The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Dicks): Order, please!

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I wish to notify the House that my officials have received the results of the Judicial Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Leonard Roy Trickett. Mr. Trickett died on September 24, 1991, while a patient at the Intensive Care Unit, Health Sciences Centre. The inquiry was conducted by the hon. Gregory Brown a Judge of the Provincial Court.

Judge Brown found that the cause of death of Mr. Trickett was multi-organ failure secondary to the intravenous infusion of Mr. Trickett's bile which had been contaminated by bacteria. Judge Brown further found that this infusion of infected bile occurred during the afternoon of August 16, 1991, while Mr. Trickett was a patient of and confined to bed in the Special Care Unite located on Floor 4 North B of the Health Sciences Centre. Some person having access to Mr. Trickett improperly connected the bile infusion to the intravenous tube thus causing the bile to enter his blood stream.

Judge Brown says and I quote: "There is no evidence that any person, living or dead, who could have observed some other person make such a physical connection has admitted to having made such an observation." He further concludes: "It is however probable that some member of the medical or nursing personnel working in the Special Care Unit of Floor 4 North B during the afternoon of August 16, 1991 and having some responsibility for the proper care and treatment of Trickett made the erroneous connection."

Mr. Speaker, Since this tragic incident the Executive Director of the Health Sciences Centre has issued a policy directive, I am told, to nurse managers and nursing staff which it is hoped will remedy and further problems in this area. The Nursing Unit Departmental Procedures Manual in use at the hospital has also been updated in response to this incident.

Judge Brown has included among his recommendations that all hospitals receiving his report, and that will be all of the hospitals in this Province, examine their existing practices, policies and procedures in light of the Trickett matter and effect such changes or improvements as might assist in the prevention of similar deaths in the future. He further recommends that all medical schools receiving this report examine their curriculum and effect any changes necessary to assist in the prevention of similar deaths.

I may add, Mr. Speaker, that while I do not have copies of the report to lay on the table, copies will be made available for any member who wishes one, simply please, get in touch with me. Copies were provided in advance of this announcement to Mr. Trickett's family in accordance with our usual procedure.

Thank you, Sir.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Judge Brown does indicate that there is no evidence that any person who could have observed another person making this physical connection has admitted to it. He does go on to indicate that it is however probable that some member of the medical or nursing personnel, having responsibility for proper care and treatment of Mr. Trickett, made the erroneous connection. In any event, there was an error made with tragic results, and it is interesting to note that a separate review was done by an independent arbiter, and this arbitrator indicated that certain systems and certain procedures and the stress levels on the workers and overwork, lack of adequate training, and lack of adequate supervision, are all factors that created circumstances that led to this tragic death. I have great fears, Mr. Speaker, with the stress put on our health system today, and with the indiscriminate cuts that are occurring in our system, it can leave us open to a wide variety of problems in our health care system.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Member for St. John's East have leave of the House?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister of Justice for making available a copy of his statement. I agree with the comments of the opposition health critic with respect to the stresses and strains of our health care system, but this seems to be a preventable tragedy, Mr. Speaker, that certainly, procedures could be developed so that physically, this kind of output of bile could not be connected to an intravenous, it seems to me that this is a preventible tragedy and steps ought to be taken to prevent this from physically being possible to happen in the future.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Province's Strategic Economic Plan, released by us about one year ago, contains many items of relevance to the mining and mineral exploration sector in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Action has already been taken on several important issues including the Amendments to The Mineral Act completed in December of 1992 and the positive changes to our Mining Tax regime announced in the March, 1993 Budget. These changes have been very well received by the industry and, in a recent mining publication, a senior partner of Price Waterhouse, Toronto has noted that "these changes will make Newfoundland's tax regime one of the most competitive in the county."

In the Strategic Economic Plan, we have also committed to establish an Exploration Assistance Program to provide for cost sharing of drilling and other advanced exploration projects by local prospectors and Newfoundland-based junior exploration companies. Today, I am pleased to announce that we have allocated $500,000 in this fiscal year for this new Mineral Exploration Assistance Program for 1993-94.

The Newfoundland Exploration Assistance Program will provide financial assistance, up to 50 per cent of eligible costs, for Newfoundland companies with no current income from mining operations, to conduct advanced exploration programs on known mineral prospects. The funding will be primarily for drilling projects but other advanced exploration programs may also be considered.

The program will provide up to $80,000 per project and individual companies may be eligible for assistance on more than one project to a maximum of $160,000 per year.

The program will encourage local companies and prospectors to conduct more exploration in the Province and carry mineral prospects to a more advanced stage whereby they may arrange joint ventures with larger companies, thereby retaining a larger, more significant local ownership in these resources and the revenues which will flow from them. It will also encourage and promote a greater involvement by local entrepreneurs in the mining industry.

Further details on this program are available immediately from the Department of Mines and Energy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. TOBIN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

First of all I would say that anything is going to be of some initiative, or provide some initiative, to people involved in the exploration field is certainly good and positive news, but I say to the minister that what he has done here is precious little. What the minister is talking about here is half-a-million dollars to be put into a fund that would advance the program and provide up to $80,000 per project, which means that we are dealing with six projects, and in case they decide to double up you would be dealing with three projects. So I say to the minister that is precious little, and if that is the Strategic Economic Plan for the mining industry in this Province, then I do not see much hope in it, Mr. Speaker. I think what the minister should have done is provide more incentives, more financial assistance in that regard.

He goes on to talk about whereby they may arrange joint ventures with larger companies. That certainly would be nothing historical, because throughout the mining industry over the years we have seen that taking place, so I say to the minister that the idea is certainly a good one, but the fact that he has put absolutely very little into it does not do much to create much hope.

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. the Member for St. John's East have leave of the House?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I welcome the modest incentive program for new mining exploration in the Province, and I recognize that this Province does not have the capability to provide a massive incentive. The real reason for the substantial decrease in exploration in this Province is the removal of the federal tax incentive which was, in fact, a true regional development program whereby people could invest in new mining exploration. That was taken away by the federal government some two years ago and that is what has really been causing a downturn in the exploration in this Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, seven years ago the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering introduced the first Canadian Occupational Health and Safety Week. I understand as well, Mr. Speaker, it was largely at the urging and recommendation of the current Member for St. John's South who was a past president of that organization.

I am pleased that Occupational Health and Safety Week will be celebrated again this year from June 21-27, and I take this opportunity to remind hon. members and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador of this important week, and the challenges workers face every day throughout the year to improve safety in the workplace and reduce or eliminate workplace accidents.

The mission of the Occupational Health and Safety Branch of the Department of Employment and Labour Relations is to reduce accident rates in the workplace by raising the awareness of employees through occupational health and safety education. We believe that the best way to make workplaces safe is by integrating such knowledge, thus preventing accidents before they happen.

Mr. Speaker, the department recognizes that all workers have a fundamental right to an environment that neither impairs their health nor imperils their safety. The responsibility for developing and fostering a greater awareness of health and safety requires a joint effort by government, employers and workers of the Province.

I am pleased to report that recent injury statistics compiled by the Department of Employment and Labour Relations indicate that lost time injuries continued to decrease over 1992. Preliminary estimates indicate a reduction of some 18 per cent. While a portion of this drop may be attributed to increased inactivity, especially in the fishery, our estimates indicate a real reduction in lost time injuries of approximately 7.2 per cent. Preliminary first quarter figures for 1993 indicate an even further reduction in lost time injuries in the workplace. In addition, the Occupational Health and Safety Branch has been successful in carrying out work in back injury prevention, has examined the implementation of a small business safety management plan pilot project, has introduced an occupational health and safety module in the high school co-operative education program, and is continually increasing awareness through public relations and advertising efforts. The number of occupational health and safety committees in workplaces around the Province has increased by 4.5 per cent during 1992. This increase is significant in light of reduced business activity being experienced by the current economic slowdown.

The theme of this year's Occupational Health and Safety Week is "Work Environment: It's in Your Hands". The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador view this theme as particularly relevant because we believe all of us, including workers, employers, organizations, unions, educators and all levels of government have a role to play in the important task of promoting and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace.

I am pleased to designate June 21-27 Occupational Health and Safety Week in Newfoundland and Labrador and I encourage all hon. members to become involved in promoting a safe and healthy workplace throughout the Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My own experience as a former labour educator and training administrator for an educational fund within the construction industry has made me aware of the need for occupational health and safety in this Province, and certainly, within the workplace.

The minister indicated that over the last year to two years, and indications are that in the next year, the number of accidents will be reduced. I can assure the minister that much work still needs to be done in this area, in workplace safety, in educational safety. He has also indicated to the House and to the members here that through the division of Occupational Health and Safety educational training, they tend to increase the awareness of workers in the workplace to reduce accidents.

In line with that, I want to say to the minister, what he should consider is that many of the workers in the construction industry and other workplaces in our Province today, do not have the ability to have the work environment in their own hands. Many accidents take place because many do not have the ability to read, write, or even interpret basic information. I would suggest to the minister that he, as a minister, should systematically, and on a continual ongoing basis, look at the educational programs within his department to increase awareness. As members on this side of the House, we encourage the minister to do so and certainly will promote health and safety in the Province.

Thank you.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. the Member for St. John's East have leave of the House?

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: I hear no leave. The hon. member does not have leave.

On behalf of all hon. members, I would like to welcome to the House the former MHA for Kilbride, Robert Alyward.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: I would like to welcome to the public galleries twenty-six Grade V students from Cowan Heights Elementary, along with their teacher, Ms Sandra Humber.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: I would also like to welcome fifteen Grade VI students from the Pentecostal school in Bishop's Falls, accompanied by their teacher, Mr. Albert Hodder.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

First of all, a clarification: On Tuesday, the Minister of Fisheries said that the crab plant in Fleur de Lys would not get a new crab processing licence. The minister knows that the people of Fleur de Lys are not looking for a new license. The fact is, they want to get back the old license they had in the beginning. The people of Fleur de Lys have always claimed that the license was taken away improperly. I want to ask the Premier if he has kept his promise made during the election to investigate the circumstances of transfer of the license and to rectify the matter? Has he done an investigation and what did he find?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I have some notes that are not complete, but I can tell you that I did, indeed, keep the undertaking that I gave to the committee. My recollection and what the notes indicate to me that occurred, was that in early 1989, Mr. Quinlan, who owned both the plant at Fleur de Lys and the plant at Old Perlican, requested that the license at Fleur de Lys be transferred to Old Perlican.

There was, I am told - it would be too strong a point to call it a policy, but at least there was a procedure, signed by an assistant deputy minister, in place, that would have required or proposed some public discussion of it, but that wasn't followed. Instead, after the election in April 1989, two or three days before the government changed, the then minister, Mr. Peach, issued a licence or approval for the transfer of that licence. I think, at the same time, he issued another licence to Coley's Point Fisheries, and another licence to somebody else, against the policy with respect to licences, in the last few days, the dying days, of the administration.

MR. ROBERTS: And on the instruction of the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: That is right. I forgot. My hon. friend reminds me, it was done on the instruction of the Premier in office at the time, Mr. Rideout.

When we took office, we became aware of -

AN HON. MEMBER: That isn't true.

PREMIER WELLS: Well, the records are very clear, and the written instructions from Mr. Rideout are there, so it is true. I am not telling you anything that is not true. There has been a thorough investigation.

So, when we took office, we discovered these improper or unfortunate issues of licences, and we - I say `we', the minister acted on it - cancelled one licence and put the others on hold, because some work had been done on it. They looked at the licence - I will speak now specifically with respect to the licence in Fleur de Lys and Old Perlican. They sought legal advice on it. No, it wasn't a breach of the law. Everything was done in accordance with the existing act and regulations, so I can't say there was any breach of the law, but there was certainly a breach of good, common sense, and a breach of principle in terms of taking that action two or three days before the government resigned from office.

They held a couple of the licences for consideration. They also obtained legal opinion on it at the time. The concern was that some action had been taken on the licence that was transferred, that the department or the government could be responsible for some expenditure that had been incurred, so they agreed, as the licence had not been used in Fleur de Lys, and it was the same plant owner - it was not a licence for the people of Fleur de Lys; it was a licence issued to Mr. Quinlan and his plant at Fleur de Lys, and his request was that it be transferred to Old Perlican. The minister approved that on a temporary basis for the balance of the year while he had time to further consider it, and the following year, at the request of Mr. Quinlan again -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: They either want the facts or they don't, Mr. Speaker.

- at the request of Mr. Quinlan, in March 1990, the transfer was confirmed.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the simple fact is that there was no processing or no effort to process crab and, to the best of my knowledge, Mr. Quinlan owned that plant up until last year. Now, whomever he sold it to, now wants a licence again. Well, the government just simply can't do that in those circumstances.

It is regrettable that the former government took the action that they did, but we have to live with the consequences.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Baie Verte -White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: If there was a breach of common sense in the beginning, there was a breach of common sense afterwards.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SHELLEY: The people of Fleur de Lys did not even find out the licence was removed until 1990, over a year later. There was no notice. There was no posting in the newspaper. There was no opportunity for those adversely affected to be heard - no one. That was all contrary to government's own policy. Their own policy of government was all contrary to that.

Is the Premier aware that government's policy was violated in this instance? There was no policy. Nobody knew about it. Will the Premier live up to his promise to rectify the injustice - and this was an injustice - that has been done to the people of Fleur de Lys?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I can confirm that the file indicates that there was no particular knowledge to the people of Fleur de Lys, that they were unaware that this was happening.

MR. ROBERTS: Or anybody.

PREMIER WELLS: Or anybody else, as far as I know. It was Mr. Quinlan who told the government that he had no intention of operating that plant for crab again in the future. That was the undertaking of the owner of the plant. It was not to be operated for crab again in the future. Now, in those circumstances, Mr. Speaker, with the former government having made the decision - they ought not to have done it - they created a difficult circumstance that we had to try as best we could to make the best of, after it had occurred.

Mr. Speaker, I have done a thorough investigation and my promise to the people of Fleur de Lys was to investigate the circumstances of it. I have done that, I am prepared to report to them fully and in detail, the comments I have made here today and I will do that in due course.

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: I can tell you, if you did a thorough investigation, you missed some major points.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SHELLEY: My next question will go to the Minister of Fisheries. The minister said on Tuesday that there is already an adequate capacity for crab processing in that area. Is the minister aware that there are four to six tractor trailers filled with crab leaving the Baie Verte Peninsula every day since the crab season opened? That is thirty-six tractor trailers a week - 280 jobs that is what is happening here. Why is he allowing this to happen? Why is he forcing the people on the Baie Verte Peninsula to stand by while these trucks and their jobs are driven up to the highway? Is he doing anything about that?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, it is not at all unusual to see crab being shipped from one part of the Province to the other. Apparently, you can ship crab now, the full length and breadth of Newfoundland without causing any problems. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, there is enough processing capacity in that area. In fact, crab plants operating in Newfoundland generally are operating far below their actual operating capacity. In that area, Mr. Speaker, back in 1989 when this matter came to light, the crab quotas in that area were very low - in fact, about half of what they are now - while, at the same time, the company operating in Old Perlican had substantial access to crab and they had found a new market for a new product. The crab plant was ready to go. Based on the approval given by the previous administration, they wanted a licence to operate the crab plant. At that time, they indicated quite clearly that they had no further interest in operating the crab plant in Fleur de Lys - that is precisely what was said, Mr. Speaker. It was their plant in Fleur de Lys, it is the same company, Mr. Speaker, and at that time, it made all kinds of sense in the world to transfer the licence.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The minister is going to have to become consistent, because the plant in St. George's never processed herring, caplin or mackerel and just the other day he gave them a licence, with loads of capacity throughout the Province. So, the minister is going to have to be consistent, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Now, Mr. Speaker, the minister and the Premier can squirm all they like - the real reason why Mr. Quinlan said he wasn't going to process crab at Fleur de Lys was because the minister cancelled his licence at Old Perlican, that the former minister had given him. Now, that is the truth of the matter, Mr. Speaker, that is what happened here.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Now, I want to ask the minister this question: Did the minister transfer the licence from Fleur de Lys - by the way, which was issued on February 13, 1989 to Quin Sea, in order to appease Mr. Quinlan because he had cancelled the licence given to him by the former minister, or was it really to avoid a court case? I have information which says the minister was threatened with legal action because he cancelled that licence. Now, was the real reason he did this, transferred that licence from the people of Fleur de Lys, was to stop that court action that Mr. Quinlan threatened on his department?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, it is sort of ironic now that the gentleman who was a member of the previous government, whose colleague in that government, acted improperly -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: By doing what?

MR. CARTER: - by issuing three licences to three different plants including the one in Old Perlican, issued three licences, Mr. Speaker, contrary to their own regulations - it was on that basis that I put a hold on that licence, to give us a chance to review it. And instead of issuing a new licence, Mr. Speaker, which we couldn't do, the only thing to do - and again, on the advice of the plant operator - was to move a licence in a community and a plant where he had no interest in operating, to this other plant that was ready to operate, where they had ample raw material and ample market for a new product.

MR. SPEAKER: Supplementary, the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I say to the minister again, if he had not cancelled the initial licence at Old Perlican and transferred the licence from Fleur de Lys, there would be no problem with the Fleur de Lys situation.

I want to ask the minister: what authority did he have to transfer that licence? The minister in essence now has cancelled the licence at Fleur de Lys. I'd like for the minister to explain to the House and the people of Fleur de Lys what gave him the authority to cancel that licence. Can he specifically refer to the act that gives him that power?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, if he's referring to the licence that was issued by his former colleague, Mr. Peach, to Quinlan Brothers, or the name of the company in Old Perlican, that licence was issued in contravention of their own guidelines. That and two other licenses. In fact, there was a licence, I believe, for crab or shrimp issued to a plant in St. Lawrence. We immediately put that on hold. Mind you, Mr. Speaker, this all happened about three days before this administration was sworn in. Highly irregular.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: After the election.

MR. CARTER: Highly irregular, Mr. Speaker, and it should not have happened. In fact, I'm told there was a gentleman's agreement that it would not happen. So before the hon. gentleman skinned out, before he cleaned out his office, he decided to reward some of his friends with a processing licence. That is the sum and substance of it. Three days before we took office those licenses were issued and we put a hold on them. We had to. Notwithstanding - following that then the Quinlan brothers, or Mr. Quinlan, came in to see me and pointed out the fact that the plant in Old Perlican was ready to go. They had a market. They had people waiting to go to work. They had access to crab. They had a plant in Fleur de Lys they built in the mid-eighties where there was no access, not to any great extent, to crab. Very little. The crab quota, Mr. Speaker, in that area was less than half of what it is now. They decided to move. It was a corporate decision to move the licence from their plant in Fleur de Lys to their plant in Old Perlican.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, it's absolutely amazing. The minister can squirm all he likes. He knocks Mr. Peach for giving a licence to Old Perlican in the first place. He says he should never have done it. Okay? So if we accept the minister's argument for that, how then can we accept the logic that what Mr. Peach did was wrong by giving the licence to Old Perlican, but yet it's alright for this minister to take a licence from Fleur de Lys and bring it down to Old Perlican? I ask the minister. Now explain that to the House and to the people. If they should not have processed crab at Old Perlican, why should the people of Fleur de Lys be victimized because someone came in and put the gun to the minister's head and said: you cancelled my licence, if you don't give me another licence you're going to court. Now would the minister explain that, because that's what happened in this case.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that his former colleague, the Minister of Fisheries of the day, created an impossible situation. Created an entirely impossible situation. He gave that company the nod - for whatever reasons we'll have to leave to our own imagination - to operate; issued a licence that contravened his own regulations; encouraged that company to go ahead and spend money in Old Perlican, which they did. Then we had no choice in the matter, given the circumstances, Mr. Speaker. The company had a plant in Fleur de Lys that they owned in which they had a licence that wasn't operating. He had no intention of operating it and therefore it was transferred.

MR. SPEAKER: I'll give the hon. member another supplementary.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows the truth in what I'm saying here today. The real victims in this situation are the people of Fleur de Lys who are so innocent in all this. If we say Mr. Peach was wrong, if we say the present minister is wrong, still the victims in all this are the people of Fleur de Lys who are without jobs today, because of what this minister has done in removing their licence.

Will the minister make an undertaking here today to undo the injustice that he's inflicted on those people and reinstate a crab processing licence for Fleur de Lys? That's the question I have for the minister. Undo the injustice and do the honourable thing and reinstate this licence to those people who are the victims, whether of Mr. Peach's action or yours. They're the victims of your action. Because Mr. Peach did not transfer the licence from Fleur de Lys to Old Perlican. You did, Mr. Minister.

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

MR. CARTER: Yes, but Mr. Peach, Mr. Speaker, issued a licence to Old Perlican that he had no right to do.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. CARTER: If Mr. Peach had acted properly in the first place and respected their own guidelines then all this would not have happened.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just want to ask one question of the Premier.

Would the Premier be prepared to meet with the delegation that has driven all the way in here from Fleur de Lys?... I only met with them before the House opened and I know they would like to meet with the Premier, because they would like one further chance to be able to explain this case to the Premier and to his Minister of Fisheries, because they have a really strong feeling that all the facts are not known by the Premier and the Minister of Fisheries, would he be prepared to meet with them at some time when he can arrange it after Question Period, or after the House or whatever?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Of course, Mr. Speaker. I am always prepared to meet with anybody and had they asked me, they would have gotten an immediate, positive response, no difficulty at all.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Education.

Many parents are finding it increasingly difficult to be able to purchase school textbooks. The textbook ordering forms were just sent to the schools, just a few days ago, and it indicates that prices have increased by as much as 46 per cent. In fact, the average increase in school textbooks for next year, that is: Grade IX, Level 1, Level 11 and Level 111, the average increase will be somewhere between 26 per cent and 28 per cent.

Can the minister explain the reasons for the large increase in school textbooks this year for Grades IX to Level 111?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, when the Budget was prepared this year, government had to make some pretty difficult decisions in order to balance the Budget. One of the things we did was change the ratio of contribution that government makes to pay for school books. I think government used to pay for 60 per cent of the cost, I am not sure if it is 60 per cent or what it was, but we changed that by 10 percentage points so now, instead of subsidizing a book for 60 per cent of its cost, government is now subsidizing it for 50 per cent of the cost.

