The House met at 2: 00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): Order, please!

Before moving on to our regular business, I would like on behalf of hon. Members to welcome to the galleries today, eight Grade XII students from H.L. Strong Academy, Little Bay Islands, in the district of Green Bay.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: These students are accompanied by their teacher, Mr. Wayne Rodgers.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I have some questions for the Premier.

People going in and out of Confederation Building have noticed the names of certain individuals in the security register at the desk, where one signs after one comes in after hours for example, and they identify themselves as: "The Public Relations Group", and I have a couple of short questions for the Premier. Could he tell us what this group does, who exactly are they, when was it formed and how many are in it?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I do not know, Mr. Speaker, what group identifies themselves as: "The Public Relations Group". I can say that when we formed the Government, there was a slew of press aids to Ministers and a slew of other departmental public relations or information officers and we put the whole thing together as a single operation, cut their size to about in half I guess and saved a good deal of money, I do not know how much we saved but I can get the information and pass it on, if those are the people he is talking about, maybe that is what it is, but other than that, I cannot imagine what he is talking about, I have no knowledge of it.

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

MR. SIMMS: Yes, it is a little bit surprising, because I understand they are under the Executive Council but nevertheless, is that the same group of people then, maybe that he replaced? He replaced all of these slews of public information officers as he referred to them with directors of information, and made quite a big fanfare about it a year or so ago by saying he was going to assign these directors of information to the Departments, and not be dictated to by the politicians and the Ministers, is that the same comments, the same group?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, to the best of my knowledge all are assigned to departments. There may be one or two that have responsibility for an individual department, there are a number that have responsibility for individual departments, and in other cases there are at least four or five, I believe, that have either two or three departments for which they do work because there was not enough work in that department to have an individual one. I think there are probably eight or ten altogether, maybe ten. I can find out the exact number, and they are headed by Judy Foote who works in my office, who works out of my office and they run the information and press services. It is all tied together with the Newfoundland Information Services to provide information. Now, whether they were doing some work on the weekend or after hours, I guess they are pretty diligent people, I do not know. If that is the group he is talking about I do not know, I do not know what group he is talking about.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I am asking the Premier the question: What is the "Public Relations Group?" That is what I am asking him. I have asked him if he could perhaps tell the House what they do and who they are? Thus far he has been fairly evasive and cannot answer the question. Can I ask him this then? Does he know where the salaries of all these eight or ten public information, or directors of public information come from? Where are they shown in the budgetary document? Is it in the departmental salary details, is it in individual departments, or is it, for example, in the $229,000 salary vote shown for temporary employees in Newfoundland Information Services? Is it perhaps in there, which incidentally had a zero vote last year?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I just mentioned that some of these people worked through Newfoundland Information Services, or maybe they all do, I do not know how the things is managed. I will get the President of Treasury Board to solicit the details. The first thing I need to find out, Mr. Speaker, is who describes themselves as the "Public Relations Group?" I do not know who does that. Once I find that out I will bring the information to the House. I have told the Opposition House Leader that the only thing I think it would be is the ten or so people that we put in place to replace the slew of press aids that the former Ministers used to have together with the other departmental information offices, press aids, press officers, and so on. We cut the number down. Under NIS apparently there are four; Richard Sparkes, Michelle Whelan, Paul Chislett, and John J. Doody, those four are covered under NIS, and that is probably because they are not attributable to any particular department, so they are paid -

AN HON. MEMBER: What vote?

PREMIER WELLS: 0.1.03 - Salaries and Other Employees. And it is a total vote shown on it, I believe, of $208,400, and Salary for Overtime. And I guess there are other. Under 01.03 - under NIS. The number on it, whatever the magic of these numbers is, not the one under Temporary Employees, that is, 01.02 - it is 01.03 - Salaries Other Employees.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Opposition House Leader, a final supplementary.

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can I ask the Premier then, if he will quickly consult with the President of Treasury Board, can he tell us the answer to my last question: $229,000 salary vote for Temporary and Other Employees in NIS, when last year the vote was zero - what is the extra $229,000?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I do not know. I will let the President of Treasury Board answer that.

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, it is unusual, we are doing the Estimates of Executive Council today and this is one of the questions I have been asked, and I was going to answer during the Estimates in a ten minute section. Salaries of Other Employees, Mr. Speaker: there are salaries for four people and there is a clerk stenographer in there for $20,000; the salary adjustment is $615, there is a director, salary $46,000. Then there are three others, a public relations director in NIS.

MR. SIMMS: A public relations director?

MR. BAKER: Yes, in the NIS group, whose salary is $46,000.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is not temporary.

MR. BAKER: No, no, Temporary and Other. You have to separate the two, there is Temporary -

PREMIER WELLS: I think the total is $21,000, is it not or $29,000?

MR. BAKER: Yes, Salaries Temporary Employees, oh, I am sorry that only amounts to $21,400. So that is temporary, you understand that. Then we switch to Other Employees that are not temporary, under the same heading, and that is where we have the salaries for these individuals that the Premier mentioned. So they are not temporary, they are listed under Other Employees under the heading Salary and Other Employees.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Premier also. Maybe when the Premier is finding out who this PR group is, I wonder would he find out for this House whether the PR group answers to the Director of Information Services or do they meet and answer to Judy Foote, who would be the political PR person within the system, I would imagine?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, when we restructured the Government, we looked at the structure that was in place with public relations people and specialists in the different departments. Not all of them had them but most of the departments had individuals like that. Some fifteen of the twenty-two or twenty-three Ministers, I believe, had press aides and so on, and we wanted to cut out the waste and the expense so we put in place a single system. For the most part, Mr. Speaker, obviously Judy Foote who heads it works out of my office as the governmental information, and the individuals who are assigned to the different departments or have two or three different departments report directly to the Deputy Ministers concerned. But the general responsibility for public relations performance is still under the supervision of Judy Foote who is Director of Public Relations.

AN HON. MEMBER: It is all political.

PREMIER WELLS: No, it is not all political.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I am amazed to hear the Premier admit that all this great PR system that he put in to answer to Deputy Ministers are actually, he finally admits that they are actually coming under the political PR arm of the Premier, and that would be the eighth floor and it would be Judy Foote.

Mr. Speaker, maybe when the Premier is checking around on this PR group, whoever they are, and I am really surprised that he has not heard about who they are seeing they sign in the book after hours at the Confederation Building as the PR group. I wonder would he find out where their offices are located, Mr. Speaker, and give this House some information on where their offices presently are and are they planning on moving into the Confederation Building sometime in the near future?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I cannot understand what the hon. Member is saying because he heard me say specifically that they report to the Deputy Ministers for the departments for which they work. Now the overall public relations and public information of the Government is supervised by Judy Foote, including the capability of these individuals and the quality of their performance as public relations people is supervised by Judy Foote, but they take their directions on a day to day basis from the Deputy Minister concerned, and no matter how the Member for Kilbride restates it, that is the reality. He can restate it or express his opinion any way he wants to, but I want this House to understand, Mr. Speaker, what is being heard is the hon. Member's opinion, not his rephrasing of what he attributes to me. So I just want to make that clear.

Now as to where they work: I believe that some of them are either now in offices adjacent to NIS in the corridor area going over to the West Block or they are about to move there. I think that is where some of the offices are. There are some of them that are in offices outside the building because there was no space in the building at the moment, so they are going to be brought in when this space is renovated and I believe that they will be working there. But I will check and find out exactly where each individual is.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am glad once again the Premier has reconfirmed that all his PR group in the Departments are answering to Judy Foote. He said it twice already today. Now he is denying it when he sits down but when he stands up he admits to it. Well, I do not understand what he is trying to do here today.

But maybe the Premier when he is investigating who this PR group is will call telephone number 737-3895, and the phone will be answered by the PR group. And their offices will probably, he will find, be located on the outskirts of the city in the Thorburn Road area, about 303 Thorburn Road, in behind the building. And he will also find that they all -

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: - meet there every morning and have a private meeting - not every morning but most every morning - and they have a private meeting -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. R. AYLWARD: - with Judy Foote who gives them -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. R. AYLWARD: - their political directions -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. R. AYLWARD: - for the rest of the day.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is on a supplementary and should be asking a question and -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

-I would like to hear the question. And besides that point he just cannot go on and on. He seems to be making a speech (Inaudible). Would the hon. Member please get to his supplementary?

MR. R. AYLWARD: Sorry about that, Mr. Speaker. I apologize. I got carried away there for a minute.

Is it not true that the Premier has a knack for setting up powerful ministries outside the regular political system, such as the Economic Recovery Commission? Is it not a fact now that he is setting up the "Ministry of Truth" outside the regular government system again to answer to the Premier only and not to answer to anyone else in the system?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: One is tempted, Mr. Speaker, not to play these silly games. They are utterly silly games. Before the hon. Member asked his question, in answer to his first general question as to where they were located, I advised this House only two or three minutes ago that to the best of my knowledge, some of them at least, those that were not specifically assigned to a particular department - I will repeat, Mr. Speaker, I advised this House to the best of my knowledge some of them, those who were not assigned to a particular department, were still at some office outside of Confederation Building. Now, I do not know where that office is. It may be out on Thorburn Road, as the Member says, I have no idea where it is. Mr. Speaker, I did advise the House -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

PREMIER WELLS: Let me repeat again, Mr. Speaker.

I have no idea where that is but it may be out on Thorburn Road, as the hon. Member says. I did advise the House only three or four minutes ago that offices were being renovated in, I believe, the corridor area going over toward the West Block adjacent to the NIS office and that is where they are going to be working from, in that area, now whether they are there at this moment or they are still out in the outside offices at Thorburn Road, or wherever it may be, is more than I can say at the moment.

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

MR. DOYLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Following up on that same topic with the Premier, one of the things the Premier maintains is that Government has cut back on expenditures of the public relations specialists in the Premier's office, but really are there not more public relations specialists than ever now reporting to the Premier's public relations director, and responsible only to the Premier?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I will get the full detail and table it in the House, then the House will be able to judge, and I think the House will come readily to the conclusion that we saved a good many tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, for the people of this Province. That is what the answer is.

MR. SIMMS: That is what the answer will be, but the question is, for the all important Premier's office, and the answer is, yes.

MR. DOYLE: On a supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I never recognized the hon. Member yet because there seemed to be other Members asking supplementaries that were not recognized. Now, I will recognize the hon. the Member for Harbour Main.

MR. DOYLE: Will the Premier confirm that his public relations staff, number one, begins with his chief of staff, Edsel Bonnell

the well know PR person, and includes Judy Foote, and as well the so called Public Relations Group, and many of the PR personnel appointed from the various Government departments who now take direction from that PR group which reports directly to the Premier's office?

PREMIER WELLS: No, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Bonnell has nothing whatsoever to do with it. He filled a role that was carried out by two or three people in the former administration. One was a principal secretary, the other was a chief of staff, and I have forgotten who the other was, a principal advisor, I believe. I will find out and I will table the information in the House. He has nothing to do with public relation's matters.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

PREMIER WELLS: Well, no we are not, he is paid on the same salary scale that the Leader of the Opposition set up, precisely the same salary scale. He is doing the job of three people. We will table all the figures, Mr. Speaker. Judy Foote is the equivalent and went on at somewhat less, I think, than Greg Stamp, a fellow by the name of Greg Stamp, because the present Leader of the Opposition, when he became Premier for a couple of weeks, gutted the office and incurred $400,000 or $500,000 in severance pay, and so on, put in a whole new staff, one of whom was a fellow named Greg Stamp who was -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Hon. Members know that Question Period is for the soliciting of information and we ought not to be getting into areas of debate. I realize the type of questions that are now being asked are probably the type of questions where one can get into an area of debate but I ask hon. Members to please abide by the rules and ask the Premier to clue up his answer very quickly, please.

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the question I am trying to answer is the role that Judy Foote was playing and the cost. Judy Foote, filled the same position essentially or took over the salary position that the hon. Opposition Leader had for a fellow named Greg Stamp, except her pay was $5,000 or $6,000 less, and Mr. Speaker, we eliminated all the press aids for Ministers, there was not one put back in place and I do not know, I think there were twelve or fifteen -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: Fourteen, was it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

PREMIER WELLS: Fourteen press aids, we will find the list, and, Mr. Speaker, also, there were a large number of departmental public relations and information people, who have all been combined into one, all with a view to saving many thousands of dollars.

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

MR. DOYLE: Mr. Speaker.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the absence of the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, I will ask the Premier -

MR. SPEAKER: I am sorry. I did not recognise that the hon. Member for Harbour Main was still following through on a supplementary. If the Member for St. John's East will yield.

The hon the Member for Harbour Main followed by the hon. the Member for St. John's East.

MR. DOYLE: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Let me ask the Premier: how can the Premier criticize unions for spending tens of thousands of their own members' dollars on public relations campaigns during the time of restraint, when he, as Premier of the Province, is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of the tax payers money on a public relations campaign during a time of restraint?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, we have not spent a dollar on public relations campaigns in relation to the unions. What we have done, Mr. Speaker, is cut, by at the very least a third, perhaps more, the cost of public relations and news information and that kind of expenditure that the former Government had.

Now there has been no campaign; the NTA have been taking out full page ads. I do not know where they get all the money to do it - full page ads.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: Okay, I understand all that. The NTA have been taking out full page ads; other unions have been taking out ads carrying on these public - and we have spent not a dollar on it, Mr. Speaker; the normal course has been followed by Government, we spent not an extra dollar. Maybe we should have, maybe we have not done a good job, maybe we should have done like the former Government did and paid, week after week after week, tens of thousands of dollars to have their pictures appear in the papers. We cut all that out too.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WELLS: We cut all that out too -

AN HON. MEMBER: No you did not.

PREMIER WELLS: Indeed we did, Mr. Speaker, cut the works of it out. Virtually every Minister had his or her picture in the paper virtually every week; we have cut all that out. We will get all that public relations information and table all that too, Mr. Speaker.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In the absence of the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, my question is to the Premier. Is the Premier or the Government aware of a further accident at Bull Arm last Thursday, where an individual fell from a barge and was in the water for some period of time without anyone on the barge noticing it and in fact had to be - people from the shore noticed it before anyone on the barge did and a rescue was just barely effected. Has that incident been reported to the Government or do we have another communications lapse by Nodeco?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, finally a question of some importance and significance and I commend the hon. Member for putting the interest of the people of the Province ahead of narrow-minded, political campaigning.

