to present this petition and other petitions I have presented, and will continue to present in this House, are crying out for assistance. They are asking the Minister of Education, the Premier, and the Government to ensure that there is an educational system, but this Government is doing exactly the opposite. I would ask the Minister of Education, when he stands to address this petition, to stand in his place and tell me that I can go back to the Burin Peninsula today and assure my constituents -

MR. HOGAN: (Inaudible)

MR. TOBIN: Well, Mr. Speaker, I can tell the Member for Placentia that I can go back to my district for standing up and supporting my constituents. I will not run and hide when they close the hospital, or anything else. Now, let me get back on track. I hate, Mr. Speaker, being interrupted by the Member for Placentia.

Let me ask the Minister of Education, can I go back to my district today and tell the people who signed this petition that the Minister stood in his place and said, yes, tell your constituents that there will not be a reduction in education, that you will have the same number of teachers you had last year to teach in the school system, that the ratio that has been applied in the Province for student/teachers will be put in place, that he will not be centralizing rural Newfoundland to the urban centres of this Province and onto Mainland Canada and parts of the United States? Will the Minister stand in his place today and support the people of this Province, Mr. Speaker, or will he resign?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

It is difficult when a Speaker is calling for order. I realize the hon. Member gets carried away in a flight of oratory, and I am sure that is what the hon. Member was doing, but I would ask hon. Members to try, when they hear the sound, to look my way.

The hon. Member's time is up.

The hon. the Minister of Education.

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, a very interesting thing happened a few minutes ago. I would like my colleagues and the Members of the House to listen. A very interesting thing happened as my hon. friend was presenting his petition. I had a note from the Member for Harbour Main who had a quotation. He said Abraham Lincoln once said - and I am saying this very seriously, Mr. Speaker - `If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.' Now, as soon as I got that, Mr. Speaker, I pulled out of my case what he quoted. Unknowingly, without any knowledge, we communicated.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition on a point of order.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, there is nothing in our rules, as I understand it, about quoting a note or something like that sent back and forth across the House, but certainly on a number of occasions in this House Members have tried to raise placards, display signs, drape their desks in flags, use black arm bands, a whole range of things which the Speaker of the day ruled was not in order. So I would submit to Your Honour that the placard containing whatever wisdom, or lack thereof it may contain, raised by the Minister of Education is definitely out of order and cannot be displayed in this Chamber.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education speaking to the point of order.

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, I apologize. I was just getting right to the petition. I wanted to get to the spirit of the petition very directly.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Since a point of order was raised, I have to rule on the point of order. I did not see precisely what the hon. Member had, but the Opposition Leader is substantially right, that we are not allowed in this House to display certain objects and certain placards and that kind of thing. I can only say he is right, but I did not see what the Minister had. I would ask the Minister to proceed with his remarks.

DR. WARREN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the hon. Member. We are old friends, but I am a new Member and I ask forgiveness of the House for doing that. But the quotation, Mr. Speaker, as I said, `If you think education is expensive, try ignorance', I had hundreds of copies made of that some years ago and it is in classrooms all over this Province. And I still believe that. I want to tell this House that I believe that today, Mr. Speaker. And this Government is committed to education. We are going to make sure that education develops to prepare our people so they can take their rightful role in the 21st.century.

Now, I cannot tell the supporters of the petition that there will be no cuts, but I am delighted to tell this House, Mr. Speaker, that even with the salary freeze in elementary and secondary education, we have increased spending by 3 per cent. There are very few cuts in teacher units, other than from declining enrollments, Mr. Speaker. We have not cut transportation monies, we have increased it.

I have met with some supporters of the hon. Member and they said, `Sir, we cannot pay any additional fees for transportation.' I am delighted to tell the parents of this Province that there are no fees for transportation, and there are no rental fees for textbooks. Mr. Speaker, in our policy to focus on students in the classroom we have made some cuts, but at the classroom level we do not expect that these cuts will have a dramatic negative effect on education. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I met 250 school administrators this morning and they told me they are going to do everything possible to ensure that the classroom is not impacted negatively. They are going to work with the Government, and they think they can share services; they can collect extra monies through school taxes, Mr. Speaker. I think the students on the Burin Peninsula will be well served, and they should be well served as far as their education is concerned.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to support the petition presented by my colleague from Burin - Placentia West on behalf of a number of residents from the Burin Peninsula who have children in a number of schools there, who are very, very concerned about what this Minister of Education and this Government are doing to the education system of this Province.

I want to say to the Minister, before I forget, that a couple of times over the last few day he has stood in his place and talked about people doing everything possible - people are willing to do everything possible. Well, I want to say to the Minister, yes, there is no doubt - and I am sure he has watched the news over the last few days - that the "everything possible" that people are going to do in this Province in education, and in health care, and all the other sectors, are to do everything possible to remove this uncaring administration from office. That is the "everything" they are going to do. And that is from the labour unions right throughout this Province.

MR. MURPHY: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: I hear the old South Side over there mumbling, Mr. Speaker. I wish he would get up every now and then and have something to say.

MR. SIMMS: Old Brownose Murphy!

MR. MATTHEWS: But I want to say too, it is very disappointing -

MR. MURPHY: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, I would say to the Member, that he should restrain himself really, because we know basically what comes out of him because of what he is full of.

AN HON. MEMBER: Baloney.

MR. MATTHEWS: Now, I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that we are seeing the secondary and post-secondary education systems in this Province being very drastically affected by this Minister. Most people in the Province knew of the Minister's background when he came to office. He had done many studies on education. He must have been full time up at the University doing studies. He did not do any teaching. We know he did not teach mathematics because of the answer he gave today.

MR. RIDEOUT: The Tory government paid him a fortune.

MR. MATTHEWS: They paid him a fortune to keep at the University doing studies. He has been a disappointment, Mr. Speaker. Now, having heard the contents of Dr. May's press conference today, and the effects that the Budget is having on post-secondary education at the University, I think the big worry for parents out and about this Province today for educators is: if they are fortunate enough to get their children through a good secondary education, will there be any future in this Province for a post-secondary education? And I think tonight, Mr. Speaker, when people sit down to watch the newscast at suppertime, that more and more of them are going to be sick to their stomachs because they realize that for their children there will be no future for post-secondary education in this Province, because they will not be able to afford it.

Now that is what this Minister has done to the education system in this Province. He has watered it down, he has cut the secondary school system, he has eviscerated the post-secondary education system - one which he came from. And I think, Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that education is being - someone said in Gander a while ago, it has rolled back twenty years. But I would say in light of the last week that it has gone back further now than when the Minister started teaching at the University, and God knows how long ago that was - that was quite a while ago. Now that is what he has done to education. He has brought it back to the time when he started -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, after the Minister of Finance. So, Mr. Speaker, I want to support the petition presented by my colleague from Burin - Placentia West, and support those people who took the time and energy to express to the Members of this Legislature their concerns about education in this Province and particularly what this Minister of Education, the Premier, and this whole Government is doing to education in this Province.

MR. SIMMS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Are there further petitions?

MR. SIMMS: Yes, we have lots of them.

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to rise in my place and present a petition on behalf of voters and citizens in St. John's East and other districts in and around St. John's, from students who are attending the Cabot Institute. These individuals, Mr. Speaker, say they are voters and (inaudible) many citizens believe that Cabot Institute is vital to Newfoundland and Labrador and they strongly oppose any move by Government to reduce programs or to cut funding to Cabot Institute.

Thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians need Cabot Institute to ensure the economic future of Newfoundland and Labrador, we want quality education and we deserve no less.

Mr. Speaker, that sentiment as expressed by these students is one where I think they have made it very clear by their demonstration outside of this House on opening day, that they were prepared to accept no less from this Government and I am shocked, Mr. Speaker, to hear the Minister of Education rise in this House today and say, in response to questions about the cutbacks at Memorial University, that he agrees or he sees that this inevitability, that the Extension service for example would be lost, one of the great institutions of our post-secondary education in this Province, a model, Mr. Speaker, not only in this country but around the world for community development.

That institution, Mr. Speaker, the Extension Service and this community development facility, is one which we should cherish and keep and not let go by the wayside for the sake of a single budgetary act by this Government, including the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Education, two of them, Mr. Speaker, long time professors at Memorial University.

But this prayer, Mr. Speaker, concerns itself with the Cabot Institute and post-secondary education in general and we see, Mr. Speaker, an unfortunate attitude in this Government and I hope, and perhaps the Minister of Education will disabuse us of this notion, that they are not going to take the same attitude as the Minister of Health did, when he speaks of the inevitability of the cutbacks in health care from the Federal Government. We want to see some fight over there on that side of the House, not just an acceptance of the inevitability of there being shortfalls in transfer payments and therefore cutbacks in our services to our students.

The students of this Province are not going to accept any less; they say they deserve no less and we agree on this side of the House and, Mr. Speaker, let me make it clear, that this Member and our Party in general will fight, not only this Government, but also the whole attitude that the Government of Canada has had in the past ten years starting in 1982, to decrease the established program financing accepted by Governments in Newfoundland and by Governments of Canada ever since that time. That is something that is not inevitable, Mr. Speaker, that has to be fought against and changed and stopped and I ask, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Education: would he rise and speak to this petition and ensure - we do not know yet what the Cabot Institute is going to do in response to this Budget - but ensure this House that he will not tolerate any changes in the Education system which will decrease our ability to have an educated populous. We already know that we have the highest drop out rate in secondary education in Newfoundland, we also have the lowest number of students attending - percentage wise - university, this is something we must change and improve and not allow to go backwards. Will the Minister of Education commit to this House, that if we can demonstrate that we are going backwards in any respect in education, that he will find more money and change this Budget.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear.

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

MR. POWER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to rise for a couple of moments and support the petition so ably presented by the Member for St. John's East, and am glad to see that he has finally presented a petition on the Cabot Institute and the post-secondary system in the Province. I know our Education critic, the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes, has presented petitions with literally tens of thousands of names from students and teachers across this Province who are concerned about the quality of education.