Obviously, Mr. Speaker, that will not lead to a 46 per cent increase in the cost of books, so I would suggest to the hon. member, that it is quite possible that the supplier has increased his price of the book, but if, and I would have to take the question under advisement, if indeed the cost of books has gone up to 46 per cent, there must be some other cause of it other than what government had to do in the budgetary process. The most we could have added to the cost of books was 10 per cent, but I would take the part of his question which refers to the 46 per cent under advisement and hopefully get an answer back for the hon. member.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary for the hon. Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, the estimates for the Department of Education showed the total subsidy for school textbooks for this school year has been reduced by $700,000 as compared to last year. Would the minister confirm that in doing this, in essence, we are asking the young people of this Province and their parents, to pay for an undue amount of the burden of balancing the Budget and that this measure is going to have the effect of a substantial impediment to equal opportunity for all students in our school system, because frankly, Mr. Speaker, many parents are not able to put out the average of $200 to $250 that is required to purchase new textbooks this coming September?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, to say that the vote is reduced by $700,000 does not necessarily mean that we are asking the people of the Province to pick up the extra $700,000. That vote pays for different things, one of which is to supply books to the elementary system right up to and including Grade IX, books which are made available free of cost to students in the system, so the $700,000 which he is talking about will mean that the books that we replace to be given out free of cost, to be loaned to students free of cost, we will not be purchasing as many this year for two reasons. One is declining enrollment, Mr. Speaker, we will not need as many books but the other reason is that we think we can get through another year without replacing as many books as you would normally replace from year to year.

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, the minister, I am sure, is aware that this decrease in the subsidy for school text books amounts to a change in the process whereby the department used to pay 50 per cent of the cost where now they are only going to pay 40 per cent of the cost. This is counterproductive to the Province's stay in school initiatives, and as the minister is quite aware more children who come from low income families drop out of school than children who come from the more affluent families, so consequently, Mr. Speaker, this policy is counterproductive to the stay in school initiatives and the $700,000 that is saved will only, in the long run, mean that we will pay the expense of not keeping these children in school and therefore only the more affluent will be able to purchase school text books. We have a substantial case being made here for furthering the inequality that already exists in equal opportunity in education in this Province.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, if we lived in Utopia all text books would be free. Everybody would have a Cadillac parked in their backyard. Everybody would have two or three trips down South every year. If we lived in Utopia it would be like the Big Rock Candy Mountains everybody would have everything. The reality is, Mr. Speaker, we live in a poor Province and we are hopefully coming out of a recession, one of the worst since the 1930s. This Province is having a very difficult time to make ends meet. In order to deal with our fiscal problems government is entrusted with the responsibility to make judgement calls. We have to judge between whether or not you would do something with student/teacher ratio or do something with subsidy for school books. We had to judge whether or not we were going to close the hospital or do something with school books. We had to judge whether we were going to lay off 300 teachers or do something with school books. These are judgement calls, Mr. Speaker, and this administration, at this time in the history of the Province, is entrusted with the responsibility of making these judgements, and we made them based on our principle of fairness and balance.

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

MR. E. BYRNE: My question is for the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations. In the Budget this year he has indicated that there is allocated $600,000 for the Student Employment Program. Can he share with the House and the members here today how many applications have been submitted to his department and how many applications have been approved thus far?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do not have those numbers readily available, other than to say that there were many more applications than there was money to meet the need. In checking with the staff as recently as this morning most of the notifications have been given to those who have been successful, and unfortunately others are getting notification indicating that they have been unsuccessful. If we wants the actual numbers I can try to get the numbers for him before we close today.

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

MR. E. BYRNE: I wonder if the minister could table those for me tomorrow morning? I would appreciate it. There is a very good reason why the minister does not have that information, because I know for certain that there are many more applications that have not been approved yet, that are waiting on his desk for approval, than have been approved. There is a reason for this in my opinion. Half of the employment season for post-secondary students in the Province right now is over and the reality is, is the minister trying to save money from that $600,000, and why is he waiting right now before he approves any more applications? There are officials in his department who have applications stacked up on their desks that high waiting for this minister to make a decision on what he will do with the programs.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is also to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

AN HON. MEMBER: He asked a question, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is not obligated. If the hon. members choses not to answer a question then I recognize the next speaker on his feet.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is also for the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations. I would like to ask the minister why, when his government legislation, even though it reduced the amount of benefits of workers' compensation to 80 per cent of their pre-injury income, why is he allowing the Workers' Compensation Commission, through an administrative change, to effectively have people receive less than 80 per cent of their pre-injury income by virtue of this administrative change of fiddling with the way they calculate CPP, which must be taxed? Why is he allowing that, Mr. Speaker?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The matter that the Member for St. John's East raises, we are not allowing anything any different than what has always been the practice with respect to workers' compensation beneficiaries, the monies they receive, and the offset of any other monies that they might receive.

Currently, anyone who has been on claim for a period longer than thirty-nine weeks would receive a new claim, and this year would receive 80 per cent of their net pay, and if that total amount, as in the past, of money to the claimant on workers' compensation is coming from workers' compensation, then the total amount of it is tax free. If there are other sources of income, then that has always been taxable income, which is now and there is no change. There is absolutely no change in that with respect to anything the government has done at this time. There is no difference today in June than there was last year in June, with respect to whether or not other monies other than workers' compensation payments are taxable by law.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister knows that the change of deducting CPP and other offsets from gross pay to net pay results in them being penalized by income tax twice, by first of all going to net pay, which takes into account income tax, and then by reducing the net pay by the CPP benefits. Effectively the individual gets less than 80 per cent. The minister knows that is a change, and it results in a payment of less than 80 per cent. The question remains: Why is the minister allowing that to happen?

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

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

I am trying to point out, as I have in private conversations with the Member for St. John's East, that it is not a matter again of the government, or myself as the minister, allowing anything to happen.

The things that occurred, as I remind the Legislature on occasions when I get asked questions about workers' compensation, were necessary changes to save the whole system from sure and certain bankruptcy. That is the reality. The changes that are occurring administratively within the commission in terms of some income to an injured worker coming from a source other than the commission itself, makes no difference this year in June than it did last year in June.

If there are other monies which are deemed to be income for purposes of income tax, they were taxable a year ago, if the person had other income, whether it be Canada pension or other earned income, they are taxable this year and, in most cases, unless the benefit, particularly from Canada pension disability, is extremely high, then even though that is taxable at the beginning, unless it exceeds the $6,600 a year, which is the basic personal exemption, then there would be no tax from that amount either. Unless there is a very large payment under a disability plan or from other earned income for the person, the people are not paying tax.

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for St. John's East.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, if there were no savings then the minister would not be saying in the House that by making the changes he is making in the bill now before the House, that there is going to be half-a-million dollars cost to put it back.

Mr. Speaker, what we have here is individuals being penalized for having Canada pension plan income instead of just workers' compensation income. I ask the minister: Why does he not insist that workers' compensation ensure that they receive 80 per cent net of their salary, which is what the act says they are supposed to receive?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We have reviewed that issue on a number of occasions, and we are completely satisfied - we were then and we are now - that an offset system for income such as Canada pension disability earnings is appropriate in workers' compensation, that it should remain, that it will remain, and it will be treated for taxation purposes the same now in 1993 as it was in any previous year, and that any administrative adjustments that the board of directors of the commission deem are appropriate for the calculation, that we have not interfered and that we have allowed them to exercise their autonomous right to make those kinds of decisions on behalf of the workers' compensation system, and we see nothing wrong with the method that they are using.

The bill that was in the House yesterday, which we discussed, was to correct the problem of people who had been on the system previously that we had given a commitment to leave them untouched.

MR. SPEAKER: Question period has expired.

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

MR. FUREY: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday I was asked a question about the 1-800 number with respect to the Enterprise offices across the Province. This number has been suspended since mid-April. It was costing the government some $60,000 a year. The usage was extremely low and we've had zero complaints.

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the House the hon. Member for Grand Bank, the Opposition House Leader, asked a question about the damage being done to the lumpfish fishery by virtue of the fact that lump roe is extracted from the fish. The fish then of course dies. I promised to find out what's happening, what's being done.

Yes, the technology that he referred to - I believe it's Norwegian technology - is known to a limited extent in this Province, but there does seem to be some problem as to how it can be used. The experts say that maybe it'll be too ripe for processing purposes. Lump roe taken by means suggested by the hon. gentleman. Here in Newfoundland there is an experiment going on, funded by NIFDA, at a hatchery in Wesleyville, through the Cape Freels Development Association, where they are experimenting with the very thing that we talked about, finding ways and means of trying to extract roe from the fish without killing it.

As soon as I have something further on that experiment, Mr. Speaker, I'll report back to the House.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you (inaudible), Mr. Speaker. I rise to present a petition of the undersigned residents of Baie Verte - White Bay. A request that a primary processing licence that was issued to the crab plant in Fleur de Lys and that was transferred by your government to Quinlan Brothers Limited, Old Perlican, be reinstated back to the Fleur de Lys plant, wherefore the petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to act upon this matter immediately due to the economic woes of this district with the fishing season fast approaching. I have a petition of just over 1,600.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: On the petition. We the residents of Baie Verte - White Bay do request that a primary processing licence that was issued to the crab plant in Fleur de Lys and that was transferred by your government to Quinlan Brothers Limited, Old Perlican, Newfoundland, be reinstated back to the Fleur de Lys plant. Due to the economic woes of this district, and with the fishing season fast approaching, we ask that you act upon this as soon as possible. Included in the list below will be signatures of some 300 people who could be now working in the plant in Fleur de Lys.

These people, as you can see by the amount of signatures we have here, it is a peninsula thing. It is not something that is just for Fleur de Lys. Fleur de Lys is a small community of only 300 people. Three hundred people worked in this plant who were from all over. As a matter of fact they were even from off the peninsula. They came from as far away as Springdale and even Little Bay Islands when Little Bay Islands was closed down last year. The support - it was the sole biggest employer on the peninsula last year. The mining situation, as the Minister of Mines and Energy knows, has dropped significantly over the last few years. This was the only bright spot last year. The little community of Fleur de Lys had 285 people working down there. There was business in the community. There was business all over with the hotels, gas stations, stores, everything else, that brought a lot to it. Although in earlier years it wasn't so active I can tell you that last year especially they showed that they're a strong viable plant. They should be reconsidered very favourably.

I want to just reiterate the point that this plant means a lot to this district. As far as being adequate, this is the only plant operating on that peninsula. Fifteen thousand people, it is the only crab plant operating. It is very important to these people. I would like for the government to reconsider all the facts before a final decision. Thank you.

MS. VERGE: Isn't the minister going to respond to the petition?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I'm not going to reply in detail to the petition. The Premier and I will be meeting with the delegation from Fleur de Lys in a few minutes and then we will discuss it with them there.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, perhaps it would help if I could indicate to the House the business which we propose to ask members to consider today. We propose to start with second readings and if members have their Order Paper, we will deal first with three, which my friend, the Minister of Finance will present to the House.

Bill No. 16, stands in my name, but as I explained earlier, I have a conflict because, while at the Bar, I had a brief in respect of a matter that is in one section of that bill. Bill No. 16 is Order 14; Bill No. 11 is Order 13; and Bill No. 21 is Order 12. We will do those three first, after which we will do the Retail Sales Tax amendment which is Bill No. 20 and Order 11; then, we will do the other two second readings, The Law Society Act and the Internal Economy Commission Act amendments. When that is done, we will ask the House to deal with Committee and third readings for which, of course, we will need leave, and I anticipate there will not be a Late Show, Mr. Speaker. This being Thursday, I anticipate there will be no Late Show and we will aim to get out of here as quickly as we can, but just in the event we perhaps need a few more minutes, I will move that the House do not adjourn at five.

MR. SPEAKER: Yes. I take it the hon. member is not making the motion now - I understood you to say that you will move?

MR. ROBERTS: Well, I do move, then.

MR. SPEAKER: I just want to be clear on what is being proposed.

There is a motion before the House, moved and seconded, that the House do not adjourn at five.

All those in favour of the motion, 'aye', `contrary-minded', `nay', carried.

MR. ROBERTS: If we could start, Mr. Speaker, with Bill No. 16, Order 14.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Insurance Adjusters, Agents And Brokers Act", (Bill No. 16).

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Very briefly, this particular piece of legislation is not one of the heaviest pieces to come before this House in this session. Very simply, Mr. Speaker, I will just go through it clause by clause.

Clause 1 clarifies that the Minister of Justice is the minister responsible for the administration of the Act.

Clause 2 would require licensees to carry errors and omissions insurance, and that is obviously for the protection of the clients.

Clause 7 would allow a person to make application to the minister for an extension under section 30 for up to 12 months, which would make it more convenient.

Clause 8 gives authority to the superintendent to make compliance orders if a person is not complying with the provisions of this Act, and would establish the procedure to be followed where property is held in trust, but it also, Mr. Speaker, sets out an appeals process for aggrieved persons in either instance, and I believe that appeals process is to the minister - yes, an appeal lies to the minister if an order made under subsection 1.

Clause 9 is perhaps the most significance clause in this particular bill. It repeals subsection 45 (4) dealing with the liability of directors, officers, or partners for damages arising from negotiations of insurance contracts or the settlement of insurance claims, and the reason we are repealing this, Mr. Speaker, is because of the nature of that business, where people who sit on boards of directors would have no way of having any knowledge of transactions that go on in the field and, in its place, Mr. Speaker, there is a requirement that proper bonding be in place to protect the investors. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, obviously, people sitting on boards of directors, who have knowledge of and make decisions with full knowledge, would still, I suppose, be liable if they knowingly commit an offence against any section of the Act.

Clause 10 increases penalties to $100,000 for first offence, $200,000 for each subsequent offence and the penalties would apply equally to a natural person or a corporation. The liability of directors or officers would be defined and the authority to order compensation or restitution would also be granted. That is in accordance with Clause 10.

Mr. Speaker, I present this for consideration of the hon. House.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think this may be a case of the blind leading the blind. The minister who just introduced the bill doesn't seem to be familiar with its purpose or the series of events leading up to its preparation. This is a Justice bill. The Minister of Justice explained why he can't participate in the House of Assembly's consideration of it. I was Minister of Justice, but during the four years I was minister, the department did not have responsibility for Consumer Affairs, so I am no more knowledgeable than the Minister of Finance. Unfortunately, because he did nothing more than outline the explanatory notes, and he did that in a low voice, I am at a disadvantage in responding here.

I would be interested in knowing what prompted the government to bring forward this bill. I take it there has been a concern about a lack of protection to consumers. There was the George Rideout catastrophe in the Corner Brook area, which was publicized nationally. It led to the longest criminal trial in Canadian history.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) the Act.

MS. VERGE: Mr. Speaker, I will gladly yield to the minister for him to elaborate on the explanation.

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

MR. BAKER: Very briefly, Mr. Speaker. Section 45 of the Act put the liability directly on - or the directors of the insurance company had direct liability for the decisions that were made in that industry relating to that company. This, number one, was unnecessary, because if proper bonding is in place, the consumers are protected anyway. But secondly, the way the insurance industry is set up, the directors are not like directors of a normal company that have more of a direct hands-on running of details of the company. Because in the insurance business a lot of the transactions take place out with insurance agents and all this kind of thing. So they are more removed from these types of decisions and perhaps should not have to shoulder the total liability. Perhaps the bonding was a better way of handling consumer protection. But, in instances where there were breaches of the Act by officers of the corporation, or by boards, by the directors, then we would increase the fines.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for elaborating on his explanation of the purpose of the bill. I trust what is at the bottom of all this is enhancing consumer protection. I mentioned the George Rideout episode which led to staggering losses by individuals, mainly in the Corner Brook area. There have been other well-publicized instances of consumers losing because of illegal or shoddy practices by insurance companies.

Quite honestly, I can't really follow the minister's explanation. It may well be so that this bill does plug gaps and enhance consumer protection. I am just not convinced from what the minister said. I have to confess, I missed some of his initial presentation. Perhaps, when the minister speaks to close the debate, he can provide more information.

Mr. Speaker, we,in the Official Opposition, will have no hesitation to support a measure that provides greater protection to consumers in their dealings with insurance companies and investment companies. We are quite concerned to have a legal regime whereby individuals who turn over their money to insurance companies or investment companies can be protected from abuses. We would certainly support increasing penalties for abuses which are defined as offenses.

Mr. Speaker, I will take my place and wait to see if one of my colleagues - perhaps the Member for St. John's East will want to participate in this debate and enlighten us a little more, and then I await the minister's concluding comments.

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

MR. WOODFORD: I would like to ask a couple of questions of the minister concerning this bill.

Clause 9, subsection 45(4) dealing with liability of directors and officers: The bill covers insurance adjusters, I take it, insurance agents and insurance brokers. If that is the case, the directors or officers of a company are not the agents. What responsibility does an agent have? I have examples, and I guess some members opposite had examples over the last couple of years, of an insurance company in the Province which insured the fishermen and their boats, I know, in the White Bay area, and after two or three months they were told, after paying the premium - the premium had to be paid up front. In fact, it was taken out of the loan board - any fisherman who had loans from the loan board, it was a requirement that the insurance had to be paid. Some of their monies were paid and premiums paid out through the loan board to this particular company. I have it in my file - I just forget the name of the company up there now. But, in any case, they were left without any insurance whatsoever and this particular agent walked off scot-free. Now, under this particular clause, it says, `dealing with liabilities of directors, officers or partners'. Now, the partner might define, maybe, the agent, I do not know, but I would like the minister to clarify that.

Going over to the back, on the last page, under Penalty on 46(2); "Every director or officer of a corporation and every person acting in a similar capacity or performing similar functions in an unincorporated association and every member of a partnership who," - my question is: Does this just refer to an unincorporated business? Because, if that is the case, that is very, very dangerous, Mr. Speaker, because all those companies, and there are some small ones out there, but all of those larger companies are incorporated naturally; but the danger I see is in brokers. The agents usually are set up in an area where everybody knows who they are and what they are and so on, so what would they be responsible for? My prime consideration and concern is with the agents. I have seen, and I am sure hon. members opposite have seen, over the years, some bad claims and some bad deals with regard to agents with insurance companies. Now, are they liable? If they are just as liable as the directors of companies, then sobeit, but if the directors of the companies are liable for their agents, which is what I can understand under this particular section, then the individual, claimant, constituent or client whichever way you want to phrase it, maybe they are covered. That is one of the concerns I have had. I have seen cases where the Superintendent of Insurance in the Province had to act; I remember years ago when I was on the Federation of Municipalities,when they were talking about insurance for the municipalities in the Province; I have seen cases where fishermen in the White Bay area, my district, have been hurt by claims and by agents who have sold them insurance and found out a month afterwards that it wasn't any good. In Clause 10, look at the back under Penalty - it says, a natural person or a corporation - that is the only thing that I would like to have clarified. Because if they are not protected through an agent, then, as far as I am concerned, you have a long court battle afterwards, from my experience. If it is just the directors and the officers in the hierarchy above, then I don't think that protects the individual in the community who, innocently enough, will go in and buy insurance and find out a month later that they have a problem with it.

That is just a question to the minister. Maybe he would like to respond.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have to confess to being not totally familiar with all the provisions of The Insurance Adjusters, Agents and Brokers Act, and the amendments that are being made before the House. Of course, part of it, I suppose, is that these amendments have come forth in the last couple of days only, and most members have not had a chance to read the legislation in detail, let alone consider the consequences of it. I think it is an unsatisfactory way for the business of the Legislature to be carried on, and hopefully, it won't happen in the future, if we have our new rules up and running - the new rule just recently passed - and that all of these matters are put out to a committee and at least there is some time to consider them.

This Act seems to be not merely an adjustment in legislation, but there are some new principles involved - and some important principles. I think some of them are quite important. I was looking, in particular, at the provision with respect to the requirement that licensees, insurance brokers and agents and adjusters be required to have errors and omissions insurance, or insurance for negligence, as it is known. I think that is a very important provision. We come across cases all the time, as Your Honour would know, from the practice of law, where there have been mistakes made by insurance agents in the completion of forms and the coverages involved, and we find out after the fact, when there has been a fire, that the instructions that were given by an individual to an agent weren't carried out, or certain coverages weren't put in place or, in fact, the wrong advice was given to an individual seeking insurance. And the end result is that they are not covered for what they think they are covered. Their building burns down, or they are involved in some sort of a claim against them, and all of a sudden they find out that their insurance doesn't cover it. It ends up being very messy.

The legal cases involved are quite complex, and uncertain, moreso, and often result in an inability to recover. Even an agent involved quite often is not a substantial individual or corporation and may be just a small business in a local community that has an agency for a particular company, and the agent, the company, for whatever reason, the insurance company, itself, cannot be held liable and you are left with a claim against somebody who doesn't really have the ability to pay.

I think that is a very important addition, because it is the kind of business that sometimes people get involved in. They don't necessarily know all the complexities even though they may have a licence and may have undertaken a course of instruction in order to get a licence. There are lot of complexities involved and there is every reason why they should be insured in order to protect the public. So I think that is a good step and one that I could support.

I am glad the Leader of the Opposition agrees that these are important points to be made. I think he even likes my speech, he said, so I am pleased with that because it is an important change.

I have a concern about item No. 7, and perhaps the minister can explain it. I didn't hear his explanation, if he gave one. It is an amendment adding, after section 30, an opportunity to exempt persons from the requirements of section 30 of the Insurance Brokers Act. I find it curious that the government would want to have that power, since section 30 of the act is the most important section, providing that all funds received by an agent or by a broker, or by a representative of an insurance company, are, in fact, trust funds being held on behalf of the insured - all monies held from members of the public are, in fact, trust funds, and that those trust funds are not, therefore, the property of the insurance agent or the insurance company. They can't be subject to execution - and I do not mean having your head chopped off - but they cannot be subject to being taken by a creditor of the insurance agent. We have had a number of situations where insurance agencies may go bankrupt. We have had it happen recently in the City of St. John's and the question comes up as to what happened to the premiums that were received by the insurance agent, or members of the public for policies? This legislation, Section 30, say that these monies will be considered trust funds and therefore are in fact not the property of the insurance agent at all but are in fact the property of the insurance company on behalf of whom they are collected.

MR. MURPHY: (Inaudible)

MR. HARRIS: They cannot be used by the individual agent, broker, or whatever it is, accepting this money. It does not make any difference, I say to the Member for St. John's South, whether it is an agent, a broker, or a representative of the insurance company. The funds these companies will receive under Section 30 are considered to be trust funds and that has as important consequences for creditors trying to get at these funds as important consequences for the insurance companies who might then be more able to be held liable on policies that were suppose to be issued. It seems to be that obviously the actions of an agent, a broker, or a representative, in doing something with those funds other than passing them on to the insurance company, also makes it a much more serious matter.