Mr. Speaker, I do not have personal knowledge of it, but I will undertake to get the information right away and I will either give it to the Member directly or with the House's permission, Mr. Speaker, I will announce it in the House, I will get the information immediately.

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, does the Premier have any concern that there may not be a proper safety regime in place out in Bull Arm? There could not have been one imposed by this Province because the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, in fact, was not aware that she had any responsibility for occupational health and safety that was not on the land, in other words, the water portion, before the matter was raised in this House, by me several weeks ago.

Is the Premier concerned that there may not be in fact, at this point in time, a proper safety regime in place to protect the workers at Bull Arm in the Hibernia site?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of statements inherent in the Member's comment that I do not believe are correct. I do not believe it is correct that the Minister was not aware that she was responsible for occupational health and safety in matters in relation to water adjacent to the shore. I do not believe that that is the Minister's position.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: That is not my understanding of what she said but I will speak to her directly. Mr. Speaker, I am concerned, if there was a second incident when an employee fell over a barge or fell off a barge in some way in that area, that proper safety precautions are not being taken. I understand from the Minister that a thorough investigation has been under way by officials of her Department and I believe also officials from the Canadian Coast Guard and the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board. All of them have some degree of responsibility in relation to the matter but clearly so does the Provincial Government.

Now I understand from the Minister's comment that that investigation was under way. I am not aware that it has been finalized. If in the meantime there has been a second incident where a man or an employee was at risk then yes, I am quite concerned. And I will undertake to determine what causes this increased hazard.

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, as a final supplementary. If the Premier would read Hansard it would become quite clear by the statements of the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations that she was not particularly aware of that jurisdiction that she had.

In view of this second incident - if the Premier can confirm that that took place - would he not think that it is time for an urgent, thorough review of what safety plans are in place for that project? Particularly the water project where we have had now two incidents, before any further action is taken. Does this strike him as being an emergency situation where there ought to be immediately a thorough review, and not waiting for some Federal report which might be months in the making, or the completion of a report that could have been completed in a matter of days as they normally are?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I have just been advised - and I will check and see whether or not it is the situation - that the Minister's statement was that the legal advice she received was that there was some question as to her jurisdiction. But she went ahead and assumed that she did have jurisdiction in the matter and was proceeding. So that is quite different from what the hon. Member implies in his comment.

In terms of this second incident, assuming that what the hon. Member says is correct - and I would like him to give me some more detail if he has it available - but I will undertake to determine immediately from the officials in the Department concerned exactly what occurred. And if that is in fact a second incident that put this person's life at risk then I agree, steps should be taken immediately to determine whether or not appropriate life safety and work condition measures are in place for that project.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, earlier last week I asked the Premier a question relating to his amalgamation proposal and he confirmed his position at that time, that he is prepared to force his amalgamation concept through the House of Assembly using his majority in spite of the wishes of the community.

In view of the division that is taking place, particularly between St. John's and Mount Pearl, over this very important issue over the last week, and in view of the fact also that a couple of his own backbenchers have had the courage of their convictions to speak out against forcing amalgamation on people -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WINDSOR: - will the Minister now reconsider this? And will he assure the House that he will not force amalgamation through this House against the wishes of the people of the municipalities?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I will not force anything through the House. This House is the supreme legislative body of this Province and they make the final decisions. The Government, when it brings measures before the House, normally requires Party discipline of its supporters, as the former administration does. Occasionally an individual who is a supporter of the Government may feel strongly that they disagree with a particular approach and they may well vote against a Government measure. That is rarely done. It is done only in a case where an individual may feel strongly, as a matter of principle, and that may or may not occur.

But in terms of amalgamation: I indicated, and the position that I had taken, is that Cabinet would not sit in the secrecy of a back room and make these decisions and force their application. I felt that if people were not prepared to be persuaded or induced by logic and sound reasoning to provide for amalgamation and, in the public interest it was necessary or the Government felt it was appropriate that amalgamation should be considered, I would bring the matter before the House for full discussion.

That remains the position of the Government. And where we feel that it is necessary we will bring the matter before the House for discussion.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl, on a short supplementary.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me say there is nothing democratic about the way the Premier operates in this House with his majority. Specifically, Mr. Speaker, relating to the Mount Pearl - St. John's proposed amalgamation or the supercity concept: will the Premier assure this House that prior to coming to the House of Assembly and forcing it through, will he assure this House that he will hold a plebiscite in the City of Mount Pearl to determine the wishes of the people of Mount Pearl, as he did in the Town of Pasadena, who decided they did want to be part of an amalgamation, South Brook and Pasadena amalgamation. Will he assure the people of Mount Pearl that he will give them the same consideration that he gave the people of Western Newfoundland?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I do not know who ordered any plebiscite in Western Newfoundland, Mr. Speaker. We did not.

AN HON. MEMBER: The former Government.

PREMIER WELLS: Okay the former Government did. No, Mr. Speaker, I will not assure the people of Mount Pearl that there will be a plebiscite in Mount Pearl. When this House takes a decision, if it takes a decision on the issue, if the Government asks it to take a decision, we will not delegate the legal rights of this House to the citizens of Mount Pearl. No, I will not assure the House that we will not have a plebiscite in Mount Pearl. Whether or not we will remains to be seen. But I will not give the House any such assurance of that.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has expired.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a Bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The Intergovernmental Affairs Act, 1975."

MR. SPEAKER: Before moving on to the next item, on behalf of hon. Members I would like to welcome to the gallery the town councillor representing the town council of Catalina in the District of Trinity North, that is councillor Mr. Edward King.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of Supply. We are examining the estimates of the Executive Council.

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

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, the last day on Friday we were getting into some in -depth discussion about the role of the Executive Council and Treasury Board. We had not gotten into the -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Yes, and there were a fair number of questions from my colleague, I think, the hon. the Member for Humber East, in particular, who is our critic for women's issues, to the Minister responsible for women's issues, who happens to be the President of Treasury Board, the President of the Executive Council, the Deputy Premier, although they do not have a Deputy Premier, but he is the Premier's left hand man without question. And there was some - oh, the Premier need not get too excited - I was saying there were some questions on Friday.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: His left hand man, exactly. The Premier caught on real quick.

Anyway, there were some good questions that related to that, and then there were some questions related to the operation of the Premier's office and some issue was raised about salaries in the Premier's office over the years. We had a bit of a debate, in fact a reasonably good debate, I thought, about that issue. I do not know if anybody won. We had our arguments and they had their arguments to make. The Member for Exploits was the chief spokesperson on behalf of the Premier in that debate until my friend from Burin - Plancentia West got up and tore strips off the Member for Exploits and pointed out the hypocrisy of the Member for Exploits getting up and chastising the previous administration for things that they did while in office, and the Member for Burin - Placentia West had to remind the House what the Member for Exploits had done in taking the jeep from the Premier's office and going up to Bally Haly playing golf all day long and things of that nature. So there was a debate about that and a discussion, a reasonably good debate, but we are only just getting into it.

We have, I think, somewhere in the area of - and perhaps the clerk could help me - about nine hours remaining. Maybe the President of Treasury Board knows precisely. I think it is somewhere in the area of eight hours remaining to do one of two things. We can continue using the ten minute speaking intervals, which seems to be advantageous to all Members of the House on both sides, and seems to promote a much better debate, or we can conclude our scrutiny of the Estimates of the Executive Council and then save a few hours so that we can have concurrence debates on the Estimates Committees; six hours for concurrence which would be two hour debates instead of three hours.

So we have not quite decided what we are going to do in that regard. My suspicion is that we would probably continue the debate of the Estimates of the Executive Council because, as I said, ten minute intervals seem to be much better and seems to provoke more debate and more response from Members, even Members on the Government side, backbenchers. For example, I would like to see the Member for Mount Scio - Bell Island stand in the debate and take the ten minutes available to him to expand on his public opposition to the amalgamation plan from the point of view of the community of Paradise which he represents. I hope the Member for Mount Scio stands and elaborates on that story. I would like to see the Member for Pleasantville get up and attack the Government, as he did in a recent public newspaper article about the Government's withdrawal of funding to municipalities for special events, police coverage for special events. I would also like to see the Member for St. John's South avail of the opportunity, the Member for Carbonear avail of the opportunity to tell us why they oppose salary increases for executives as appeared in a recent newspaper story just over the weekend. I would really like to hear all of those comments. In fact, I am a bit disappointed that they would go outside the Legislature to make all these public statements and not make them in the House. So I hope Members opposite will take advantage of the opportunity to get up and expand on their views on these and any other issues that I know many of them over there in the backbenches have some concern about.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I would hope perhaps as well the Minister of Health might get up and elaborate a bit on the health system in the Province, about some of the concerns and problems that exist. I have no doubt my friend for Humber Valley might participate in this debate briefly in a short while. I hope he does. I know he has a lot of concerns to express on behalf of his constituents over in the Humber Valley area. The Deer Lake people, for example, in particular, a group of people near and dear to my heart, having had my own roots in the Humber Valley District, having been born in Howley, I know how difficult it is to access good health facilities. The Premier knows all about Howley. My father did everything but ride on a tractor with the Premier I suppose to try to get him elected in 1966 and I am sure if he were alive today he would regret every second of it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SIMMS: No, I do not think so, Mr. Chairman. Nevertheless the people of Deer Lake have a major, major problem, and a major concern and I hope my friend for Humber Valley gets up and tells the House about their concerns, and expresses to the Minister of Health and to the Premier how serious that problem is, in the hope that the Premier or the Minister of Health might stand in this debate and give some comforting answers to those concerns that are going to be raised. Perhaps the group is meeting with the Minister I am not sure, maybe they hope to meet with the Minister, but there is no reason why it could not be discussed a little bit in the House before the meeting takes place.

Now while the Premier is here, Mr. Chairman, I asked the other day a question with respect to the position occupied by one Deborah Coyne, and the Member for Exploits who was responding on behalf of the Government did not answer my question. So I will repeat it again for the Premier, since the Premier is in the House I would like to respond and answer the question, if I might. I see the Member for St. John's East on his knees once again to the Premier, I know how tough it is -

PREMIER WELLS: I am properly discharging (inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: By being on his knees to the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. RIDEOUT: He is properly discharging his duties. Well that is the (inaudible) one yet. That is the biggest admission yet.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SIMMS: Well, Mr. Chairman, if ever confirmation were required on what many people out in the Province have been saying today I would like to sit in just for five minutes around the Cabinet table or even to the back of the room, I can just see Ministers now walking up to the head of the Cabinet table getting down on their knees and saying, Mr. Premier can we do this, Mr. Premier can we do that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Properly discharging his duties.

MR. SIMMS: Yes, but I think that one takes the cake. Mind you it is not surprising to any of us. I said the other day in the House, and I say to the Premier again in the hope he will answer, we understood that Deborah Coyne, for example, was hired basically on a contractual basis, a temporary basis, while the Meech Lake debate was in full swing, to provide the Premier with some advice, expert advice, presumably, on constitutional matters. She is listed in the salary details this year, as last year, I believe, as a permanent employee, so I would like him to explain the terms under which Ms Coyne is currently employed by the Province, and was she intended to be brought in last year on a temporary, contractual basis, or was the intent to bring her in on a full-time permanent basis? What was the intent? Secondly, could he explain why the salary budgeted for the permanent employee position, Director of Constitutional Affairs, was increased from $44,790 last year, in the 1990-91 estimates, to $64,350 this year, 1991-92, an increase for Deborah Coyne of approximately 45 per cent?

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. SIMMS: Well, that is the difference between the two salaries, unless he can explain it, and we will give him every opportunity to explain it. As I say to the Premier, I asked the question on Friday but nobody could provide us with the answer. Presumably, the Premier knows the answer. I might note for his benefit, last year there was only one position identified as permanent under constitutional affairs, and that was the director's position, but there was $167,000 budgeted for total salaries under that particular subhead, that same subhead, and last year in the debate on the Estimates, as we are doing now in the House of Assembly, I asked the President of Treasury Board about Deborah Coyne's salary. It was on May 7, 1990, Page 84, and the President of Treasury Board said, 'It includes the salary of Deborah Coyne and it is not $70,000, or anything like that' - we were presumably saying it was $70,000 - he said, 'It is not even $60,000, it is in the $50s, and $58,000 it will be next year.' That is what the President of Treasury Board said Doborah Coyne's salary will be this year, $58,000, and now we see it is actually $64,000. Hopefully, in view of the fact that I asked the question Friday and nobody on that side could answer it, and now that the Premier is here himself, perhaps he can answer the question for us? We would certainly appreciate any clarification he could give us, Mr. Chairman.

I do not know how much time I have left, but anyway I will get into the issue of amalgamation.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. SIMMS: Okay, sure.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I think I have all the information but I will check and make sure it is correct. I am trying to remember when Deborah Coyne was hired. My recollection is that it was some time late Summer. I have forgotten. I think it was in the Summer of 1989, the late Summer of 1989, I believe. Anyway, I will get the detail and advise the Member. The first amount is a part year, is the explanation for it, I believe.

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible)

PREMIER WELLS: 1990-91? Anyway, I will get the information and find out. You were quite correct, she was hired originally on a contract basis because she could not commit for more than a year. One of the things we found, Mr. Chairman, and it came as no surprise because there was such a lack of knowledge and sensible approach to Constitutional issues, is there was nobody experienced and knowledgeable on Constitutional issues or Constitutional policy in the employ of the Provincial Government. Unlike every other province of Canada, with the possible exception of PEI, we had no constitutional legal advisor or no constitutional policy advisor. And I think it showed clearly in the positions that the government had been taking and the difficulties the government had gotten us into over the years.

So being a sensible person one of the first things I decided was I would not take legal advice from myself. I would take legal advice from independent, objective people. That I would not resort to myself for legal advice on constitutional or other issues. So what I wanted to do was engage a constitutional advisor. Then the issue came: should that person work out of the Premier's office or out of Intergovernmental Affairs office? Out of Intergovernmental Affairs is really where it should work, not the Premier's office. Should that person work as part of the Intergovernmental Affairs office or part of a constitutional law section of the Department of Justice? We looked at what was taking place in all of the other provinces of Canada, and all of them with the exception of PEI have them primarily in the Department of Justice, but some have them in the Intergovernmental Affairs secretariat.