Mr. Speaker, we have been doing this every day. I suppose in Opposition, you work on the idea that if you do something and repeat something often enough and long enough maybe some of it will sink into the thick heads of Members of Government opposite. Sometimes, I am not at all that sure that is going to happen or not, but as one Member who is a former teacher and a former Minister of Career Development, I am very concerned about what is happening to education in this Province. I am particularly concerned and again, I disagree with the sanctimonious approach of Government some days that the Ministers over there seem to think that because we are concerned about Health or we are concerned about Education, we are spendthrifts, we completely bankrupt the Province and that we have no plan or no idea how to run this Province properly. That simply, Mr. Speaker, is not true; there is a way to run this Province properly and still have an extremely good balance of health care, of education in the social sector and still be able to do things in the economic field.

But I think where this Government has fallen down is that they have decided to put a tremendous imbalance in the system of the delivery of government, that they have deliberately decided to cut back so much on the social care side of our programs, supposedly to economically diversify, supposedly to get our fiscal house in order that I think they are going to do irreparable damage to the people of this Province and I think the immediate area where this Government is doing the most damage is in the health care sector because they are putting the health of our citizens at risk. I mean when you see TV yesterday evening and you watch that little girl from Port aux Basques who may very well have died and never had the opportunity to contribute to Newfoundland. Those are serious concerns the Minister of Health and other Ministers should take into account; but even more so than in the health of the people of this Province, the soul of this Province is going to be destroyed because our young people are simply not going to be motivated to continue to stay in school, they are not going to be motivated to continue to get an education, they are going to lose their belief in the fact that if you get educated there is a bright future for you.

Now in most parts of the world that is true, that if you are better educated, you have a better source of income, you have better job security, you can contribute more, and if you are less educated you are going to always have job instability and insecurity, you are always going to be paid less, you will very likely be a seasonal worker. And in this Province if we take the soul of our Province, the young people and say to them that look, you really have no particular need to get educated because there are no job opportunities for you, because the education system is so expensive, it is so difficult to get to. I mean the Leader of the Opposition has brought it up to the Premier several times, and we have all mentioned it in our speeches across this House, of this idea of centralizing everything again. The idea that if you want to have a good university education you have to come to the main campus.

The excellent idea talked about by the Liberals during the election of 1989 and talked by us, the idea of having a central Newfoundland university campus is an excellent idea. Every vocational school campus in Newfoundland, something that we started when we were there, I, and I guess the Member for Grand Bank were Ministers of Advanced Education, we had the idea that you should be able to get first and second year university at all of our vocational school campuses. You have to bring education to the people. You have to make it easy. You have to make it accessible. You have to make it simplified for persons in all parts of Newfoundland to get an education. But now what has happened is that it is going to become more difficult. It is going to become much more expensive and, in effect, many persons are being discouraged from proceeding with a quality education. I can only say that the health care problems you will see in the immediate future, the education problems you may not see for twenty or twenty-five years. But when you see them you better be prepared as a Government, whether it is the present group or this group or the group that is down in St. John's East trying to create the Government or be the Government, that you are going to have a problem that you will not solve for several generations because it will be impossible to deal with.

Mr. Speaker, one other problem about this Budget that I see which hurts education and health care and the social sector side: the only people I see praising it up are the affluent of this Province, the Board of Trade, the Chambers of Commerce. On T.V. the other day I saw a group of people praising up the Premier. I venture to bet most of the graduates from secondary system of the group of people in that room are all going to elite universities out of this Province. It is not a problem for the business people and the rich of this Province to get a good quality education for their children, they can pay for it outside of this Province. But when I look at the people down in my district of Ferryland, when I look at the fishermen's children who want to get better educated I can only say to them that it is going to be very, very difficult in this elite system that the Minister and this Government are creating, the fact that they are making education more difficult, more inaccessible. I have real concerns for their future. I just wish that some of what we are saying will sink into the Minister of Education, and I wish the rest of his Cabinet colleagues would listen to him when he talks about education being an economic development tool because without it-

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

MR. POWER: The Minister of Development is not paying attention to my words or to the Member for St. John's East. He does not pay attention to the Minister of Education I suspect either.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. POWER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, I will address some of the comments from the Member for St. John's East. Perhaps he was not aware that last year we released a White Paper on Post-Secondary Education in the Province with the three principles of Equality of Opportunity, Excellence and Efficiency as the three underlying principles, and we believe that as a policy for the 1990s for this Government. We want to increase participation. We have the lowest participation rate in post-secondary education in Canada. At the university level we have almost caught up. But, Mr. Speaker, this Government is committed to increasing participation.

I want to remind the Member also, and I will send him a copy of the White Paper, because I think he is genuinely concerned in these issues and I want to respond quite seriously to his comments.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, last year one of the things that this Government did, and one of the things that I am very proud of, is to totally reform the provincial component of the Student Aid Program. We added substantially to student aid last year, particularly for single parents and others with dependents. We added 28 per cent to the grants for these students. Fees went up maybe 8 per cent or 10 per cent, but we added very substantially and we reformed. And I am pleased to say that this year we added another $2 million to $3 million for student aid, so that those who are disadvantaged most will get the help. I came from one of these small communities. I would not have gotten to university without a grant. I am not insensitive to the needs of rural students and students who do not have the funds to get educated in this Province, I assure you, Mr. Speaker, and I am going to fight as long as I am here to provide greater equality of opportunity.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, the Cabot-

If the hon. Member will let me speak I have a very few minutes.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, I was asked a very serious question.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I again ask hon. Members to please not interrupt during a petition. Time is of the essence, and the hon. Minister has asked that there be no interruptions. So I will ask the hon. Minister to carry on, please.

DR. WARREN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I will just briefly mention the scholarship reform of last year. They were in power, I do not know how many years, it seemed like a century. They did not change the scholarships one dollar while they were there. We last year increased them from $600 to $1,000 in our first year in office, and we tripled the number, Mr. Speaker. We have hundreds of scholarships.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

DR. WARREN: Hundreds of scholarships that we did not have two or three years ago, Mr. Speaker, and we are going to add more to the scholarships to help those people go on. Now on Cabot, Mr. Speaker, and by the way I will direct my comments to the hon. Member for Ferryland, who did much better in his education comments than he did in his health comments. Much, much better.

Mr. Speaker, it is difficult for Cabot, Cabot is an outstanding institution. But we just do not have the money, Mr. Speaker, to do this year what needs to be done in education. But we are planning for the future. We are going to build, Mr. Speaker, a centre for engineering technology as part of the St. John's campus. A centre for engineering technology that will consolidate all of that. This year, Mr. Speaker, there may be some pain. I have not received from Cabot yet the programmes. They are going to eliminate some programmes, they are going to downsize others, they are going to combine with other institutions. They are going to release some administrators.

Let me tell you that we asked the colleges, even though I have not received from them yet their proposals, we asked to start at the administration. Cut the student programmes last, we said, cut other things first. So, Mr. Speaker, they are going to do a lot of other things before they cut programmes and I will do everything possible to ensure that the students of this Province - those who are in programmes - will be able to complete their programmes. That is a concern of students from Cabot. And we will prepare students for the 1990s and the 21st century.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Orders of the Day

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

MR. BAKER: Motion 4, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Motion 4. The motion is that I do now leave the Chair for the House to resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole on Supply.

The hon. the Minister of Finance.

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform His Honour and the House that I received a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor.

MR. SPEAKER: "To the hon. the Minister of Finance: I, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Newfoundland, transmit supplementary estimates of sums required for the public service of the Province for the year ending the thirty-first day of March 1991 by way of supplementary supply. And in accordance with the provisions of The Constitution Act, 1867, I recommend these estimates to the House of Assembly."

(Sgd.)_______________________

Lieutenant-Governor

The hon. the Minister of Finance.

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, I move that the Message together with the amount be referred to the Committee of Supply.

On motion, that the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole on Supply, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.

Committee of Supply

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order please!

The hon. the Minister of Finance.

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This Bill for Supplementary Supply is in the amount of $20,943,200 and is broken down as contained in the schedule: $200,000 for the Legislature House operations and $25,000 for Hansard; $4 million for the Department of Development, Marystown Shipyards branch subsidies; education, $3.6 million for teaching services, and $1,750,000 for the transportation of school children; for health: air ambulance, $725,400, for allowances and assistance to indigents, $373,300; for grants to hospitals, $4,404,000; for long-term care facilities grants and subsidies, $865,500; and for the Department of Social Services, $4.5 million for allowances and assistance to social assistance; and for home support services, $500,000. The total again, Mr. Chairman, being $20,943,200.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Chairman, is this it? Is that the way the Minister is going to introduce this Bill? I mean it is amazing, Mr. Chairman, he is allowed on his feet, so that is the first step. He was allowed to get up and speak, but he was not allowed to say anything. He read the Bill to us. I mean this is just incredible, Mr. Chairman, that the Minister would not offer some explanation. He expects this House to approve $21 million of Supplementary Supply with no more explanation than reading - he did not even read the whole Bill, he read the headings. We are quite capable of reading the headings, Mr. Chairman. What we would like is some information. These are very general descriptions that are here. It has been tradition in this House that when the Minister rises to introduce such a Bill - a mini budget is what it is, an extension of his Budget - he is expected to offer to the House some explanation of why he needs $21 million more than he budgeted.

I would have thought, Mr. Chairman, that he would also take this opportunity to tell us why, in spite of the fact that he is asking for this $21 million more, he is still showing $117 million deficit which, no doubt, he has had to borrow. I would have thought that he would have taken this opportunity in Supplementary Supply to offer some explanation or apologies, perhaps, to the House for the mismanagement of the Budget last year, for coming up with $117 million deficit in lieu of the $10 million surplus he boasted about at Budget time last year. But instead of that, he gets up and he reads us the headings and says, 'give me another $21 million now,' with no further explanation than that. It is just totally unheard of, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, there are a number of things in here that we would want to question, no doubt. The first ones the Minister mentioned were the House operations and the Hansard. These are dealing with the Legislature, and I am sure that they are justified. The House runs itself and any funding that is spent is approved by the Internal Economy Commission, so we do not have any great difficulty with those.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I would like to question those. The next one is the Department of Development. $4 million in grants and subsidies to the Department of Development. Now if I am not mistaken, if my memory serves me correctly, those grants and subsidies relate to the interest paid on the debt of Marystown Shipyard. The Minister shakes his head in agreement. My memory also serves me correctly that last year at Budget time the Minister announced that there would be no vote under that heading this year because Government had paid in advance the $4 million grants and subsidy, which is an annual thing.