My point is that Section 30 of the act serves to make the handling of this premium money a very serious matter as opposed to be just the same as if you were running a corner store and taking in monies over the counter. What do you do then? You put them in your pocket or you put them somewhere else and as long as you pay your bills nobody is going to be worried, as long as the Minister of Finance gets his RST. In fact some stores use to have this habit of whenever they took their money in over the counter they used to have a jar, but I think it is probably a garbage bag now, or a garbage bin, and they would put the three or four cents retail sales tax into a separate jar. I remember that in some dry goods stores on Freshwater Road, the Higher Levels they called it then, when I lived on Parade Street down around the corner the dry goods store used to have a little jar next to the cash register and when you paid your sales tax there would be a little jar for Joey. They put in a few cents for Joey every time they made a sale. Well, that is now regarded by the retail sales tax, as the Minister of Finance knows, as trust funds. These are trust funds and are not for Joey anymore. They are regarded as trust funds now and the creditor of the store cannot take the money, and in the same way Section 30 of the act makes the premiums received by an insurance agent or broker treated in the same manner. The commissions are the funds of the agent but the premiums less the commissions do not belong to the agent at any time. They cannot be taken by the creditors of the agent and in fact they are the property of the insurance company. That Section 30 then is a very important provision because it makes it clear that these are not the agents monies and that the agent cannot do what he pleases with them. The penalties, of course, for dealing with trust monies are far more serious than they might be for dealing with other money belonging to other people. If there is a breach of trust involved we always see the courts acting in a very strong manner towards people taking those funds and using them for their own purpose. I would like the minister to explain why it is that Clause 7 of this legislation allows the minister to give an exemption. Now, the minister is standing there so maybe he can give an explanation. I know he is not going to participate in the debate but I suppose in the same way that an official might supply a minister with information to supply to the House, I am sure the Minister of Justice, I would have no difficulty certainly with the Minister of Justice explaining to the Minister of Finance, so he could tell the House, why it is that such an important piece of protection of the public would be able to be exempted by the minister upon an application of an individual. Why that period might not exceed twelve months from the date of the proclamation of the Insurance Adjustors, Agents And Brokers Act. That Act was proclaimed in 1986 sometime.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Whenever it was proclaimed. Looking at the Act it says that it's to be fixed by a date set by proclamation. That particular part was passed back in 1986. So I assumed that between 1986 and now the Act had been proclaimed. So I wonder why we need that provision. Perhaps there is a reasonable explanation, or even an unreasonable explanation. I'm sure there must be some explanation as to why the minister wants that. It seems to me that Section 30 is a very important provision and ought to be followed to the letter.

I also agree, Mr. Speaker, with the increase in the fines, although I don't know where the numbers $100,000 or $200,00 came from. The previous section having to do with penalties provides for a fine of up to $2,000 on summary conviction, and in default of payment to imprisonment for a term of not more than twelve months, or to both fine and imprisonment, with a corporation or partnership being possible to be fined on summary conviction to a fine of $10,000.

I have a concern that there has been removed from this penalty the possibilities of jail. I'd like to know why that is. No difficulty increasing the size of the fine. We can have corporations or companies in particular trying to benefit by carrying on in a manner that's contrary to the Act to their profit, and there should be sufficient deterrence there. But if we're going to be saying to insurance brokers, agents and representatives, if they have very important requirements under this legislation, and if they act in breach of these regulations and don't hold these monies in trust, which they're supposed to, use them for their own purposes, carry on with clients' money - why should they be limited to a fine and only have the possibility of the fine, when the previous legislation provided for a fine or imprisonment up to twelve months, whether in default of payment of the fine or not?

That seems to me to be an important question. Why are we only dealing with money when it comes to insurance brokers, agents and representatives breaking the law, when in almost all the other regulatory legislation, if you have somebody - I'm not suggesting that any person who violates the Act would be deserving of the penalty of a jail term, whether it be two months or six months or twelve months. But that option of a jail sentence as a deterrent for an individual who is acting in total defiance of legislation that's designed to protect the public such as this, then the option - I see no reason why they should be made a special case and insurance brokers and agents not be subject to a jail term in an appropriate case. There's been no explanation forthcoming. I don't think the minister addressed that when he spoke on the Bill. I'm sure his knowledge of the Bill perhaps is not sufficient to be able to answer that question, but I think it's something deserving of an answer.

In principle, of course, as this is second reading of the legislation, I'd have to say that I support the principle behind increasing the fines. I support the requirement that there be errors and omissions insurance provided by all insurance agents, brokers or representatives. The amount is to be determined by regulation. Perhaps the minister can say what amount is being contemplated by the government in these circumstances. I know a single insurance claim, or a single claim against an agent, could well be in the hundreds of thousand of dollars, if you had an error made in the putting in place of policy and you had a $500,000 fire, or a $200,000 fire, or a $1 million fire.

It's not too much trouble to have that kind of fire in this Province, Mr. Speaker. We had a terrific fire out in Grand Falls recently in a warehouse that cost several million dollars. It was caused by a fire in a truck. A fire in the back of a (inaudible) I guess they are called, a refrigerated truck, there was a fire in the back of that and that caused the warehouse to burn down causing several million dollars worth of damage. If there was an error in a policy, an insurance policy, insurance coverage caused by an agent or some person involved in this particular transaction, they could easily see a very serious claim there, so I am curious as to what amounts the government is contemplating as the minimum amount required for errors and omissions insurance for insurance agents.

I know lawyers are required to have errors and omissions insurance and with good reason, so it appears from the claims experienced that has been reported to the Law Society over the last number of years, and the size of the extent of the coverage is required to be fairly great because errors made by lawyers can cost clients a considerable amount of money even for one transaction, so that part interests me, but I would like the minister, when he closes debate at second reading to provide an explanation for clause 7, and an explanation as to why we are being asked to remove the possibility of a jail term for individuals who are in violation of this act.

We have an additional requirement of an order for compensation being able to be made but we do not have any jail terms any longer permitted. The other issues seem to be bringing the act into conformity with other types of legislation and I have no comment on them, so in saying that I support, on behalf of the New Democratic Party, the provisions of this legislation, I would close my remarks at second reading.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, there are a few points I want to make on this bill to the minister and I do not profess to have any great knowledge of the insurance industry either, although my wife is an agent, therefore I have some sensitivity to some of the things that I hear.

My first question to the minister, and I do not know if the minister can answer it, but is the insurance industry aware of this, what consultation took place with the insurance association or whatever there may be in this Province, prior to bringing this legislation forward, are these companies who are involved here, aware of what is being proposed and what are the impacts on it?

We have talked about for example, the errors and omissions insurance and it is very difficult to argue against that, but what is the cost and, are all the agents aware that this is an additional cost? I am not sure that they all have that kind of insurance at the moment. I do not disagree with it but let us find out what the cost is and what will be the impact on the clients, on the consumer therefore, so I am interested in that. I will not take the opportunity to say that there are agents and then there are agents, unfortunately. I have discovered that in my brief exposure to the industry, and perhaps, maybe the minister can address that or perhaps he cannot, I do not know, if not, we should have somebody available to us, but I guess the bottom line of what I want to say this afternoon is, does this legislation have to go through now? Could we not refer this to a committee?

This appears to be exactly the sort of thing that should go to a committee, a Legislative Review Committee, so that knowledgeable persons can be called before the committee and I do not expect the minister to be able to answer the types of question that I want answered this afternoon or that of other hon. members have asked as they have spoken, this afternoon. Is there an urgency that requires this to go through? Could we not, very usefully, refer this to a Legislative Review Committee, so that we could have an opportunity, those of us who may have an interest in it, and you know, I confess that I have some special interest because of my wife's involvement, but could we not have a proper review so that proper people from Consumer Affairs can be called in, so that representatives from the insurance industry can be called in and that we can have an opportunity -

The first I heard of this piece of legislation is when I sat here in my seat this afternoon and I must confess I had not seen the bill, so I am not really prepared to ask the types of questions I would like to ask, but I want to say that there are a lot of other things that need to be looked at and the committee could very well get into that. I am aware of examples of conflicts now between banks and insurance companies, and I think this is outside the purview of the provincial legislation. Banks have now been given the right to get involved in areas that have traditionally been the field of insurance companies. One example that comes to mind is registered retirement savings plans. Banks are now selling those. I recently went into a bank and I was passed a card by a teller, who was doing her job, but she passed me a card and asked: do you know about our RRSP plan? Then, as she was no doubt told to do, she asked me: are you interested in RRSP? I said: no, I am not.

AN HON. MEMBER: As a matter of fact, she probably had a quota.

MR. WINDSOR: That's right. She had her quota. She asked, you know: do you mind telling me why you're not interested? I said: because if I'm going to invest I will invest in an insurance company. Because what consumers don't know is that if you buy an RRSP from the bank, and your account is at that bank, that bank can take funds from your RRSP to cover other debts that they have, which they cannot do - I doubt that there's anybody else in this House - I probably wouldn't know except for my involvement. Again, I stand to be corrected on that, but that's the information that I've been given.

So there are many questions I'd like to find out about the insurance industry, and the interrelationships between banks and insurance companies. There are other investment groups that are out competing for investment funds. That's fair ball. What controls do we have on these people as to what they're telling clients? I am aware of many people who have cancelled life insurance policies into which they'd been paying for many years. We all know that once you've been paying into a policy for many years, or a policy you bought say twenty years ago, you could never hope to get the kind of life insurance coverage that you've gotten from that policy for the same price today. Prices have gone up so dramatically over the last number of years.

There are investment companies now that are convincing, persuading people, to cancel their life insurance funds, take the cash value out, and transfer it into various types of investment certificates. Which do not have the same level of security, which promise a greater rate of return in the short term, but do not have the long- term security.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) protection.

MR. WINDSOR: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: And don't give you any insurance protection.

MR. WINDSOR: Do not give you any insurance protection, and do not give the long-term financial rewards. They're sort of - what they do, in fact, is put in place an annuity. You can do this with insurance. You can take your insurance cash value at the end of the term and you can roll it into an annuity, which gives you a considerable amount of funds for the next fifteen years, or whatever the term of the contract might be. But at the end of that time you have nothing left. Your money is all gone. So if you had $100,000 cash value that you'd built up over your lifetime, you rolled it into an annuity, you draw out of that annuity for a fixed period of time. Well, a minimum period of time. In some cases you draw it until your death. It will be paid until death.

So if you put it in at sixty and you live to be seventy-eight, you would draw until seventy-eight. But if you died at age sixty-five it stops. Well, there's probably a minimum ten year type payment, so the estate would continue to get paid for five years, but at the end of that your $100,000 is gone. Whereas in other forms of investment you can invest your money in, and you will get a return on it, and at the end of the term, or on your death, the estate gets the whole amount of the principle.

But we have too many people who are not regulated, as the insurance industry is regulated, who are out there now in the marketplace competing with legitimate insurance companies for that same investment dollar, promising all kinds of returns, giving false information, in many cases, to the client, and the average client does not understand the world of insurances and investments and annuities and all the rest of it. Very few people in society truly understand it, unless you're in the business or have made it your business to learn a great deal about it. Maybe if you're in a legal profession you've learned about it, or in the business area, but most people don't.

A lot of people are being given bad advice and are cancelling life insurance policies that are tremendous investments for them, that they've built up over a long period of time, and they could never hope to get that kind of protection through any other mechanism.

So I'd like to see us do a little more thorough - and here is a good opportunity to do it. I can't, for a moment, see anything in this that is so urgent. It is not a piece of legislation that I can agree with. Again, I would like an opportunity to learn more about it and ask questions of those in the industry who are much more knowledgeable. I would like to refer it to some professionals and ask them for their views on it. I would like to know if the government has done that, if the department has, and what consultation there has been before it was even brought here. But I can't, for a moment, believe it is so urgent that we can't refer this bill to a Legislation Review Committee and take an opportunity to learn more about it and be sure that what we are doing is in the best interest, not only of the consumer, but of the insurance agents, as well, and the insurance industry, and to protect that industry. Because if we tighten up too much on that industry, then the cost to the consumer goes up, and ultimately, the protection of the consumer might well be threatened.

I am concerned that there are insurance companies, as well, which are providing instruments that are of no value. I am also aware that this Province, the Department of Consumer Affairs, does not go as far as they should in checking into companies - the real insurance company. It is not here. There are no insurance companies in Newfoundland. There are agents and brokers, but there are no insurance companies. Insurance companies are in the United States, or in England or wherever. Some of those are not as solid as we would like to hope they are. So agents here in Newfoundland may well be selling instruments in good faith, not knowing that the company they are dealing with may not be able to honour those instruments further down the road.

So I ask the minister: Would he consider deferring this to a Legislation Review Committee, so that we can all get involved in what I believe would be a very meaningful exercise in learning more about the industry, and particularly looking into these aspects that I have talked about.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance, if he speaks now he will close the debate.

The hon. the Minister of Finance.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to thank all members who participated for their very positive comments and questions and so on concerning this piece of legislation.

A number of specific points were raised. The Member for Humber Valley, in referring to Section 10, wanted some indication that - it seemed as if we were talking simply about directors, officers of corporations, and people performing similar functions in an unincorporated association, referred simply to these people, and whether the net of offense was much broader than that.

In actual fact, Section 46.(2) is a specific reference to directors, officers of the corporation and so on, to make sure they are included under the ambit of this particular Act. It does not mean that the other people, the agents and so on, are excluded. It simply is a special reference to the directors and so on to make sure that they are included and are liable to the same fines as anybody else who commits an offense under this act would be liable to.

With regard to the fact that the jail option has been left out, I am not so sure exactly why that is so. I will find out and advise the House a little later on this afternoon, in the Committee stage, or whatever.

The comment about the trust section, section 30 which, in fact, makes any money collected outside of the commission fees, as trust funds to be handled accordingly - the reason that there was this section here: A person may make application to the minister for an exemption for a twelve-month period, simply goes back to the fact that this Act has not been proclaimed. And right now, there is no regulation that under this Act, because it has not been proclaimed, these funds are not now deemed to be trust funds according to the legislation. When you make a change like that, at any point in time - and I am assuming that this is due to be proclaimed July 1.

When you make a change like that you have to give - because you don't know all the circumstances that are out there, and it is a big industry. You have to make allowances at some levels for this to be phased in. So there was an allowance made that applications may be made - don't have to be - may be made to the minister to allow a phase-in period for the trust funds. That doesn't mean that in all cases this will be done. In most cases, I should imagine, it is very easy for that to happen immediately and the minister wouldn't give blanket approval for everybody who applied unless the reason was particularly good and so on. So, it doesn't imply automatic approval. But, when you bring in something like this, you don't really know all of the effects it is going to have in the system so you have to allow some time for some people to phase in.

The Member for St. John's East mentioned that this is similar to retail sales tax. Now, if we were to require that trust funds be set up for the retail sales tax - right now that is not deemed by legislation. It is sort of understood that these are trust monies, not enforceable in law, by the way. We have difficulty collecting these monies because the courts don't deem that they are automatic trusts the minute they are collected. But if we were to make a change like that, it would only be fair to give a phase-in period, because it would have a tremendous effect on a lot of businesses out there, and we would have to give them time to adjust. Because, customarily, they have use of some of that money for thirty days or forty, up to fifty days before it becomes due in some cases. They are used to having use of that money and it would take them awhile to change, to increase their line of credit or whatever, to be able to adjust to taking that and putting it in a trust fund immediately. So, some phase-in period, I guess, may be necessary in some segments of this particular industry, but again, it doesn't mean that everybody will have that twelve months. There would obviously have to be a good, sound, sensible, logical reason.

The policy of errors and omissions insurance: There has been consultation, I understand - although I stand to be corrected by my friend, the Minister of Justice, who is out because of a conflict, but I will check with him. I understand, there has been extensive consultation with the industry about, in the first instance, this Act, that was brought in long before we assumed office, and in this instance, about the amendments, there has been extensive consultation with the insurance industry about the amendments.

I am not knowledgeable about the cost of the omission and error insurance but it is something that has to be. I understand the comments of my friend from Mount Pearl as to what effect that will have on the industry. How costly will it be? Will that then increase the cost of the services they provide and so on? Well, obviously, it will, a little bit, but it is something that will have to be done. I will again, for the Committee stage, if we get that far, see if I can get some further information about the cost of that policy. I am assuming it is not high. It would depend, I guess, on the number of court cases related to errors and omissions. There are a number of instances where people have been hard done by in terms of errors and omissions. Come to think of it, it may be high, because some of the stories I heard here today could very -

MR. WINDSOR: Would it be the same for all (inaudible) or would it be a percentage of (inaudible)?

MR. BAKER: I have no idea, I will attempt to find out.

The final comment I need to address is the suggestion from the Member for Mount Pearl, that this will be an opportunity for a committee to look into many aspects of this very complex and widespread industry in the Province. I will ask my friend, the Government House Leader, if there is any hurry. I am assuming there is, because we wanted to - the longer we delay in terms of the trust fund, which is section 30, the longer the delay, the less protection there is out there. I don't know if there is some other mechanism we can come up with whereby we immediately - like proclaim the 1st of July and provide the protection in terms of the trust funds, the bonding, the increased fines and so on and, at the same time, come up with another mechanism to do an examination of that particular industry which perhaps a lot of us would like to get involved with.

MR. WINDSOR: (Inaudible) to do something.

MR. BAKER: Yes. So, I will take that part under advisement and perhaps again - that is a third point about which I will get back to the hon. House. In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, I move second reading.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Insurance Adjusters, Agents And Brokers Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill No. 16).

MR. ROBERTS: Order 13, Mr. Speaker.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Teachers' Pensions Act". (Bill No. 11).

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This bill, An Act To Amend The Teachers' Pensions Act, is an attempt to correct two problems that arose when we made changes to the pensions legislation two years ago. The changes that we made had a couple of unintended effects, and this bill corrects both of these unintended problems.

First of all, it would permit a teacher who is absent from work for a period of time due to a legal strike or lockout to purchase that period as pensionable service. Now, that is a normal procedure in collective agreements and so on, and, in the legislative changes that we made, this was inadvertently left out and was not allowed. It was something we didn't realize. It was pointed out to us after the legislation was done and we said: Okay, we have to correct this at the earliest opportunity. This happens to be the earliest opportunity.

The second thing: to permit a teacher who terminated his or her employment and elected a deferred pension to obtain a disability pension where he or she is subsequently disabled and would have qualified for a disability pension, had he or she still been employed as a teacher. So this again - the access to the disability pension was a normal thing that was part of the collective agreement, and when we changed the pension legislation it disallowed this procedure unintentionally. Because we did not intend through the pensions legislation to change any provisions of collective agreements. When it was pointed out to us quite some time after - because nobody realized it until quite some time after - then we made the commitment that we would also correct that problem.

Mr. Speaker, that is the essence of this particular bill, "An Act To Amend The Teachers' Pensions Act". This obviously came up for a little bit of discussion over the last few months, in discussions with the NTA concerning the options that government had and their agreement as to which option should be chosen for them. It was, at that point in time, the subject of much discussion, as well.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, this is a fairly straightforward piece of legislation. We are not going to take any amount of time to debate it. There isn't a great deal in it. As the minister says, it appears to be just something that was left out previously.

AN HON. MEMBER: Clear as mud.

MR. WINDSOR: Clear as mud, another brilliant explanation of his legislation. I assume, what this does is bring this legislation in line with other legislation. Is that accurate?

MR. ROBERTS: I congratulated him on the job he did on my bill, the insurance bill.

MR. WINDSOR: Good! Now leave him alone so he can do a job on his bill. I was just asking the minister, Mr. Speaker, whether this brings the teachers in line with other pension plans. Do other pension plans have the opportunity, for example, to purchase service loss because of legal strikes and lockouts, or is this making it something different?

MR. BAKER: I think most of them have that provision in their collective agreements, but not all. I would be wrong if I said all, because I don't believe all of them have it. But, yes, it is in a number of collective agreements.

MR. WINDSOR: The disability pensions: If somebody takes an early retirement - is that how I understand this? - or elects a deferred pension, they make it into disability?

MR. BAKER: Yes.

MR. WINDSOR: If they resign.

MR. BAKER: Yes. This is the instance where a teacher retires before the normal retirement age, has a number of years pensionable service - it could be twenty-five or thirty, or whatever - and they retire before pensionable age because of a problem. It could be a back problem, it could be a health problem and so on, that eventually, it is discovered, has really made them disabled. Then they can access the disability pension, because they are on deferred pension. In other words, they are not collecting pension, and then they can start collecting their pension because of the disability and not have to wait until they reach normal retirement age.

MR. WINDSOR: So they can get a disability pension until their pension kicks in?

MR. BAKER: Yes.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The bill is very straightforward, I think, and it is positive. I just needed a point of clarification in explanatory note (b). It is my interpretation of that - maybe the minister could confirm it - that if a person who has left the teaching profession and is retired, who would have been eligible for a pension had the person stayed and got injured, in other words, has worked that time, and who is deemed eligible to receive it, and takes up another job, let's say, as a truck driver, and three years later gets injured as a truck driver, and cannot work, that person could then draw on the teacher's disability pension, assuming that teacher has earned the right to be eligible for disability. Would that be correct?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: How can that be?

MR. SULLIVAN: That is my understanding from reading it, and my understanding from what the minister said.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the minister.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, it doesn't really mean that. I should inform hon. members that the disability pension conditions are in need of explanation and tightening up. I am in the process of looking at the procedures for disability pensions, and loopholes that may exist have to be closed off, but this does not mean that a person who was teaching, and left teaching before the time and then, subsequently, went to work as a truck driver or something and got injured and became disabled on that job, I guess, they would be then subject to workers' compensation type of disability and so on, and not teachers' pension plan disability. There would be mechanisms in place to handle that circumstance under the Workers' Compensation Commission and not under the teachers' pension plan.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It says here in clause 3.1, `a teacher who terminated his or her employment'. Basically, if a teacher terminates employment, after that point he may take up work elsewhere, or he may not, whatever the case may be. So I understand the minister is saying now that if the cause of the disability was not evident when the teacher was working, the person cannot qualify for disability if it is an injury that occurred after termination of employment. Is that the interpretation the minister is giving?

MR. BAKER: Yes.

MR. SULLIVAN: In other words, there has to be some connection between the disability having occurred, in part or in whole, during the teaching period?

MR. BAKER: No.

MR. SULLIVAN: Not necessarily so?

MR. BAKER: What I am saying is that if there is an injury of some sort because the teacher has subsequently gone on to another job, and in that particular work condition has suffered a debilitating injury, or disability and so on, then that person would then we covered under workers' compensation provisions rather than the teachers' pension plan. This is intended to cover teachers who are between, when they retire a bit early for whatever reason, either burnout, or whatever it happens to be.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: And are not receiving a pension.

MR. BAKER: Are not receiving their pension and are waiting for their pension, that if in the interim it is seen they are, in fact, disabled from teaching, they then be allowed to go back and get the disability pension immediately, rather than wait until age fifty-five to collect their teachers' pension. That is really all it refers to. It doesn't refer to the case where a person then goes out and gets another job and something happens in the other job.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

So, basically then, a disability could occur after the termination of teaching - that is what you are saying?

MR. BAKER: Yes, technically. (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Well, it may occur before or after. There are no restrictions on when the disability occurs. Is that my understanding?

MR. BAKER: That is right.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you.

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

If he speaks now he will close the debate.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The comments by members opposite were, as usual, very incisive and precise. The questions by the Member for Mount Pearl, I believe, were answered at the time, and to the questions by the Member for Ferryland, I gave answers, however, if I find there is anything different - this is to allow a provision in the teachers' collective bargaining act to become operative again, so the provision in the teachers' collective bargaining act would refer only to the instance that I mentioned, where, for whatever reason, a teacher leaves three or four years early and then it becomes obvious that that teacher is disabled and if he or she were teaching, could not teach, then they could access the disability pension.