I was casting around for a constitutional legal advisor because the constitutional issues were coming up and we needed somebody to be on top of the issues on a constant basis. And I do not remember when we first advertised for the position, I have forgotten when we first advertised for the position. But I believe it was after we had hired Deborah Coyne on a contract basis. And she agreed to come only for one year. And my recollection is her salary was about $55,000. It was on a contractual basis. She had agreed to come only for one year. She could not give a commitment beyond that. And the salary was, give or take, $55,000, $56,000, somewhere in that vicinity.

So we advertised for a full time constitutional legal advisor and we got some pretty good applications. We accepted one but we accepted that individual primarily too, because of his competence. Not just in the pure constitutional document field, the British North America Act of the strict constitution, but because he had a lot of expert knowledge in offshore resources, in fisheries in particular. He had many years of experience in the question of management and fishery's management. Because in constitutional terms we had to think about more than the BNA Act and more about the pure Constitution. One of the major - and I say "major" - concerns that the Province has facing it now - the former government had just been approaching it, had not gotten into it, they developed a policy; which, incidentally, I commend as being a pretty sound policy on the whole - was the whole question of native land claims. That is a matter of major, major concern, and the economic future of the province can be significantly affected, depending on how these native land claims are managed.

So it is important that we have proper, knowledgeable and experienced constitutional legal advice in terms of dealing with that issue, and as well in terms of dealing with issues like offshore oil resources, offshore fishery's management, as well as the pure Constitution. So I was looking for not just a person who was knowledgeable about the constitutional document, but a person who had a broader knowledge, perhaps a political science background, and knowledge in particular in offshore resources and native issues.

And the first individual that we agreed to hire had terrific offshore knowledge. He also had experience in working in Newfoundland, had taught here at the University. So we were quite pleased and agreed to hire him, only to have him withdraw after a couple of months after he had initially indicated he would accept it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: No, he taught here for about seven or eight years, I think, at Memorial. I believe his origins were American, I am not quite sure. But he had the kind of experience and background, particularly in offshore resources and so on, that would serve the Province well, only to have him withdraw his acceptance or ask to have his acceptance withdrawn because his wife could not come for a variety of reasons, she got another position that she would prefer. So we lost him. So we advertised again for another position and this time we varied it somewhat and we put it in the Department of Justice, because we wanted to put in place a full-time constitutional legal section in the Department of Justice, which is where we feel the pure legal aspect of it should be, and as well it has to deal with the major issue of native land claims and so on. And we were very fortunate, we got some very good applications, some from Newfoundlanders, some very competent lawyers, but no Newfoundland lawyers with a constitutional background or experience. We did however get an application from one individual with a very substantial constitutional background working for another Provincial Government, and he had made appearances in the Supreme Court of Canada on constitutional issues. But our good fortune was even greater when we discovered that he had a substantial experience in native claims and issues. And that is a quality that will be of great importance to us in the future. So we have agreed to engage him to head the constitutional law section of our Department of Justice, and he will be there as one individual, and there are some people working in the Department of Justice now who have a keen interest and who been doing some constitutional work but do not have his breadth of knowledge and background and training and we hope the two of them together will be able to give us a good constitutional legal section.

Deborah Coyne, in the meantime, has continued her work with the Intergovernmental Government Affairs Secretariat because she has a greater capacity, and a greater capability in the pure constitutional policy side of it and constitutional issues affect not only the pure wording of the Constitution. For example, our economic future, our entitlement in terms of equalization and other transfers and negotiating these and maintaining the correct legal position on entitlement to that is a matter of great significance, and she will be doing a good deal of that for us and a good deal of work in developing the constitutional policy position of the Province and that is the kind of work that she will be doing. How long she will be there, I do not know. But she agreed then to stay beyond the one year period and she is continuing on, and I do not know on what salary basis she is now, and it seems to me that if it is $64,000 -

MR. BAKER: $63,000.

PREMIER WELLS: $63,000 a year and we got ourselves a real bargain. Because she is a superb performer in terms of her background and knowledge, and in terms of her dedication and effort. I daresay she probably punches in about seventy-five hours a week, if I have any recollection of what she has been doing, so the Province is well served for that kind of a salary.

If I have not covered all of the questions that the hon. Member asked I will be happy to dig out anything else.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Premier for being forthcoming and for his interest. I am glad he is here in the House actually today, we missed him on Friday. Maybe we would have had a lot of this -

AN HON. MEMBER: He had other commitments.

MR. SIMMS: He had other commitments. I am sure he did. But we perhaps could have, you know, cleared up a lot of this stuff and we might not be continuing to debate it. The President of Treasury Board obviously did not know the answer.

PREMIER WELLS: My left-hand man.

MR. SIMMS: And your left-hand man did not perform very well on Friday, I am afraid. I regret to say.

Well actually what was happening, Mr. Chairman, is that the Member for Exploits -

MR. BAKER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: She did, she asked the question. But the Member for Exploits actually -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SIMMS: Now in reading Hansard there, I recommend that the Premier read Friday's Hansard to see the Minister's answers to the Member for Humber East about women's issues. They are not really good answers.

MR. RIDEOUT: They do not even make good copy.

MR. SIMMS: Of course what happened is the Member for Exploits jumped up and wanted to answer the questions that I was asking the President of Treasury Board, and that was another reason the President of Treasury Board did not get a chance to answer. Anyway we have all kinds of questions and oodles of comments to make, so I want to get on with it. I just want to make a follow-up reference to his comments about his casting, I think were the words, he casted around, he was casting around for a constitutional adviser, were his terms or his words, casting around.

PREMIER WELLS: Why I said that I do not remember whether he (inaudible), Deborah Coyne or after, my recollection is that that came after.

MR. SIMMS: Well it would be appropriate to put the ad in the paper before you hired -

PREMIER WELLS: (Inaudible) -

MR. SIMMS: I had a premonition of it, yes. I wonder, when he was casting around, did he mean that he was casting around literally like flicking out his line to some good friends of his for some advice, for example. Did he call Pierre and ask Pierre what his advice was or did he have any suggestions, or did he call Jean Chrétien and ask Jean? Did he -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: This is current now, but -

AN HON. MEMBER: Did he call Brian.

MR. SIMMS: You know, did he call anybody like that and ask them if they knew of any good constitutional advisors? When he said he was casting around, did he just simply mean they put an ad in the paper? There are those who suspect - and I say this frankly to the Premier - there are those who suspect that the Premier simply was looking for somebody who happened to agree with his stated public position, which Miss Coyne did, as I understand it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Yes, sure. I mean I would just like to clarify it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: As a matter of fact I chose Miss Coyne because I read some of her writings, and the clearness with which she expressed the issue, the thoroughness and the reason and logic in her position greatly impressed me. So I called her and told her that we were looking for a constitutional advisor and I felt that there would be a major amount of work and it would be of great significance to the Province and to the country, for that matter, in the future, and she turned me down. She had just a short time before that taken on a position, only a matter of months before, taken on a position with a foundation in Toronto. She used to teach law at Osgoode Hall Law School.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: Osgoode Hall, I believe, yes. She taught law at Osgoode Hall Law School for a period, but at the time she was not teaching she had taken another position, so that when I asked her if she was interested in the position in Newfoundland, she was interested, but she had just so recently gone to this other position that she did not feel she could change readily.

Anyway, after a month or six weeks or so, as constitutional things changed, I got another call from her, or she sent down some more information and I sent back a response to it acknowledging it and thanking her for it, and she called to say if the position was still open she was interested, and that is how it came about. I guess casting around is a broad enough phrase to include that process.

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

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible), now that he has confirmed that he actually sought Deborah Coyne after reading some of her work, which everybody but everybody knows, I guess, was very close to the opinion and views of the Premier on the Meech Lake issue -

PREMIER WELLS: The soundness of her (inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Yes, the soundness of her judgement that impressed him the most, no doubt, and it was simply a coincidence that she happened to agree with the Premier on the issue, I suppose, is what he is saying.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: That is what I thought he was saying. So he has now confirmed that he really got Deborah Coyne as his constitutional advisor because she happened to agree with his position, so that is pretty clear. That is the first time that the Premier has admitted that publicly, and I am pleased that he did today.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: So we should perhaps call her before the bar of the House then and ask her for her differences on the constitution? I have not had the privilege of meeting Miss Coyne, so I know nothing about her other than what I have read, and what I have heard the Premier say, and all the rest of it.

PREMIER WELLS: Would the hon. Member give me permission to go and do a scrum for a few minutes.

MR. SIMMS: Well I am not sure. Will I be going after I wonder, Mr. Chairman.

PREMIER WELLS: I do not know.

MR. SIMMS: Does it say for you and I to go out, or just for the Premier.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: I am not sure.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Yes, Mr. Speaker, of course. The Premier does not need permission. His left hand man will take notes of all the penetrating questions we will be putting forth. Actually, there is one before the Premier goes. I would like to bring this to his attention, I really would because it bothers me somewhat because I know how frustrated the Premier gets at seeing inefficiency around him, and I mean from his Ministers as well as from time to time, no doubt, from staff or whatever. I know he gets frustrated about those things, and I respect an individual with that kind of determination. When somebody asks questions, for example, I know he must have told his Ministers time and time again, 'please provide the answers. Do not dilly dally and do not take a long unnecessary period of time.'

Well, I would like to bring to attention this, on April 4, over a month now, there is no need for it as far as I am concerned, I asked in the Orders or in this - what is this thing called, the orders of the day, the daily book, the paper that we get?

AN HON. MEMBER: The Order Paper.

MR. SIMMS: Order Paper, that is the word. I asked questions on April 4, several questions. I asked a question of every Minister to outline for me the number of trips they took during the last fiscal year. The Premier will recall he answered, and he answered weeks ago. Other Ministers have answered weeks ago but there are still six Ministers who have not.

AN HON. MEMBER: Name them!

MR. SIMMS: I am naming them now. Municipal Affairs, Development, Forestry, Fisheries, Health and Justice. Those six Ministers still have not responded to a simple question - I did not even ask them the cost of the trips. I asked them to outline for us the destination, dates of trips - I mean, even the Minister of Social Services provided it within a week, ten days. They are probably gone on a trip! In fact I know the Minister of Development is in Houston, or on his way to Houston, as I understand it. So that is one point.

AN HON. MEMBER: You got mine.

MR. SIMMS: Well, if it is done I suggest -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Well, okay. That was very quick of the Premier. To get a response like that just like that. I have a suspicion that the other five are done too. But they are waiting to spread it out. I mean, I know the little games they play. But I really would like to get the information.

Secondly, on that same order paper I asked a question of the Minister of Development, to provide the House a breakdown of advertising costs expected, planned or contracted for the present and for the future by both the Economic Recovery Commission and Enterprise Newfoundland. I will explain to the Premier what he did - I asked for a breakdown by individual media in the Province as well as media outside the Province.

So my colleague, the Member for Harbour Main, then asked a question a day or two later I think in the daily Question Period. And the Minister of Development tabled an answer - here it is - on April 15 and gave a bit of a breakdown on the ERC advertising expenditures. But he also said in tabling, on page 1036 of Hansard, the last paragraph where the Minister of Development answered: "I have gotten the Economic Recovery Commission answers for all of you and I fully intend to table tomorrow the answers for the Enterprise Newfoundland." Now, that was April 15, this is May 6. We still have not received the answer to that question.

And finally, one other question I asked the Minister of Development was to lay upon the Table of the House itemized expenses paid on behalf of the chairman and the other commissioners of the ERC, as well as the president and vice-presidents of Enterprise Newfoundland, since both organizations came into existence. Itemized expenses: travel, meals and the whole bit. And it is well over a month and we still have not received the answer.

Now I say to the Premier that all that does is prompt speculation on - may be unnecessary. Because if it takes over a month - I mean, under the Freedom of Information the Minister must provide the information within thirty days, I believe, where they are allowed to. This is over a month, and it really leads to speculation and maybe a lot of times unnecessary rumour, that they are reluctant to make it public or do not want to show it because this is there or that is there.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) evil mind.

MR. SIMMS: Well, I am just - maybe my evil mind. But I have a suspicion that there are an awful lot of Newfoundlanders with evil minds too because -

PREMIER WELLS: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Exactly.

PREMIER WELLS: It does not matter what you motivation is (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Exactly. Right. So I wanted to bring it to the Premier's attention while he is here because I know that if I had brought it to the attention of his left-hand man, the President of Treasury Board, I would never get an answer. I doubt very much if he would even bother to reply. But I know that the Premier wields a big stick and if he says "do it" it will be done. So, we now excuse the Premier to go out and do his scrum. I want to ask a couple of other questions -

PREMIER WELLS: I expect you two would get along better if you both took up smoking again.

MR. SIMMS: I have no intention of taking up smoking again. I have my suspicions about the President of Treasury Board. Cannot afford to with the taxes you have just brought in recently in your Budget.

Can I move to another area? I do not know how much time we have left, or I have left? Do I have a couple of minutes yet? Just a couple of other topics I want to introduce, and the Minister of Finance who just shouted out -

DR. KITCHEN: A good Budget.

MR. SIMMS: A good Budget. Now, surely the Minister of Finance is not believing those words, that it was a good Budget. Surely, he has been out around the Province. I know he was out in my constituency where he was greeted warmly, enthusiastically, by some of my constituents who happened to be union members. I did not quite hear everything they said, but I do not believe I heard any of them say it was a good Budget, Herb. I do not believe I heard one person say that. There were even people at the Chamber of Commerce meeting who told me the next day that the Budget was not that good. In fact they were not impressed with the Minister's speech either, by the way.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. SIMMS: I get invited into a lot of places for a cup of tea, Mr. Chairman, but unfortunately it has not happened frequently enough where you get invited in for a cup of tea in Newfoundland and the spirit shows up. I mean that literally and figuratively, if he knows what I mean.