Government at the end of the 1989-1990 Budget had a surplus, they had a windfall from the Government of Canada. And they paid an extra $21 million into the pension fund, which was a laudable thing to do. And they paid the $4 million for Marystown Shipyard in advance. There was some advantage to Marystown Shipyard, and it is also an end of the year transfer sort of thing, juggling from one year to the next. Good business practice. It made the previous year's surplus a little smaller, so we had a $37 million surplus, whereas had we put the additional $25 million we would have had a $62 million surplus. That is in fact what we ended the year with. If we had not made the $21 million special payment to pension, and if we had not paid the $4 million in advance to Marystown Shipyard, we actually had a $62 million surplus, I think it was, the previous year. But on the books it shows as $37 million.

Mr. Speaker, the question therefore is, why is this $4 million here appearing now? It was paid last year. So this $4 million must be for next year, for the current fiscal year as covered by the Budget that is presently before this House, and we know there is money in that Budget as well for this year, I think there is. I had not checked, I do not think, the estimates for this year. That is subhead 2.2.02, under Department of Development.

No, there is not. So that is interesting. So that means we are paying in advance for Marystown Shipyard again. Why would we do that when we had a $117 million deficit at the end of the year? Really, we had a $113 million deficit, but the Minister has paid this in advance and made the deficit look worse. It also has the impact, Mr. Speaker, of making the surplus for 1991-1992 look better. Well, it is not a surplus. We have a $57 million deficit projected, $53.7 million. Really, that should be $57.7 million if this $4 million were paid in the appropriate year.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Minister to answer that for us. Why has this payment now been made in advance again? What are the advantages there? Perhaps there is an advantage to Marystown Shipyard. Certainly they are having enough difficulty down there, having lost a $24 million contract for the Fogo Island ferry.

MR. TOBIN: Lost the shrimp trawler (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Lost what?

MR. TOBIN: That shrimp trawler last (inaudible)

MR. WINDSOR: And the shrimp trawler went to Norway. But certainly the Fogo Island ferry is a tremendous loss to Marystown Shipyard. They are down now to less than 200 people and I suspect we will be losing more in the very near future. A bit of repair work, I would say down there, my friend from Burin Peninsula (Inaudible) -

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible) they got two Federal Government vessels.

MR. WINDSOR: Two Federal Government vessels. No Provincial Government work at Marystown Shipyard to help keep the shipyard afloat. Pardon the pun.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: A great industry on the Burin Peninsula being allowed to close. This $4 million subsidy is not something where Government has a choice, it is statutory, they are committed to making that payment. But why they would not continue on - it is a capital account item - to build that ferry. It is needed anyway, it would benefit the people of Fogo Island, the Department of Transportation, ferry service provided by the Department of Works, Services and Transportation. And it would create a tremendous amount of employment in Marystown Shipyard for this year, it would be a tremendous benefit. Maybe the Minister of Development will tell me why that money is being paid to Marystown Shipyard this year.

AN HON. MEMBER: Interest.

MR. WINDSOR: I know it is interest. Why is it being paid this year? (Inaudible) last year instead of this year? Why is it being paid in advance again? And why are we not building that ferry at Marystown?

Mr. Speaker, the next item is teaching services. Now I would like the Minister, either the Minister or the Minister of Education, to tell us why we had this increase of $3.6 million on teaching services, grants and subsidies? Obviously that is teachers' salaries.

Three point six million, it is about 1 per cent of the Budget, it is not an incredible overrun but one wonders why we do not have better control of the salary component than that. So we would ask the Minister to give us some details on teaching services.

Transportation of school children has gone up by $1.7 million, nearly $2 million dollars. It is almost a 10 per cent increase. I can't believe that there were so many contracts negotiated for school busing that we would be over by that much, that could not have been anticipated. It is an item that there should be good control over. And it appears that there is very little control over that particular item. So I would hope that the Minister, when he rises again in a moment, would give us some information on that.

The Minister is going to skip out now, he is scared to death, he is going to run.

On the health budget, Mr. Chairman: air ambulance, $725,000 on a budget of $3 million. Seems to be a significant increase. Three quarters of a million on a $3 million budget. That is a 25 per cent increase. Maybe the Minister can tell us what that is for. I hope that that air ambulance is just that, I hope it is still being used only for the Department of Health to transfer the sick on an emergency basis. Maybe the Minister could tell us too, have they done any review of that service to see if there is any abuse of the service? I will not suggest that Ministers are using that aircraft for their transportation, I have no reason to believe that they are. But I would be curious to know whether or not there is any control in place on the usage of that service. I know in the past there were many cases when it was questionable. Obviously a doctor has to approve it at all times but in many cases a doctor is very lenient in requesting the air ambulance service when another form of transportation might have been just as appropriate - not as convenient, not as quick, perhaps not as comfortable, but far less expensive. Maybe the Minister could tell us whether or not indeed the air ambulance service is being used only for emergencies, and what controls if any have been placed on that.

Allowances for indigents: Allowances and assistance, additional $373,000. Not a big increase but perhaps we could have some explanation of that.

Grants to hospitals gone up by $4.4 million. I'm just curious as to why grants to hospitals would change in mid-year. I mean, these are the sorts of kinds of basic information that the Minister of Finance should have and could have given us when he introduced his Bill, but he failed to do so, so I have to ask now. Would the President of Treasury Board or the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Health tell us where this $4.4 million in grants to hospitals is gone and for what purposes? The same for long term care facilities, an increase of $865,000, that is about 1 per cent. Again, not an unreasonable amount but there must be some explanation for that. And I have no doubt that the Minister has the explanation there, his officials would have prepared him well and given him a thorough explanation, some notes on what these items were. And it is just amazing that he did not offer them to us in his opening remarks.

Social assistance allowances and assistance, $4.5 million. A significant increase, and no doubt that is controlled by the incidence of social assistance requirements during the year, the number of people on social assistance. And to some degree there is not a lot of control on it. Perhaps the state of the economy has caused that, and it is evidence again of the number of people who are unemployed and are on social assistance. And I would also suggest, as I did last week, that that is a result of the mismanagement of the economy by this Government. The level of unemployment has gone to great heights again. The number of people on social assistance has gone up. Maybe this is the refugees, is it - the Bulgarian refugees? Is that some of it? The Minister of Social Services will no doubt be able to answer for that $4.5 million. Or is it an increase in the number of people on social assistance?

MR. EFFORD: Both.

MR. WINDSOR: Both. Well, maybe the Minister would rise and give us that information, I am sure he has the details and that information, available. At home support services allowance an extra $500,000. A fairly significant, almost 5 per cent increase, in home support services. Maybe the Minister of Social Services will give us the details of that as well.

Mr. Chairman, maybe I will just stop there and ask for some response to some of these questions.

(Inaudible) speak? No answers over there? Really?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I just cannot believe what is taking place. It is incredible what is happening here. The other day, after the Budget was brought in, my colleague from Mount Pearl got up as the Opposition critic and put questions to the Minister of Finance who delivered the Budget, and the Minister of Finance was not permitted to answer the questions. So we have a Minister of Finance who brought in the Budget, put the Budget before the House, Mr. Chairman, and was not prepared to answer the questions, could not answer the questions. My colleague from Mount Pearl just stood there and listed off a number of questions to various Ministers opposite, and there was not one answer. I do not know what game the President of Treasury Board is trying to play for him to not have someone get up.

Some questions my colleague from Mount Pearl asked, related particularly to the Marystown Shipyard in my constituency. I was very anxiously awaiting the response to the questions that were raised, because that shipyard is in very dire straits right now, it is on the brink of closing. That is what is happening to the Marystown Shipyard. My colleague raised some very important questions, but no one on the Government side took the trouble to stand and respond to the questions. And I do not know why. But it is something new. In my years around this Legislature and the other Legislature, I have never seen a Minister have so many questions put to him by an Opposition finance critic and no one respond, particularly in the forum where we are now participating.

I would like to say to the Government that there are questions they have to answer, and there are questions they will answer. And whether that is people like we saw yesterday regrettably - when things comes to the stage where the women of this Province have to go out and picket places where the Premier is speaking to try to get responses because we can not get them in the Legislature, that is regrettable. And that is the type of action we have seen from this Government. They are driving people into the streets. There is a halt being put on the people of this Province.

The only way you can get a response is when the Premier has a door half-closed, as he did to the women of this Province yesterday. And when the people from Grand Bank forced him in an elevator he said: I would if I could but I can't. But 7:00 p.m. that night he found a way, because he knew the people of Grand Bank meant business. Now we have a situation as it relates to the Marystown Shipyard, a very serious situation. We have this Government which has for the first time ever cut the grant in lieu of taxes to the Marystown Shipyard. The Board of Directors have no significant option except to sit back and take instructions from this Government.

We have the Minister of Municipal Affairs and the cut in the grant in lieu of taxes was brought to his attention, and what did the Minister of Municipal Affairs do? Absolutely nothing. He supported Government's decision to cut that in addition to another $75,000 that was put there in terms of the restructuring of the grant structure in this Province.

The Marystown area and the Burin Peninsula are devastated. There has never been in my ten years in public life - and I was involved in council for something like seven or eight years before that, so for approximately seventeen or eighteen years I have been involved in public life in this Province and never has the economic condition of the Burin Peninsula been as desperate as it is today. We have people going to the mainland in droves. We have a Premier promising to bring them home. What is happening? How many have come home since this crowd took office? I can tell you, CN Marine will not get rich bringing people across the Gulf who are moving back home. They will probably do alright with people who are moving away, but not people coming back home.

We have a Government which is committed to the centralization of this Province, which has no commitment whatsoever to rural Newfoundland. None! We do not have one Minister there who is prepared to stand up for rural Newfoundland. And all we have to do is look at what has taken place in the last few days.

Today we had the President of the University saying that for the outport people who are coming into St. John's to stay, there will be a significant increase in residence fees next year. That is what we have taking place in this Province; that is the commitment this Government has to the rural outports which have basically been the foundation the urbanized centres have built themselves upon.