The reason that this was there, is that, quite often and there have been a number of instances, where, teachers suffering from a physical condition of one sort or another, whether it be arthritis or back trouble or whatever, have actually left the teaching profession because they could no longer carry on in the classroom, they are probably aged fifty-two and would have to wait three years for a pension, and then the condition for which they left simply became worse, when they went through the medical process they discovered that really, they were disabled and under our current regulations they could not then go back and re-access the medical provisions of the Teachers' Pension Plan, and we simply want to allow them to go back and do that and it would be in accordance with the collective agreement, which would deal only with the specific cases that I mentioned, it would not deal with people who have gone off to other jobs, that would be disallowed, so, Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all hon. members for their comments and move second reading.

On motion, a Bill, "An Act To Amend The Teachers' Pensions Act", read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House presently by leave. (Bill No. 11).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, would you be good enough to call order 15, Bill 24?

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Law Society Act", (Bill No. 24).

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, in the interest of giving my friend, the Minister of Finance a spell, this being his day in the barrel it appears, but I must say I do compliment him on the explanation and defence against the onslaught of the Insurance, Agents, Adjusters and Brokers Bill, he showed me insights into it that I had never realized before, although I was not in the House and did not participate, I was listening outside the Chamber, and I may say to the House, Mr. Speaker, that he got it right.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: No, I have a very real conflict on one thing, the section 45, sub (4) amendments. I was retained by a group of people in Newfoundland who objected to the former act on that and so I was conflicted on the whole bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Well, I think - anyway, there was a present change there and I took no part in it but there you are.

Now, Mr. Speaker, let me come back to the bill before the House. Two years ago in the Budget, in other words in the 1992 Budget as opposed to the 1993 Budget -

AN HON. MEMBER: The mini-Budget?

MR. ROBERTS: No, no, no. It was the major Budget that preceded the mini-Budget, that preceded the Budget that destroyed any hope of my friends opposite had of sitting on the treasury benches, so that Budget.

In the 1992 Budget, we announced that we were going to require the law foundation to transfer to us for the purpose of funding the legal aid scheme, two-thirds of the income that the law foundation earns, and this bill implements that decision and that is why it is retroactive to 1, January, 1992.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the law foundation is a group of men and women who are a body corporate by virtue of the Law Society Act and the section it has amended is one of a group of sections that constitutes the law foundation and sets up the parameters of its operation and it's purposes and objectives and how it will discharge those. The funds which the law foundation get are almost entirely garnered from the interest paid by the banks on the trust funds held by lawyers.

Now there has been some discussion here in the House during the day with trust funds, I know members are familiar with it, but briefly put, lawyers in this Province as elsewhere throughout certainly Canada and I guess the United States and England, are obliged to separate the funds they are holding into two funds. One is the general fund which belongs to the lawyer or the law firm and the other are trust funds which belong to somebody else.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I am sorry?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, one of the members of the Law Society got himself in some difficulty as a result of trust funds and in fact, a very high proportion of the lawyers who go wrong, or at least are detected in going wrong if you want to be very precise, their error involves trust funds.

For many years, the banks paid no interest on trust funds. Now trust funds are often held only overnight or for a weekend. If my friend from Humber Valley is going to buy a house, he will take in the money and give it to his lawyer, or the lawyer will draw down the mortgage, or both, assuming there is a down payment and a mortgage used to finance it, and the lawyer will hold those funds for a day or two or three until the transaction is complete, when they will be paid to the other lawyer, and they may be held there for a day or two or three, and that is the normal course.

Now the banks were keeping the interest on that, so a number of years ago, I think in the mid-seventies if recollection serves me, we finally got our act together and the banks agreed to pay at least a modest amount of interest, because while one may only be holding it for a day or two as a lawyer, most firms in St. John's probably never have less than say half-a-million to a million dollars in their trust account. It is always coming and going. There may be a thousand separate amounts in the trust account, but at any given time the balance is conceivably that large, so the interest can be substantial. The Law Foundation gets that interest and then spends it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why?

MR. ROBERTS: Why? I say to my friend from St. Barbe, who has become very interested in monetary matters of late, and these things, that even in the day of daily interest and computers it really is impractical to try to give this money to the clients who really own it. The clients own that money because it is the interest being earned on money held in trust for a client, or on behalf of a client. In any event, if it cannot go to the clients, it sure as the devil should not go to the lawyers. It is a disbarment offence for a lawyer to take the interest on a trust fund.

Traditionally we have taken one-third. Now we are up to two-thirds, and the reason we have to do the bill now is that the Law Foundation is being a little sticky. Being lawyers, they are observing the letter of the law. They are saying: Until you pass the bill, we cannot give you the money.

Well, we are down there running Legal Aid, lashing out the cash to the lawyers who are entitled to receive it under Legal Aid, so we asked the House to pass this bill, and the result will be that my friends at the Law Foundation will reach into their capacious pockets. They have the money there. They are holding it in reserve. It is earning a lesser rate of interest.

AN HON. MEMBER: Did you say rapacious?

MR. ROBERTS: Capacious.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Capacious - c a p a c i o u s. It is an old mud lake family, I would say. Capacious pockets, as in my friend from St. Barbe.

In any event, all that this bill does is implement that decision, so I commend it to the House and ask for second reading.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Law Society Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House presently by leave. (Bill No. 24).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, could we now call Order 12, the one for which the gentlemen opposite have been waiting? It is The Financial Corporations Capital Tax Act, and may I declare another - I am sorry?

AN HON. MEMBER: I thought you were going to 16 (inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: No, we will do that a little later in the afternoon. Do you want to do 16 now? We will do 16 now, alright? Order 16, Mr. Speaker, Bill No. 23, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Internal Economy Commission Act." - my friend, the Minister of Finance.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Internal Economy Commission Act." (Bill No. 23).

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Very briefly, the current Internal Economy Commission Act indicates that after an election, within sixty days after a general election, or when necessary at a time between general elections, the Speaker shall appoint an independent commission of not more than three persons to conduct an inquiry and report respecting indemnities, allowances, and salaries paid to members of the House of Assembly.

Also, Mr. Speaker, there is a little footnote added to that, Section 5, which says: The recommendations contained in the report referred to in this section shall be final and binding.

Mr. Speaker, in light of the economic circumstances that we're currently going through, the fact that we have cut members' salaries by 4.5 per cent for this current year, we felt that we could, in all conscience, that we maybe should not appoint a commission that could recommend salary increases at this point in time. The report would be final and binding on the House.

So we're asking the House to do this amendment that changes subsection 13(1), that repeals it, and substitutes the following: "The House of Assembly may by resolution appoint, upon those terms and conditions that are set out in the resolution, an independent commission of not more than 3 persons to conduct an inquiry and prepare a report respecting the indemnities, allowances and salaries to be paid to members of the House of Assembly."

This allows this House, Mr. Speaker, to decide at some point in time in the future when we would go through this process.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member for Ferryland is rather exuberant here. We have to put two people on his coattails to keep him down but he'll have his chance now in a minute. Just a brief comment in response to the minister.

We've had some consultation, the Government House Leader and myself, with the Internal Economy Commission on this issue. It's something that personally, as one member of the House, that I can live with. I think it's a very reasonable approach. As the minister said, we as members have taken a 4.5 per cent reduction in salary for this year and government now, at any time they so see fit, will be able to appoint a commission. I guess all I want -

MR. SIMMS: Did they say when they intend to appoint it?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, they don't know, I guess. I guess when the minister rises - you have no idea, time frame in mind, when you might. It's going to be left to the discretion of the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes, exactly, depending on how things evolve, particularly with the economy, I guess, and other financial aspects and so on of budget. Anyway, that's all I have to say about it, Mr. Speaker. There has been consultation and I think it's been worthwhile.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have no difficulty with the explanation given by the Minister of Finance but I have a little difficulty with the Bill itself. Because what it seems to do is not only change the `shall' to a `may', but it changes the whole nature of this commission that's to be set up.

The previous legislation, the part that's being repealed, says that: the Speaker, after appropriate consultation, shall within sixty days after a general election, or where necessary at a time between general elections, appoint an independent commission of not more than three persons to conduct an inquiry and a report respecting the indemnities, allowances and salaries to be paid to members of the House of Assembly.

That removes it from the House itself and requires the Speaker to appoint an independent commission. That commission has a final and binding report. It could report anything, depending on whatever that independent commission thought was appropriate with respect to indemnities, allowances and salaries to be paid to members of the House.

What we've got is a replacement of that with this new resolution. I would suggest that members look attentively to the difference between the current legislation and the proposal here. That is that the "House of Assembly may by resolution appoint...," not the Speaker. The House of Assembly. Which means them. "[A]ppoint, upon those terms and conditions that are set out in the resolution...."

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: So not only.... Well, have a look at Section 13. The existing Act says the Speaker. It doesn't say the House of Assembly, it doesn't say resolution, it doesn't say anything except the Speaker has an obligation to appoint a commission. What we've got here now is: "The House of Assembly may by resolution appoint, upon those terms and conditions that are set out in the resolution...." So we're going to have instructions now. There are going to be instructions now to this Internal Economy Commission, or to this independent commission, instructions from the government.

What are those instructions going to be? We don't know. Whatever is in the mind of the Premier at the time, or the premier of the day, or the Cabinet of the day, as to what will be contained in those instructions. They could be instructions that are positive or beneficial, they could be instructions that are negative and deleterious. They could be bad instructions. It takes away the independence of this approach. Now, the government, over the last four or five years, have been pretty hot to suggest it. I think hon. members have had at least an opportunity, when the cynical public has been encouraged from time to time to question various things, to say that this has been decided by an independent commission. Now, this independent commission is going to be given instructions, terms and conditions. I don't know what terms and conditions people may have in mind, but if it is to be an independent commission that is going to establish - away from the political process, because I think it is appropriate that it should be there - to appoint, as did the Speaker, the last Speaker appointed a commission. They had no instructions, they weren't told what to do except to make an inquiry and to report respecting the indemnities, allowances and salaries to be paid to members of the House of Assembly. This legislation changes the nature of this commission. Members can no longer say that this is an independent commission, because this commission is now acting on the instructions given to it, well, in theory, by the House of Assembly, but in reality, by the Cabinet and the Premier. So that is a change. And I suspect there is more to it than what the Minister of Finance said when introducing the legislation. There is more to it than just putting this off because there has already been a 4.5 per cent reduction in the House of Assembly salaries and allowances, for tax-free allowance.

So, there is another agenda here that is not being made out, just as, in the dying days of the Assembly, before the election, the last day, as it turned out - it wasn't said to be the last day but it ended up being the last day - when a piece of legislation was introduced, reducing by 4.5 per cent, the salaries of members. I said in the House on that day, that that was a blueprint. That was a blueprint for what was going to be presented to the House of Assembly after the election, if this government got in, and that is what happened. We had it yesterday under the Pensions Bill, 4.5 per cent reduction, exactly the same as the blueprint that was passed here the last day.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Mirror legislation.

MR. HARRIS: Mirror legislation. So what I want to know is, what is the government up to? What are they up to here? The suggestion is that they want to put off until next year the appointment of a commission, but the second thing they are doing is taking away the independence of this commission.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: How? How are they doing that?

MR. HARRIS: Well, the new piece of legislation said instead of having a Speaker, as the former Speaker did, appoint a commission, the commission is told that their job is to conduct an inquiry and report respecting the indemnities, allowances and salaries. Here we have, the House of Assembly may, by resolution, appoint upon those terms and conditions, as are set out in the resolution, an independent commission.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: So the government is going to appoint it now.

MR. HARRIS: So, the government is going to appoint it. The government is going to decide, it is not the Speaker after making appropriate consultations, as I am sure the Speaker did, with all parties represented in the House; after making appropriate consultations he appointed the commission.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: A commission or a committee - what is it going to be called now?

MR. HARRIS: It is still a commission. But they are going to have terms and conditions set out by the government this time, and who knows what is going to be in those terms and conditions? There happens to be - I have to give the members opposite a certain amount of credit, they don't use words willy-nilly. This wasn't drafted by someone who didn't know what they were doing. They had two or three options, in fact, I think they had two or three drafts on the go in the last couple of days and they chose this one for a particular reason. They are not telling this House what the reason is but, obviously, they have more in mind than to postpone the appointment of this commission because of the 4.5 per cent reduction. So, let's come clean with the people of the Province, come clean with the House. What are they up to? Let them tell us before we are asked to pass on this piece of legislation, tell the people of the Province, tell the House, what they are up to in passing this legislation and making these changes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. ROBERTS: If any other member wishes to speak on this -

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker.

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, of course.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My friend from Ferryland and I, were just having some consultation on this piece of legislation. I was trying to advise him of what I was advised of by the Premier in consultations I had with him, and my understanding of the bill. Perhaps the minister can clarify it when he closes the debate.

My understanding of the bill is that, at the moment, such a commission would have no barriers placed upon them to provide members of the House of Assembly with an increase in salary and so on in this fiscal year, in particular, which is one that the government is dealing with, with a great deal of difficulty. So, to avoid that, they had to change the law, because otherwise, a commission would have had to be appointed and the commission might very well have gone about, in carrying out their duties and responsibilities, and recommended - which would be binding, according to the law - a 5 per cent increase for MHAs for this year, for argument sake, and that would be totally contrary to what the government's decision has been and what we, the House, have done. Because we approved a bill reducing our pay by 4.5 per cent this fiscal year. So that is my understanding. But I also had the understanding in my talks with the Premier, the intent was that it was for this fiscal year we are dealing with, but the intent is, even though it is not in the bill, in the new fiscal year - presuming all things being equal and you don't have the same kind of serious problem you have this year, although it could be twice as bad next year - that the commission would then be appointed, in all likelihood, to look at the benefits and all the rest of those things, for members, for the remainder of the Parliament, the term in office. That is my understanding of it so the minister, maybe, in closing, might clarify - the Member for Ferryland might just ask a quick question, as well, for clarification, or whatever.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My biggest concern with this bill is the possibility that it could remove from an independent commission and put back into more of a political process, I think, and with the public perception of members, salaries, allowances, etc., it has been put into a sort of independent forum now and somebody else is deciding, but to put it back into the process here may cause some problems. As the Leader of the Opposition indicated, in speaking with the Premier, if that is the intent there I certainly have no difficulties with that in a time of restraint. We have already have had before this House a 4.5 per cent decrease and we certainly would not want to give the public the perception that we are not willing to take any restraints either and that we are not going to face the same music, I guess, as anybody else. That would be my greatest concern. It has been de-politicized and the possibility of getting it politicized again, or back here in this House, could cause some problems.

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. the minister speaks now he closes the debate.

The hon. the Minister of Justice.

MR. ROBERTS: My friend, the Minister of Finance, is back in his chair, but perhaps I could speak on behalf of the ministry. Let me confirm that what the Leader of the Opposition has said, Mr. Speaker, is my understanding. And it comes from the same source, and is the policy of this administration. He raised two points and I will deal with the question raised by my friend from Ferryland. The present statute, Section 13 of the Internal Economy Commission Act, has two mandatory provisions in it. The first in subsection 1 is that the Speaker, after appropriate consultation, shall, within sixty days after a general election, or whenever else it is necessary, appoint an independent commission. So it is mandatory that the commission be appointed within - which will be July 3 this year. Sub (5) says that the recommendations contained in the report of the commission shall be final and binding. We thought it entirely wrong in principle to put a commissioner in place this year who, conceivably - now, I mean, who knows what a commissioner or commissioners might do? They do whatever they believe best, but if they came to the conclusion there should be a raise, we are not prepared to tolerate that, and we would then be in the position of having to overrule that by further legislation. The question of members' compensation for this year has been settled by the House, by law. I mean, we have passed a statute.

We do intend to move ahead next year to appoint the commission. The only reason, I say to my friend from St. John's East, and this would also apply to my friend from Ferryland, for the terms and conditions, is if the House wishes to attach any conditions. Now, is that the government? At the end of the day, the government have the support of the majority of the House and we will have our way because we won the election and the people of this Province gave us the right, but that doesn't give us the right to be bull-headed and ignore decency, principle, or commonsense. We have to stand here and answer for what we do, not only to the House, but to the wider public who follow the affairs.

So, I would say to my friend from St. John's East, please give us the credit of at least waiting to see what we do, and then if we do something that he considers wrong, he will have full and ample opportunity to denounce us from the rooftops.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the final point would be the so-called independence. At the end of the day, this House is master of its own affairs, subject only to the Constitution Act and the other relevant fundamental laws of this country. We can't attempt to hide behind so-called independent - we create this commission and we must answer for it. So I see nothing wrong, in principle, if this House is minded to give an instruction to a commission, as long as it is done in open legislation, to do it. There is nothing wrong with that. One may or may not agree with it, but I would rather see that situation than have a commission come in with a report on which there are no parameters, and then leave the House in a position -

Let me give an example of something now that may touch on a matter that I held dear and my hon. friend from St. John's East may hold dear.

The Morgan Commission recommended a full-time member. Now, I have no idea what in the good green world a full-time member is.

AN HON. MEMBER: We don't want to get into that.

MR. ROBERTS: No, I don't want to open up the whole debate, but it seemed to me it was an entirely unrealistic concept in the reality of the House of Assembly. It might well be desirable, in constituting another commission, to say the House asks the commission not to deal with this concept because it is not - I only give that as an example, not something we have in mind, but as an example of one area that came up in the last one that has caused a great deal of trouble.

I don't know what a full-time member is, and I don't think, to give my own opinion, it is of any importance to anybody - it is between a member and his or her constituents.

AN HON. MEMBER: I agree.

MR. ROBERTS: That is right - one's constituents. What is full-time? Even if you have no other source of income, is it one hour a day or 100 hours a week? Who knows? The constituent does.

In any event, Mr. Speaker, I think that addresses the questions raised by the hon. members opposite, and with that said, unless my friend from Gander wishes to add his golden-tongued eloquence to my few contributions, I will ask the House to give the bill second reading.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Internal Economy Commission Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House presently by leave. (Bill No. 23).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, would you be good enough to call Bill No. 21, now that my friend, the Minister of Finance, has returned. That is a bill, "An Act To Amend The Financial Corporations Capital Tax Act," where I think we will have some lively debate, and I would declare a conflict.

I was, until I accepted the Premier's invitation to join the ministry, a director of the Fortis Trust Company - not of Fortis itself, but Fortis Trust Company, and I resigned from that within a few days of accepting the Premier's invitation, long before I came in here. But that may constitute a conflict. I declare one and I ask the Clerk to note it in the usual way and I will retire to the Speaker's gallery.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Financial Corporations Capital Tax Act." (Bill No. 21).

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This marks the second occasion that I introduced this bill into this House. On the first occasion, it ended up dying on the Order Paper. We did have, I believe, a second reading debate, we never did call the Committee stage and it died on the Order Paper. So, Mr. Speaker, I have some inkling as to what is going to be said.

There is going to be a lot of politics played with this. There is going to be a lot of drivel, a lot of misinformation by members opposite. Mr. Speaker, I can predict that. They are going to get on with their normal political nonsense, unlike what we have seen so far today. We have had some rather sensible comments in this hon. House. We have had good questions. We have had good analysis of legislation, but I predict that we will now get away from any common sense, any good analysis or legislation they are going to forget totally what the legislation says, they are going to ignore the legislation and they are going to get on with their political drivel, so, Mr. Speaker, let us have that up front, that is what is going to happen.

Now, Mr. Speaker, in spite of that, in spite of that, I do not intend to get on with that nonsense, what I intend to do is give an explanation for anybody who might be willing to listen to the explanation, which would exclude members opposite, automatically, anybody who is willing to listen to the explanation, I am now willing to give that explanation on this particular bill.

Mr. Speaker, in order for trust companies to develop in this Province, and we have a need for smaller organizations and smaller trust companies to develop, to encourage small business development in this Province, in order for small trust companies to develop in this Province, they, at the present time have an insurmountable hurdle to overcome, an insurmountable hurdle, and that insurmountable hurdle has to do with our present tax structure that was designed for the big companies, for the huge companies, it was specifically designed for larger companies.

In order for a small trust company to set up, first of all, in order to get protection for its investors, it must have, according to the CIDC, it must have $5 million paid up capital. Now a small trust company starting out must declare this $5 million paid up capital, but for years and years as it develops, in terms of the amount of capital it actually puts out, it does not need anywhere near $5 million paid up capital. As a matter of fact, in its first four or five years of operation, technically, to sit the law, it probably would need no more than $500,000 or a million dollars paid up capital to get started over the first number of years, and if you envision the situation where a small trust company is set up, they start to do business, according to the law they need about $500,000 worth of paid up capital, the normal ratio, and they operate on that basis.

Mr. Speaker, our tax laws say that they have to pay taxes as if they had the $5 million paid up capital, that is what they have to pay taxes on, so their tax rate is, forty, fifty times the tax rate of the larger trust companies, so the net affect of our law as it currently exists, is to prevent the start up of smaller trust companies. Mr. Speaker, what we want to do is change the tax law, to allow trust companies, large and small in essence, to deduct on paper, from their paid up capital, $5 million, which in essence says that they start paying tax after they reach the stage where their paid up capital is $5 million.

Now, Mr. Speaker, that allows the smaller trust companies to grow without having an undue taxation burden. It allows smaller trust companies to compete with the larger ones that have an effective tax rate of much, much less, a very small fraction of what now exists for the smaller trust companies, so, Mr. Speaker, this is to correct that situation to allow the development of smaller trust companies.

Now quite simply, that is what the legislation is, it is very sensible, it opens up a whole new field of development in this Province, that we have been before shutting down. It is in line with our plans for this Province, it fits totally with the strategic economic plan objectives for this Province, and it will encourage more development in terms of more capital being available for investment, so, Mr. Speaker, that is all this bill does.

Unfortunately, and this is where the politics come in. Right now there is one company in this Province that has been struggling to survive and this is where we get the politics of it. It happens to have as the first part of its name, Fortis. So the Member for St. John's East will get up and try to convince everybody that what we are talking about here is Fortis, which is totally incorrect. It is a reprehensible kind of argument to make. This is not Fortis Inc. we are dealing with here, with all of their investments and so on. This is Fortis Trust, which is a small trust company that can survive if only its tax burden is not forty or fifty times the tax burden of other trust companies. If only we treat it fairly, it will be able to survive. If we do not treat it fairly, it will collapse and we will not have a small trust company in this Province, and we will never see the development again, ever, of a smaller trust company in this Province if we do not change this legislation. It is unfortunate that the name gets tied in and it allows unscrupulous politicians to try to tie it in to a totally different company that they know they can make political hay out of, Mr. Speaker.