I want to ask the Minister of Finance this question. These are a couple of new items I want to toss out seeing I have a couple of minutes left, new topics for discussion. Maybe to the President of Treasury Board, or anybody. In the latest edition of this APEC news letter that they send out now to MHAs, MPs, all around Canada, I understand in a communication I had with Peter O'Brien, I wrote and asked him for a bit of information on how far this circulates, who they are sent to, and all the rest of it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Okay, that is what I am talking about, but what is the organization? Is it Canadian Independent Business? Okay, that is what I am taking about, but what is the organization? Is it Canadian Independent Business? Okay. They do this survey, the Minister would know what I am talking about, they do it by regions and in the Atlantic Canada region, I believe he told me, and I thought I had the letter with me, but the survey went out to about 2000 to 2500 hundred of their members in Atlantic Canada, businesses. I just started paying attention to it, quite frankly, the last one that came out we all received copies of it, I guess, and I do not know how many sent their answers or ballots back, but I sent mine back. They also had in the last report some responses from the previous survey they had sent out. I do not know how many Members took the time to look at it but there were some really interesting responses there. There were four questions and the first one, of course, dealt with, should the four Atlantic Provinces develop regional co-operation and co-ordination through the elimination of interprovincial trade and other barriers? Now, it is a pretty straightforward question but not all the details that should be provided to an individual in providing the answer were there, unfortunately, but surprisingly in Newfoundland of the business people, naturally, not surprising, 74 per cent of the business people that responded to that survey in Newfoundland said: yes, the interprovincial trade barriers should be eliminated. Now, we all know there are other provinces associated with the elimination of trade barriers, particularly with respect to the brewing industry which the Minister of Finance himself has some concerns, because if I am not mistaken, I guess, one of the breweries is in his constituency, probably, or close to it anyway. It is surprising. I felt there was a degree of support for eliminating barriers per se, it is an easy thing to say, yes, to, until you look at some of the background. The other interesting couple of questions: should governments establish a minimum corporate tax? Now, would you not expect most people to say, yes, sock it to the corporations? That is what I would have expected, until I read this. Now, mind you the answers are coming from business people but they are small business people, so a small business person is not going to be too affected by corporation taxes, I do not think, major corporation taxes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. SIMMS: If I could perhaps have a couple of minutes to keep my train of thought.

I image the Member for Pleasantville probably read this survey so he saw the answers to the survey. It was basically a divided opinion as to whether or not governments should establish a minimum corporate income tax. Now, I believe that is a policy long advocated by the NDP, if I remember, and supported by just about everybody else, if it were as simple as increasing the corporate income taxes. It is not as simple as that but to ask that question without all the background information is like asking the first question about interprovincial trade barriers. It is not as straightforward and simple as that. I would like to hear the Minister of Finance comment on it and any other Member who might wish to comment?

AN HON. MEMBER: The question is not (Inaudible)

MR. SIMMS: Well, the Member for Pleasantville said that, just for the record I want Hansard to know.

MR. NOEL: I never said it.

MR. SIMMS: I am sorry, it was the Member for Placentia and not the Member for Pleasantville. So, corporate income tax, a divided opinion, forty-eight Newfoundlanders said, yes, forty-four said, no, and the rest were undecided, 8 per cent. You might as well say independent. But there is one other question on that survey that I found interesting.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why don't you write the Minister of Finance?

MR. SIMMS: No, I am afraid that was not on the survey. And I have a funny feeling it will never be on a survey. But I do have a feeling that the answer will be provided in a couple of years time in the next general election. But here is a question that we should all spend some time debating, and I say this seriously now, for every Member of the Legislature. Here is a question that we should all spend some time debating. And the question that was put to the independent business people in Newfoundland, and 2,000 of them in Atlantic Canada, was this: should there be a limit on the number of times a politician may be re-elected? That was one of the questions put forth by the Canadian independent businessmen all across Canada.

And the answer in Newfoundland by the business people who responded, surprisingly - I say "surprisingly" because I would have expected a different result or a much more clearly enunciated result - it said, in Newfoundland 53 per cent said "yes," that there should be a limit on the number of times a politician can be re-elected, 53 per cent said "yes" in Newfoundland. But only 43 per cent said "yes" in Canada. And "no" in Newfoundland was 41 per cent. So it is fairly - 53 to 41 - and in Canada 50 per cent said "no." So once again Newfoundland is bucking the trend. The national trend was 50 per cent "no," 43 per cent "yes," and we were virtually the opposite.

So it would be interesting. But what one does not have are the arguments pro and con. Now I believe in the newsletters they sent out - the Minister of Finance would be familiar with it, I guess, for sure - in this survey that they send out now on a regular basis they generally include arguments for and against. I believe they show the pro and con. Particularly as it applies to some financial questions. And the one that I have trouble personally with understanding clearly - because I am not financially knowledgeable of all the matters that the Minister of Finance would be as the Minister of Finance - but the other question that they asked: should governments be required to report dollars spent through tax credits, deductions, loopholes, and other tax breaks? Should governments be required to report dollars spent in all of these other areas - as dollars spent, I suppose - which now do not show up as dollars spent? I guess that is the point they are trying to make.

And if for example Newfoundland were to report dollars spent by including tax credits, tax breaks, deductions, other loopholes, or whatever, what would that mean? What would be the real picture in Newfoundland's situation? Maybe the Minister could tell me when he stands to say a few words in debate. Maybe he could tell me, what exactly would that mean? Would that improve the picture any or -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: It would improve the picture. Perhaps he could - I would like to hear him elaborate on it a bit because it seems like an interesting question, particularly when you find that nearly 80 per cent of the businesses, both in Canada and Newfoundland, responded by saying: yes, they should show - when you give your financial picture - they should show all of the information. And that would make Newfoundland's position look a little better, according to the Minister of Finance.

So maybe he would like to stand. I do not know if he does it now or whenever but my time is up. But see if he could comment on a few of those areas that I have thrown out.

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to respond to some of the things that have been mentioned in the last two days and so far today. I wanted to go through and highlight some areas that have been questioned. There have been some questions on the Premier's office and the Premier has answered some of them. A question was asked in terms of salaries in the Premier's office and why the changes and so on.

I believe there was a reference made to the chief of staff and his position. I would like to report to the House that the chief of staff in the Premier's office got exactly the same increases during the last fiscal year that executive and management people got, that the union workers by and large got. There are some unionized workers who got a much higher percentage increase, but he was dealt with in the terms of the 6 per cent during the last year, the 3 and 3, that percentage. I believe he got it in the sense of 4 and 2 at different times during the year. But the increase was exactly the same as the way that all public servants were treated.

He was put into his job as the Premier indicates. He was put into a job classification and job description that had been left by the former premier and slotted into that position. I forget the name of the individual now who was in it for a short time. And he was given the job of, I believe, two or three jobs put together. But that is the salary he was slotted into. And whatever would have happened to the individual who was there before happened to Mr. Bonnell exactly the same as if there had been no change. So the amount and the scale are exactly the same as were in existence before Mr. Bonnell took over, except that he now had two other jobs to do, besides the job that his salary - he fitted into. The House will be pleased to -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: Yes, and his salary now is frozen like everybody else's, exactly the same because we are in a difficult financial time. Last year he was treated exactly the same as every other public servant in the Province, yes. Exactly, exactly the same as every other public servant in the Province.

Now, then -

MR. SIMMS: 7 per cent or 8 per cent to somebody making $85,000 versus 7 per cent or 8 per cent for somebody making $25,000, there is a big difference.

MR. BAKER: Yes, well, it is a bit hypocritical for Members Opposite to -

MR. SIMMS: Not really.

MR. BAKER: - especially the Opposition House Leader to talk about that, when that was exactly the way they proceeded when they were in Government -

AN HON. MEMBER: We did not, (inaudible).

MR. BAKER: - and - no, you had more than that one year, a projected deficit of more than $180 I believe, projected one year and you ended up with eighty I think because you were way off, as usual, you were $100 million off on your estimates, so I believe, that is what happened, you were bailed out by your buddies in Ottawa, I believe, bailed out by your buddies in Ottawa; so, we have done exactly the same with the executives and the political staff as we did with the whole of the public service, there is no difference, none whatsoever, in spite of the impression Members Opposite would like to create.

I am sure they are glad to notice that in terms of the net expenditure in the Premier's office, the Budget for last year was $782,000, this year it is about $730,000 so there is a drop of $50 odd thousand; I am sure that everybody in the Province would be glad to notice that as opposed to some well over $1 million three years ago, which is quite a saving.

There was a question asked about -

MR. SIMMS: Salaries this year, you said is down $50,000 (inaudible).

MR. BAKER: No, the hon. Member should listen, he might learn something. I said that you would be pleased to note, the net expenditure in the Premier's Office which was about $782,000 last year will be down to $729,000 this year, a savings over the budgeted amount last year, of about $50,000 and I am sure that everybody is very pleased with the savings which we have initiated in the Premier's Office.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: Well, I am dealing with the Estimates.

MR. SIMMS: $769,000 spent last year (inaudible).

MR. BAKER: I will repeat again, in case the Member did not hear. I indicated that last year the net expenditure, the original Budget, the Budget figure for last year was $782,000 and this year the Budget amount is $729,700, which is a saving of about $50,000 over the budgeted amount last year and I think that everybody will be very pleased with the frugality, especially seeing that the last year Members Opposite were there, the expense was well over $1 million, so there is a tremendous saving involved here.

I would like to point out also, there was a question asked about some of the policy committees and I am also pleased to note that the Budget last year, from terms of the Social Policy Committee of Cabinet, Resource and Social Policy Committee of Cabinet, Secretariat, the expense is reduced from $45,000 to $17,000 and I am sure everybody is very pleased with that.

There was a question asked about professional services. Professional Services, Cabinet, Secretariat, Executive Support, Department of Executive Council and there is (inaudible) that the budgeted figure last year was $131,000 and this year it has gone up to $210,000, a tremendous increase. The explanation of course is that these professional services - the reason it is up is we want to continue with the development of a document managing system, with costs to include hardware and software purchase, implementation of system, and conversion of existing documents to data base systems. So it is going back and putting all of the other documents back into the system. So that is the reason for the increase in that particular professional services expenditure in this coming year.

Another question was asked, again about an increase in professional services, under Cabinet Secretariat administration. The budget last year was for $32,000, this year it is up to $47,000. And the explanation is that this year that professional services has to do with lease of computer terminals for on-line enquiry and the cost of computer time at NLCS for the following: the purchasing administration system; the budgeting system, that is data entry introducing reports, $16,000; block funding for all divisions of Cabinet Secretariat is provided for micro-computer acquisitions, upgrade and maintenance of $28,000; and micro-computer training, $3,000. So that is an explanation of that particular expenditure.

The next one that was questioned had to do with administration of the offshore fund. And Members will be pleased to note that the net expenditure on this heading, last year in the Budget was $50,000, this year it has gone down to $25,000, which is a 50 per cent reduction. I am sure all Members are pleased to see that.

The office of the President of Treasury Board, a question was asked about that, and I am pleased to respond that the figure spent last year, $193,100, we will keep under that, we will only be $192,300. So we are $800 below the amount for last year and I think that is a tremendous accomplishment, especially seeing that when we took over the Government we probably cut the expenditure of the President of Treasury Board's office in half. So that is on top of all that. So we are keeping the expenditures rather low.

Another question asked about professional services under Treasury Board organization and management and again a large increase in professional services. I believe it was the Member for Grand Falls who asked the question about this one. Last year in the Budget there was $283,000, and this year there is $495,000 - a big increase. The explanation is this: the Treasury Board Secretariat system support, $77,000; Cabinet Secretariat system support, $58,000; systems consultants, $145,000; systems planning consulting service, $25,000; block funding for all divisions of Treasury Board Secretariat for micro-computer acquisitions, upgrades and maintenance, $55,000; micro-computer training, $10,000; and the big increase in here is that here is where we have provided the funding for a school bus transportation study, $100,000, that is geared to hopefully save us an awful lot of money in the years ahead in terms of the reorganization of the school system; and various Departmental operational reviews during the current fiscal year, $25,000. So the big increase there is mainly the result of the study into school bus transportation.

The other question that was asked had to do with pay equity implementation, how last year we budgeted only $185,000 for that - for professional services I am talking about now, under pay equity - and we actually spent $340,000, how come the big increase? Well the big increase is because the process hopefully is speeded up. The managements consultants who were contracted to assist in implementing the pay equity, to do the job analysis and the analysis of the descriptions and assigning levels, that cost $336,000. So that is where most of the money was spent. Computer runs at NLCS, $10,000. So that is the planned spending in this current year.

Another area where there were some questions asked, again, had to do with Transportation and Communication. Members opposite always like to pick these headings, and I would like to explain to Members in the House why the Opposition picks these headings to question. The explanation is that while they were in Government, they used to hide away all kinds of stuff under those headings, Transportation and Communication. The stuff they used to hide away under that heading, and they know it, they are quite familiar with what they used to do with these headings, and they assume that we are doing the same thing. So logically, if I was sitting opposite I would ask questions about Transportation and Communication. I used to do it when I was in opposition, and I would get the standard answer: 'well we need to communicate and we need to have transportation', and generally that is the only answer that I would get.

Anyway, a question was asked about Transportation and Communication under IGA. Last year there was a budget of $50,000. Now we did not spend it all, we only spent $47,000. A budget of $50,000 all of a sudden this year it shows up at $204,000. Why the big increase? Well, the explanation is that Transportation and Communications are travel related expenses and telephone costs are normally in there. Funding has increased substantially due to the provision of a travel budget in native policy for the six members of the provincial negotiating team for the Inuit of Labrador. So this is a new expenditure here related to the provincial negotiating team for the Inuit of Labrador and relating to the land claims issue. So it is a very important expenditure, I believe.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: Nothing. I am very pleased.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: Nothing wrong. No. Because I have noticed there are a lot of questions on Transportation and Communication. I just want to explain to some Members on this side who may not know why the questions were asked, you see, because quite often these headings are used to hide things away, and Members were suspicious, and they have every right to be suspicious, I suppose. They are in Opposition and they are supposed to be suspicious, they are supposed to ask those questions and I am saying that these are good questions, no doubt about it.

There is another question that has been answered, but I suspect the reason why it was asked again was just, that hopefully, it would be embarrassing to Government, and that has to do with Purchase Services under protocol, and how it was $87,000 in the budget last year and this year there is $308,000. The reason, obviously, as it has been explained before is that there is a royal visit this year that is going to cost $130,000, there is a Governor General's visit that is going to cost $25,000, and there is the Atlantic Charter 50th Anniversary: $25,000, and there is another conference: $120,000. So $300,000 of that $308,000 has to do with very special occasions, cost of activities during the 75th Anniversary of Beaumont Hamel and so on. So a lot of extra money there, and Members opposite have tried to make some political hay at the fact that we are spending money on a royal visit, and I guess that is why they asked the question, just to have that stated once again in the House that we are spending $130,000 on a royal visit. So, the question was asked and I feel as if I had to answer.