AN HON. MEMBER: Winterland!

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, yes, Winterland. The Minister of Agriculture is a friend and everything else, but as the Minister he does not know where Winterland is.

MR. FLIGHT: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Not only that, you have the Minister of Social Services firing people left, right and centre - district managers: The district managers in Port Saunders, in St. Mary's, in Bay L'Argent, and in Arnold's Cove, what happened to them in the last few days? Pink slips! And the urban centres: Marystown will be responsible for the sub-office in Bay L'Argent, I would suspect. You have Harbour Grace or somewhere that will be responsible for some other offices. But the district managers have been fired, have gotten pink slips. These will become sub-offices in this Province, and let no one say anything different, and there will be a lack of services as a result of it.

You have the Minister of Transportation who promised a ferry, Mr. Chairman. In last year's budget speech, what did the Minister of Transportation say about a new ferry for Fogo Island to be built at the Marystown Shipyard? What did the Minister say when he was up? What did the Minister say when he was in Marystown last January, he and the Minister of Development? They announced the new ferry. What did the Minister say when he was up when the Flanders was being christened?

MR. GILBERT: You did not get invited.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I can tell you something right now, that I do not make fun or poke fun out at the fact that 200 or 300 people from Marystown and surrounding areas have to go to the Mainland to look for work, and no one else should. When at one time I said the Minister of Transportation was probably the most arrogant person to ever stand in this Legislature, people who knew him told me they were not surprised. That is what they are saying about the Minister throughout rural Newfoundland. He lacks compassion, no commitment whatsoever. What are you doing for Fogo? What are you doing for Bell Island? Those are the questions which have to be answered in this Legislature.

The people of Bell Island are getting their ferry cut by six months a year from what they presently have. The Beaumont Hamel was supposed to go on the Bell island run and that has gone out the window. What do those people have now? The Bell Island people now have a ferry which cannot meet their needs. We have a Minister of Transportation who does not have any concern whatsoever, and I doubt very much if he knows what is going on in this Province. He is the most incompetent Minister in this administration, the most incompetent Minister the Province of Newfoundland has ever seen in transportation, and that is fact. He is totally incompetent as a Minister and nobody in this Province who needs help with their transportation needs will have anything to do with that Minister. That is what is taking place in this Province. And the list goes on, Mr. Chairman.

What has the Minister of Health done to Placentia? My colleague is not here now, a friend of mine who, I know, is very concerned about what took place in Placentia.

AN HON. MEMBER: He is not a friend of yours.

MR. TOBIN: Yes, he is. And I support my friend for Placentia when anybody talks about hospital cuts, unlike the hon. Member for Carbonear. That is what we have taking place in this Province. What has the Minister of Health done to his colleague from LaPoile? Anyone who saw television last night saw them out in droves, Mr. Chairman, protesting what is taking place with health care in this Province. What does the bed study say? My friend for Ferryland can tell you what the bed study says about hospital beds in Port aux Basques? Did it say eliminate them all? Not likely, Mr. Chairman, but that is what the Minister of Health has done. What about Placentia? What about my colleague from Old Perlican? What compassion has the Minister of Health shown for his district? None whatsoever. The Member for Bonavista South, a hospital the former member, Jim Morgan, worked like a trojan to get for that community. I can only say that I would like the former member, Mr. Morgan, to see what that Member has let happen to Bonavista South, to know that Bonavista South lacks representation - none whatsoever! I do not know if the hon. member has been back to his district since he came in here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I do not know, Mr. Chairman, if the Member for Bonavista South has been back since he was elected to the House, back to Bonavista South. But I do know, having been involved in Government and in Cabinet, that the former Member worked hard to get that hospital. And to see this Minister and this Government strike off acute care with one stroke of the pen is indeed regrettable and something the people of Bonavista South will have a lot to say about come the next election, something, Mr. Chairman, that will make the hon. the Member for Bonavista South wish he had not wound up his law practice so quickly. Because he will be back there, Mr. Chairman, as soon as the Premier gets time enough to have the writ issued.

The Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, The Amalgamator, Mr. Chairman, went around this Province and threatened everyone with amalgamation for the last year, from one end of this Province to the other. Nobody knows what is going to happen. There are councils budgets not yet prepared and submitted because of the incompetence of this Government. Why? That is the question which has to be answered. We had a council the other day, one of the largest if not the largest town in Newfoundland, submit a budget that was not balanced because of the way this Government and that Minister have treated the people. Why, Mr. Chairman? How can the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs sit there and watch what is happening? How come he can turn around and to the large urban centres, when we talk about centralization again, like Corner Brook and pump in literally hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I am not saying that it should not go there, Mr. Chairman. I am not saying that at all. But why can he not do the same for CBS and other parts of the Province? When are we going to get the final documentation on the amalgamation issue? When are we going to know what towns? The groupings as the Minister says, when are we going to know when they are going to take place? Those are the questions which have to be answered in this House.

When is the Minister going to tell us how much money is in the Budget for capital works in Municipal Affairs. The Budget last year addressed it. But I can tell you the Budget last year was not factual, Mr. Chairman. The Budget last year was not factual when it came down to it. He said, we are going to spend $55 million. I challenge the Minister to show where they spent $55 million in this Province. He can probably do it if he counts the debt charges that were incurred by the various municipalities throughout the Province, but in terms of the Government calling tenders for $55 million worth of work, it did not happen.

The Minister of Health stood in this Legislature today and he knew all about capital expenditure for the Province, but the Minister of Health did not know how much current account was reduced by for Burin Peninsula health care. Well let me tell the Minister of Health. If he does not know, I know. The amount, Mr. Chairman, is $1,029,000. That is what it was reduced from last year.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Well, Mr. Chairman, probably I should be minister, but I could never be a minister in a government that socked it to the people of rural Newfoundland the way they have. I was a Minister in a Government that was a caring Government, a Government that had feelings for Newfoundland, Mr. Chairman, a Government that was committed to rural Newfoundland. That was the one I was Minister in, Mr. Chairman, and before long we will be back there again.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do not let them go dry!

MR. TOBIN: What happened, Mr. Chairman, to the Budget? Last year the Budget announced $55 million for capital works, for water and sewer. This year, Mr. Chairman, there is not one penny mentioned, not one penny mentioned in the Budget for capital works, for water and sewer.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not a copper! Not a copper!

MR. TOBIN: Not a penny, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Yes, Mr. Chairman, about the only penny. If you are talking about it in terms of sense, he is probably the only one over there.

MR. DOYLE: Common sense is not so common.

MR. TOBIN: Now having said that, Mr. Chairman, you look at the Burin Peninsula. What about the cutbacks at the Harbour Breton Hospital, Mr. Chairman? When is the Minister of Health going to tell us whether or not there have been cutbacks in the Harbour Breton health care system? When will he tell us what was told to the Chairman or the administrator yesterday in Grand Falls? And how many positions are going to be eliminated?

We were all beginning to wonder why the Member for Fortune - Hermitage was in such a rush to join the Liberal Party. Was it because they cut back health and education and social services? Was it because there was a $5 million cut in the Budget for fisheries? Was it because there are people getting laid off in the health care system in his District? Was it because there were no more of his constituents at the Marystown shipyard? Was it because of a whole lot of these issues? Is that the great vital leadership he believed in, Mr. Chairman, one that is going to bring rural Newfoundland to its knees? One that is committed to the resettlement program of the 1960s? Is that what he believed in? Because that he is not what the people of Fortune - Hermitage wanted. And I doubt, Mr. Chairman, if it is what the 200 people who wanted him to join the Liberal Party wanted. The 200 Liberals who are in Fortune - Hermitage, I doubt if that is what they wanted. But I can tell the Member for Fortune - Hermitage that his stay -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. TOBIN: I would suspect, Mr. Chairman, people have the right to come and leave, unless the Government is going to dictate that now, when they can come and when they can go. That would not surprise me one bit. The arrogance of this Government would not surprise me one bit. As a matter of fact, anything is possible in a dictatorship - anything, anything is possible in a dictatorship.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is right. You have got it.

MR. TOBIN: There is nothing spared, Mr. Chairman in a dictatorship, nothing. So that would not surprise me. And I want the Minister of Municipal Affairs to stand when I sit and tell me how much money is going to be spent in capital works this year - how much, Mr. Chairman. What we have seen in this Province in this Budget is a SCUD attack on the economic conditions in this Province. That is what they have unleashed. The Minister of Finance has unleashed a SCUD attack on the economic and social well-being of this Province. That is what is happening.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where is the Minister of Finance? This is his bill.

MR. TOBIN: That is right. Where is the Minister of Finance? It is his bill. I can tell you where the Minister of Finance is. He is not allowed in the House; he is not allowed to come in and answer the questions. That is why he is not here. The Minister of Education -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, the two of them would be a lot better off in the closet over in the university.

MR. DOYLE: They have no more direction than a SCUD missile.

MR. TOBIN: Because what is taking place here -

MR. MURPHY: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, the Member for St. John's South can make fun of the Educational announcement made today by the President of the University, he can make fun of that if he wishes, but I can tell him that his constituents who go to university will not be laughing at it, and I do not think he should laugh at it.

The same Member who yesterday, Mr. Chairman, I say to my colleague from Mount Pearl, the Member for St. John's South and Hansard will show it, I had to get up and correct when he said we should close down Mount Pearl. That is what the Member for St. John's South said yesterday, Mount Pearl should be closed down, and now he is laughing at the cutbacks at Memorial University.

MR. HODDER: That is his petty jealousy coming out.

MR. TOBIN: That is what it is, petty jealousy. And those are the factions this Government is made up of.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I would ask the Minister of Municipal Affairs if he will give us some indication as to how much money is going to be spent in the capital budget this year. I would ask the Minister of Transportation if he would stand up and tell us when construction is going to start on the Burin Peninsula Highway. I would also like the Minister of Transportation to tell us if he has the courage to face the people of Burin Peninsula next Tuesday, where he has been invited, and the Minister of Development and the Premier, where there are 800 or 1,000 people who want to come and question them.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes?