That is all I want to say in terms of introducing this bill.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, I do not understand what happened to this minister this afternoon. Who programmed the Minister of Finance? It is totally uncharacteristic of the minister to get up and get involved in such a political diatribe as he got involved in this afternoon. I don't understand it. He was not provoked by hon. members on this side. We had already agreed among ourselves over here that we had beaten up on this bill two or three months ago. This government is going to bull it through as they are other legislation anyway. There is nobody in the Province listening to it, or concerned about it, except the board of directors of Fortis. So why would we bother wasting our time this afternoon, on a nice afternoon like this, beating up on the minister? But now that he has gone on with that we do not have any choice. We have to defend ourselves against this totally unprovoked attack - totally unwarranted. I do not understand it.

The only thing I can really say about the minister's presentation is that it is even a more feeble attempt to defend this bill than he made the first time he introduced it in the House. I think he has forgotten half of the silly arguments that he made then.

AN HON. MEMBER: He never even read Hansard (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: If he had read Hansard he would have had twice as long a speech. He made a half decent attempt to try to defend it then. He had trouble today even keeping a straight face. He was smiling and laughing half the way through because he knew what foolishness he was going on with. Who does he think he is kidding?

The bottom line, Mr. Speaker, is it is a major tax break for Fortis. It is the only corporation in the Province today that will benefit from this piece of legislation, so what we used to call the Fortis bill is now, we just found out, the Ed Roberts retirement fund. It has to be. So that is what we are dealing with here, Mr. Speaker.

The bill itself is very straightforward. There is not a great deal we can say about it, outside of the fact that it is a major tax break for corporations at a time when we are cutting back, increasing taxation on consumers and everybody else.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) corporation.

MR. WINDSOR: Ah, on any corporation that is involved. Now we are led to believe that there is only one at the moment that is involved in this particular aspect.

AN HON. MEMBER: We are hoping there are going to be more.

MR. WINDSOR: You are hoping there are going to be more. I doubt it very much, Mr. Speaker. Until this government learns to do more for private corporations to attract and to invest in this Province, we are going to have even less than we have today. This government is doing absolutely nothing to attract business to this Province. They are a dismal failure, and this act is only a measure to give a great tax break to their buddies down at Fortis.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just have some brief comments here on this bill. There is only one company in this Province that is going to benefit, and that has been established as Fortis Trust. I understand, in Financial Post's top 500 companies, I think Fortis Inc., a parent company, is 184th in the top 500 companies in Canada. It is one of the largest companies in Canada, and are the taxpayers of this Province going to give them a $150,000 tax break? I think it is 3 per cent of $5 million tax break they will be getting - $150,000. It would be much better to put the $150,000 instead of giving one of the largest companies in this country a break, to add it on to our health care, to hire extra nurses or whether it is out in the field for social services recipients, or put the money into some other benefit where it is going to at least reduce some lot of suffering and pain being inflicted on people by the Budget by this government. It is $150,000 for a company that is well able to operate; what is wrong with having large companies operate and invest in large companies here in the Province? They are here now, there is not a need for a small trust company, we have ample trust companies available if people need to invest.

AN HON. MEMBER: No need for small companies (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Why give a benefit to something when there is a market already out there? We are not bringing on new business that is going to create new jobs and enlarge growth, it is going to cut into the investment dollars in this Province, there are so many dollars to invest, we are not bringing on new investment, we are only spreading thinner the investment dollars that are there today and there is not one, single reason why Fortis should get a break of $150,000 from the taxpayers of this Province, there is not one logical reason behind it and they should not get it, they should get out in the market and compete like any other company in Canada, if they want to get investors there.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: At least it is not fifty times. If you want to look at their lowest level of investment, if they want to be able to get in the market to get in the door and build up, it is costing, but once they get to that level, it is not costing. That is the price of doing business. There are growing pains in business and increased costs that you have to incur to get established in the market and if Fortis is not able to do that, maybe they should not be in business as a trust company anyway, so the taxpayers of this Province should not have to pay the price and let us give the $150,000 to some other third party organizations that are in bad need, Big Brothers or Big Sisters or arenas across the Province instead of giving it to Fortis.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am pleased to speak on this bill, the Fortis Bill as it has come to be called and the reason, I was listening to what the minister had to say in introducing the bill and I was kind of wondering myself why he was flustering and you know, trying to throw around a whole bunch of aspersions about the debate he expected to come and I have an idea why, as if he was trying to insulate himself a bit you know, a bit of a prophylactic I guess to the debate that is about to come. He had to build himself a bit of a wall, build a shield around his comments, to build a shield around himself, to insulate himself, to act as a prophylactic against the onslaught that he was expecting and there is a reason for that, Mr. Speaker, because the last time he introduced this bill he did not even tell us what the bill was about, he started making fumbling comments about venture capital companies, you know, he did not really tell us it was about Fortis at all and it took a little bit of detective work to find out what was really going on, and it was only after a series of questions that were raised, that we found out that there was only one company involved and that was Fortis.

We did not have to go out to the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club and have lunch with Angus Bruneau or his wife to find out that it was the Fortis Bill, but we found out very quickly, so now, we have the minister coming in today talking about this struggling little company which just happens to have the name Fortis, he does not say that it is the wholly owned subsidiary of Fortis Inc., maybe there are other shareholders, perhaps someone else has shares in it, but I think, Mr. Speaker, we will find out if we had a little investigation that this is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fortis Inc., so if Fortis Inc. wants to do business as a trust company, they just set up another corporation.

We all know how that works, Mr. Speaker, the corporation could have many arms or legs, or tentacles in the community and they can operate in very many ways to get around tax legislation or form different companies or insulate themselves from attack by their competitors or shareholders or even perhaps insulate them from the Public Utilities Board, which they did by setting up Fortis Inc. in the first place, with a sleight of hand that was done by Fortis when the Premier was Chairman of the Board of Fortis, when the Premier was Chairman of the Board of Newfoundland Light they set up this little reverse take over and set up Fortis Inc. to hold all the shares of Newfoundland Light. That was all done by the same group of people who the Minister of Justice has lunch with at the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club and who is now in the penalty box because he cannot talk about this legislation. We are not talking about a struggling little company like Triton Airlines, or some such company like that. We are talking about Fortis Inc. one of the largest capital pools in this Province, and not only in this Province, by the way. They try to convince people that they have X number of shareholders in Newfoundland.

AN HON. MEMBER: The member might have shares in that.

MR. HARRIS: I have better sense than that. This company, Fortis Inc. is one of the largest capital pools in this Province, controlled by shareholders - and there are a large number from this Province. I hear that from time to time in their annual reports. They tell how many thousand shareholders they have in Newfoundland. I do not know how many shares the Member for Port de Grave or the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation has. I know he has them in Rolls Royce, and I think the Member for Grand Bank has them in Cadillac, but I do not know how many shares the member has in Fortis. We do have in this operation, not a struggling little company trying to make headway in the world and trying to make a buck, what we have is a corporate arm of Fortis Inc. It is just as well to call Newfoundland Light and Power a struggling company as it is to call Fortis Trust a struggling company, so when the minister gets up and talks about this company as if it were a poor little organization needing a hand, I would say, Mr. Speaker, he is just as disingenuous as he was when he came to the House last December and started talking about it without telling us that it even involved trust companies. Now, I forgive the minister for that. I know that last December he was under a lot of pressure. It was the last few days of the House and he was carrying on negotiations, he was waiting to go to Florida, and all those thing. The pressure was building up, and somebody passed him a piece of legislation. I think the Minister of Justice had to go to the penalty box at the last minute, passed the legislation to the Minister of Finance, asked him to introduce it, and he was not properly briefed on it. I say that is probably the case, that the minister was not properly briefed on the legislation last December, so he started talking about venture capital and everything else, and now we finally found out what it was. We have it again before the House and it is essentially an expenditure. We are being asked to spend $150,000 of taxpayer's money. We are asked to take the taxpayer's money and give it to Fortis Trust every year, once a year, every year, give it to Fortis Trust. Instead of collecting tax we will give it to them.

There is no reason why measures such as this should not be out on the table as expenditures the same way as providing money for any other item that the government has. This is expenditure of $150,000 this year, next year, the year after, however long it takes for this struggling little company, as he calls it, to get up to having $10 million in taxable, not just paid-up capital, but taxable paid-up capital. Taxable paid-up capital we are talking about and taxable paid-up capital is a little different. The taxable paid-up capital we are talking about in Section 6, because that is what the tax is on.

MR. ROBERTS: You are reading it incorrectly there, Mr. Lawyer.

MR. HARRIS: The taxable paid-up capital of the bank is the aggregate computed at the close of the fiscal year of the issued and paid-up capital stock, retained earnings, contributed surplus, and general reserves, so it is only when the reserve gets up to this $10 million do they pay this tax.

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you sure?

MR. HARRIS: Well, I am pretty sure. I had a close look at this. I suppose the minister has had a close look at it since he introduced it last November. I am sure the Member for St. John's South will be happy to correct me if I am wrong. I am sure he will be getting up to speak on this bill because he is a good friend of Newfoundland Light and Power and Fortis Inc. and these other companies. I'm sure he'd be happy to speak out in defence of this legislation, as how the taxpayers of Newfoundland should give a grant of $150,000 to Fortis Inc. subsidiary. They have a couple of subsidiaries. One of them is that other struggling company, Newfoundland Light and Power. Now they have another struggling company, Fortis Trust, who are just getting by if the Minister of Finance is to be believed. Just struggling to get by and trying to get out there in the world and get on.

He talks about these other companies that we're trying to encourage. Can he tell us - he's had six months since last December, we asked him last December - what other trust companies or proposals are the government aware of for people interested in getting into the trust company business? Do we have any others? Do we have any other struggling companies, people trying to get into the trust business who are going to be hindered unless we have this legislation passed? If there are, let him tell us. If there is none, Mr. Speaker, this is merely a piece of legislation being passed at the request of Fortis Inc., Fortis Trust.

AN HON. MEMBER: Friends of Fortis.

MR. HARRIS: Friends of Fortis. That's a good....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: This little problem was brought to the attention of the government by the Fortis friends, the friends of Fortis. Who came to the government and said: we need this legislation here to protect us. There's only us in the game and we want this legislation changed. The government has decided to provide a special change for them. Perhaps the minister when he's speaking can give us a list of all the companies that are covered by this. Is it just banks and trust companies? Are we only dealing with those two bodies? Are there others who are affected by it? Are we dealing with credit unions that might have capital pools? Are we dealing with other people who might be in the business of being subject to this tax? Or is it only banks and trust companies?

There may well be a good rationale for this legislation at some point. If it had come before this House in a different way, not being sort of snuck in under the guise of something else last December, if there was more than one company involved, if there were others on the horizon, if there were other provinces that had similar legislation - none of these arguments have been made by the minister. None at all. We haven't heard him say what Nova Scotia does, or PEI, or New Brunswick, whether they have similar exemptions for small trust companies. We don't have any of that at all. What we have, Mr. Speaker, is a special bill designed to provide an appropriation, essentially a tax appropriation to Fortis Trust and not to anybody else.

There should be tax exemptions, tax concessions, Mr. Speaker, being given to people who are truly struggling, not to a company that wants to get into the trust business, wants to use some of the capital that they have accumulated from the rate payers of this Province. Every time a church must pay a demand rate to Newfoundland Light, to turn their lights on for a Sunday morning, that money is going into the coffers of Fortis Inc. so that they can do what they want with it. In this case they have chosen to invest it in a trust company of their own making so that they can make more money for the shareholders of Fortis Inc. If they want to do that, Mr. Speaker, they should play by the rules and play by the games of trust companies. Play by the rules and play by the games according to trust companies. If they want to get into trust company business - they are big boys and girls, Mr. Speaker, I do not know if they have any women on their board but they are not your struggling entrepreneur trying to figure out how to make a dollar in a competitive and increasingly mean world.

This is a big, big, big company who wants to get into a big business. The business of trust companies and acting as responsible trust companies is big business. If they are going to get into that game they should get into that game and play by the rules as they exist and not try to come here because they have friends of Fortis sitting on the government benches and get special concessions and special rules for them and for them alone. It is wrong, Mr. Speaker, it is not appropriate, the government should not be doing it. This is not a political tirade, this is a recognition that there is favouritism going on here, favouritism by the friends of Fortis to look after this particular company. It is wrong, Mr. Speaker, it should not be allowed and the government should be ashamed of themselves. They got rid of this legislation, Mr. Speaker, because they had to. Now they brought it back after the blush of an election and they think that the people of Newfoundland are going to forget about all of that and say; okay, well you know, they won the election. They have a mandate for the Fortis Bill too.

If the government thinks they have a mandate for the Fortis Bill from this election, well I have news for them. This legislation is bad, it is a one company legislation, it will always be known as the Fortis Bill, Mr. Speaker, because I do not think the minister can tell us that we will have any other trust companies in this Province. He cannot tell us of any one being planned, he cannot tell us of any one coming forward. This legislation, Mr. Speaker, ought to be defeated. In fact, the government should be ashamed of bringing it in.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I want to have a few words on this piece of devious legislation that is brought in by the Minister of Finance.

Mr. Speaker, we went through this piece of legislation last year, and due to the fact that we were going into an election, the government withdrew the piece of legislation for very obvious reasons, because they knew that they would not get away with it in this Province, to be able to give $150,000 worth of taxpayers money to Fortis Trust.

I think that this bill will be more appropriate if we refer to it as FOFA - Friends of Fortis Act - because this government to a large extent is controlled by people like Fortis, some of the senior people in Fortis. I would suspect that this is not the only piece of legislation that we will see before the House in 1993 dealing with Fortis, because sooner or later the conscience of the taxpayers of this Province, in terms of electricity and Newfoundland Hydro, will once again be swallowed up by FOFA, and we have to prevent this government from doing that.

How can the Minister of Finance stand in this House today and ask the taxpayers of this Province to contribute $150,000 to Fortis, when the Minister of Social Services is instructing the social workers to go door-to-door to the sick people in this Province and take away the home care, to cut the home care by one-third? How can the Minister of Finance ask the taxpayers to contribute $150,000 to Angus Bruneau and his company, or his directors, or Fortis, when at the same time the nurses in the hospitals cannot do the work that needs to be done?

What kind of gall does the Minister of Finance have? What makes up that man? What makes him up, to come in and ask the taxpayers to give $150,000 of their money to Fortis Trust, owned by Fortis Inc.? Who else is snarled up with Fortis Inc.? One of the biggest money raisers and guaranteed investment companies in the world - Newfoundland Light and Power, I say to the members opposite.

Now we have a situation in this Province today where there are people who do not have a roof over their head, rain pouring down, and they cannot get a bit of housing repaired. The government will not get them a door to put up to their porch, but no problem to give Fortis Trust $150,000 of taxpayers' money.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: No problem at all, Mr. Speaker. I can say to the Minister of Finance, that there's a lot of people in this Province today who haven't got supper to put on their table because this government has tightened up the ropes. But there's $150,000 for their buddies. This `FFA' should never be allowed.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: `FFA'. `Friends of Fortis Act.' That's what's happening. I can see how the $150,000 a year, Cabinet Ministers can relate to it. But I can't see how someone out in my district tonight, up in some part of my district tonight, down in Port de Bras, for example, where they haven't got a drop of water, or some place else like Rock Harbour where they haven't got a road to drive over, I can see how they can't relate to us giving $150,000 to Fortis Trust. How can the minister justify it, when you've got the sick and the suffering home, barred up, and this minister over there in two weeks has instructed the social works to cut home care to the sick and elderly in this Province by one-third. They're out now knocking on doors.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Page would get me a glass of water?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: They've been out there, Mr. Speaker, banging away, attacking -

AN HON. MEMBER: We aim to please.

MR. TOBIN: I'd rather not drink it. I don't know what could be in it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. ROBERTS: You're going to have trouble drinking it.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I wonder does the Page know any of the people in Fortis Trust?

AN HON. MEMBER: I doubt it.

MR. TOBIN: The Page.

MR. SIMMS: Which Page? Oh, this Page, yes.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, but this is very - I don't know why, and I don't know how, that new members in particular - I see three of them over there - how can they in all conscience know that people in their constituency, living on social assistance, have not gotten an increase, except reductions in the past four years, and turn around and vote for Fortis Trust to get $150,000 per year complimentary of the taxpayers?

Does anyone believe that Fortis Trust will not survive if the taxpayers of this Province don't contribute $150,000 a year? Do you think the doors will be barred up? Do you think the shareholders of Fortis Trust will have nothing for their suppers?

AN HON. MEMBER: Don't have a stroke now.

MR. TOBIN: No, Mr. Speaker - yes, I might have a stroke. A lot of Newfoundlanders will have a stroke if they find out the contribution - I would like another question answered.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I would like to know how much of a contribution Fortis Inc. made to this Liberal Party in the last election? I would like -

AN HON. MEMBER: What did you have for supper?

MR. TOBIN: I would suggest to the minister that I didn't have Kentucky Fried garbage, like the Minister of Health referred to it. I didn't have that, I can say to him. It wasn't Kentucky Fried garbage.

I would like for someone to tell me how much money Fortis Inc. contributed to the Liberal Party in the last election campaign. That's the question. How many $150,000 instalments will it take to pay it back?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: That's a good question. They won't answer that. They know, too. They know the answer.

MR. TOBIN: Will they answer that? Will they stand in this House then and tell me that Fortis Inc. contributed nothing to the Liberal Party in the last election? Will they stand in this House and deny that they didn't get any money from Fortis Inc. the last time?

AN HON. MEMBER: Did you get anything?

MR. TOBIN: What?

AN HON. MEMBER: Did you get anything?

MR. TOBIN: No, I didn't get a nickel. Not a nickel, Mr. Speaker, I'd say to the member. Not a nickel did I get from Fortis Inc. I don't know if the Liberal Party got anything from Fortis Inc. I don't know if the $1,000 party candidates got any money from Fortis corporation. I don't know about that either. I do know that if you wanted to make a quick $1,000 bucks you could put your name down as an NDP candidate. Put your name down as an NDP candidate and $1,000 in your hip pocket like that.

MR. HARRIS: More Tories got $1,000 than New Democrats.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes, just like that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: He said you'd have trouble drinking it (inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, he did do the job on me.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: He said you'd have trouble drinking it, he was right.

MR. TOBIN: He did (inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: He's trying to get back at you, see, for this vicious attack.

MR. TOBIN: No, Mr. Speaker, nothing like that. Because I have my doubts if the Minister of Justice knows any of the people involved in Fortis Trust or Fortis Inc. I would say they would be all strangers to the Minister of Justice. I would not say anything....

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention - I signed up for one party many year ago. Many years ago I signed up for one party. But I know someone in this Assembly who signed up for two parties during the last election campaign, or just prior to the last election campaign.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: The Member for St. John's North.

MR. TOBIN: I didn't say that. I know there's a member sitting over there who's a member of the 500 Club of the PC Party.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) life.

MR. TOBIN: What's that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Never a member, what?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: He was a swine.

MR. TOBIN: Oh, I thought - and who ran for the PC nomination in Pleasantville in the election of 1989? I wonder who was that? I apologize to the Member for St. John's North, because I thought it was him. So my apologies, I say to the Member for St. John's North. I made a mistake. He was never around our party in his life.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, what I have to say in this House will be about the members in the House, I say to the Member for St. John's South, and I can say to the members opposite, whatever they want to say to me, they can say it and I will take it, but I can tell you one thing, I have a responsibility, as a member representing one of the largest districts in this Province, and have people who are on social assistance going hungry, to speak up against what this minister is doing, as does every member in this Legislature have a responsibility to the sick and the suffering in their districts not to let that take place. One hundred and fifty-thousand dollars, writing a cheque to Fortis Trust, one of the biggest organizations in this Province? Who owns Fortis Trust? Who owns Light and Power, I ask the members opposite? Do you think for one minute that Fortis Trust will not survive without a contribution from the taxpayers of this Province?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Who was it the other day said about taking a dime out of the pockets of youngsters to give them admission in the arenas?

MR. TOBIN: What was that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Oh my colleague made that just the other day. Yes, they wanted to take the dimes out of the pockets of children going playing hockey. Get their chocolate bar money.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who said that over there?

MR. TOBIN: The Member for St. John's South said it.

Mr. Speaker, the thing that upsets me more about this is the fact that there are people in this Province today whose homes are not protected from the elements such as wind and rain, and this government - time and time again I have written the former minister. He is not in the House anymore and I say no more about that. He said he could not do anything for them.

How can you deny a lady with three children the right to protection from wind and rain in her home, when at the same time you can bring in a piece of legislation guaranteeing $150,000 of the taxpayers money to Fortis Trust?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Yes. Do not tell me about the Minister of Social Services.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about the single, unemployed who are getting $120 a month?

AN HON. MEMBER: He is justifying $120 a month for someone who is on social assistance.

MR. TOBIN: Well I would say to the Minister of Transportation, if there was a government worth their salt in this Province, a single, able-bodied person would not have to apply for social services because they would be creating jobs. They would be creating jobs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: But the Minister of Social Services should realize that this government has driven the unemployment rate in this Province from 14 per cent to 22 per cent. That is what is happening. For example, you have the minister up there, the Minister of Employment, whatever his name is, what is he doing with the student summer employment jobs? He is holding it on his desk and denying it to the students until after the election, and a student in my district, up in Baine Harbour, Brookside, or Petit Forte, will not get a chance to get a Summer job because this minister wants to play politics with their future. That is what is taking place, yet he can contribute $150,000 to Fortis Trust. What is happening here is not right, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SIMMS: You did not mind it when he donated it to the 500 Club, did you?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: His name is still on the list up there. I saw it the weekend.

MR. TOBIN: What is that, a member over there a member of the 500 Club? An active member of the PC 500 Club is in the Liberal caucus. I suppose that is alright. That is up to every individual if they want to do it. I do not know who my colleagues are referring to.

June 17, 1993                HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS           Vol. XLII  No. 17A

[Continuation of June 17 sitting.]

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's North on a point of order.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: The speaker, wherever's he's from is lying to the House, and if he's not lying to the House he's wagging the jaws that would certainly be able to get that type of thing out of his mouth. I think he should have his mouth washed out with Gillett's Lye and apologize for the mis-truth that he's just perpetrated on the House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

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

Would the hon. the Opposition House Leader take his seat?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

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

The hon. Member for St. John's North made some very unparliamentary remarks and I would ask him to withdraw.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, I will withdraw that remark but I will again -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

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

MR. L. MATTHEWS: I will withdraw that remark, Mr. Speaker.

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

I know the hon. member is a new member but you have to withdraw the remarks.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I don't know why the hon. member got so upset. The last words I said before he got up on a point of order is I don't know who my colleagues are referring to. Why is he so - why did not the Member for Eagle River jump up? Or why didn't some other member get up? Why did the Member for St. John's North get up and respond to that? I said, and I say it again, I don't know who they're referring to. One thing I will say, that in the last two minutes I became awfully suspicious of who they're talking about.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: In the last two minutes I became awfully suspicious of who they're talking about, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SIMMS: Guilty as charged!

MR. TOBIN: No, I didn't (inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: The last few minutes, Mr. Speaker. Now we're seeing the real cloth. I'd say to the Member for St. John's North that he doesn't have to tell anybody on me. I've got nothing that I'm ashamed of, I say to the Member for St. John's North.