Then there was a question asked about - and I really did not get to the details - it seems that on Friday the Member for Humber East asked a lot of questions about women's issues, and I spent most of the morning talking about the initiatives that we had taken in terms of women's issues in this Province. One question I did not get around to answering I would like to answer now. It has to do with why the reduction in the Women's Policy Office? Last year there was $401,000 and this year it is cut back to $375,000. The comment was made that because there is so much good work going on there, how come you are reducing the funding? Well I, at the first instance said that the funding was reduced, there is a lot of good work going on and a lot of good work will continue to go on and there was some belt tightening. And in fact, I believe two of the employees this year are expecting to have to take - and one of them is now off on maternity leave - and that sort of cut back on what we need spend on salaries. That allowed us to live within our salary budget, but I would like to point out that under Professional Services, this year we are hiring consultants for special research projects and developing policies and programs $10,000; and we are going to up grade computer printer for $1,500, so we are budgeting $11,500 for professional service, and that is way down from $28,000 last year. So actually, $17,000 of the drop comes from professional services and under Purchased Services: last year the budget amount was $40,000 and this year it is only $32,000. So the drop in the funding of the Women's Policy Office of about $25,000 can be accounted for under Professional Services and Purchase Services. The rest of the headings remain the same, and the Women's Policy Office will continue to do its excellent work. And the final point - and I believe these were most of the questions if not all, I will have to check my notes again - asked about specific details in Executive Council. I would like to point out that the total expenditure in Executive Council does not vary a great deal from last year. As a matter of fact it is slightly above the budgeted amount last year but down from the projected revised amount for last year. So we are down close to a million dollars, $900,000, from what was spent last year. And the big variance in this whole big Department, with all the important functions and so on that this Department carries on, was in one item and it had to do with the Hibernia project implementation under the heading of Professional Services. That is the big variation. Last year we budgeted $200,000, we spent $1.8 million. So that is why the expenditure, the revised, was way up from the original budget, now it was not up that much because we managed to recover from some other headings. But it went up $200,000 to $1.8 million, this year we are budgeting only $200,000 again. So that is all we have under professional services for the Hibernia project.

A tremendous variance, and it had to do with providing for the engagement of consultants, advisors, on an as-required basis to assist Government in monitoring Hibernia-related activity. And it is the kind of thing, I suppose, where last year there was a great demand. And I think there were a couple of bills that came in from the year before that were much higher than we expected as well. And I think it has already been dealt with. I think the Members opposite know about that.

So I think I have answered most of the details that were asked yesterday. These were the details in terms of money and Purchased Service and everything else. There were a lot of questions asked about women's policy which I have already answered, and I look forward to other questions by Members opposite and hope I can deal with it as completely and expeditiously as I have already done.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have a few comments to make on this in a general nature, not necessarily in questions to the Minister. But I am sure my fiend for Pleasantville will be fairly interested in hearing what I have to say and maybe some of the other St. John's Members will be interested in what I will be saying in the next couple of minutes.

As all the St. John's Members know, in the last little while we all received a letter from the City Council, from the Mayor of the City at least, wondering where we stood on the amalgamation issue. And the letter - I imagine everyone got it, I know I got one - asked several questions of what the MHAs think about the amalgamation issue. And there has been some recent reporting in the media by the deputy Mayor that they are going to put pressure on the St. John's MHAs to vote to support their stand. And there have been several comments to that effect. Now we did all meet with the City Council within the last six months. Liberal MHAs would not allow us to come with them but we met separately with them and we had -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: - our friend from the NDP to come with us.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: I beg your pardon? The Member for St. John's South says that is a lie?

AN HON. MEMBER: That is what he said.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Is that parliamentary?

AN HON. MEMBER: Withdraw that.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Is that parliamentary? Mr. Chairman, is that parliamentary?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I did not hear him. But if the hon. Member -

MR. R. AYLWARD: He just admitted to saying it.

MR. MURPHY: Yes. I do not mind, Mr. Chairman, withdrawing the fact (Inaudible). But I mean, when somebody makes a statement that is incorrect then - I should not say a "lie"," I suppose - but the statement is totally incorrect.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member for St. John's South, withdrew.

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

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

Again we have the Member for St. John's South withdrawing a remark. And he also should withdraw the context in which he made it because Her Worship the Mayor of St. John's is the one who told me that. I mean I can only relay her message, is that she wanted a meeting with all St. John's MHAs. And it was suggested that the Liberal MHAs will be more forthcoming if the PC Members were not there. Now I can understand that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. R. AYLWARD: I do not disagree with that actually. But I disagree with the Member for St. John's South saying it is not true, because it is true. It is just a simple fact. I might have done it myself when I was there. I do not know. I know I did not. But I never had the occasion to have a meeting or the city never had the occasion to request a meeting.

MR. MURPHY: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for St. John's South, on a point of order.

MR. MURPHY: So this House and the hon. Member understands, when the Mayor and the councillors decided to have a meeting with the caucus of St. John's they were adamant in inviting the partisan people or the Liberal backbenchers, the Tory backbenchers and Mr. Harris individually. So what the hon. Member is saying is totally incorrect.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is no point of order.

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Again, Mr. Chairman, the Member for St. John's South has been put in his place in saying that, and I do not know where he gets all of this information because the Member for St. John's West is the one who arranged the meetings. So he has no idea yet. The city was quite willing to meet with the NDP caucus, and the PC caucus. I do not know why they would not want to meet with all three of us. The only reason I know this is because Her Worship, the Mayor of the City of St. John's told it to me.

MR. MURPHY: She said it. She told us about it.

MR. R. AYLWARD: I am not hiding it away. I do not think she would, and when she was told that the Liberal Members, in particular the Cabinet Ministers, now this sounds like it came right from the mouth of the Minister of Finance but particularly the Cabinet Ministers would be more forthcoming if we were not there. Sobeit. But I fault the City of St. John's for that not the Cabinet Ministers who got away with it and the Liberal backbenchers. If the City of St. John's wants a meeting with the Members who represent the City of St. John's they should call one and who comes comes. That is what I say. If the Liberal backbenchers or the Liberal Cabinet wants a meeting with the City of St. John's, they should call a meeting, the Liberal backbenchers and the Cabinet Ministers and ask the City to come in here and have a meeting with them. That is simple enough. But the City of St. John's should have more gumption to stand up for what they wanted.

But anyway let us get on to the amalgamation issue. I notice in the last couple of days there have been reports in the media by, I know the Member for Mount Scio - Bell Island has stated his views, and I congratulate him for that. And certainly he is standing up for the rural areas of his District, particularly Paradise, Conception Bay South parts of his District, and Portugal Cove. Also the Member for Carbonear had a few words to say on the amalgamation issue in this Northeast Avalon area, and I congratulate him for doing so. The Member for Pleasantville has had his name on the record for quite some time, and I congratulate him for doing so. I do not agree with him, but I congratulate him for doing so.

MR. NOEL: What do you mean we do not have (inaudible)?

MR. R. AYLWARD: You will find out now in a minute. I have not heard yet from the Member for St. John's South. I do not think

he has put his thoughts on the record. I have not heard from the Member for St. John's North or St. John's West or St. John's Centre - or who else is there?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. R. AYLWARD: I have not heard them put their feelings on the record about amalgamation and probably they are not going to. As long as they can keep getting away with it, they are not going to and that is probably the advice that I should take, that it is probably -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: No, apart from the reason you would use, yes. But it would make more sense for me to just sit back and relax because you have to make the decisions to. But I am not going to do that. I am going to make my position quite clear before this day is out.

Mr. Chairman, the amalgamation issue certainly has festered over the last two years and the Minister is still doing nothing about it and there will be nothing done about it until next fall because he is going to have to come before this House of Assembly according to the Premier, and that will not come to the House of Assembly before next fall because this House will be closed in the next couple of weeks, I would say three weeks maybe, and there will not be time to bring any amalgamation issue to the floor of this House, and I would expect that if it did come to this House, the House will not be closed quite so quickly as the next two or three weeks or certainly by the end of May it would not be closed.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, I am going to make it nice and clear and simple now: I do not agree with the report that was brought in by the Minister's feasibility study, so I do not agree with the Government's position as presented through their feasibility study on amalgamation. I do not agree with the city of St. John's proposal for a super city, so it cannot be any clearer than that, I do not agree with either one of you.

I have other suggestions but I really do not know why the city is making these proposals; I could agree if the logical conclusion of the urban centre was started off as an amalgamation; I could agree with St. John's, Mount Pearl and Wedgewood Park, that I could because it seems to be the logical urban centre because they are all pretty well up to the same standards, they all have the same services and they all could be paying the same tax base as they all have pretty well the same middle class social group; St. John's probably have less, but certainly Wedgewood Park could afford to be paying the same taxes and Mount Pearl generally has a fairly affluent society.

Now when you start talking about the Goulds, the Goulds has a different income level, a different - I cannot say a different class of people, but a different income level. The reason people move to the Goulds is because land and housing were cheaper and they are buying what they can in the $70,000 range rather than in the $100,000 range and others; they are at the limit of what they can afford, if they get the water and sewer hooked up they can scrape up enough money, so when you start talking about the Goulds and you start talking about Petty Harbour - Maddox Cove and you start talking about the Paradises of the world, you are talking about a different group financially and a different group of people who can afford this amalgamation, so, Mr. Chairman, I suggest that some of these people might not be able to afford the increase.

Now, I know this is a very sore point with the city of St. John's, that people from other areas are coming in and using our services free, that is the argument that the city is using; but I have asked them for years, not only recently when this started but for years, you tell me that your services are being used and not being charged to other people, so identify the services and put a cost on it, that is all I want to see, I want to see what they are.

If people tell me that something is happening, they should be able to logically show me why it is happening and what the cost is and, it will have to be estimated no doubt. Snow clearing on the Parkway, that is not an estimate, that is a fact of life what that costs and they say that, that is one of the services that thousands of people outside the city use to come in here and the city gets no tax dollars from it.

Now there is a way to solve that problem too, because it is mostly this Parkway, Pippy Park region that is used for the people coming in to go to work; a lot of the people who work from outside the city come in to Confederation Building or The University or The Health Sciences Complex, so one of the big costs or the big unfairness is this Pippy Park area, that the city is snow clearing and fixing up the roads and paving and what not and they say that is - now whatever the costs are there, the city could identify, and that could be done by the Department of Highways, immediately, and that in itself would equalize the unfairness if there is an unfairness, that is one step that you do not need amalgamation-

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

The hon. Member's time has elapsed.

MR. R. AYLWARD: By leave anyone else (inaudible), a couple of minutes more?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for St. John's South.

MR. MURPHY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to pick up on some of the points raised by my hon. colleague for Kilbride. I think we have reached a time where the amalgamation issue has got itself into a situation of becoming an irritant. I suppose when you think about the fact that we are in such a period of restraint, where dollars are hard to find for snow clearing, garbage collection, asphalt, or whatever the case, and we see the City of St. John's able to reach down and find $30,000 to put into a budget, and we see our friends in Mount Pearl finding money in their budget to fight, I suppose, or explain their position, fight might be a strong word, but finding these kind of dollars in a restraint period, when we are dealing with an issue that has to be addressed. If we look back over the development of some of the satellite towns, and/or cities, as far as I am concerned, that have developed over the years, then one has to ask oneself if the amount of monies that are being paid by residents of St. John's, of Wedgewood Park, and Mount Pearl should, or should not, be the same, everybody should be paying their fair share of the burden for the same amount of services. It brings up some points that I would like to address, Mr. Chairman. As long as I can remember Kilbride was Kilbride and the Goulds was the Goulds and I suppose there is a point to be made for the expansion of the capital city of St. John's because St. John's was obviously going to grow, and as St. John's started to grow then people would expect the same garbage collection, the same snow clearing, and the same recreational services be provided throughout, and the natural place for St. John's to go, of course, was West, or Southwest, and it found itself spreading out all over. Then all of a sudden we found that, for whatever reason people wanted to use, and that is fine with me if somebody wanted not to live on Pleasant Street, Patrick Street, or Alexander Street, and wanted to move out to somebody's path, or whatever the case might be, build a new home and put up that home without services, then turn around and ask the Government of the day to give a grant to a new town or new city, or what have you, then what we have done for ourselves is made a rock for our own back. We find today that we have a situation, or a yoke around our neck where we have all kinds of residences in and around the City of St. John's - the new City of Mount Pearl - when I grew up it was Steady Waters. When I was a young fellow Mount Pearl was an area for summer residences. There was no such place as Mount Pearl. Then it was Mount Pearl - Glendale. Kilbride was in place, the Goulds was in place. The hon. Member for Kilbride knows many St. John's residents who had summer homes in Kilbride, summer homes in Mount Pearl. Now, hindsight is 20/20 vision. It is easy to look over your shoulder and say, well, it should not have happened, and obviously it should not have happened. Today we should have a city that expanded under the name of St. John's. It was quite obvious, when you look at the fact that St. John's is about to celebrate, well it is the oldest city in North America. There are other cities that lay claim to that but in reality St. John's has paid for many, many, services that the Wedgewood Parks and everybody else has picked up on. Now, if somebody can express to me the logic of paying 4.5 mils on one side of the street and 11.5 mils on the other side of the street, if that is fairness, if that is the way we pay our municipal taxes, then I am afraid the whole thing needs to be re-explained to me. Now, if everybody in and around were privy to the same services, totally the same services, and we were all paying ten mils, then I could understand amalgamation not being an issue of an name going over, and what, I suppose, people want to stand with. It comes down to paying your fair share of the services that are provided to you, and it is time for us to stop standing up and taking up the sword for a situation that there is no sword needed to be taken for. I mean if anybody has any kind of decency in them they will understand that the Wedgewood Park situation as it relates to St. John's is totally, totally wrong. I mean I do not know if anybody can stand up and agree with that. Now there might be something said for it, a colleague of my got up the other day and said all of the things that Mount Pearl did. Well Mount Pearl in my mind was a city which was politically developed, and the natural way for St. John's to go was where Mount Pearl is. There should have been in my mind, no Mount Pearl, and the Government of the day should have made sure that it was St. John's.

AN HON. MEMBER: There should be no Wedgewood Park is that what you are saying?