MR. TOBIN: Yes, Mr. Chairman, there are 1,000 people and they want to question the Minister, and they will be there, as to why they want to create such chaos at the Marystown Shipyard. Will the Minister have the courage to come down and face the 1,000 people who are in trouble, who are crying out to this Government for help? Will he do it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that the same crowd who (inaudible) the bus?

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I can tell the Member for St. John's South that the people on the Burin Peninsula today are very concerned. There will be 300 who will have to leave Marystown this year and go to the mainland for work.

MS. VERGE: How many have already left?

MR. TOBIN: About 400 or 500, Mr. Chairman. I can tell the President of Treasury Board that I had a call from a fellow at Christmas, a good friend of mine, a young man about twenty-five, who is now living in Ajax, Ontario, formerly from Marystown. The night before he called he was at a party in Ajax and there were 125 young people there from Marystown, all of whom had left in the last year. That is what is taking on the Burin Peninsula, and throughout Newfoundland, no doubt. There were 125 at that Christmas party in Ajax, and every one of them had left Marystown in the last year. That is what is taking place in this Province.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time has elapsed.

At this time I will announce the questions for the Late Show. Question number one is from the hon. the Member for Harbour Main to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations. He is not satisfied with the answer given on the Employment Generation Program. Question number two is from the hon. the Opposition House Leader. He is dissatisfied with the answer given by the President of Treasury Board concerning alternatives to saving jobs, money and essential public services. Question number three is from the hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains to the Minister of Education. He is not satisfied with the answer given with regards to the church colleges and residences electrical rates.

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, very much, Mr. Chairman. I think this is the first time I have had the opportunity to rise in my place in this new Assembly, but it will not be the last.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. PARSONS: Mr. Chairman, I must say that first when I came in here I thought it was something that did not tickle my fancy. But after a couple of weeks here, it sort of grows on you. I think even the press have much better facilities now than they had previously. I think this will grow on us, and I think it had to come. I believe the old Assembly gave you a greater feeling of togetherness, there was more warmth, but apart from that, because of access and other things I think this is a good place, it is a good Legislative Assembly. I have travelled around many cities in Canada and I think it should get a good rating.

Mr. Chairman, the other thing I would like to say about this new Legislature is that we all know that each Legislature in the Western world, and from my point of view especially in Canada, has great importance as it pertains to liberty, and I think it was quite ironic that the day this new House opened, the Persian Gulf war ended. To me that meant a great deal, because over the past few weeks I am sure each Member in the House had at some time or other been to events associated with the Persian Gulf and with people who had men and women over there. When I came in that day the war was not as yet over, and I do not think there was anyone who thought at that particular time that it would be finished so quickly that night. It gave me a feeling of what they were over there for. When you come in here and you see everything so free, so easy, our freedoms, each one of us here has the right to get up and address the Assembly, each one of us has the right to question the other person's ability as it pertains to each Department, it is a wonderful feeling and it is wonderful to be part of it. I, for one, feel so proud in that respect.

I am not going to elaborate on it too much, but I am going to say a couple of words about what I went through prior to the House being open and during the Persian Gulf conflict. I know the Leader of the Opposition had a brother over there, and I know there was a lot of sentiment, feeling, or whatever. I want to say that I attended two major events during that time, one in Torbay and the other in Pouch Cove, which enveloped the whole surrounding area.

I do not know if anyone else saw it, but I watched Ron and Loretta Manning of Torbay being interviewed on CBC. I do not know if anyone else saw it or not. But of all the people who were down around City Hall waving banners and whatever, they certainly came across to me as real Newfoundlanders. And with their two boys over in the Gulf at that particular time, they were by no means giving in to the feelings that they must have had. They said they were willing to see their sons over there as long as it brought peace to the rest of the world.

With that said, Mr. Chairman, I will get on with why I got up here in the first place, to say a few words about Supply, about this Bill, and to say to this Government that perhaps, in some instances, there was a need for restrictions, there was a need for restraints. But, I say to the Government, from my perspective I think you went at it the wrong way. I really do.

When I was on my way home the other day, I met this guy coming out as I went into the bathroom.

AN HON. MEMBER: The bathroom?

MR. PARSONS: Just listen now. Anyway, I am always saying to everyone, `How are you doing?', or `how are you feeling?', or whatever, and he said, `Pretty bad, boy.' I said, `Why?' He said, `I got my notice today.'

You can laugh if you like. The Minister of Social Services can laugh. He is a businessman, well off, affluent monetarily, enough shares in Rolls Royce perhaps to put ten people to work.

AN HON. MEMBER: To hit ten moose.

MR. PARSONS: Yes. But the point remains that this poor man said to me, `I am going to be laid off.' And he said, `Because of the contract that was signed, I had bought a new home' - on the strength of the contract. He said, `Along with things being frozen and the feeling I had even in that respect,' he said, `I am laid off.' There were tears in the man's eyes. And for each and every one of the 1,300 people who are going to be laid off - well, in essence there are going to be at least 2,000 - there are a lot of problems out there.

I know, perhaps, it might be hard on some Ministers of the Government to go along with it and say this had to be done. But again, I repeat myself, Mr. Chairman, I feel there was a different option. I feel that other options could have been used. I think if they had tried to eliminate some of the positions, if that was necessary, it could have been done by attrition. And, Mr. Chairman, if there was a possibility for people to hold their jobs, then, perhaps, the freeze could have been put on for two consecutive years and it would have eliminated the need for those people to lose their positions. A freeze for two years I am sure would create some hardships, but not to the extent of persons losing their jobs.

Mr. Chairman, in the educational field, certainly there is a lot of fear out there, but I heard the Minister of Education say today that teachers would lose jobs only by attrition.

Now I do not know about support staff. I presume there will be some people within the support staff and perhaps on the boards themselves, board offices or whatever, who would perhaps lose their positions. There would be positions identified and perhaps on two boards. But the educational aspect of it is so important to each and every Newfoundlander, because we know from history how hard it was to get the system to where it is now. And Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have a right to expect what is best for their children, just as much right as any other citizen of this great country.

But, Mr. Chairman, that may be as bad as a lot of people feel it is, but to me the cuts in health play a much greater role in this Province. Mr. Chairman, we are an aging Province, a Province with a lot of people who are perhaps not elderly, but getting there. I went into the Health Sciences only a few weeks ago as I had a friend in there, and I listened to what was being said by his children. They were saying to me, well look, the nurses cannot even get a chance to get in to see him. Perhaps they will come to see him, sit him up, put a pillow underneath his head, turn over the pillow a couple or three times a day. Mr. Chairman, with 360 nurses gone, how bad is going to be now? I mean, how bad is it? What if I were in there or if some of my children were in there, or either one of you were in there, in any of these institutions? I mean, we have to be careful what we do when we get into cutting health care. It is not like anything else. Look, it is something we breathe, we think about, we look forward to. I know when my mother and father became old, it was such a great thing to be able to get them into a hospital when it was necessary. But, Mr. Chairman, with these cuts I am really not sure the word necessary is even defined. I do not think, Mr. Chairman, there is going to be adequate staff in those institutions to perform the essential duties necessary for health care in any hospital.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The hon. colleague is challenging?

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. EFFORD: Challenging? I would run if he were. Mr. Chairman, I think it is about time I made a few comments on the Interim Supply Bill, but before I do, I have to wonder about the hon. the Member for St. John's East Extern, if he would listen for one minute. I understand his is real concerned about health care and the importance of health care to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, but I have to ask him a question, I have to wonder how come he changed his mind. Because if we had listened as a Province to the hon. Member back in 1949 and joined the United States, what kind of health care would we have had?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: Where we would have had to pay the full cost of health care.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

The hon. the Member for St. John's East Extern, on a point of order.

MR. PARSONS: Yes, we were anti-confederates, but we were not pro to joining the United States. We were Newfoundlanders then who thought we could stand on our own two feet, and we are Newfoundlanders now who think we can stand on our own two feet. And another thing, Mr. Chairman, because sooner or later the hon. Minister of Social Services is going to get up waving the Sprung thing, I will have to say to him in my point of order, that Sprung has sprung. It is over.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

There is no point of order.

MR. PARSONS: Now what else does the Minister have to say?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The hon. Member is probably quite right, that he was not interested in joining the United States, certainly against Confederation. Now even if Newfoundland had stood alone, his whim at that particular time, I wonder then who would have paid the health cost of the Province. We were faced with a deficit of $200 million this year and we had to make some drastic cuts in order to give services to the people of this Province who need it, not only the social sector, but the resource sector and everything else in order to keep the Province going. But the most important thing you have to look at is not just what is happening today, but what is going to happen in the future to this Province.

That is one of the major problems we have had in this Province. For the last seventeen years, prior to the last election, we were concerned about the needs of the day not the needs of the future. I am certainly willing to listen as one Minister in this Government to any Member opposite or any person in this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador if they can explain to me as an individual how we can have a future in this Province with a debt now in excess of $5.6 billion and increasing year after year. If we can deal with that debt and still maintain the level of service and the number of employees we had last year and survive in the future, then I am willing to listen. We have talked to all the financial experts in Newfoundland and Labrador, and took financial advice from people in Canada and, I suppose, people in the United States, and there is a real problem facing this country, and especially this Province.

Newfoundland does not have the resources to maintain its own programs without Ottawa. Without our Federal Government we cannot survive. And if anybody opposite, after their seventeen years in the administration did not have an idea but they do have it now, I do not think there is anybody on this side of the House of Assembly who would not listen to them. But grandstanding is another thing, standing up in the House of Assembly and saying you cannot cut health care, you cannot cut education, you cannot cut back other programs. So what happens if you just borrow money and ten years down the road we have no programs? So it is a choice you have to make. You have to look at what is happening today and ask will there be a future for Newfoundland and Labrador? And that is the difference in this Administration and the former Administration.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. EFFORD: We are concerned about the future of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. EFFORD: Mr. Chairman, it is quite clear. I listened to the former Minister of Social Services down there making his little quirks, but he knows full well the operations of the Department of Social Services and what it needs to survive. One thing it does need, Mr. Chairman, is some vision for the future. The Department of Social Services has had that vision for the last two years. It is much different than the vision they had for the two years previous to that. So let the hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West sit down and be quiet before I start naming some of the things he did not do in the Department of Social Services.