MR. MURPHY: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. TOBIN: My political affiliations and associations -

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

MR. MURPHY: Mr. Speaker, I have no problem with the dialogue ensuing from the Member for Burin - Placentia West. But I ask the Chair, we should have relevancy to the bill. The member is talking now eighteen minutes and two minutes of his eighteen minutes have dealt with the bill. I ask the Chair -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member for St. John's South makes a good point. We're on a bill. I would ask the hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West to keep his remarks to the bill.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, actually I must say that I did get carried away and I agree with the Member for St. John's South that I was not exactly being relevant at the point in time. Being the type of person who always is, I can appreciate him getting up and bringing me to order.

I'll say that $150,000 to Fortis Trust is wrong. I'd say that it's a government without a conscience that would bring it in. I would say that it is members without a conscience, or any shame or guilt, would vote for it. I would ask the minister -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: What did he say? What did the Member for Carbonear say?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I'd say to the Member for Carbonear who had to bring up Sprung, I think that's what he said, Mr. Speaker, do you know something? Joey's deal with the Premier and his Cabinet to Holiday Inns is worth more than one Sprung. The Holiday Inn scam with Joey and the Premier and some other people is worth more than one Sprung.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I believe that this is wrong. I'd ask the minister in closing, if he would, in the name of everything decent, considering the plight of every Newfoundlander, considering the fact that there are those people on social assistance today, that there are people waiting to be admitted to hospital. I saw in the local paper the other day that the hospital on the Burin Peninsula had fifteen beds closed because government would not continue to support it, because government deducted the money from the Budget that was allocated to the people of the Burin Peninsula or from the Burin Peninsula health care. And what has happened, Mr. Speaker?... this government today, in spite of the fact that there are fifteen beds closed down on the Burin Peninsula, has brought in a piece of legislation to give $150,000 to one of the richest corporations or entities in this Province.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: In the country, the top 200 in the country.

MR. TOBIN: Now, Mr. Speaker, how can the Minister of Social Services, how can the Minister of Health, stand in this Legislature and vote for that piece of legislation? How can the Member for St. John's North, who has devoted much of his volunteer time I would suspect, to helping out people who are in very difficult situations - and did a good job at it - but how can he in all conscience today, knowing that there are sick and suffering and poor in this Province -

AN HON. MEMBER: Something coming after this.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No he has done a good job.

- realizing that they are there, how can he vote for this piece of legislation? That is the question I would like to ask the member. So, Mr. Speaker, with that in mind I would like to move, seconded by my colleague from Grand Bank, that this motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word 'that' and substitute the following, Bill 21, by not now reading for the second time, but that it be read a second time in six months hence.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: The member can speak for six more (inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: They have to rule on this now.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, did not even hear. It is a six-month hoist.

MR. SPEAKER: I apologize to hon. members. If the member would repeat the point of order -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: No, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I am willing to concede. The motion is in order as presented.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Minister of Finance.

MR. TOBIN: So, Mr. Speaker, that will give an opportunity for the Minister of Finance to do what needs to be done with this piece of legislation, to refer it to the committee, to refer it to the Legislative Review Committee and let the people of this Province have some input during the next six months as to whether or not this piece of legislation should be approved, and I wonder how many people would appear before the Legislative Review Committee and say to the minister through the committee, that they support the government giving $150,000 a year to Fortis Trust? I wonder, how many people does the minister really believe would send that message back to him? I would suspect, Mr. Speaker, that there would be very few; the only ones who would do it if they had the courage to come out would be the shareholders, Mr. Speaker, no one else -

MR. SULLIVAN: They are all on the mainland.

MR. TOBIN: On the mainland?

MR. SULLIVAN: Most of them, most of them with the exception of a few.

MR. TOBIN: Well, you know, that jives basically with what my colleague had to say yesterday regarding the medical school. We are spending thousands upon thousands upon tens of thousands dollars a year to train doctors from all over the Province, they get their degrees and they are gone back to mainland, yet rural Newfoundland continues to suffer, and our own people who qualify to become doctors, who want to become doctors cannot get into the medical school, and what is happening here is a similar situation, where government is now pumping money into Fortis Trust, and, as my colleague just said, the majority of their shareholders are from mainland Canada.

MR. SULLIVAN: It is not a Newfoundland company.

MR. TOBIN: Well, is that what the Member for St. John's North would like, or would he like to see Newfoundlanders getting the money?

AN HON. MEMBER: What do you mean by that?

AN HON. MEMBER: Twenty five dollars a share -

MR. TOBIN: Did you declare your shares?

MR. SULLIVAN: No, he transferred them all to Rolls Royce. Didn't you John?

AN HON. MEMBER: Sucking Newfoundlanders in -

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, what is happening here? I do not care how you cut it or what you say, what this minister has done is brutal. It is brutal, Mr. Speaker, and it is only a brutal person who would do it. Just look at your own constituency, the Member for Port au Port for example, look at your own constituency and think of the schools closing in a matter of a few days and how many young boys and girls will not have a playground throughout this Province to play on this summer? How many, Mr. Speaker, will not have a playground and will not be able to go out and enjoy their summer holidays because they have nowhere to play, because the recreation commission has no money to give them. How many members today, Mr. Speaker, have requests from recreation commissions and councils throughout the Province to find some assistance to provide playgrounds? This government, Mr. Speaker, has turned in a measly amount of dimes and nickels to further advance recreation for the children in this Province.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible) retired people in the Province who have not got the best breaks on RRSP's.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, my God. Oh, my, oh, my.

MR. TOBIN: I say to the Member for St. John's North that Fortis Inc. owns one company that has a monopoly in this Province, for God's sake do not try to give them two, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Waterford - Kenmount had to get up in this House today because of what they are doing for school textbooks in this Province. Parents cannot afford to buy school books for their children yet, Mr. Speaker, $150,000 of taxpayer's money a year for Fortis Trust, that is what is happening. There are children in this Province today who do not have a place to play hockey for example. Do not have a place to play hockey, Mr. Speaker, and what did this government do? They took the money away in the last Budget - that is not approved yet - to provide assistance, Mr. Speaker, for swimming pools and arenas in this Province. Now, the Member for St. John's South suggestion to that was to take their nickels and dimes, to deny them their candy and bars, Mr. Speaker, to deny them the right to skate but I do not hear the Member for St. John's South saying tell the shareholders of Fortis Trust to take their nickels and dimes out, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: I do not hear much of that being said.

The Minister of Social Services, Mr. Speaker -

AN HON. MEMBER: Vote it down. Vote the bill down.

MR. TOBIN: The Minister of Social Services in this Legislature has tried to defend the brutal attacks, the cruel attacks, upon the people who he is responsible for. How can the Minister of Social Services issue instructions to tell the social workers to cut home care to the bedridden and the sick in this Province by one-third and now sit in his place and vote to give Fortis Trust $150,000 a year, forever?

Today we see a group of men and women from Fleur de Lys in here crying out for help because government has stripped them of 300 jobs and because the Minister of Fisheries does not like what a previous minister did. Yes, you, that is what you did to those poor people from Fleur de Lys. Mr. Speaker, took 300 jobs, struck them like that, Mr. Speaker, struck them right off the face of the earth financially. I think that they would rather work, Mr. Speaker, for their money. I would suspect that the people of Fleur de Lys would rather work for their money, I know they would. They do not want a $150,000 handout.

I don't know if it's parliamentary to suggest that whoever was involved in this they're what they used to refer to years ago as pirates.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. TOBIN: Pirates.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Piracy.

MR. TOBIN: Piracy, Mr. Speaker. Piracy on the high seas, I say this is piracy in the Cabinet room. The old captain himself from Port de Grave.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: `Old Captain Hook.'

MR. TOBIN: Or pirate. `Captain Pirate.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has removed himself from the Chamber - and I would suspect and I would hope he removed himself because of shame and guilt. How can the Member for Fortune - Hermitage support this, when the children in his district, in Harbour Breton, are denied the right - $20,000 slashed from their budget - to operate their new arena? Yet he can come in here and vote $150,000 for Fortis Trust. I would say to the Member for Fortune - Hermitage that the children of the people involved in Fortis Trust have no difficulty finding a place to skate. But the fishermen from Harbour Breton, Burin - Placentia West, Grand Bank, LaPoile and St. Barbe, and all over the other parts of Newfoundland, and Port de Grave and all those other districts, I can tell you that they're not having it very easy. It's not easy for someone with five or six children today to put their hand in their pocket and give them the money that's needed to go out and equip themselves for skates to play hockey, to play other sports. It is not easy, I say to members opposite.

Unless the members over there think that Fortis Trust shareholders are having the same problem up on the mainland. It must be something. Because there is no one with a sense of decency, a sense of responsibility, who would vote for this. Granted, if this Province had lots of money - but we don't - we hear it every day from the Premier and the Minister of Finance. There's legislation before this House this last week cutting pensions, cutting salaries, cutting the works, because we have no money. Everything slashed because we have no money.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: What's that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)?

MR. TOBIN: Yes, Mr. Speaker. By leave. I'd like for the Member for Port de Grave to stay awake. In any case, the point I'm trying to make is trying to say to all the members opposite, I know that the members on this side in good conscience would vote against it based solely on the fact the sick and the suffering in this Province are getting absolutely nothing.

The other thing is: if you don't care about your constituents, if you don't give a damn about your constituents, if the people on social assistance in your constituency don't bother you, then vote for this piece of legislation. But that's the only way you can vote for it, if you don't care about them, I'd say to the members opposite. If you don't care about your constituents, if you don't care about the people on social assistance in your district, if you don't care about the people who cannot get into the hospital for medical attention, if you don't care about the nurses who are worked off their feet and being laid off, if you don't care about the social workers who can't cope with the work, if you don't care about any of that, then vote for this piece of legislation. But if you have a conscience or any concern or any commitment for your constituents, vote against it. The decision is yours, I say to members opposite.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member for Burin - Placentia West makes a good point, this bill really is a matter of conscience. The question is: what's going to happen to Fortis, Inc. or Fortis Trust if this bill is not passed. Will the directors of Fortis Trust be forced to go to food banks if we don't pass this bill - like the thousands and thousands of Newfoundlanders who are forced to go to food banks because they don't have enough to eat? Is that is what is going to happen to Fortis Inc., or Fortis Trust, or the directors or the employees? No, Mr. Speaker, no.

Will they have to do without school books? The Minister of Education said, We had to make decisions, we had to make choices, we had to make judgements, and we decided to put up the price of school books. Let the price of school books go sky high. Never mind. There are some people who can afford to pay and there are some people who cannot, but we exercised our judgement and we think that judgement means that school books must go up.

Where is the money coming from that puts the school books up? That money that is coming now into the public treasury is going out to Fortis Trust, maybe so that the Member for St. John's North can get a higher rate on his RSPs. He is lucky to have RSPs. There are many, many Newfoundlanders who would be lucky to be able to have RSP money to invest in Fortis Trust as the Member for St. John's North has. Are we going to give them an extra $150,000 so they can give him an extra point on his RSPs? Is that why we are giving Fortis Trust this $150,000? That is what this legislation is all about.

Fortis Trust is not going to close its doors if we don't give them $150,000 but there are a lot of people in this Province going without food that they need. There are people going without health care that they need. They are going without home care that they need, because the Minister of Social Services has had his budget cut by Treasury Board and he has had to come and, I say, sheepishly defend it to the Estimates Committee and say: Well, we are trying to cut back and maybe some of them don't need all of this anyway.

That may be. There may be one or two who don't need the care they are getting, but there are a lot of others who do, and officials of his department are sent out to cut back by 30 per cent the home care being provided to people who are sick or disabled, or are home, unable to look after themselves because of old age. All of these people are being asked to cut back and do without, to pay extra electricity rates, and everybody is asked to kick in because we are in tough times.

Well, if we are in tough times, why are we able to find $150,000 for Fortis Trust? They will not go hungry. They will not go without a job. They will not have to go somewhere else looking for work. They are going to tick away, make more money for the shareholders of Fortis Inc. That is all they are going to do. It is not going to bring about any hardship to any person if this bill is not passed.

On the other hand, $150,000 of revenue that the government is foregoing is costing people in this Province hardship, and we hear it every day. Every day in this House, one minister or another, or the Premier, gets up and defends some cutback in service, some cutback in government benefits, some cutback in services to individuals, whether it be people on workers' compensation, injured workers who are now asked to take less than what the legislation requires be given to them - 80 per cent of their pre-injury income is being deducted even from then by administrative acts - and the government defends that, supports it. The people in the back benches defend and support it and vote in favour of every piece of legislation that comes forward.

There is an opportunity here for the representatives of this House to send a clear message to the people of this Province that despite the fact they walked back in with a majority, they still have some compassion - compassion for the people of Newfoundland, compassion for their own constituents, and are not prepared to go out and make special tax expenditures to give $150,000 to Fortis Trust when they have an opportunity to say no.

If somebody phoned the Member for Pleasantville and asked: Why did you vote for this legislation when I have needs? we may hear the Member for Pleasantville say: I had no choice - The John Turner answer, I had no choice. I had no option. I had to support this legislation.

Well, you don't have to support this legislation, I say to the Member for Pleasantville, and I don't think that your constituents would want you to support this legislation. If you did one of your polls - and I know the member is fond of doing polls; he sends out to householders and asks his constituents whether they are in favour of this or in favour of that. Do they want 42 seats in the House or 125? He asks them all their opinions and he gets them back. If the Member for Pleasantville asked his constituents: Do you think we should give $150,000 a year to Fortis Trust so that they can be a more profitable company and make more money for the shareholders of Fortis Inc.? Should we do that when the poverty rate in this Province is increasing; when people on social assistance haven't had an increase, not a cent of an increase since this government came in; when people in this Province are struggling to get by? Should we take $150,000 and give it to a subsidiary of one of the wealthiest corporations in Canada as a special favour? I am sure that, to a person, they would say no.

I would say there may be some shareholders of Fortis in his district. There may be half-a-dozen of them who would say: Yes, give them $150,000, it will help me in the long run. There may be some people like the Member for St. John's North, who have their RSPs in Fortis, and they think they are going to get a higher rate on their RSPs if they give $150,000 to Fortis. There may be a few.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: They are not in Fortis. There may even be a few people on the board of directors of Fortis Inc., living in the district of the Member for Pleasantville, who would say yes. He might have ten or a dozen or maybe twenty-five or thirty people who would say, yes, give Fortis Trust an extra $150,000 of the taxpayers' money to look after their needs. But I would say the vast majority, 99 per cent of his constituents, would say to him: No, don't give Fortis Trust this money. It is a very simple proposition.

MR. NOEL: (Inaudible) resulted in a new growth industry (inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Now look, that's the first time you've spoken since this session opened.

MR. HARRIS: We know about some people speaking. I understand, as a result of some items in the newspaper, the Member for Lewisporte is going to be making a lot more contributions to this session of the House than he did the last one.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who?

MR. HARRIS: The Member for Lewisporte. I was just reading the paper the other day - and I didn't keep track, I haven't looked at the index of Hansard, but I am told by an article in The Evening Telegram that the Member for Lewisporte spoke once in the last session of the House, for a one-year period.

MR. TOBIN: The Mobile goat spoke once.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. EFFORD: There was more substance in that one speech he made than you ever made.

MR. HARRIS: With all due respect to the constituent of the Member for Lewisporte, whose birthday he was honouring in the House, I would have to disagree with the Member for Port au Grave.

MR. TOBIN: `Jack', it was a Happy Birthday greeting (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: That's what I said. With all due respect to the constituent of the Member for Lewisporte, who was having a birthday on the occasion of the speech by the member, I would have to disagree with the Member for Port de Grave. I think there is probably more substance in the speeches - he might not agree with my statements and my speeches in the House, but I would have to say to the Member for Port de Grave, or the Minister of Works, Service and Transportation, that there has been more substance in my speeches. He might not have agreed with anything I said -

MR. EFFORD: Dream on!

MR. HARRIS: I do say, though, that perhaps we will hear from the Member for Lewisporte on this important piece of legislation and have him tell us whether or not he supports this legislation or whether he supports the people -

MR. WOODFORD: They are all trying to get into Cabinet. They know the other fellows are going to slip pretty soon.

MR. HARRIS: They will all have an opportunity to speak on this legislation and vote on it, and let their constituents know whether or not they're in favour of supporting the $150,000 gift to Fortis Trust, or whether they would prefer to use that money for other needs, for people in their own constituencies who need home care services or who need assistance from the Social Services department, or people who are looking for jobs for the summer in their constituencies. This $150,000 could go very well to help the program of the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, who needs more money for his student job program. There are all sorts of needs in this Province, and in each of your constituencies, that are far more important than a gift of $150,000 to this corporation.

Each and every member opposite has an opportunity to stand up and be counted on this legislation, and I look forward to hearing the speeches of hon. members opposite about this issue.

I know, the Member for Port de Grave is realizing it is sunny outside. We can't see the outside here, but it is very sunny.

MR. EFFORD: Do you know, I haven't seen the sun this year?

MR. HARRIS: The Member for Port de Grave hasn't seen the sun this year. I can understand that.

MR. WOODFORD: Living in St. John's, I can see why.

MR. NOEL: (Inaudible) that he hasn't seen the light.

MR. HARRIS: I can understand that. He comes to work before the sun comes up and he doesn't look out the window. He is up early and he takes so much - he is on the phone receiving abuse from his constituents so much all day that he never sees the sun. The Member for Pleasantville says he hasn't seen the light either, and I would probably agree with that, although we have a bit of bright light here.

I look forward to the Member for Port de Grave's intervention on this piece of legislation, to hearing what he has to say, and hearing other members opposite who are newly-elected and know that governments have to make choices and decisions. In this case, they made a decision to support Fortis Trust over their constituents, and I would like to hear them explain the reasons why they are going to be supporting this legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. MURPHY: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. One can only sit so long in one's place and listen to so much fertilizer. Substance! The very man who just sat down, the man who represents - if anybody is ever asked to let a photographer come into this hon. House and take a picture of an hon. member, it should be the Member for St. John's East, because he might be the last of a dying breed. He is just about gone. He might be the last lone buffalo left representing the NDP.

Now, for him to get up today and get on with his dissertation about - I don't see anything in this bill about Fortis. Fortis has been mentioned 722 times and I don't see one thing here that says anything about Fortis capital or Fortis Inc. or Fortis anything. What I would suggest to the hon. member, if he had the $52,000 that he wasted in the last election and gave it to the Minister of Social Services then there would be some substance in what he said today, but he said nothing. He got up and turned on a corporation.

Maybe he could suggest to his friends at FFAW, who are entitled to start their own trust, that there might be a - if they had a decent lawyer down at FFAW to advise them and say: Now, this might be an opportune time, with this piece of legislation, for FFAW or any other large union. If an attorney were smart, he would say to them: Take advantage of this new bill - start a trust company and we can wheel away, not up to $500,000, but up to $5 million. That is the kind of advice a good man would be giving those who supported him to the tune of fifty-two grand. That's the kind of stuff you would expect from him.

Then the Member for Burin - Placentia West gets up.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: I would suggest to the hon. member, he is not over last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. If we had the money that was spent last Friday night saying good-bye to a man who just spent $1.5 million saying good-bye to all his friends around the world, then maybe we wouldn't be talking -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) doorknobs.

MR. MURPHY: No - doorknobs! There are no doorknobs. I suggest to the rookie in the back, he should have been here when the hon. member - and it is a pleasure to see the hon. the Member for Kilbride stand on his feet. He has carried himself well in the House and I congratulate him. He asks us good, logical, well-pointed questions, and it is refreshing to see somebody from Mount Pearl - Kilbride, I am sorry, with that attitude. I apologize to the Member for Mount Pearl. I know he is all uptight about opening his new rink tomorrow.

The Member for Burin - Placentia West can't have it both ways. He can't jump up and condemn everything that this government is doing, when his own government, his own cousins in Ottawa, are throwing money around like drunken sailors, not pirates, drunken sailors, banging it out.

MR. TOBIN: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. TOBIN: I wonder if you could call upon the member to address the bill and be relevant to what he is discussing?

MR. SPEAKER: To that point of order, if members were held to relevance, I am afraid we wouldn't hear very much in the House, so I will give the hon. member latitude, I think, as to every other member of the House.

MR. MURPHY: I thank the Chair for its protection. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Now, the hon. members opposite thought that today was going to be a nice day and they would rattle down through this bill and at 7:00 p.m. they would all take their barbecue sauce and go to their party.

AN HON. MEMBER: It is cancelled.

MR. MURPHY: Oh, it is cancelled - good! Now, we can all get up and talk.

AN HON. MEMBER: Next Thursday.

MR. MURPHY: Well, that is the way it should be. We were challenged to get up and talk so I am going to be the first to get up and if the Member for Lewisporte were challenged he would probably get up.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Oh, you don't know who is going to get up.

MR. SIMMS: We are ready to move on to some other legislation if you get through this.

MR. MURPHY: Well, I wouldn't have been on my feet only for the hon. minister saying to me: `You are not going to sit there and take that gobbledegook are you?' I said, `No, Mr. Minister, what would you suggest?' He said, `Get up and fight back,' and I said, `Okay, fight back, we will.' So, you know, there are two ways of looking at it. This afternoon we have seen this bill amended. We have heard an awful lot of old foolishness this afternoon about what I see is a piece of legislation to encourage trust companies and/or similar such companies to come into the Province, maybe bring in some foreign investment, foreign capital - that is what we are looking for. We are trying to encourage people to come in and try -

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Well, the Leader of the Opposition has a short memory and so does the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. HARRIS: Would the hon. member accept a question as to whether or not, for example, he would be prepared to amend the legislation to exempt Fortis Trust from the application of this bill so we can encourage other trust companies to come in? Would he be prepared to do that?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

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

MR. MURPHY: Mr. Speaker, what foolishness! The Member for St. John's East gets up and asks -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) give back his $52,000.

MR. MURPHY: No, no, I am not going to get into any of those nasties. I say to the hon. minister, that is not the kind of stuff I would like to address.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible) point of order?

MR. SPEAKER: I said there was no point of order.

MR. MURPHY: But why would the member want to single out one company? Why would he want to do that? Is this a democracy? Is this the structure of the NDP? Is that what the NDP wants to do? What does the NDP want to do? Obviously, the people of Canada know what the NDP want to do because they are answering - or the people in Alberta; Terry Sawchuck was from Alberta and so is the NDP, and they both had shutouts.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Well, we will try. Well, that is alright, I still have twenty-five minutes and it doesn't make any difference. I mean, here is, what I would suggest, a bill that doesn't need the type of dialogue that it suffered this afternoon. The Member for Mount Pearl, in his wisdom - because he was a good member and even when he was a minister, I agreed with an awful lot of things he did. And when he set up that nice little group down on - and we started having some investment within the Province, for which this government just had to borrow, I think, $72 million to pay up -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Something of that nature, yes. But at least the Member for Mount Pearl was trying to generate some investment within the Province. Now, that is all that this bill is doing, giving some relief to those who want to start trust companies to invest within our own Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. MURPHY: Wait now, you can't have it both ways, I suggest to hon. members. You can't, when you are in government, bring in a bill to encourage investment in trust companies and then, when this government does the same thing, stand up and criticize. The Member for Burin - Placentia West was talking about social services recipients and all of that - that is fine, I understand where he is coming from and I pity every single person who is on social assistance, and I understand what he is saying. There are people out there hungry but there was nobody hungry enough in Ottawa last Friday night, not a soul -

AN HON. MEMBER: What has that got to do with it?