MR. MURPHY: No, there should be no Wedgewood Park as we know Wedgewood Park. I mean you got little stamps all over the place and it is not right and it never will be right that somebody in Wedgewood Park who is provided with the same services using the City of St. John's water, using Robin Hood Bay, using all of the other things. I suppose it could be said if the City of St. John's did not plough around Wedgewood Park they would stay in there.

AN HON. MEMBER: They are paying for it.

MR. MURPHY: Four point five mils is not a fair share of the record.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Wedgewood Park.

MR. MURPHY: So, Mr. Chairman, the hon. Members opposite can hoot and holler and get on all they like, the people of St. John's are getting the shaft municipally, and they continue to get it. Now it can be argued for lots of reasons that there is inefficiency in the city and there is more inefficiency somewhere else and all of these kinds of great things, and the fire protection and all of that, and when you want to find something to make issue you will find something to make issue. But the real answer is that amalgamation is necessary if the people in St. John's and the adjacent communities are to all collectively pay their fair share of the services that are provided.

AN HON. MEMBER: What services are Wedgewood Park getting that they are not paying for? Tell us.

MR. MURPHY: Well I do not know how you can attribute getting water to Wedgewood Park. If Wedgewood Park was on its own how would it get water and sewer to itself? How would they be able to afford the capital dollars? They tapped into the City of St. John's, and they were able to pay next to nothing. They pay a service now. So let us be realistic that it is totally incorrect, is a free ride on the backs of the residents of the City of St. John's. And there is nothing else that can be said for it. It is simply that, all right. And our friends in Mount Pearl, I have a lot of friends and a lot of admiration for the people of Mount Pearl. They have a nice town in Mount Pearl. They do not have -

AN HON. MEMBER: The Great In.

MR. MURPHY: Yes, you can call me the Great In if you want. The hon. the Member for Grand Falls who lives in Mount Pearl obviously has a biased position to take when he talks about do not be so degrading. I am not being degrading. I would be degrading if I did not stand up here and protect the citizens of St. John's who -

MR. SIMMS: All you are doing is showing your ignorance. That is all you are doing is showing your ignorance. It is a city.

MR. MURPHY: It is a city by the hon. Member's standards, but it is not a city by my standards, okay.

MR. SIMMS: It is a city by law.

MR. MURPHY: Yes, it is a city by law. Yes, by whose law?

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Yes, fine. But that still does not change my mind, okay. The hon. Member can read his paper. He will probably be less informed, but he can read it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. MURPHY: So, Mr. Chairman, there is no time like the present time to solve this problem, to take the courage, to solve the problem and to deliver the fairness that needs to be delivered to amalgamate the City of St. John's and adjacent small towns, not for the City of St. John's sake, but for their sake, and for the sense of everybody paying their fair share.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! The hon. Member's time has elapsed.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave! By leave!

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just want to continue with the -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: I am after getting them all stirred up.

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible) bit of sense.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) the Member for Carbonear.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I have recognized the hon. Member for Kilbride. If other people wish to speak in the debate, I will recognize them after.

Order, please!

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will continue where I left off on how if there are services inside the city that people from outside the city are using that could be identified, and one of them that we seem to recognize quite often is the snow clearing and maintenance on the parkway and areas within Pippy Park. Mr. Chairman, one solution that the Government could do quite quickly if they wanted to is that the -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: The Provincial Government if they wanted to, quite quickly, if they identify that the parkway and areas within, the University, the Confederation Building, the Health Sciences, it is one of those areas that other people use and the city gets no tax dollars for these areas in the city, and they are an expense to the city is that the Department of Transportation could immediately take over those expenses and -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: They could immediately take over the expenses for that area, Mr. Chairman, and spread the money out. Now that area can also be taken over by a regional government and the one we have now is called the metro board. The one we have now is called the metro board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SIMMS: If you do not know how to act in the Legislature, go outside somewhere.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I have recognized the hon. Member for Kilbride and he is having great difficulty in continuing his debate. If the hon. Member for St. John's South and the hon. Member for Grand Falls want to carry on a conversation, I suggest they go outside the Chamber.

AN HON. MEMBER: Good ruling, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I just said that the hon. Member for St. John's South and the hon. Member for Grand Falls, if they want to pursue a private conversation should go outside the Chamber. The hon. Member for Kilbride.

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

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: And that also applies to the hon. Member for Carbonear.

MR. R. AYLWARD: I cannot hear what I am saying. There is just too much noise here.

Mr. Chairman, if the Government was serious about it initially and the St. John's Members in particular were interested in helping out the City of St. John's to cover some of the costs that they appear to have that other people are using, they could immediately dedicate the Pippy Park area of this Province, which contains the Confederation Building, the University, the Health Sciences Complex, the Marine Institute and the roads that are inside that area, and the Department of Transportation can immediately take over the maintenance, control and snow clearing of these roads. That, in itself, would be a great saving to the City of St. John's so that they would not have this great expense of looking after these roads. These are the roads that the city cannot collect tax dollars on because the Provincial Government does not pay any property taxes. The other option, I suppose, would be is that the Government themselves will pay the property taxes on all the buildings they have. But, I mean, that is not going to come. We know that is not going to come, so a simple solution would be to have the provincial government look after the roads in this area. That would be one solution. But what the City of St. John's is not remembering in what is happening now and what they are proposing now is that they are forgetting so quickly what happened with the Kilbride, Shea Heights and the Airport Heights when they were annexed into the City. They were never amalgamated, they were annexed into the City. Now what happened in those areas, the plan was for a five-year phase-in and for those areas to be up-graded to city standards and then the city take them over. That was a pretty good plan. I remember - I will never forget it - in 1985, it started. On January 1st or 2nd, 1985, there was a snowstorm and the first time I looked out my window, the City of St. John's snowplows were in there. Immediately, I phoned them and asked, `What are you doing in here?' The bureaucrats got together and said it would be much more efficient if we went in there and did all this work, rather than just do the subdivisions, as was planned. Now, the roads were not up-graded to city standards, so the Department of Highways was gone. Now, you have some job to get the rest of them to come back in there and spend the money to upgrade those highways to city standards; so, if the City had stayed out of the area and phased in over the five years, as was planned -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: Get out from St. John's - me? I never came to St. John's on a horse and sled. I do not know what you are talking about. I drove to St. John's all my life. I never went there until I was twelve years old, I don't think, I was in Kilbride all that time.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, if that plan had worked - now, the City is going to do the same thing again, in the Goulds, Paradise and the outskirt areas they are talking about taking on in this new supercity. They are going to go in there and take it over, and it will not be an equalization of payments of taxes for the City of St. John's taxpayers now, it is going to increase the City of St. John's taxpayers' taxes, taking over these areas and trying to upgrade them.

Now, the Member for St. John's South does not understand that, and he should, because he represents an area that was annexed before and that needs lots of money put into it to upgrade it to City standards. And that is started now, but the City taxpayers are paying it, not the Province. The Province is paying nothing, not a jingle. The Province is not paying one cent. They are not paying any in St. John's. They are paying some in Airport Heights.

MR. SIMMS: He did not even know that.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Standard, done for - all municipalities - nothing special for the annexation for St. John's South. Now, Mr. Chairman, that gentleman, who touts himself to be a great member in this House of Assembly, should have known that. He should have known that Shea Heights is not being up-graded as fast as they should, and most of the money spent in Shea Heights has been spent by the City taxpayers. And you are going to take on the same expenses when you take on the Goulds, the same expenses when you take on the Paradise area; and one other thing, Mr. Chairman, the biggest obstruction to any kind of amalgamation in this area, is that the new grant system that this Province brought in this year will cause the City taxpayers to pay more taxes and they will get less grants, the bigger they grow. So, why would the City taxpayers want to take on the Goulds and Paradise, and get less tax money than they are getting presently. The Provincial Government's own new grant system is a deterrent to amalgamation, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, if the Provincial Government wanted annexation or amalgamation to continue across the Province, when they brought in their tax system, they should have put in an incentive programme. They should have put an incentive there to encourage amalgamation. Right now, with the programme that is there, it is a discouragement. If the Goulds stayed on their own, they would get more grant money. Now, that is the same one - not the same one, but it was a similar one we had. We encouraged it. We did the same thing, but we never planned all these amalgamations. We were not looking to get everyone amalgamated. I was quite happy to see these towns like the Goulds, Petty Harbour and Maddox Cove handle their own affairs, because they were building their communities at a pace they could afford, not a pace the City of St. John's wants.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: I did not hear, I am sorry, Mr. Chairman.

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I am encouraged by the last couple of speakers to get up and have a few words to say on the issue of amalgamation, because I am glad to see that the Member for St. John's South has come forth with his position. I hope the rest of the members for St. John's, excepting the Cabinet, who have been keeping their mouths shut on this issue, will come forth very shortly and state their positions.

Of course, amalgamation is obviously an emotional issue and something that people from the communities who have benefitted from their separateness, like Wedgewood Park, no doubt are not going to be very happy with the idea of amalgamation; but I think the people of Wedgewood Park realize that their days are numbered as a separate community. They did a very good job in protecting their self-interest and I do not blame them for wanting to keep it, but I think you will find that those who are the more thinking people of Wedgewood Park will realize that you cannot exist as an enclave in the middle of the city and have less taxes, and yet, get the same benefits as everybody all around you.

It would be like the Member for Port de Grave; if the Member for Port de Grave lived in the middle of St. John's and had enough money to put a wall around his place and if his own water and sewer is there and say: I am here, I do not need your water, I do not need your water, I do not need your sewer, I can provide it cheaper myself, I do not want to pay your taxes, that would not be fair; that would not be fair and the Member for Port de Grave would not try to suggest that he should not pay taxes because he happened to have his own water and sewerage in the middle of a city, and besides, he can afford to pay taxes. But I say, Mr. Chairman, that this whole idea of separateness in the middle of a city is not really something that even the people who are there understand.

The last Municipal elections in St. John's - somebody is making a noise over there, Mr. Chairman, I do not know who it is, it is a bit incomprehensible. But they -

MR. SIMMS: It is the yahoo over there, he never seems (inaudible), that was meant for them, (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: They were not yahoos, they were omadhauns.

MR. SIMMS: Did you see the papers this weekend.

MR. HARRIS: That was meant for them, not you guys.

MR. SIMMS: Yes, that is right.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: I had an interesting experience. I know the Member for Pleasantville would be very interested in this and the Member for St. John's South; the rest of them do not seem to be too interested but, the last Municipal election, I was at one of the polling booths at St. Paul's School and at that school there were a number of people who came in to vote around seven thirty, a quarter to eight and they were coming in to vote and they were disappointed to find they could not vote in the election, they could not vote in this election; they wanted to vote for mayor and they wanted to vote for their favourite candidates; they could not vote because they were told: no, you do not live in the city of St. John's. What do you mean, you do not live in the city of St. John's?

Well, we took out the maps and looked at where their houses were and sure enough, they lived on a street that was in the city of St. John's, but, because the house was turned in a different direction, they actually lived in Wedgewood Park and they did not even know it so they could not vote, so that is how much of an identity there is amongst people who live in the middle of a city after all and they may, for tax reasons, identify themselves as residents of Wedgewood Park, but they are really a part of the city of St. John's.

So, I think the argument about a lot of good supporters, there are a lot of good New Democrats in Wedgewood Park and I think that all New Democrats believe in the principles of fairness and equity and justice and they really mean it, it is not just a slogan to them like this crowd over here; they will talk about fairness, but let us see them impose fairness in this case when we are talking about amalgamation between the city of St. John's, Wedgewood Park and Mount Pearl; if they have the courage of their convictions about fairness they will also include Mount Pearl.

The Member for Kilbride has talked about the services issue and that they could have services cheaper etcetera, etcetera. Well, part of it is a servicing issue, but the real issue is equality and fairness. Fairness of the level of services and fairness of access to all the other services around and if that can happen in this city where cities or the municipalities are cheek to jowl; cheek to jowl enjoying the same services, enjoying the same services in the same area, working in the same locations, travelling back and forth on the same roads and just by some accident of geography, happen to live on one side of the street or other, and therefore enjoy the benefit of the historical accidents of the development of their particular parcel of land on which they happen to live, that is unfair.

AN HON. MEMBER: What are you saying?

MR. HARRIS: It is unfair because much of the value or the ability of Mount Pearl to have cheaper taxes is the result of Government's actions. Government's action in terms of land development through Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation, Government's actions in terms of allocating particular tax advantages to Mount Pearl by including Donovan's Park in Mount Pearl as opposed to some other place, all of these actions are actions by Government which helped to create Mount Pearl as a separate entity and it has developed to this point in time to be a situation that is unfair and I am glad to see the Minister of Municipal Affairs come in, because he knows full well, because he has, within his own district, residents of Mount Pearl living across the street from residents of St. John's and he has to go to them and explain to them, that fairness is involved and that he has to include them in it.

Let us go farther, we have to go out to Conception Bay South; Conception Bay South is out there a product, a product of amalgamation, a product of the amalgamation of nine communities, some of which do not have water and sewer to this day and they have, Mr. Chairman, a massive, a massive problem of capital financing of water and sewer for their residents. Where are they going to get it? Is this Government prepared to say: CBS, you stay as a town on your own and we will inject it to you as a special case, all these dollars which you need? I do not think so! I do not think so!

I think, Mr. Chairman, the only hope for Conception Bay South is to be part of the expanded urban core, where together all of the residents of St. John's and the surrounding area can together work out these capital financing problems. I would ask now, that this Government would have to take some special measures, along with -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: By leave, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is not up. I am just calling order because the Chair is having difficulty hearing the hon. Member.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will speak up a little louder. This Government should take some special measures, and I see the Minister listening here now because I am sure he wants to hear what they are. Conception Bay South has a very serious problem, as anybody who knows anything about municipal affairs in this Province knows, they have a serious problem of a partially serviced town and a tax base that is not adequate to provide all those services that are necessary. Special measures may have to include a national water and sewer program which our party has been pushing nationally for the last number of years. I think that may be an impossibility with the current Government in Ottawa, but is something that will have to come. I think that the current Government of Newfoundland ought to make some commitment to the people of Conception Bay South as part of this amalgamation process to undertake a solution to this problem over a period of years. I think ultimately, Mr. Speaker, that the only real hope for Conception Bay South to participate as fully as it should in the services that are available in St. John's, Wedgewood Park, Mount Pearl, and other municipalities, is to be part of a larger urban core that recognizes that there is an attempt to provide one standard level of services throughout the area, and recognizes that every person will be paying a fair share of the cost of that on a municipal level. When I say that, Mr. Speaker, I also have to be critical of this Government and critical of the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, and also Justice, for some of the things they are doing. Now, they mean seem minor in a grand budgetary scheme but I do think, for example, that the Minister of Justice ought not to change the rules about policing in the middle of the game, in the middle of a taxation year after the Budget has been brought down. I do not see why the City of St. John's, for example, ought to pay the extra costs of policing because it happens to be an event that people from all over the Avalon Peninsula come to attend, the St. John's Regatta, that because the policing is needed. That is a provincial matter. Policing is a provincial matter in this Province and it ought to remain so. As long as that is the case if there happens to be crowds gathered, for whatever reason, the cost of maintaining law and order, the cost of maintaining proper protection for the public is a cost that the Province rightly ought to bear.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I listened to part of what my good friend the part-time Member for St. John's East had to say.