AN HON. MEMBER: Name them.

MR. EFFORD: I could stand up here and it would require more than ten minutes, Mr. Chairman, to name the things the hon. Member did not do, and the changes which have been made.

Mr. Chairman, the future of this Province and the future of this country has to be uppermost in everybody's mind, whether you are a Cabinet Minister in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador or you are on the Opposition or you are a backbencher in Government. I have no grandchildren yet, but I do, Mr. Chairman, have children and I would like to think that my children will possibly marry some day and have children, and my grandchildren will have a future. The one thing I would like to see is a future for this Province. And I think hon. Members opposite know full well that the day of the last election, April 1989, when the change was made, it was the beginning of the future for Newfoundland and Labrador. And if we had maintained the same level of Government that was there, there would be no future - there would be no health system, there would be no education, there would be no social services.

AN HON. MEMBER: There would be no province.

MR. EFFORD: There would be no province. A barren land, that is what it would be.

AN HON. MEMBER: Like the Northwest Territories.

MR. EFFORD: Like the Northwest Territories. That is what it would be, Mr. Chairman. And if the good people of this country have the common sense, and I have all the faith in the world they do, in a year and a half, when the Federal election comes around, we will be relieved of another Tory monstrosity in Ottawa and the country as a whole will get onto some future programming and some future vision so that we can survive as a country. Because if that Administration in Ottawa, Mr. Chairman, remains much longer, there will be no future. There will be no future for Canada, there will be no future for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Getting back to my own Department. There were a couple of questions raised by the hon. the Member for Mount Pearl. I can honestly say that I am pleased with the programming we have in the Department of Social Services this year. There was an (inaudible) in social assistance cases last year.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: There is no cut in Social Services' Budget, there is an increase. I do not know what is wrong with hon. Members opposite. Did they ever learn to read? Did they not learn to read at the kindergarten level, or whatever it is? There is extra money in the Department of Social Services this year over last year. In fact, if I remember correctly, without opening up the book, $257 million compared to $243 million over last year, which is approximately $15 million extra in the Department of Social Services. Now, if that is not extra money, what is it? If hon. Members opposite want to sit down with me afterwards, I will go through the book in detail and explain it to them.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West on a point of order.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, the Minister cannot be allowed to mislead this House. The total Department Budget this year is $144,114,900 versus $148,142,000 last year. That is a reduction of $4 million. The hon. Minister cannot be allowed to mislead the House and he has to be brought to order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

There is no point of order, just a dispute between two hon. Members.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

There is no point of order. The hon. Member is disputing some facts, but it is just a dispute between two hon. Members and that does not constitute a point of order.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Chairman, before the House adjourns for the Late Show, I want to raise a completely new issue and a completely new matter. I hope I might get the attention of the President of Treasury Board, because the Minister of Labour is not here. The Member for St. John's South is here, and I know he will be very interested in the -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SIMMS: No, I do not mean that in a humorous way, although I understand why you are chuckling. But I know he will be interested. I want to raise a very, very serious and important safety matter that has just come to my attention this afternoon and I hope the President of Treasury Board will take it as some kind of urgent issue and perhaps check it out to see if there is any truth to the allegations contained in the information I just received.

I have been told, Mr. Chairman, that one of the layoffs which has occurred is the layoff of a power engineer who is located and stationed at the Community College at Grand Falls, the old Vocational School but now the Community College in Grand Falls, where there are literally hundreds of students. The Member for Placentia would be interested, too. This individual is the only power engineer at that institution. He is a fourth-class engineer, fully qualified and all the rest of it, but that is not the issue I am going to raise at the moment. He has been issued the layoff, the letter that everybody else has received, and all the rest of it. Now, the problem is this: We checked with the Department of Public Works and to quote a senior official of the Department - I do not want to mention a name - the senior official of Public Works tells us that as long as there is a power engineer within a certain radius of the building, he can operate this other plant.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I have checked with the Department of Labour and the Department of Labour tells me that in fact the regulations state that a power engineer must be on duty at a heating plant having a kilowatt rating of 4000 kilowatts or less - the one at the college has 3900 kilowatts - and the only time he is to be absent is if he has to perform maintenance work on the premises in which the plant is located. What that means of course, is that a power engineer, where there is a plant 4,000 kilowatts or less, must be stationed at that institution. Now, the Department of Public Works, which issued the layoff, say that there is a power engineer up the road or across the road at the Provincial building, and there is. But the fact of the matter remains, the layoff of the power engineer at the vocational school is really very, very serious, and it could cause a considerable uproar. And when you think about it, hundreds of students at that institution whose lives - and I do not mean to exaggerate it or anything else - but their lives could very well be in jeopardy. You never know.

And I want to point to a couple of articles that I have just also received copies of, and the Members for St. John's South and Placentia in particular would be aware of the dangers that could exist. There is a story here of an exploding boiler in the Province of Quebec, a place in Quebec. Okay? There is also another attached story - I mean, I do not know much about it myself, I admit that. There is also another story here, a boiler room explosion in the town of Wilson, Wisconsin, where two people were killed. They suffered from internal injuries caused by the impact of the explosion. They suffered from second-degree burns, and it came about because of the scalding steam that was spewed out as a result of the explosion of the boiler.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I raise the matter because it was first raised to me in the context of the individual losing his position, and whether or not he should have been given the layoff, whether he had more seniority than the other person over at the Provincial building, that is what first got me interested in it - as a Member representing a constituent. But as I delved into it a little bit more I suddenly became aware of a serious problem and a serious concern that could exist. And I am sure my colleague, the Member for Windsor - Buchans, the Minister of Forestry, would not want to see such a serious incident occur. I know he would want to take whatever action he can as a Member of the Government to try to ensure that this problem - if it is a problem, I can only tell you what the Department of Labour officials told me or my office today - that the regulations state the power engineer must be there. And the Public Works' interpretation of saying that the operator over in the Provincial building can look after the boiler over in the community college - that was their interpretation, Public Works. The Department of Labour, I say to the Minister, says no, that is not factual and it cannot be allowed to happen, I guess that is the point.

So I leave it. I wanted to raise it in the public Chamber today because it really bothered me when I heard about the regulations, and I mean with hundreds of students there who would not be concerned? Any Member worth his salt I suppose would be concerned about it. And I do not want the President of Treasury Board to get up and suggest that I am exaggerating or blowing it all out of proportion, or am playing politics with it, because I am not. It is a legitimate, sincere concern, and I will leave it with him, leave it at that, in the hope that he might, in the absence of the Minister of Labour, perhaps check the matter out, and check it out quickly, fairly soon. Now, mind you, I think the individual is still there. Although I think with the layoffs I am not sure what the interpretation is. I have talked to some employees who have received their layoff letters and they have the interpretation that once they have been given their notice and get their severance they can leave. I do not know if that is accurate or not. That is another issue completely.

So I leave it with the Minister. You understand what I am saying then?

MR. BAKER: (Inaudible) appeared in The Grand Falls Advertiser.

MR. SIMMS: Oh, I do not know about that now. Mr. Chairman. Whether this appears in The Grand Falls Advertiser is a totally irrelevant issue, can't say that, it may however.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Yes.

MR. MATTHEWS: It would be a bigger story in The Grand Falls Advertiser if something happened.

MR. SIMMS: I will give you a copy of this information to check out. Now I have names here so I would want to treat them with confidentiality. I can't give you the assurance that it will not appear in The Grand Falls Advertiser, no, I can't assure -

AN HON. MEMBER: There will be more layoffs if he gets some names.

MR. SIMMS: But even more pertinent, I can't, I definitely can't give you the assurance that it will not be on CBC Radio tomorrow.

MR. MATTHEWS: Because they have a feed from here, right?

MR. SIMMS: They have a feed from here to CBC in Grand Falls. And I know they are on to the issue as well. But frankly it is a -

AN HON. MEMBER: And if they are not they will be.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Chairman, I also can make available to the President of Treasury Board, if he wishes, although I am sure he is fully cognizant with every word, every dot, every comma and every quotation mark in all of these statutes, the boiler pressure vessel and compressed gas regulations, I will give him a copy of that. The Act to amend and consolidate that law. Another Act to amend and consolidate that law. Another Act to amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act. And all the Newfoundland regulations dealing with the boiler pressure vessel and compressed gas Act. I have all of this stuff just to confirm that I have thoroughly researched this matter and I would not have raised it if I did not have the concern that I am trying to express to the President of Treasury Board. So I will give him this afterwards and I would appreciate it if he would look at it.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I do not know how much time I have left, about thirty seconds I suspect, to get into some other issues. So perhaps the simple thing to do would be to adjourn, move the Committee rise and report progress, and ask leave to sit again?

On motion, that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again, Mr. Speaker returned to the Chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole on Supply have considered the matters to them referred, have directed me to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

On motion, report received and adopted, Committee ordered to sit again on tomorrow.

Debate on the Adjournment

[Late Show]

MR. SPEAKER: I do not have the list, but I expect hon. Members do.

The hon. the Member for Harbour Main.

MR. DOYLE: Mr. Speaker, a few days ago the unemployment rate for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador was issued for the month of February, and the unemployment rate now officially stands at 19.5 per cent, almost 20 per cent. Now, that is up 2 percentage points, I believe, over the same time period last year.

I really wish the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations was here today to answer some of the concerns we have regarding employment opportunities in the Province. I asked the Minister yesterday in Question Period how she could possibly justify reducing the Employment Generation Program from a budgeted amount of $2.9 million in the 1990-91 Budget down to $1.5 million in the 1991-92 estimates of this year. Now that is not a reduction of 5 per cent or 10 per cent, but we have a reduction of almost a full 50 per cent, I would say to the Opposition House Leader. That is very, very serious. $2.9 million in the Budget last year for the only employment program that the Minister of Employment has in her Department. She had $2.9 million in that Budget of last year and that has been reduced to $1.5 million, the only Employment Generation Program, the only Employment Program of any significance that the Minister has in her Department.