MR. MURPHY: What has that got to do with it, that is a response, that is a response, when we saw that Hollywood extravaganza -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Well, your member is lucky to have one, the member is lucky to have a card. How many people on social assistance can take a gold card out of their pockets? How many, how many, I ask hon. members have gold cards and if the hon. member applied for a platinum card he would get one, but there are not many people on social services I would suggest to the hon. member, who can haul a gold card out of their pocket and show it in this House.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are right on.

MR. MURPHY: I cannot do it -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. MURPHY: You see, the hon. members cannot have it both ways. I mean, everything is tied up in the fact that they were government, and I can understand there is nothing worst than playing senior hockey and getting demoted to B. Now, '89 you were demoted down to B, '93 you were demoted down to C. Now all this stuff has built up inside hon. members and their frustration has to come out somewhere, and where does it come out? When this government is trying to do something logical to give trust companies a little incentive, a little, tiny bit of incentive, Mr. Speaker, what happens? Up they jump and every issue in the world is thrown across this hon. House that has absolutely no relevance to the bill, nothing whatsoever.

Did they talk about fish, did they talk about the dying industry of fish today? No, not a peep, not a squeak, not a murmur. The Member for Grand Bank didn't stand up, not a peep out of him, never said a word, not a word because we heard everything else irrelevant, never mentioned fish, never said a word about it -

AN HON. MEMBER: He did.

MR. MURPHY: Who?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: The hon. member, from Burin - Placentia?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: He talked about what?

AN HON. MEMBER: Crab.

MR. MURPHY: Crab? Now that is another story that we heard here today in Question Period and I am not going to get into it because I do not want the Member for Ferryland all tied up in pork barrelling. I am not going to get into that, I will another day - no the Member for Ferryland is always addressing pork barrelling, always talking about pork barrelling -

AN HON. MEMBER: Who did that?

MR. MURPHY: Oh well, you did it.

AN HON. MEMBER: When?

MR. MURPHY: As soon as the House opened up you did it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: No, I do not know, I am not going to look up that Hansard and I am not getting on with any of that old foolishness. I do not need to read that. The hon. Member for Ferryland well knows why the previous fisheries minister dished out those few licences, and I am not going to get into, it is not worth the time, Mr. Speaker, to talk about it, not even worth the time to discuss it.

AN HON. MEMBER: I already know (inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Well, what do you want me to do, go back and talk about seventeen years of it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. MURPHY: No, I would not lower myself, I would not bring down the decorum of this hon. House to even discuss it.

AN HON. MEMBER: You brought it up.

MR. MURPHY: Oh, I did not bring it up. I did not bring it up.

You know, Mr. Speaker, I see this bill as a step in the right direction, because Newfoundland under its present circumstance where it finds itself in a financial bind, we have to do everything we can to encourage anybody to bring any kind of a dollar into this Province. If they bring it in in any trust company and it is distributed within this Province and that wealth creates jobs, then we should all be here applauding anything that would bring any kind of investment in here.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Now the Member for St. John's East always wants it both ways. He wants to get up and criticize the government for any initiative it takes. I ask the hon. Member for St. John's East, what initiative has he brought to this House in the time he has been here, what suggestion has he brought to this House? What suggestion did he bring to the people of the Province during the last provincial election? They did not hear him very good or they did not believe him.

AN HON. MEMBER: Borrow more money.

MR. MURPHY: Borrow more money. That was the suggestion the hon. member brought in the last election, borrow more money. Now the hon. Leader of the Opposition - I do not know if he said borrow more money specifically, but he was going to do away with the payroll tax.

That is gone, out. When we form the government that $60 million, gone. Now, I do not know where he was going to get it. I ask the hon. minister is it $60 million we get from the payroll tax?

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. MURPHY: See. That was $60 million. He was not going to reduce the compensation package. That is $70 million. Now, that is $130 million.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. MURPHY: Holiday Inn was not a bad deal. No, I disagree with him. Remember now, 1965. Come Home Year was 1966. The hon. member was playing hopscotch and he knows nothing about it. He was playing marbles, stickball, or something and knows nothing about it. We could not get tourists or Newfoundlanders back home because we had nowhere to put them up.

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

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I do not know what is happening here. You have the Member for St. John's South who is parliamentary assistant to the Premier with access to the Premier's office standing up and saying that was not a bad deal and you have the Premier spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in court to fight it. What is it, Mr. Speaker? Who is right? Is the Premier right or is the member right? Someone come clean on it, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order, of course.

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

MR. MURPHY: We can sit in this House and debate whether or not Churchill Falls was a good deal. It is easy to look over your shoulder. There is no trouble to look over your shoulder. Hindsight is 20/20 vision I say to hon. members opposite. Surely they did not sit in Cabinet, most of that front row did not sit in Cabinet, and think that $26 million later the lights were going to go out in Mount Pearl and that Sprung was going to be a failure.

AN HON. MEMBER: It was such a good deal.

MR. MURPHY: Well, you fellows said it was a good deal. You must have. Who was the minister at the time who brought in the cabinet paper for Sprung? Well, we can talk about a lot of things I say to the Leader of the Opposition. When the hon. members sat down and said, yes, Mr. Peckford, we will grow tons and tons of them. Where are you going to sell them? Did anybody ask where are you going to sell them? I thought it might work. I thought a little tiny bit of Sprung might have worked. Myself and the Member for Humber Valley had a discussion about it.

AN HON. MEMBER: How many Cabinet papers did you see?

MR. MURPHY: I have not seen any Cabinet papers, not one in my lifetime have I seen. Not a Cabinet paper have I seen, not one.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: And you will not see one.

MR. MURPHY: That is alright. I say to the hon. Member for Grand Bank that he had better remember the ones he saw because he will not see any more either. You had better remember the ones you saw. I say to the Member for Burin - Placentia West who was up today, how in all conscience when I know how much social heart he has could he sit in Cabinet and let $25 million -

AN HON. MEMBER: What about Holiday Inn?

MR. MURPHY: Well, at least Holiday Inn is still standing, people are still there and it still employs Newfoundlanders, all kinds of Newfoundlanders, in Corner Brook, in Stephenville, in Gander, in Clarenville, and in St. John's. Where are the Sprung employees? Are they working at Holiday Inns? The only thing that is left standing of Sprung is the little hovel that Jack Crane on the Southern Shore goes out ice fishing in. The Member for Ferryland has seen it.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: You should explain that (inaudible)

MR. MURPHY: I say to the hon. Member for Grand Bank that I do not have a calculator here but let me suggest to him that if he took since 1965 up to the present day, which is eighteen years -

MR. HODDER: Twenty-eight years.

MR. MURPHY: I say thank you to the hon. Member for Waterford - Kenmount. Always go to a school teacher to get the math right. I say to him if we had the taxes that were spent in Holiday Inns, what we generated with Holiday Inns, it would long pay off what it cost the taxpayers of this Province, $9 million, to originally build it. The hon. members can bawl out Atlific and Holiday Inns but they cannot bawl out about Sprung. Tonight if any hon. member wants to go to any Holiday Inn, they can get a bed, if they are lucky enough. Right now there is not a room at Holiday Inn in St. John's, because the Minister of Tourism brought a national darts tournament here, 650 people, and you cannot get in over there - all new money generated by this hon. minister and this government.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where is the Sprung?

MR. MURPHY: Now where is the Sprung? Churchill Falls, a bad deal, but it still brings in $20 million a year royalties. There are lots of Newfoundlanders working up there. Not only that, the hon. minister just informed me that he is going down to the Radisson. He has that filled.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Ah. Again, I am not blaming - I am only using Sprung as a comparison, I say to the Leader of the Opposition. Using Sprung as a comparison is all that I am doing.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Well, no, I do not think that Sprung, if we look at Sprung the way it was developed, I thought it was too much too quick. As my friend for Humber Valley and I discussed at one time, if we had to start one pod we might have two pods now. We would have developed something, but it was a mistake, but I do not criticize the previous administration for trying to generate jobs.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: No, no Sir. There is nothing wrong with Sprung, and if Sprung had to have a chance, and had to be done right, it might still be alive, providing good jobs, because there are one, two, three, four, five, hon. members opposite who sat at that Cabinet table, who listened to that Cabinet paper on Sprung, and said: Yes, Mr. Premier, go ahead.

AN HON. MEMBER: You do not know what was said.

MR. MURPHY: Well I do not know that, but - like the hon. member, I live by assumption, but at least enough people said it in Cabinet. Enough said it that it carried the day -

AN HON. MEMBER: You do not know.

MR. MURPHY: Well that is right. The hon. member is correct. I do not know, but forever in time -

AN HON. MEMBER: Mr. Speaker, he's gone over.

MR. MURPHY: No, I have not gone over. The hon. member knows I have not gone over. The hon. member got up and had his little woof. He turned on everybody. He turned on the Minister of Social Services - turned on him, ate him alive. One of the most solid individuals in this House of Assembly is the Minister of Social Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MURPHY: Turned on him, said he was sending his workers out to take one-third back, and getting on with a whole lot of old stuff.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's true.

MR. MURPHY: Well it is not true. No, it is not true. It is easy to say it. It is easy to stand up, and shout and bawl, and roar and rant and rave and make statements. That is easy. I find it offensive when I listen to the Member for St. John's East. I find it offensive - really. He is the only man who is so far left he has gone right. He has gone right.

At the end of my few words, and I am nearly finished - I am happy to say I am nearly finished - but it is tough for any hon. member on this side to sit here and listen to the constant abuse, the constant untrue abuse, the constant gobbledygook, the constant guff - a favourite word of the Minister of Health, `guff' - and that is all it is, just to get up and make a noise about a piece of legislation that just might... I heard the Member for Mount Pearl constantly saying: It is time for this government to do something to encourage investment. Do, do, get up and do it.

Now, the Minister of Finance brings in a piece of legislation and what happens? The members opposite associate it with Fortis Inc. They cannot get off the platform. They do not know how to get off the platform. The Member for Ferryland knows. He knows Fortis Inc. is all they have in their heads. Oh, a strange deal... and there is no deal. There is no deal - absolutely no deal. There is nothing in the bill that references Fortis Inc. - not a thing - not one thing, and every hon. member opposite got up and beat down on Fortis Inc.

What I would suggest to hon. members is that there are a lot of Newfoundlanders out there who worked hard all their lives, who have over the years saved their few coppers and invested in Fortis Inc. and a lot of seniors out there depend on their income from Fortis Inc. So, it is alright to get up here and have a go and a gob at Fortis Inc. but there is more to Fortis Inc. than the mainland investment. There is a lot of local investment in Fortis Inc.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Oh, yes there is and there is nothing in this bill that references Fortis Inc. nothing, absolutely nothing. Total supposition by members opposite, total supposition by members opposite, and the references that they have made to Fortis Inc. does not come into reality, I think hon. members opposite will be disappointed. I mean at this point in time surely heavens all of this partisanship - I mean you have forced members on this side to get up and speak -

AN HON. MEMBER: Forced?

MR. MURPHY: Yes, forced members on this side to get up and say a few words about this particular piece of legislation. So, Mr. Speaker, I had absolutely no intention, as everybody on this side of this hon. House knows, absolutely no intention of standing and speaking on this particular bill but how in heavens name any member with any fibre in him, hoping that we will turn it around, hoping that nationally, internationally it will turn around, subsequently we will be able to turn it around but we have to try something on our own. I mean the Member for Menihek did not get up and criticize this bill because I know that he believes in it, I know he believes in it. He and his friend from St. John's East are on the side of Fortis Inc., the two of them are on it. I say I am surprised, I was really surprised that the Member for St. John's East stood on his feet and accused the Member for St. John's North of counting his RRSP's. I would suggest, I do not know, I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that there is probably no member in this hon. House that has more stashed than the Member for St. John's East, stashed, good old green.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Well, he might have a few dollars too. He might have a few dollars. I do not know who has - nobody knows but somebody is going to know very shortly now when the new document comes down and you have to sit down - and I say to the hon. member, it is going to take him half the Summer to fill it out. It is going to take him half the Summer to fill it out when he puts down all the addresses and all this. The Member for Menihek is looking over his shoulder and saying: that is right, oh, my God. I have to sit down and do the same. It is going to be a rough time in Lab City and the midnight oil will burn, even in the long Summer nights, the midnight oil will burn when the Member for Menihek is up trying to fill out his conflict of interest sheet. I mean he is going to use at least a half-a-dozen Bic's.

So, here is a bill that the hon. Member for Gander, the Minister of Finance, is bringing to this hon. House and has been brow beaten and beaten to pieces here today on one issue and one issue alone and that is the supposition that this bill favours one single trust company in this Province. That is not fair and it is not right and with those few words, Mr. Speaker, I say thank you.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to have a few words to say on the legislation. I was not going to speak on the bill either but there are a few things that have been said in the debate, most recently by the Member for St. John's South, that I find really difficult to believe. I really find it difficult to believe that he made the comments that he made, first of all with respect to Fortis Trust not being associated with this piece of legislation. He must have a very poor memory.

Right in this Legislature back in December when this bill was being debated into the wee, wee hours of the morning, the minister acknowledged that the only company that would get this particular break at the moment was Fortis Trust.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) legislation?

MR. SIMMS: Well you ask the minister. Do not ask us. It is not our legislation. It is the government's legislation, so to try to portray something different, or something other than the fact that Fortis Trust is the company that is going to get a break in this instance, is wrong. It is incorrect, so we should get that straightened out right at the beginning.

Mr. Speaker, also what we have to remember here, what we are talking about, is a change to the Financial Corporation Capital Tax Act that gives benefits, at the moment, to only one company. We are told in this House of Assembly there is only one company at the moment that will benefit from this particular change in legislation, and that is Fortis Trust.

Now let us remember, Fortis Trust is only one subsidiary company of Fortis Incorporated. Fortis Incorporated is a company with its head office and shareholders - most of their shareholders from outside of Newfoundland and Labrador, let us not forget that. They are listed in Fortune Magazine, as somebody said today, as I think the 194th. largest company - 194th. I have here - in their list of the top 500 companies in Canada, so it is not a small company. It is also the company that owns Newfoundland Light and Power, or Newfoundland Power as it is now called, among other things.

So do not lose sight of the fact that what we are talking about here is a change to the Financial Corporations Capital Tax Act that will benefit a company like Fortis Incorporated. That is the firm that is going to get the ultimate benefit - a firm that is one of the largest corporations in Canada, a firm that has most of its shareholders outside of Newfoundland and Labrador - and that is what we have a problem with, not to mention the political connections and the political connotations.

Frankly, when this bill came up in December we were extremely concerned in the opposition because the then and the now Minister of Justice was associated on the Board of Directors of Fortis. That was a reasonable thing for us to be concerned about, not to mention the connection between the Premier and Fortis Incorporated, which owns Newfoundland Power, the Premier being a former Chairman of Newfoundland Power. So there were all kinds of reasons for us to be suspicious. Now we can be accused of being political and partisan, but it certainly is very suspicious, and that is why we raised the concern.

Now the Member for St. John's South says that we should not be too concerned. We are only trying to encourage investment and get some companies set up here and all that kind of thing, and I thought the Member for St. John's East made an extremely good suggestion when he suggested: Well, let us see an amendment to the legislation at committee stage or whatever, that omits any existing company from benefitting from this tax break until something happens in the future. So when there is competition, or another trust company in the same category and so on, maybe then you can then apply the tax break.

I thought that was a reasonable suggestion, and I became even more convinced of it. I was almost being convinced by some of the things being said on the other side there, when they were saying that this particular bill does not benefit anybody in particular. The Member for St. John's South tried to convince us. Then I looked at the bill for one last time, because I had not read the bottom part of the bill: `This act shall be considered to have come into force on November 1, 1992' - not 1993, back in November of 1992 - `and will not apply to a corporation until the beginning of its fiscal year after October 31, 1992.'

Now I ask the Minister of Finance if, as the Member for St. John's South is saying, this is not meant to benefit Fortis Trust, then why in the name of Heaven is it retroactive to November of last year? I would like him to explain that to this House, and until we get a reasonable and satisfactory explanation, I can say to him: This is a new revelation. It is something that was in the legislation. It was not mentioned by the minister when he introduced the bill. He did not mention that at all.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Didn't know it.

AN HON. MEMBER: I thought you could read.

MR. SIMMS: Well, I did too.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: You were hoping we didn't!

MR. SIMMS: Yes. You were hoping - perhaps the minister was hoping I couldn't read.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) $300,000 (inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: That's right. By now, by now.

MR. SIMMS: See? So the tax break - we were told in the House last year when we asked questions on this matter that it was equivalent or worth about $150,000. I think that's what the minister told us then. So now, because of this retroactive till last October, November, then that means, more than likely it means it's $300,000 that we're talking about. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars for last year, $150,000 for this year.

AN HON. MEMBER: And for the next ten years it will be $1.5 million.

MR. SIMMS: Exactly. Going to a company, one of the largest corporations in Canada, at a time - I say to the Minister of Finance, why is he so persistent in wanting to give this tax break now to a company like Fortis Trust? Can he answer that question? Why is he pushing it so hard now when he knows it's only going to benefit Fortis Incorporated, one of the largest corporations in Canada, which owns Fortis Trust and Newfoundland Light and Power and all of these other companies? I can't for the life of me understand why they are so dogged and persistent unless there is some other reason which he hasn't told us about, and I wish he would tell us.

AN HON. MEMBER: Like what?

MR. SIMMS: I mentioned earlier the political connections, I say to the Minister of Health. When we first raised this matter back in December. He's well aware of the political connotations associated with the Minister of Justice and the Premier's involvement with Fortis Incorporated companies.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: It might be in the past, I say to the Minister of Health, yes.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: I don't know what to suggest because you won't come clean and tell us the answers. We want to know why you're pushing this bill right now when it doesn't benefit anybody other than Fortis Trust. That's the only company that's going to benefit from this. Not only that, the legislation you brought in here today is retroactive till last October 31, November 1. Why are you doing that? Nobody explained that to the House. The minister has a responsibility to explain those things and hopefully he will when he closes debate on second reading. Remembering always of course that we have an opportunity during the Committee stage to discuss it and debate it further. Depending on the explanations and the answers that we get, then maybe we may let it go. It all depends. If we have questions to ask then we have an obligation and a responsibility to ask those questions.

I say in conclusion simply this: the big argument that we have is the fact that here we are bringing in a legislative amendment to a piece of legislation, a bill, a law, that gives a tax break, in our view and in our eyes, to a larger corporation. One of the largest ones in Canada. While at the same time this same government has brought in all kinds of tax changes over the last two or three years that have done nothing but hinder and hurt businesses in this Province which have had one heck of a time trying to survive under the burden of taxation heaped upon them by this particular government. The payroll tax being only one example of it.

So why would we give a large corporation - which has fantastic profits, by the way - for the last five years Fortis Incorporated average earnings per shareholder are above 7 per cent. For the last five years. So why are we giving a break to that company? Why are we taking one hundred and fifty -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) don't you want to see profitable company's (inaudible)?

MR. SIMMS: Sure I do! Absolutely I do. They're not here!

I say to the minister, he can relax, they aren't here.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. SIMMS: They aren't here, I say to the minister, they aren't here. We'll talk some more about jobs in this Province and what the government over there is trying to do about it.

I'm trying to say to the minister: that is our problem with it. This tax break goes to a big company, $150,000. But you've got other companies. Plus you've just gone through a process in your own Budget. You've gone through a process where you've taken $20,000 from, whatever it is, the boys and girls club. You had to cut the VRDP program which helps handicapped or delayed youth with post-secondary education. You've had to make all those kinds of very difficulty decisions and cuts. Some of them very simple, in small communities that have access to that little $5,000 electrical power subsidy in a small community in this Province for the operation of a pool or an area, $10,000. You had to cut all those programs out.

What we're saying to the minister, you've made all of those decisions which are considered to be tough decisions in an attempt to save $50,000 or $100,000 or $150,000. Here you have an opportunity to save another $150,000 of taxpayers money. To put it towards something much more important to this government I would suggest in this fiscal year. It's $150,000 you're going to have to now pay out from taxpayers.

Mr. Speaker, I hope I've been able to explain and rationalize the concern that we have and the reason that we've been asking the questions and raising questions about the whole issue. It is a simple matter of principle, I guess, at this stage. Not to talk about the political connotation, as I said in the past, that we've had suspicions about. Never mind all of that. The reality is a large corporation like Fortis Incorporated, which has its shareholders outside of Newfoundland and Labrador, is going to get the major benefit from this tax break. Yet at the same time businesses in our own Province - small businesses and companies in our own Province - which are struggling to survive and keep their heads above water are not getting any help or any assistance at all in the way of tax breaks.

I want the minister to answer those questions. We'll see then where we go from here with respect to the debate, I guess, as time goes on. There may be others who wish to speak as time goes on.

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

MR. CAREEN: It's not my intention, and never was, to begrudge a company from making a profit. But I come from a long line of fishermen who had their fish culled by fish merchants. I see fish merchants alive and well. I see stuff that this government had cut - and some probably had to be cut - but other reductions that are going on across this Province are affecting too many of our people.

This bill is going to affect others, but it's going to increase their pocketbooks, not to decrease, such as the people I find in my district of Placentia, the good people between Southern Harbour and Point Verde. These people too have met the sting of governments over the past decades. These people have been resettled. They lost a lot. Some say they gained, but the majority of people, the old ones, did not last very long and tended to lie, and a very long time now they never survived the moves, and in graveyards of moves by governments.

I can't blame all governments, and I do blame all governments, and I cannot take sides sometimes on colours. But I think this is wrong. This bill, on a point of principle, the people I represent, and my friends and my relatives, I cannot support anything that would put another copper into those people of Fortis Trust. Because that's the one that's been identified.

The people of Long Harbour, Mount Arlington Heights, the people who had been laid off a number of years ago in those places, and people who are into the district of my friend for Bellevue, and some of them from out in my friend from the Cape shore, St. Mary's - The Capes. They were given wrong information by employment development and they got money through severance and unemployment. Years after being unemployed they're back now and they have to repay. Twenty-five per cent they're looking for those people to pay back. Twenty-five per cent of their cheques. We're trying to make hardship cases why it should be less.