AN HON. MEMBER: The part-time Member?

MR. BAKER: The part-time Member for St. John's East, and I was wondering what is happening here. We are now debating the Estimates of the Executive Council. Now, the Executive Council includes a lot of things. It includes, for instance, the office of the Premier, it includes the Lieutenant- Governor's establishment, it includes the Social Policy Committee, and so on, the Cabinet itself, support for the Cabinet itself, it includes Treasury Board which includes things like Classification and Pay, Collective Bargaining, and that kind thing. It includes the Women's Policy Office and the Advisory Council on the Status of Women. It includes Hibernia and the Hibernia negotiating process. It includes IGA, Native Affairs. There are all kinds of things it includes. And I was wondering if the Member was confused, maybe he thought that we were either into the Municipal Affairs Estimates or the Department of Justice Estimates? I do not really know which Estimates Committee he assumed it was. But I just want to first of all inform him this is the Estimates of Executive Council. I am not so sure he understood that.

So I was expecting when he got up to hear a fair amount about collective bargaining, if he had any interest in it, he obviously does not. I expected to hear a fair amount about Women's Policy, if he has an interest in it this is the place to do it, and he obviously did not. I expected to hear something about Classification and Pay. But obviously he has nothing to say about that. So I kind of wondered what he was up to.

Mr. Chairman, I assumed that he was simply mistaken. And I am assuming the next time he gets up he will deal with these important issues that come under the Estimates of Executive Council. Now, Mr. Chairman, I am going to sit down now because I notice the Opposition House Leader is fairly beside himself. He has a good one to nail me with. He is really going to put me through my patience. Mr. Chairman, so far the Member for Humber East, although she did not ask questions, made some really interesting comments that I responded in detail to. The Member for Grand Falls, the Member for Mount Pearl asked some questions about expenditure heads, and I kind of responded to them. And I am now really looking forward, I am anxious to hear what the Opposition House Leader has to really nail me with because he is so excited. I have never seen him in five or six years in this House, I have never seen him as excited. So, Mr. Chairman, I am looking forward to his comments on something, whatever it happens to be.

MR. SIMMS: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, he is up again.

MR. BAKER: Oh!

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Opposition House Leader, on a point of order.

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just rise on a point of order, I do not want to take away somebody else's opportunity to speak on this side. I know other Members wish to speak, but the next speaker would normally come from this side, after the Government House Leader. So I want to rise on a point of order, to respond to the Minister's dissertation, directed mostly towards the Member for St. John's East when he tried to say, you know, when you are doing the Estimates of Executive Council you are suppose to talk about the Premier's Office, and Treasury Board, Women's Policy. But I want to point out, Mr. Chairman, and, of course, Your Honour is fully aware of this and this is why he has not called anybody to attention, because His Honour knows full well that in your own document of Estimates, the Estimates which we are discussing on page, whatever page it is, under Executive pages 11 and 12, Executive Council, the page Executive Council -

MR. RIDEOUT: With the Crest up there.

MR. SIMMS: - Minister, C. K. Wells, Premier; hon. W. Baker, President of all kinds of things; and then all of the other staff people, right. And it says, description, Executive Council by virtue of the power vested in the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, the hon. the Premier and Cabinet Committees by the Statutes of Newfoundland and by Convention is responsible for the overall operations of the Public Service of the Province, decision making, planning, formulation of policy such as amalgamation policies and other things, and the general development of the province and all its resources. In other words, Mr. Chairman, it is very clear that what the Minister is trying to do is take away and divert Members attention from a very interesting debate that just got started out of the blue on amalgamation, which I thought was a pretty good debate starting to heat up a bit, and he gets up all of a sudden and says, 'Wa wa wa! Nobody is asking me about Treasury Board and my responsibility as President of Treasury Board.' What a pile of nonsense, and, Mr. Chairman, I think I have a very valid point of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the President of Treasury Board to that point of order.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Opposition House Leader in pointing out the fact that under Executive Council there is a certain responsibility for all Departments of Government, and I understand that. As a matter of fact, I believe I pointed out in my introduction at the beginning of the Estimates, if he looks back in Hansard, he will see that. So I believe I pointed it out, and I thank him for reminding the House of that as well. But the real crux of my point, Mr. Chairman, was that my socialist friend from St. John's East, I would have thought he would have been interested in - and sometimes he is called union jackand so on - I thought he would have been interested in union matters in women's issues and so on. I thought that these were the issues he put to the fore and would have a particular interest in them, so it kind of surprised me that he did not deal with them, especially seeing that there is a special section devoted to justice and a special committee devoted to municipal affairs, and a special committee hearing devoted to the fisheries, and a special one devoted to social services, so I am just surprised that he did not deal with the issues that specifically come under Executive Council and I expressed that surprise.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for St. John's East, to that point of order.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I am a little surprised that the President of Treasury Board did not raise this point of order if he thought it was improper to be speaking about other things. He got up and spoke for a while, he read off a few pieces of paper taking up a bunch of time of the House, in an attempt to try and tell this hon. Member when he should speak, how he should speak, what he should talk about, who he should criticize. There is lots of time to criticize the President of Treasury Board. I have managed to do that a few times so far since I have been here, and I have not been here very long. I have certainly managed to find time to criticize the President of Treasury Board. He would not be here today if he had been successful when he ran for us in Ontario. He might be up there with pink Floyd, you know. He might be up there with pink Floyd and Bob Rae running that magnificent government in Ontario. Instead, they are here and they are ashamed, they feel guilty because the Government of Ontario has had the courage to do what they did not, you know. So there is lots of time to criticize the hon. Member and his Government Cabinet, but I got up and responded to the comments of my friend for Kilbride and my friend from St. John's South who are talking about an issue of major importance that we have not heard the Member for St. John's North on, the Minister of Education, yet, and we have not heard from his seat-mate, the Member for St. John's and we have not heard him yet, and we have not heard the Member for St. John's West on it, and I suppose we will, maybe. So, I thought it was interesting that we should comment on that because it is a matter that has provoked, as the Member for St. John's South has said, provoked various cities to spend public money to go to battle over this because this Government will not make a decision. So I thought it was important to bring it up, and I do not see this point of order, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: It is a point of order.

MR. HARRIS: This is his point of order, he was –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: It is not a point of order. What the Minister should have raised was a point of order if he thought it was improper. He did not do that.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is right. (Inaudible).

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

To the point raised by the hon. Opposition House Leader. The Chair does not view that as being a point of order. I think what the hon. Member was doing was perhaps trying to set or explain what he feels are the parameters for the debate. The Chair is listening intently to each of the debaters, and when he feels that the points raised are relevant and not to the topic, we will certainly interject and bring hon. Members to order.

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was reading that time on the distorted images of Meech Lake and nearly lost my turn in getting up, I was really amazed at some of the things that were said in there. It is too bad the Premier is not around. Perhaps we could talk a little bit about it.

The President of Treasury Board: I did not realize that he had as much on his plate as what he did. He almost has his arms around the world. He does. He almost has his arms around the whole kit and caboodle.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who?

MR. PARSONS: The President of Treasury Board.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, he thinks he has.

MR. PARSONS: No, he really has, I mean he has. What is it he is not responsible for?

AN HON. MEMBER: He is a know-all.

MR. PARSONS: Well, I mean, he tries to take the House on his back every now and then. Jumps up on spurious points of order. Then he tries to trample us down to the ground with the hob-nailed boots tactic. He then brings in closure on every single bill that is before the House. He will be known in history as "Closure Baker." And now he gets up and tells up that we are not allowed to speak about amalgamation. The other day he was up here telling us we were not allowed to speak on smoking because that was against his -

MR. SIMMS: That's right, yes. He is after getting some crooked since he gave up smoking.

MR. PARSONS: He is! I wish that the President of Treasury Board would go back and have an odd cigarette. And wean himself off. What happened to him, it was the sudden shock.

MR. SIMMS: Have a chew of tobacco.

MR. PARSONS: Yes, a chew or a cigar or something. A sudden shock has taken all the realism out of him.

MR. SIMMS: You don't me see me getting on crooked like that (inaudible)?

MR. PARSONS: Yes, just look here and you will see your opposite person here on this side of the House as pleasant. And getting up there and pointing out to the President of Treasury Board how wrong his assertions are that sometimes he tries to make in those points of order. A different person altogether. But of course I suppose he did not have the habit as bad as the President of Treasury Board.

MR. SIMMS: I smoked a lot, I smoked a pack a day.

MR. PARSONS: But anyway I was - you know - some things just pass you by, you do not even think about it. When I was listening to the Member for St. John's East and he tried to draw some kind of resemblance between the Government House Leader and Bob Rae. And then you got up and here they were, in the same Party, with the same philosophy, and now so much of a spread - so much difference. There was the old socialist and now the Capitalist with a capital "C." A Right Ringer with "R, R," two capitals.

AN HON. MEMBER: Right cocky he is.

MR. PARSONS: Yes! And right - and what a change of philosophy! I am going to have to sit down and have a heart to heart talk with him some of these days.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: And he was in favour of Confederation - well, well, well. But now we are wondering, what was he in favour off? He was in favour of socialism, now he is not. Now what - capitalism, how long is he going to stay there in that position?

MR. SIMMS: I wonder what struck him between the eyes - something.

MR. PARSONS: Well, seeing that I am a strong capitalist and I suppose a bit of a right-winger, I must say that somewhere, someone influenced him. And I do not but it was his brother George, because George is not -

MR. SIMMS: It wasn't Clyde, he ran against Clyde (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: No, no, he ran up against Clyde. He did not. But anyway he wanted us to talk a bit about what is happening in his Department. I suppose 95 per cent of Newfoundlanders were reading The Sunday Express and other papers during the weekend, where it was spelled out. Cabinet boosted executive pay after Budget crunch. On Saturday night I was out to a little bit of a do, which -

MR. SIMMS: As you do all the time.

MR. PARSONS: As I do all the time. Any time that constituents ask me. If I am available I will certainly go along with them and see what they are doing, and give them a bit of praise where praise is needed, you know.

MR. SIMMS: Makes more speeches in the run of a day than they do mostly in a month.

MR. PARSONS: Well, yes, that is the Conservative philosophy. But anyway, I was out and we were all talking about, you know, and some of the boys were saying, well, you know, it is bad times, what is this Government trying to do with us? And one guy said to me there, he said: I saw where the President of Treasury Board was saying that, well, we have good people, and if we want to retain those good people we have to pay them at least equal to the private sector, more than the private sector.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: Well, this guy was a chartered accountant. And he said to me: do you see the President of Treasury Board very often? I said, yes, I sit right across from him. Well, he said, you can tell him, for a lot less than ninety-five grand he can have my services any day - he is a CA - for less than ninety-five.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: No, you have not. I mean, you know, with his credentials, at about $95,000, that is what those fellows are paid. Look some salaries are up 35 per cent. How can the President of Treasury Board, this was after the Budget was released, how can the President of Treasury Board sleep at night? How can you go to sleep apart from the smoking part of it, well the Minister of Finance how can you go to sleep at night knowing that you raised those salaries when there are people out there that have mortgages on their homes, who are losing their homes, who have payments on their cars and are losing their cars.

AN HON. MEMBER: He fired 3,000 of them.

MR. PARSONS: And you fired 3,000 of them. Then this is an insult to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. And I saw in the paper as well over the weekend where backbenchers, on the Government side, had a job to rationalize that type of thing with their constituents as well as me. I mean how do you look in a fellow's face after getting laid off -

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: No, I do not have the pictures.

AN HON. MEMBER: I have them.

MR. PARSONS: Give them to me! The Member for Pleasantville who is a -

AN HON. MEMBER: St. John's South.

MR. PARSONS: St. John's South.

AN HON. MEMBER: The Member for Carbonear.

MR. PARSONS: The Member for Carbonear spoke out here the other day, and certainly he did not go along with what the Government -

MR. SIMMS: Proposed salary increases for executives.

MR. SIMMS: - was saying and certainly those three men, you know, if I were the Premier tomorrow the first thing I would have to look at is the next three appointments to the Cabinet. It would have to be those men, who were capable of standing on their own feet and speaking out no matter what way, no matter if it is to hurt their colleagues or not. There are things that have to be said. And I congratulate the Member for St. John's South, the Member for Pleasantville, and the Member for Carbonear -

MR. SIMMS: Speaking out against the President of Treasury Board.

MR. PARSONS: Speaking out against the Member for Treasury Board. Speaking out against the Minister of Finance telling them you do not know what you are doing.

MR. SIMMS: Right on!

MR. PARSONS: The other day I was too surprised, and really delighted to hear the Member for Carbonear speak out and say, look, this amalgamation bit no matter what side I am on I cannot be part of that. I do not want any part of it.

MR. SIMMS: He should be in the Cabinet.

MR. PARSONS: Mr. Chairman, I do not have many moments left, and I have to go to the Member for St. John's South, also I suppose I will have to include the Member for St. John's East, although with different stripes. I am almost sure that I was at a meeting one time with the Member for St. John's East, and at that time he was the Federal Member for St. John's East, and he thought that Wedgewood Park was the best thing, better than sliced bread.

MR. SIMMS: Oh, yes.

MR. PARSONS: The best little town in the whole of Newfoundland and Labrador.

MR. SIMMS: Did he mention at that meeting that they should be part of St. John's?

MR. PARSONS: And he never -

MR. SIMMS: He never mentioned that it should be part of St. John's?