Now, if it was not bad enough to reduce it from $2.9 million down to $1.5 million - a reduction of 50 per cent - if that was not bad enough, low and behold when we questioned the Minister yesterday on the Employment Program she informed the House that out of that $2.9 million of last year there was a full $700,000 of that money not used. The only Employment Program that the Minister has in her Department - a full $700,000 of that money was taken back by Government, it was not used and it is totally inconceivable, Mr. Speaker. I cannot believe that the Government could be so uncaring as to try and solve its monetary problems, its economic woes on the backs of the people who can least afford to pay, namely the unemployed people of the Province. And that $700,000 rightfully belonged to the unemployed. That $700,000 rightfully belonged to the 19.5 per cent of the people of this Province who are out scratching, looking and searching for employment trying to make a decent living for themselves and their families. And it is totally unbelievable, inconceivable how the Government could reduce the only Employment Program that the Minister has in her Department by a full $700,000.

Now, Mr. Speaker, in doing that the Minister not only kicked the unemployed people of the Province in the teeth, but she also deceived the House of Assembly because last year time and time again, I remember standing in the House and asking the Minister if all of the money from the Employment Generation Program had been used. And every single time the Minister stood up she said, 'Yes, all that money has been used. As a matter of fact, the only additional monies that will be made available will be through slippage.' But she failed to tell the people of the Province and she failed to tell the House that there was $700,000 of that money that the Government had taken back, and it was not until yesterday that we found out what happened to last years money. So, she created the impression that all of the money had been used when in reality the Government had taken back the full $700,000. Now that aside we have 2,500 people being laid off and that will probably amount to about 5,000 people before all the figures are in, when you consider the multiplier affect and what have you.

Yesterday in the House we asked the Minister what plans she had to counter, what plans she had to offset the drastic effect of 2,500 people being laid off? We got the same old answer from the Minister that we had gotten on occasion after occasion after occasion - nothing. As a matter of fact, one year ago when we questioned the Minister as to what her plans were for the unemployed, the answer we got from her was: well, if they can't find a job that is why we have a Department of Social Welfare. They can go on welfare. That is the commitment, Mr. Speaker, that this Government has. That is the commitment that the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations has to the unemployed people of the Province. Now if someone can explain to me why we have a Department of Employment then I will be happy to sit down and listen, if somebody can explain why we have a Department of Employment. I can see why we might have the Department of Labour Relations. But I cannot see why we have a Department of Employment. And if Government wanted to save some money and need it to effect savings within the Government they could have abolished the entire Department of Employment or at least that part of it. They could have abolished the Department of Employment because we have had a Department of Employment over the last two years and the Minister has done nothing and the Government has done nothing to address that problem of trying to put those 19.5 per cent of the people of the Province who are out of work back to work. And the Government has put the Minister of Employment out on a real limb. Because how do you explain -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

The hon. the Minister of Development. I would ask the hon. Minister of Development if he could cut his time short. I am sorry about that?

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, I apologize that the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations could not be here, but she is attending some function in her District.

I think the interesting part of that question and the interesting thing about that question is to watch the hon. Member stand and to ask it with such a straight face. You know, it was only eighteen months ago that the hon. Member occupied this side of the Chamber, and at that time, depending upon which period of history you want to look at, when the Conservatives were governing this Province, the unemployment rate was anywhere from 11 per cent at a low, I believe, to a high of 24 per cent, depending upon which period of time you are talking about. But, Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the hon. Member is using adjusted or un-adjusted figures, I presume he is using un-adjusted figures, the correct unemployment rate is 17 per cent.

But it is interesting, my hon. friend for Stephenville points out, that for the first time ever in the history of this Province UI recipients, that is to say people who are forced to collect unemployment insurance, cracked the 100,000 mark in 1988 under the Conservative Government. For the first time ever in the history of the Province 100,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were forced onto the roles of unemployment insurance.

Now conversely we have only been around for eighteen months, for the first time in the history of this Province, ever, employment has cracked the 200,000 mark in this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FUREY: Now, Mr. Speaker more to the point, it is not solely the responsibility of Government to create jobs, Mr. Speaker, that is a small part of our function.

AN HON. MEMBER: What else?

MR. FUREY: It is Government's job to create a positive economic climate where small and medium and large businesses can thrive and where real meaningful jobs can be created, because if we adopted the philosophy from across the way - the Sprung economics - we could build little green houses everywhere and have everybody working and have zero unemployment, if that is what we wanted to do. That is not what we want to do; we do not want to concoct fantasy jobs, fictional jobs, money that you pick from trees and borrow and add to our stacked debt of $5.3 billion, because, if we wanted to do that, everybody in the Province could be working picking little cucumbers in little tents all over the place, but that is not what we want to do. It is not what we want to do. We want to create serious and meaningful jobs and that is why, Mr. Speaker, we put Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador in place and sent it out into the five regions. Now, Mr. Speaker, the hon, people on the other side do not like it but we did in fact finish the job of signing the Hibernia Agreement.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, because this Government was able to take the boxing gloves and hang them up and negotiate sensibly and peacefully and get that deal inked, do you know that in 1993, Hibernia will crest to 3,500 full time meaningful jobs in this Province and the spin off will be three to one; there will be 10,000 more Newfoundlanders and Labradorians working in Newfoundland because of this Government?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

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

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, I have a lot more to say. I want to tell you -

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

AN HON. MEMBER: Mr. Speaker is standing up, boy. Don't be so (inaudible).

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

I have to, in order to adhere to the constraints of time, I have to say to the Minister that his time is up and go on to the next questioner.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The next question is from the hon. the Opposition House Leader. The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish we could have an emergency debate on that issue that was just responded to by the Minister of Development. I think we would have a very interesting debate on the issue. I would like to see that happen some time in the future, if we could cut through the rhetoric and the political acting, we might be able to get down to something.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, that is an aside to my issue; the issue I want to raise is a follow-up to the question I asked the President of Treasury Board yesterday and the Premier in a supplementary question.

I raised the question of whether or not the Government had any flexibility at all in dealing with the request, if you wish, if they come from the unions, public service unions in this Province, to ask the Government to sit down with them and try to see if they could work out some kind of an attempt to save jobs, to save essential public services, and from the Government's perspective particularly to save money, and I was trying to get the Premier to agree to such a request if it should be forthcoming, or in fact, I asked him if he would initiate a request and ask the unions to come in and sit down with him.

When he took his seat yesterday, of course, everybody who was here in this Chamber at least could see the Premier said: 'no way', and I read Hansard in fact to try to see if I could pick it out of Hansard, but unfortunately it did not come out very well, although, it does say: 'no, you cannot call them in' but that is clearly a reference to my question. So, when he sat down in his seat yesterday he was not prepared to invite them in to sit down and discuss this issue.

Outside the Chamber, in a scrum with the press he left a little bit of a different impression -

AN HON. MEMBER: As he always does.

MR. SIMMS: - he left a little bit of a different impression as this Premier is prone to do and as his Ministers are prone to do from time to time as well; they say one thing in here, one thing outside, say one thing in Corner Brook, one thing in here. He gave the impression outside at the scrum that: oh, yes, he would welcome any ideas and suggestions; and the President of Treasury Board said in response to my question yesterday that in fact they had already been asked last fall, to put forward suggestions.

Everybody would be aware that asking the Government Departments, sitting down with the Deputy Ministers and ordering them and instructing them to give a formal response to the question: what happens if the budget is frozen in your Department, what are the potential repercussions is one thing, but to call in the unions, to sit down with the unions individually, one by one, last September/October and say: well, now ladies and gentlemen, we are facing a very serious problem, it looks like we could have a $200 million deficit next year and we could have a lot of problems facing us, so, have you any suggestions or ideas, you know we would be happy to hear from you.

A totally different kind of approach. The bottom line, Mr. Speaker, is clear in all of this, that really there was not a focused request from the Government for a formal response to what might happen and I think that is the problem. Whether it is misunderstanding, mis-communication, a breakdown, or whatever, it did not happen, and my question to the President of Treasury Board is: is he prepared now, even now, does he have any flexibility at all, and would he be prepared to call in the unions to sit down and discuss what appears to be a serious, serious problem developing? All you have to do is read the newspapers, listen to the radio newscasts, listen to the television broadcasts, and so on. I ask the President of Treasury Board if he would reconsider that response of yesterday?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Some time ago we informed the people of the Province, including the Opposition, that there was a serious financial problem facing the Province. In October we sat down with the unions and indicated to them the extent of the serious financial problem facing the Province. We indicated that there would probably have to be extensive layoffs and asked for suggestions. In many meetings we did exactly the same thing and in some cases this was put in the form of a letter, a written communication. We went through the process and made our decisions but it was not enough. We could not handle the problem. We called the unions back in again, the major ones, and said the problem is so large we are going to have to consider laying off an extra couple of thousand people or instituting a wage freeze, or something else. We have to control the expenditures. It is rather interesting, Mr. Speaker, that all of a sudden after the Budget, after everything has been done, after the decisions have been made, after the announcements have been made, all of a sudden there is a recognition on the part of the Opposition that there is a problem. There is a recognition on the part of everyone else that there is a problem. Now, Mr. Speaker, it is too late to change decisions that have been made. However, the Premier has indicated and I have indicated that any suggestions are welcome, and we will sit down with the union leadership and we will listen to any suggestions they might have in terms of the implementation of what we have said we are going to implement. We have gone to the hospitals, for instance, and given them a budget for the year. That will not change. That cannot change. How they implement that budget, of course, is their decision. So, these basic decisions, Mr. Speaker, cannot change. But there is one interesting thing in all of this - we are hearing no solutions. We are hearing no solutions from the Opposition. Their response seems to be -

AN HON. MEMBER: To borrow.

MR. BAKER: No, no. The official Opposition is not saying borrow. You have to be fair. They are, in a sense, recognizing there is somewhat of a problem. 'You are handling it the wrong way.' That is their solution - handling it the wrong way. Don't do any cuts in health, don't do any cuts in education, don't do any cuts in forestry, don't do any cuts in the resource departments, don't do any cuts in the civil service, don't do any of those cuts, but handle it some way. The solution of the other individual in the House, the Private Member for St. John's East, representing a national political party on the outside of this House, his solution is to go out and borrow the $200 million. Go out and borrow it- simple - go out and borrow it.