MR. HARRIS: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

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

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

MR. HARRIS: Try as I might I could never get the Member for St. John's East Extern to come to any meeting I was ever at, or called, so he must be mistaken, this never took place.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is no point of order.

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

MR. PARSONS: Mr. Chairman, you know there is no point of order. I have counted meetings where I was and the hon. member was, as well, Pouch Cove, Torbay - I am not sure about Wedgewood Park, but Pouch Cove and Torbay, yes, and we were at a couple of gatherings, I think, in Flat Rock. Each time, his statement was clear and right to the point: Wedgewood Park was the best community in the whole of Newfoundland and Labrador, and I cannot see him changing his mind.

Now, as far as the Member for St. John's South is concerned, saying what about Wedgewood Park and what they are getting from the City of St. John's? - They are getting nothing from the City of St. John's that they are not paying for. They are paying for it. They are paying for it. In 1977, no one wanted Wedgewood Park, no one would take them, and it was only a group of citizens got themselves together, made up a delegation, went and sought advice from the Government, sought help, and they formed a local service board, and out of that came what you have there now, the council.

Now, everyone wants it. They did their homework, did a perfect job, did a great job within a community; you cannot fault them for that. They did a fine job, and out there now, everyone is looking for Wedgewood Park, because Wedgewood Park is a money-maker. Wedgewood Park does not have to charge the same mil rate as St. John's.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Wedgewood Park (inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: You might have a point there. I tell you what you could do is take some of the expertise they have in Wedgewood Park and plant them out in St. John's.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

The hon. the Member for Pleasantville.

MR. NOEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The hon. the member for St. John's East Extern is a true Conservative. He is living in the past. Just because Wedgewood Park was not -

AN HON. MEMBER: What are you today, N.D.P., Liberal or what?

MR. NOEL: Take the qualities from all of the parties and you will find I am identified.

AN HON. MEMBER: I would say, you and Frank O'Leary would be together yet.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. NOEL: He is a typical Conservative. Just because something was done that way back in 1970, he thinks it has to be allowed to remain that way.

AN HON. MEMBER: 1977.

MR. NOEL: 1977. What the people on that side have to decide is how they are going to decide on the amalgamation question when it comes to this House, and I think we have a responsibility to hear some suggestions from them and some indication of what they would be prepared to support. It is obviously a difficult question that has to be solved in the interests of all people in this region and in the interest of the whole Province, if we are going to get the kind of revenues we need to get out of municipal taxes, in order to service people wherever they live throughout the Province; to the extent, people who can afford to pay more, in the St. John's region, are not paying more, then the Government will have to tax people more in the rural parts of the Province or deprive them of a reasonable level of services, in order to live within its budget. That is what I think people who oppose amalgamation have to understand, that the people in Mount Pearl and the people in Wedgewood Park have the capacity to pay more and should be paying more to help us provide municipal services throughout the Province. And if we do not get it out of the people who can pay, then we are not going to have the money to provide services in areas where people cannot afford to pay for a basic level of services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. NOEL: I cannot hear you, I am sorry.

I would like to take exception to the position of the Member for St. John's East, in that I do not agree that Conception Bay South should be amalgamated with the St. John's region. I think Conception Bay South is a distinct area, it is a rural area, it is far apart from the center of the St. John's region -

AN HON. MEMBER: Thank God!

MR. NOEL: - and it would be a very costly area for St. John's to take over. In order to provide basic municipal sewer and water services out there, we are looking at, apparently, today, a cost of $50 or $60 million. I would not want to be part of a Government which burdens the City of St. John's with a cost like that today, unless the Provincial Government were prepared to throw a fair amount of money into the pot, and that is what is going to have to happen to provide a reasonable level of services in Conception Bay South, the Province is going to have to contribute.

AN HON. MEMBER: Fifty million will not do it in Conception Bay South.

MR. NOEL: No, it probably would not.

AN HON. MEMBER: It is over $100 million for Conception Bay South, at the moment.

MR. NOEL: Is that right?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. NOEL: So, that is something the Province has to deal with, and I know that the City of St. John's, trying to make like it was a magnanimous gesture, said, `Give us Conception Bay South so that the Province will be relieved of the burden.' I do not want St. John's to assume that burden. I do not think it should, and I do not think it can. So the Province has to decide to deal with Conception Bay South as an entity in itself, I see no advantage to bringing it in to St. John's. The people in Conception Bay South do not want to be brought into St. John's, I see no moral or justice argument for it, so why do it? I see no point in doing that.

I think it is important for us all to get serious about this amalgamation question because this has been going on for two years now and according to the Minister, we might have an opportunity to solve it within the next couple of weeks, but one of the possibilities being considered by Government as I understand it, is a free vote in this House of Assembly.

Now I have a lot of concern about what might happen with the free vote in this House of Assembly in -

AN HON. MEMBER: You will never see one, it will be like the last one.

MR. NOEL: - regard to the amalgamation question, and the last thing that I would like to see happen, is for an amalgamation proposal to be brought to this House and be defeated -

MR. WINDSOR: It will never come here (inaudible).

MR. NOEL: - and be defeated. Well, I mean the -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. NOEL: Well, the Minister has indicated he is going to deal with this question in this session, and some Members on our side have indicated that they may not be prepared to support what people think might be the amalgamation proposal of the Government, and if everybody over there does not support it, then we are going to end up not solving this question and that would be irresponsible I believe, for this House not to solve this question in some fashion, and I think if people do not think that amalgamating Mount Pearl and Wedgewood Park and St. John's and maybe a few other areas is the way to do it, then they should be speaking before the bill is brought into this House, if they think they have a better idea.

I am not for amalgamation because I think amalgamation is a great thing in itself, but I think we have to equalize taxation in the St. John's region, in the interest of other areas of the Province and in the interest of the communities and the interest and fairness of the residents of this area. Now, if somebody can come up with a better way to do it, a better way to do it than through amalgamation, I will be happy to support that, but in the absence of coming up with a preferable way of doing it, then I am going to have to support amalgamation of St. John's, Mount Pearl and Wedgewood Park and Paradise and what ever else might be considered in that particular regard, as long as it is reasonable and as long as it does not include Conception Bay South.

So I think we are going to be facing a serious question in this regard in the next little while and I think it is unfortunate that it has gone on so long; of course it has gone on so long during the term of the previous administration as well -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible), include Mount Pearl.

MR. NOEL: - you people - it is not the case you know and the Member for Carbonear speaks and I forgot that I meant to speak in response to what he had to say the other day to suggest that Mount Pearl is being penalized because we are trying to do what is right in this area, you know. To suggest that Mount Pearl is being penalized, to suggest that it is a Bay Community, to talk in this kind of way that is completely irrelevant to the argument. It does not make any sense to me.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

AN HON. MEMBER: When did Mount Pearl become an outport?

MR. NOEL: St. John's is not advocating amalgamation just because Mount Pearl has something. Mount Pearl does not have more than St. John's, except an unfair tax advantage, except an opportunity not to pay its fair share of the cost of financing services in this region - that is all that Mount Pearl has. The effort to amalgamate this area, the effort to equalize taxation in this area is not a greedy effort, it is an effort to provide good government in this region, and if we do it in the region it will contribute to good municipal government throughout the Province. And if some people think that this is not the direction to go in, let us hear the options you would propose. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, I have not heard all the comments made this afternoon because it was a busy afternoon dealing with some constituency problems upstairs in my office, but I did hear some of them and I have had others related, particularly the comments made by the Member for St. John's South - who immediately is exiting upon my rising in my place.

I have no intention, Mr. Chairman, of responding to the Member for St. John's South I can assure you, or the Member for Pleasantville in any great degree because it is very clear from previous debates in this House that he and I do not agree on basic assessment of the facts at hand. I do not intend to get into this afternoon a comparison, the pros and cons of St. John's verses Mount Pearl as it relates to taxes and who is paying their fair share and who are brown baggers and that sort of thing.

I do want to deal, though, with what is the most important issue here right now, Mr. Chairman, and that is that this Government, as a result of their delaying this issue for two years, is now causing one of the greatest rifts between two neighbouring municipalities who have enjoyed a very excellent relationship over the past number of years. Now I want to congratulate the Member for Carbonear and the Member for Mount Scio - Bell Island who have indicated that they are not prepared to be dictated to on how they will vote on this particular issue. I think where they are coming from, Mr. Speaker, is that they are talking about basic principles of individuals and individuals rights as a Member in this House of Assembly to speak as he or she feels is appropriate. This is not to be - and I suspect that what they are saying is that this is not a political issue, this is a matter of rights of municipalities, and both hon. gentlemen being involved in that area know full well that municipalities must and should have a right to govern themselves.

They are indeed creatures of the Province, through the Department of Municipal Affairs and the Municipalities Act. But we give them in that Act certain rights and responsibilities. What is being proposed here is taking away those rights and responsibilities from people who deserve them, have a right to them the same as everybody else in the Province does, but who are being denied those rights and privileges.

And I congratulate these two Members for speaking out. I suspect there are more hon. gentleman over there yet who will speak out and let their true feelings be known before this debate is all over. But what is happening is that St. John's and Mount Pearl particularly here - and Wedgewood Park and others that are involved, but I speak of St. John's and Mount Pearl - that there is a great rift taking place. And over the past twelve to fifteen years there has been an excellent working relationship between St. John's and Mount Pearl. The Member for Carbonear is quite accurate when he says that it was not so long ago that the city of St. John's did not want anything to do with Mount Pearl or any part of it. We were the poor cousins who had a poor level of service and were never going to be able to contribute. Now all of a sudden they want it.

I think the Members opposite should have a look at what is happening here. Very clearly the people of Mount Pearl do not want to be part of a supercity, do not want to be forced to amalgamate with the city of St. John's. And any of the hon. gentlemen opposite who would like to suggest that that is not the fact is fooling himself. They are fooling themselves if they think that there is any measure of support whatsoever in Mount Pearl.

Now the question is, do the people of St. John's particularly want Mount Pearl? And I would say the answer to that is no. The people of St. John's are not up in arms saying: we want Mount Pearl. We have seven or eight or nine people at City Hall who are saying: we want Mount Pearl. Now why do they want Mount Pearl? A straightforward power struggle and money grab. And I caution hon. gentlemen opposite to going forward with a supercity that would see one third of the population of this Province controlled by the Mayor and Council of the city of St. John's, from their own political hide, from their own political point of view. And far be it from me to protect the hon. gentlemen opposite and their political aspirations. But that is precisely what is going to happen here. I would not want to be the government that had a city that controlled one third of the population.

We see it in Manitoba, where the Province of Manitoba is incredibly unbalanced as it relates to controlling municipal affairs in that province. And it has not worked well. And it has been an ongoing problem for them. Why this Government would even be for a moment considering making that same mistake is above and beyond me.

Apparently there are tax advantages for them. It is straightforward dollars and cents. It is certainly not because they want to come into Mount Pearl and help the poor people of Mount Pearl and provide a measure of services to the people of Mount Pearl. We are quite well serviced, thank you very much, and we are quite well taxed, thank you very much. For the Member for Pleasantville to suggest that people in Mount Pearl should pay more because they are able to, well there are probably 100,000 people in Newfoundland that are able to pay more, but are they suppose to pay for the services of the people of St. John's? What utter nonsense, Mr. Chairman. The people of Mount Pearl do not mind paying their fair share. We do not mind paying our fair share of the cost of services throughout the Province, but to suggest that their freedom, their democratic right to self government within a municipal structure should be taken away so that the people of St. John's should be relieved of some of their tax burden is ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous. It is incredible, Mr. Chairman. I want to say this, I congratulate the City of St. John's.

MR. NOEL: Mount Pearl (inaudible) bills -

AN HON. MEMBER: No, I said, send us a bill and we will pay it.

MR. WINDSOR: The city of Mount Pearl pays every bill. People talk about regional services that the city is providing to Mount Pearl -what are they providing, the use of the Robin Hood Bay dump site.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who pays for that?

MR. WINDSOR: Who pays for that? - the City of Mount Pearl. Who decides how much they pay for it? - the City of St. John's. They send us a bill and we pay it. Who provides bus service? - the St. John's Metropolitan Commission. Who pays for it? - the City of Mount Pearl. Who decides what we pay for it? - the St. John's Transportation Commission. The City of Mount Pearl pays a grant every year. If we are not paying enough let the City Council bill us more, if we are not paying our fair share.

AN HON. MEMBER: Get your own dump and get your own buses.

MR. WINDSOR: Get our own buses. The regional service provided by the St. John's Transportation System is an efficient system, relatively efficient.

AN HON. MEMBER: They will not let you get your own Fire Department.

MR. WINDSOR: Who provides the Fire Department? - not the City of St. John's. The Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs runs the Fire Department. Who pays for it? - the City of Mount Pearl. And, who decides how much? - the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. Where are we getting services for free? I want to congratulate the City of St. John's on being awarded an American Hockey League franchise. I am delighted. I am really delighted, and I am delighted to see that these people will be coming here and that there will be millions of dollars being brought here and what are they -

MR. DOYLE: Where did all (inaudible) come from?

MR. WINDSOR: -another twenty-one brown baggers, is that what they are? It is incredible. I see the Mayor standing up and saying how delighted she is that these people are going to be coming here. That this business is going to be brought into the city. Now she does not say the fact that the city is paying well for it, I suspect on a ballot sheet there is very little revenue going into the City of St. John's. It may well be a negative. It may well be a drain on the City of St. John's, in other words they are investing money to attract these people to the city to create economic activity in the city. Well they have 25,000 tourists in Mount Pearl who are coming here every day spending 87 per cent of their dollar in the City of St. John's and it is not costing the city one cent.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WINDSOR: Not one cent.

MR. BAKER: Order, please! I move now that the Committee rise.

MR. WINDSOR: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I realize it is one minute to. I was in full flight and I will take it up another day, Mr. Chairman.

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

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

MR. BARRETT: 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.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Government House Leader.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, the Committee meetings: first of all, tonight Finance will be in the House. The House is vacant so they will move from Colonial Building to the House. Tomorrow morning, I believe Fisheries in the House at 9:30; and I believe tomorrow evening in the House - Environment. So Finance tonight here. So I believe, Mr. Speaker, these are the Estimates Committee meetings.

The debate tomorrow, of course, we will continue the enjoyable experience of the Estimates of Executive Council.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House at its rising do adjourn until 2:00 p.m. tomorrow, and that the House do now adjourn.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, May 7, at 2:00 p.m.