We have heard no sensible solutions, we have heard no sensible solutions to this problem. We have heard nothing from Members opposite, nothing that would help us in any way to solve our problem. And I will say to them, if they are as bereft of ideas as that it is fortunate that we are here and they are over there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order please!

The final question is from the hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

MR. WARREN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday, I asked the Minister of Education or the Premier a question, and whether the answer the Minister gave was factual or not will be debated in due course. However, Mr. Speaker, I want to refer again to the answer that was given yesterday by the Minister and also by the Premier. The Minister said, 'The hon. Member will recall that last year the Government announced that the electricity subsidy to the college would be terminated.' Mr. Speaker, that was not announced last year. Secondly, Mr. Speaker, the Premier said: now that it was announced last year that this would be eliminated, the groups concerned made a case for phasing it out instead of eliminating it. Now, again, Mr. Speaker, the groups did not make a case to Government about phasing it out.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why?

MR. WARREN: Why? Because I happened to be a member of the board of one of those churches. That is why I know what went on at the meeting.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, I want to go through the events that occurred since October 22, 1965. On October 22, 1965 the President of Queens College, George Earle met with Premier Smallwood and explained the case.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, I ask for silence on that side.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member has asked for silence and when an hon. Member asks for silence hon Members ought to accord him that request.

The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

MR. WARREN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to go through this because I want this to go in the record of the sequence of events since October 22, 1965.

Mr. George Earle met with Mr. Smallwood and Mr. Smallwood then called his Cabinet together on October 22, 1965 and said at that time that the Government would help the churches by paying electricity, because Mr. Smallwood, when he began to build Memorial University, wanted the three churches to be stationed on campus. That was the beginning. Now, Mr. Speaker, on November 25, 1969 Mr. Earle received a letter from the chief engineer of the Department of Public Works stating that no charges would be made. On January 26, 1970 the President of Queens College reported on a meeting with Mr. George Warren, another Warren, of the Department of Public Works and Mr. Conroy the chief engineer, and again at that time they said that no electricity would be paid. Now, Mr. Speaker, this continued on until January 28, 1972 and then Mr. George Earle reported that the Vice-President of the University told him that the new Government would honour the commitment that Mr. Smallwood made. That was the new Government of Mr. Moores. He said on 28, January 1972 that he would honour the commitment that was made by Mr. Smallwood, Mr. Earle met with the Minister of Education at the time on January 28, 1972, the hon. John Carter and the Deputy Minister P.J. Henley. Now, on March 26, 1973 George Earle received a letter from the Minister of Education confirming that the Government would pay all heat and light bills for the church colleges on campus, that was on 26 March, 1973. Mr. Speaker, to confirm that a Minute of Council dated 17 July, 1975 - and I will read it, Mr. Speaker, for the record - that energy charges for the denominational colleges on Memorial University campus amounting to approximately $60,000 for the period 1973 to 1975 be paid from the votes of the Department of Public Works and Services and that in future provision be made in the Department's votes for payments of such expenses.

Now, Mr. Speaker, that was a Minute of Council that was carried out finally on July 17 1975. Now if the Minister -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. WARREN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I want to say in closing that the Minister (Inaudible) -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Sit down! Sit down!

MR. WARREN: - and that is what he is doing.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Education.

AN HON. MEMBER: What a bunch of ignorant people (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, when I heard that my hon. friend was going to revisit this issue I was kind of pleased. Because yesterday when he accused me of misleading the House I did get a little upset, and I do not usually get upset. And I thought some very nasty things about the hon. Member. And I even said some very nasty things about the Member, and I was prepared today to re-think these things and apologize for even thinking nasty things about the Member. I really was prepared. I am not going to put on the record what I thought because I did not think he would - I mean, I thought with a name like that, he certainly would not accuse a friend of misleading the House.

But, Mr. Speaker, I am not going to say these kind things about the Member today because perhaps he had other motives. I am going to repeat what I said, for the record.

Mr. Speaker, in the budgetary process last year the Government decided to eliminate the subsidy to the colleges. The subsidy was in -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, in the budgetary process -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member asked for silence when he was deliberating. I expect that he would want to do the same thing for the Minister of Education.

The hon. the Minister of Education.

DR. WARREN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not have the details my friend had, but last year - and by the way that subsidy was in Works, Services and Transportation budget - we decided to eliminate the subsidy. My officials communicated to the colleges in a letter, that we would terminate the subsidy this year, at the end of the 1990-1991 fiscal year. We wrote a letter to the colleges telling them at the end of this year we would eliminate the subsidy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, being a fair Government, we agreed to meet with officials from the various boards. I think even the President of Treasury Board met with officials and representatives of the colleges. The Minister of Works, Services and Transportation met with them. My officials met with them. And I met with them, Mr. Speaker.

MR. WARREN: (Inaudible) you didn't meet with them.

DR. WARREN: I met with them to talk about the subsidy and they presented a really good case to us. So being a fair Government, we said: instead of eliminating it this year, let us give them a phase-out over a period of time so that they can look for other sources of revenue.

And, Mr. Speaker, I might tell the hon. Member, he is on one of the boards, and I know the people who are on the boards. I might say they are going to have discussions with the University about other (inaudible) for the colleges. Mr. Speaker, there is a lot going on that the hon. Member does not know about, even though he is on the board. He does not know. There are a lot of discussions ongoing, Mr. Speaker. But I am pleased that instead of eliminating the subsidy this year, we are phasing it out.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, we are phasing out the subsidy over a three year period.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I will not repeat myself with respect to the hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains. I have asked him on one other occasion to stop interrupting.

The hon. the Minister of Education.

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, I know they would like the subsidy to have continued, but we decided in these difficult times to phase out the subsidy. Rather than eliminate it this year, we will phase it out over a three year period. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: I do not know whether there will want to be some dialogue about future activities.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of Education could show some restraint.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SIMMS: Anyway, Mr. Speaker, I give the Government House Leader an opportunity to tell every Member of the House, not just he and I but every Member of the House, what is going on with the Estimates Committees and so on, because normally in past years the Estimates Committees have been appointed maybe a day or two after the Budget has been brought down. It has now been a week, and I want to ask him when we can expect the Estimates Committees to be established firmly, particularly for the benefit of the press.

Secondly, I want to ask him when he expects to have the Salary Estimates documents ready so that Members of this House can do their jobs properly by having the proper documentation. Can he address that for us now?

And thirdly, is it still his intention to call debate on the wage restraint Bill next Tuesday?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are going to have another run at Question Period, I guess.

First of all, the debate tomorrow will be what we were debating today, and that is the Supplementary Supply Bill. Whether we call the Labour legislation on Tuesday or some other day depends on the timing of the Supplementary Supply Bill. So we cannot presuppose that we finish up tomorrow. If we do, then on Tuesday I call the Labour Bill.

The other question had to do with the Committees. I hope to be in a position tomorrow morning to table the committee structure, and I will have a few words to say about it at that time.

The third point had to do with the salary estimates, which probably is a better question for Question Period seeing there is nobody in the gallery now. The hon. gentleman could get, perhaps, some coverage on it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: I am just advising the hon. gentleman that he could get some coverage on something like that.

There was a problem, obviously. The decision on the salary freeze was made so late that we had already started on the salary supplement. It was made so late that we had to go back and re-work the whole lot of it. So it is in the process of being done, and whenever it is ready, printed and so on, it will be tabled in the House. If there is any particular desire on the part of an Opposition Member, and I am referring now to his comment about interfering with the House work, if there is any problem that any Opposition Member has in terms of wanting to find out salary details before the publishing of this document, I would suggest they could go directly to Treasury Board, or contact me directly and I would give them the specific information they are requesting. But as soon as it is available it will be handled, it will be distributed.

And the other thing concerning the Estimates Committees, I will deal with that tomorrow. There is a problem.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I just want to ask a question and it is a serious question.

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

MR. SIMMS: I mean, the fact of the matter is there is an awful lot of information contained in those salary estimates details and every year they have always been tabled with the Budget. This year they have not been. A week has now gone by - well, every year in recent years they have been tabled with the Budget, and now a week has gone by. The decision on the budget wage freeze and all that was made, we are told, a week before the Budget, so there are a couple of weeks gone by. It would not think it would take that long to print the details. Now my question is this, my point is this, and I am sure the Government House Leader understands it. Members of the Opposition in particular on the Estimates Committees and maybe the private Members, the backbenchers on the Government side, but particularly Members of the Opposition, cannot properly scrutinize the Estimates if they do not have the documentation and documents that they require. So there is not much point in the Estimates Committees getting underway if they do not have all the documentation they need, particularly the salary estimates.

So this is what I am asking: Will he insure that the Estimates Committees do not start their work until the documentation is ready?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I have to respond because I cannot allow the Opposition House Leader to leave all these false impressions he is leaving, especially seeing somebody came back into the press gallery. So I have to straighten him out.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. BAKER: First of all, it is not a simple matter. I would like to explain to the Members of the House that it is not as he said, a document that you spend all of the time in the Estimate Committees on. You do not. What it is is a document that lists department by department the names and positions of individuals and the salaries they are receiving. In terms of a Budget, it was perhaps a relatively simple matter to go and change a salary allotment per department after the decision was made on the wage freeze, so within a day or so that was done. However, it is not an easy matter now, and not a simple matter to go back over every single employee and plug in the step increases and everything else about every single employee, especially seeing that it is only in the last day or so that employees have been notified in terms of who no longer has a job, and which positions are going to disappear and so on. So it is not an easy matter to go back over thousands of people and do individually each one. So it is not a simple matter.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: The second point is that this is not a crucial document in terms of the Estimates Committees. It never has been. It probably will be now, because the hon. Member has made a point of it.

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

MR. BAKER: But it has not been a crucial document. And I already informed hon. Members that if any specific detail is needed before the printing, we will get it if it is ready and let you know so you can use it. We are not interfering with hon. Members work in this House at all.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. BAKER: I do not understand the Opposition House Leader's grandstanding at this point in time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

It is moved and seconded that this House do now adjourn.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, March 15, at 9:00 a.m.