I hear the Member for Eagle River is speaking and that's interesting. I heard last night that a man from Eagle River is going to get his toes amputated so he stand closer to the backside of the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. CAREEN: I find it dreadfully wrong that people in other walks of life, whether it's whoever's district - whether it's the Member for Eagle River's district or it's mine - that have to continue to make ends meet. Who don't have the coppers, like another member said earlier, to save and invest in trust companies that are getting tax breaks.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CAREEN: I'm against it. I was always against it and the crowd I hung around with always were against it, and the crowd I will hang around with, and that's this crowd over here, are against it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CAREEN: He trusts me to stand behind him.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CAREEN: No sir. I would sooner be a beggar than a thief.

No sir, when I see, with all this bill and what it intends, Mr. Speaker, and I thank you for your indulgence, I see it as at least Butch Cassidy and them had courage enough when they robbed trains to meet back at their hideout and divide the loot, but I see it is happening here across the floor. No sir, the government of resettlement, the colours that existed for decades, centuries in this Province of ours are still alive and well. I never trusted them, I have never been a part of them and I never will. They drove us out of our homes.

Now, for $150,000 or as our leader has said $300,000, we could get a lot of those people home, one-way tickets, every mother's son, we could ask them to come home and we could always try to find them a bit of work. Anyway, I will have one more closing comment, Sir. On $30 million, that is the worth for the buildings, the Holiday Inns, they are being sold for one dollar each, five dollars. Well, I was talking to a person in our area this evening, who is on social services and is having a hard time doing it, she could certainly pay two dollars each and employ a whole bunch of her friends to keep all Holiday Inns going and not give it away and make a better living than she is doing now on social services.

No sir, I cannot agree with the bill and on a matter of principle, I disagree with it. Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes.

MR. MANNING: Mr. Speaker, I stand to speak on Bill 21 which has been brought before the House, because I disagree with the bill and I believe it is a wrong move by the government. It amazes me, Mr. Speaker, to say the least, how the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs could stand and support this bill, and at the same time the people in my district of Trepassey are going around trying to save their stadium. It amazes me how the same minister could stand up and support this bill when people in my district do not have proper housing, do not have roofs over their heads, Mr. Speaker, the wind is passing in and out through the walls.

It amazes me how the Minister of Health could stand and support this bill while the health care of this Province is going down the drain. I will go back to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs once again and how he could stand and support this bill, while he expects communities and councils in our area to survive on little or nothing and run our communities by them. Four years ago, our communities were getting $2,000 a kilometre for municipal roads, they went to eighty-nine dollars last year and now it is down to thirty-nine dollars; you would not get a wheelbarrow of gravel for thirty-nine dollars, Mr. Speaker.

There is $150,000 that will go into Fortis Trust and they will be getting a break of $150,000, and one of the hon. members mentioned that this is not a coppers game; well, I am afraid it is certainly not a coppers game. I remind the members opposite that I do not play with Fortis Trust and I know a lot of people in St. Mary's - The Capes do not play with Fortis Trust. I often hear the comment: People will not suffer. I would love to know the definition of 'suffer' from the other side of the House.

Mr. Speaker, someone mentioned that this bill will encourage people to come in to our Province and create businesses and jobs in our Province, that this government is trying to encourage people to come in. Well, Mr. Speaker, I ask, if that is the case, how come this government, under the leadership of Premier Wells, turned down an offer from a businessman in this Province to create 700 jobs because you would not compete with Premier Callbeck of PEI? We have ample opportunities to create jobs and opportunities in this Province which come from business people, small and large alike, but no, we will take care of the friends of a few with this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the bill. I believe it is wrong for Newfoundland and wrong for this government to try to bring it in.

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

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

I just want to make a few remarks on the bill having first spoken on it last December, a few days before Christmas. I really thought at that time we would not see this bill resurface again. I thought that the government took such a pounding on the bill and had to let it die on the Order Paper that we would not see it again. Mr. Speaker, here we are again just a week or so before the House closes for Summer, only another week or so if we are lucky, Mr. Speaker.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible)

MR. W. MATTHEWS: I say to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, do not get too optimistic. If you have not had your supper go get it now.

MR. EFFORD: I want to go jigging.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: You are not allowed to go jigging I say to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation. The Minister of Fisheries told the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation yesterday that what he is doing is wrong, and you should turn in your license and throw away your jigger.

MR. EFFORD: No way.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: You should.

MR. SIMMS: Turn in your jigger and throw away your license.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: The same effect.

We have heard some good speeches here today on this bill, Mr. Speaker, some excellent speeches, some entertaining speeches, I might say. I guess what keeps us going here is the bit of humour and the barbs across the floor, but having said that this is a very serious matter when you have every minister in the government who has faced very serious cuts in their budgets over the last four years, particularly within the last two years. Some very important services to our people have been cut and are still being cut, as my colleague for Burin - Placentia West outlined to the Minister of Social Services, when you talk about cutting home support services for the elderly.

I spoke to a lady last week about her father who is eighty-nine years of age and is at the Burin regional health care centre, the Burin Hospital. They were getting ready to discharge the man and the family wanted some home support. He is eighty-nine and living in the cottages that are run by Blue Crest Interfaith Home. The struggle that it took to get that man a few hours of home support, which he could get by with, and which the government tells us is the way they want to go, by the way, to keep people in their homes as long as they can because that way it is cheaper and you reduce the pressure on the health care budgets, the social services budgets. Now, that is what they tried to make us believe, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: It is not cheaper.

MR. SIMMS: The government said it.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: It is not cheaper?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. W. MATTHEWS: That is not the reason. Now, that is a very important reason, and it is a very important factor and consideration, but the government continuously said it is cheaper to keep them in their homes, yet when you go looking for eight or twelve hours of home support for those people you find out that the budgets have been cut. Now, what do you do with an eighty-nine year old gentleman? The daughter who called me is living here in St. John's and he is down in Burin. He was in the hospital and he needed home support for eight or twelve hours a day, I say to the Minister of Works, Service and Transportation. The fight you have to put up as a member of this Legislature representing those people - what a battle. Over the last two years I say I have had ten good fights over home support for seniors, at least ten.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. W. MATTHEWS: On home support I say to the minister.

Every one of the cases were very legitimate. In most of the cases I know the people personally. I have visited most of their homes, looked at the conditions of the homes, and looked at their condition, and you try to weasel a few dollars out of this government to take care of those people. One day they are telling you that is what we want and when you go to look for the money to implement what they want they do not have the money. Now, that is what is happening and $150,000 does not sound like much when you are talking about $3.2 billion. It does not sound like much, $300,000 now, and the Member for St. John's East is right, as my colleague the Leader of the Opposition picked up, this is a retroactive piece of legislation. So, it is going to give them $150,000 for their last fiscal year and we are now into the new fiscal year, so we are talking $300,000 now. What $300,000 could not do! Providing eight hours home support service to seniors that need it, it would provide eight hour service -

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, I am not interested in that right now, I say to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, as important as that may be. When you come down to a choice of whether you are going to bump over a road for two or three kilometres or you are going to get a few dollars to take care of someone who has paid their dues in life, very community minded, worked hard for their community, very instrumental in getting the Blue Crest Interfaith Home in Grand Bank, one of the major players, and then you find at eighty-nine, when you need a few hours of support, someone says that you cannot have it. Now, that is what we are running into and that is the principle behind which we oppose this piece of legislation, that is the reason. I am not the only one, there are members opposite who have the same cases to deal with daily as I do and you do not all resolve it, do not tell me that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Oh you resolve it, yes, but we know what you are resolving, things in your district are done for you, I say to the minister. He should not brag about that again, he did that before. He bragged about being so politically blatant and then we got our backs up, so the minister should not do that, I say to him again. My good friend, I do not want to have to rally the troops to get after the minister again and find out where he makes blunders, mistakes and steps over the patronage line because it costs you in the end. We do not want that on this side. We do not want to do that. It is not our nature to do it, I say to the minister. Now, like I told him a couple of days ago when we were having a little private chat -

MR. SIMMS: Who, you and him?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes, we were having a little chat, we do that quite often. I said a couple of years time when we pick up the heat, then look out. There will be three or four dropped pretty quickly then.

MR. SIMMS: Is that where you learned everything you know about the fishery?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes, I mean everything, that is right.

MR. SIMMS: The former President of UFCW -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Oh, yes, yes, that is one thing I must say, he is knowledgeable about the fishery. If only we could get him to turn in his license.

MR. SIMMS: He will run for Richard's job now -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, he did not want to do that.

MR. SIMMS: Yes, he did.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No -

MR. SIMMS: Oh, yes he did.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: The Premier fooled that up, because if the Premier had not put him in the Cabinet he would have been running.

MR. SIMMS: Right on.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: He would have been running. Yes, he would have been running.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) he would not be there now.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, that is right.

MR. SIMMS: He is only there temporarily. John he is only there temporarily.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: See, there we go again, Mr. Speaker, more threats.

MR. SIMMS: Yes.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: More threats and when you threaten people, Mr. Speaker, you know what happens, being human - human nature and what happens?

MR. SIMMS: Backs get up.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Fight back.

Now, it is time for the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation to start taking it easy on the Member for St. John's East, he should settle down -

MR. SIMMS: Head between his tail, look.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: - because knowing the minister he is going to step out of line sooner than most people think and the last thing he wants is somebody watching him closely, scrutinizing every move, that is the last thing he needs.

MR. TOBIN: John, are you going to the drug store now?

MR. EFFORD: Have you got what, flashlights?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: My God, Mr. Speaker, -

MR. SIMMS: Where is the Minister of Finance, boys?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: The Minister of Finance has left and we know why the Minister of Justice is not here.

I want to say to members opposite who were not here last Fall, a lot of us were, and some new members here, that this caused quite a kerfuffle before we closed for Christmas, this bill and for good reason. We opposed it on principle then and we oppose it on principle now. When you look at the legislation that we have put through this House over the last week or two - we are tampering really with people's pension plans that they worked, a lot of people, most of their lives for. You have tampered with that and my colleague from Burin - Placentia West went through the whole range, my colleague from St. Mary's - The Capes went through the cuts that have been announced in the last Budget and ministers are standing daily and defending them. Yet, those very same ministers are quite willing, they should have known what the implications of the legislation were before they had it come to this House of Assembly, before it was drafted. They should have known it. Cabinet approves it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Sit down, boy.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, I say to the Member for Eagle River, I'm not going to sit down. I'm not going to be like him and sit down and say what someone else tells me to say. Because I'll tell you something -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)!

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, I want to tell you something. I'm glad you controlled yourself when the Member for Placentia said what he heard you were going to do. Because you were ready to go right to the butcher shop and get them cut off. You had a job to restrain yourself. You were gone.

MR. DUMARESQUE: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes, I sure did, yes.

MR. DUMARESQUE: Lost your temper.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: I sure did, yes. Lost my temper once in eleven years, that's not bad. The Member for Eagle River loses his temper every time he gets up to speak. You see the blood drain out of him, he turns the colour of a sheet, every time he gets to his feet. He attacks someone. Every day of his life he attacks someone. He can't sleep unless he attacks someone.

AN HON. MEMBER: This Bill attacks the poor.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: That's right. This Bill attacks the poor.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: If the Minister of Finance was as honourable as I think he is and believe he is, then he will do what my colleague suggested. Refer the Bill to the Committee. Let him get the input to the people of the Province. That's what he should do. He should be ready then for it to come back the Fall. Give it to the Committee. Let the Committee report the results of the findings from the public on giving Fortis a $300,000 tax break now. Then let's deal with it.

I'm wondering if the Minister of Finance would consider that, or would he consider taking it off the order paper, so we can close down. We don't really want to be here another week, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: You do. The Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs wants to - I can tell he's really enjoying the House down there. Yes, he really enjoys it, really enthusiastic, full of enthusiasm. We wake him up occasionally. But he wants to be here another week.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Another two weeks. Yes, why not? Go on through July. I'm wondering if the Minister of Finance now would consider that. Referring the bill to the Committee, let them report, and depending on the findings we'll deal with the bill in the Fall. Would he consider that? Never mind the Minister of Tourism and Culture. Don't take your advice from him, for God's sake.

It looks like we're dug in again, Mr. Speaker. I didn't think we were going to get to this. I thought we were going to finish up tomorrow for the Summer. No chance now. Off the rails again. All night and all day tomorrow. Saturday. So I don't think I need to say any more about it. It's a bad piece of legislation. Terrible piece of legislation. I can understand the ministers, they have no choice but support the legislation or they have to leave the Cabinet. They'd have to resign. But the private members over there -

MR. TOBIN: St. John's North.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: How can you go out - yes, the Member for St. John's North, and others. How can they vote for this piece of legislation, I ask them? Looking at the issues and the problems they have to deal with on a daily basis. What $150,000, $300,000 wouldn't do to resolve some of those... really minor problems when you look at a $3 billion budget.

AN HON. MEMBER: That wouldn't pay for your car.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, no, it probably wouldn't. Yes, it would, I'd say.... I say to the Member for Eagle River that his car cost a lot more than mine.

MR. DUMARESQUE: No she didn't.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes she did. I know what you're driving. She cost a lot more than mine.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: What?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: So did I. I didn't pay anything for mine, like I told the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation. I won it on a bet. Didn't cost me a cent. What do you think of that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: What? Sorry?

AN HON. MEMBER: Charest didn't won.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, no. I didn't bet on him. I wouldn't have won the Cadillac. It wasn't Charest I bet on, but I bet on a Charest supporter.

AN HON. MEMBER: You did?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes. I bet on a Charest supporter. So your car cost more than mine.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: He gets to drive me home. If you see me going up and down the Burin Peninsula Highway with someone driving me, it is my good friend with the chauffeur cap. He has a chauffeur cap.

Mr. Speaker, that is all I have to say about it. We cannot support this piece of legislation and we hope that when it comes to the vote government members will defeat it.

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

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) debate.

DR. KITCHEN: No, no, I just want to say a few words on this bill because I believe that the hon. gentlemen opposite do not fully understand what is at stake here, at least from their remarks.

Basically what is attempted here, what we want to encourage in this Province, is as many businesses as we possibly can. One of the types of businesses we want to encourage is financial institutions, because we do not have very many financial institutions in this Province that are headquartered in this Province. We have the banks. Almost all of them are headquartered in central Canada. We have the trust companies, all of whom pretty well are set up in central Canada.

What we had here a few years ago is a couple of little trust companies, savings and loan companies, which were lending some money, and what has happened recently is that one of the companies around here bought out one of those little trust companies - little companies downtown - and decided that they would try to build up a good financial corporation in this Province that would lend money throughout Canada, but particularly in this Province.

One of the main problems we have in this Province is the difficulty of getting money for capital or for anything else. It is almost impossible to get money, so businesses have to rely on government loans and ACOA and Enterprise Newfoundland because there are not much capital funds out there for businesses to rely on, and we must build up, in this Province, capital industry. We must build up financial institutions that can provide funds for people to move ahead with, and that is what we have to do, and we did that. That is one of the reasons this government put in the deposit guarantee, the deposits of credit unions, so that credit unions could be a form of capital that would help. And this is another means in the same direction, because what is happening is this: In Canada, in order to have your deposits guaranteed by the Canada Deposit Guarantee Corporation, you have to have a capital of $5 million, and that is basically the problem. Most of the banks have many larger capital pools than $5 million, and they are only taxed on the proportion of their capital that is used in the Province. That is what we tax them.

Now then, along comes a small company that wants to have a guarantee - wants to have their deposits guaranteed - so that when they go to the public and say: Look, put your money in our trust company, put your money with us, and your deposits will be guaranteed by the Canadian Deposit Guarantee Corporation, which is a laudable aim. In order to get that guarantee, so they could attract money from the public to lend out again, they had to put up $5 million in capital, which they did not really need at this stage - they may need it eventually, but they do not need it now - but what happened? They ran afoul of our capital tax act which we had used for financial institutions, like the banks and the large trust companies. We charged them whatever the percentage was, except for very small ones, with a limit of $500,000 and that is the problem.

The basic question is this. It is an unfairness, as the minister pointed out, a very great unfairness. Now these small trust companies have other problems as well. You have to establish a reputation in the field. The hon. Member for St. John's North said that they were paying a higher rate for RRSPs. I would suggest that they would have to in order to attract people to put their money in the RRSPs with that particular company. Because they're not as well known as Canada Trust, Royal Trust, the Toronto Dominion Bank and the rest.

Naturally, in order to attract deposits, they would have to pay a higher rate of interest to the depositors. Their problem is that that cuts down on their profits. Then, if on top of all that they have to pay this inordinate unfair tax, then their profits are squeezed very, very low and they cannot develop sufficient of their own capital to lend out. This is the problem that they're faced with.

They're faced with a problem here of trying to expand. We need - gosh, do we ever need - capital in this Province. We need to keep our capital here. We don't need our capital flowing off to Montreal, flowing off to Toronto. We have to keep whatever money we have in this Province and I hope we do put it in local trust companies that are headquartered here, and that we can tax with our income tax and our payroll tax and our other taxes as they employ more people and as they become more profitable.

I thought I'd explain that to the hon. members so that they wouldn't stop businesses, good businesses, from developing in this Province. I'm sure with that explanation they will certainly vote for the bill.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Drinking wine at the Yacht Club. Go on, boy, that's where they made the deal. Go on, boy. Martinis and liqueurs. Go on, boy. Clyde's buddies.

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

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible) explanation if you knew what you were talking about, Herb.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The minister is getting on with a pile of hogwash, that's what it is. It is not going to do one thing for jobs and employment in this Province. Major trust companies have offices and employees here in this Province and they're receiving investment dollars from this Province. It is not going to do anything at all for it. If he's going to try to convince us that it's going to help the job climate and investment climate here in this Province, it's wrong. There are so many dollars that are going to be invested in this Province anyway. If they're invested in ten trust companies or eleven it doesn't make any difference. The return to the investor on their investment is back to the individual in this Province to dispose at their wish, this income.

Back in November they tried to sneak it through here in the House without any advance warning. Like extracting teeth. The Member for St. John's South said here in the House that it doesn't make any reference to Fortis Trust. He said 720 times we've mentioned Fortis Trust. I tell him, back in November in the House the Minister of Finance indicated, in an exchange back on November 30, asked by the hon. Member for Kilbride, and the Member for Kilbride said he'd try to sum up what he was saying, in that this change will now benefit one company. The Minister of Finance said that there is only one small company in this Province, yes. The Member for Kilbride said: that is the one that will benefit and it's a trust company that is owned by Fortis. The hon. minister said: yes.

That's when this bill was first introduced in this House. The Minister of Finance indicated on November 30, page 2723 if you want to refer to it, he dragged out the answers from him, the Member for Kilbride, on several series of questions, and he admitted there is only one company in this Province, one poor little company that can't afford to operate, that is the 174th largest company, the parent company, in this entire country. Bigger than Fishery Products, bigger than National Sea, and other major conglomerates of companies.

Here this Province has to dish out $150,000 a year to assist a company that's making millions of dollars and is not going to do one thing to assist taxpayers here in Newfoundland and Labrador. It's not going to increase investment here. It is not going to encourage any more investment. The amount of investment depends upon the investment dollars that are available to be invested. This company is not going to go out and grow money to be invested. It's not going to do one thing for it. If it does cut into other investments it's going to reduce the number of people who are working with other trust companies here in this Province.

There is a fixed number of dollars to invest. It's not going to do one thing for it. If the minister thinks he's going to try to convince people there's a merit in this he's wrong. It is a Fortis Trust bill exactly in its entirety and it has no other implications to benefit Newfoundland at all. He's misleading people if he's trying to tell us any different.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

I think in the last five or ten minutes the purpose of this bill, or one of the purposes of the bill, or one of the things that will come out of the enactment of the bill is starting to be focused on by some of the speakers on this side of the House, and that is to point out some of the positive things that this bill will achieve once it has been enacted and passed. Now, Mr. Speaker, many of my colleagues on the other side of the House have been waxing eloquently all day with respect to the benefits that this bill will accrue to a particular corporation. I am not standing in the House to suggest that they may not know a little bit about what they are talking about. I do not know how much they know of what they are talking about. They may know more than I know and if they do not they should be ashamed of themselves because they have been here a lot longer for the most part.

Two of the arguments that have been put forward here today with respect to why this bill should not be passed, I believe, point out the very reason why this type of legislation is probably long past due. If you focus on the fact that unless this Province can encourage the private sector, the entrepreneurs, the people who would be entrepreneurs, the people who have money to invest, the people who want to invest their money, unless we can encourage those people to invest their money and take their risks within the Province of Newfoundland we do not have a hope in creation of solving the unemployment and the economic problems that we have.

One of the arguments, Mr. Speaker, that I have heard put forward today about this bill, of all things, is the fact that most of the shareholders are from outside Newfoundland. Well, I would say, Mr. Speaker, this bill is long overdue. It is a shame on us when we complain that we have people doing what we have been trying to encourage people to do for many, many years and that is to invest in Newfoundland corporations and in Newfoundland interests. I would say that if this bill encourages, attracts, causes those from outside the Province to further invest in small trust companies such as the one that is alleged to be benefiting most from this, then I would suggest we get the legislation passed with all due haste and get it put in place.

I am not saying that no corporation will benefit, either today or retroactively, with the enactment of this legislation, but I say this, Mr. Speaker, it is an awful shame on us as Newfoundlanders and probably upon the consideration we have given to this type of operation in the past, that there is only one company that will benefit from it. I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, it would be great if we could say there are 100 companies out there who would benefit from us bringing ourselves in line in a legislative sense so that we can encourage and attract more investment from outside and from within the Province.

MR. SIMMS: Why is it retroactive having said that?

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Well, I would suggest that the Leader of the Opposition should ask that question himself.

MR. SIMMS: We have asked the question of the government. You are in the government, tell us.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, this particular bill may benefit people, it may benefit corporations, and it may do it in a retroactive sense. I will not deny that because I do not know it. I was not here last Fall when you were going through your tirades and having your discussions. I would say that for the amount of investment that this bill is levelling off at we have to do all we can to encourage people to invest in this Province, encourage others to set up trust companies, as it were, and to do what the company that is alleged will benefit will do from this bill. There are not enough of these companies around, and far too long we have been sending our investments to the Royal Trust, we have been sending them to Montreal Trust and we have been sending them to the major life insurance companies. We've been sending our money up for somebody on Bay Street or Wall Street to decide how it's invested. I say if one company, including the one that's named in this House today, it benefits from it, all Newfoundlanders will ultimately benefit from it.

I mentioned earlier that this particular company they refer to does in fact offer a slightly higher rate of return on RRSPs. I didn't say that, I would say to my hon. colleague for Burin - Placentia West, I believe, who asked if I had my RRSPs with Fortis Trust. I can say, no I don't have them with Fortis Trust. So I won't benefit from their higher rate on their RRSPs. I would suggest that they are doing a little bit of service, investing in or attracting people to create a trust company. People to bring their pools of capital together so that they can be reinvested in Newfoundland. It may not be the fanciest and may not be the most attractive type of industry to talk about, in terms of the public perception of creating industry. They would probably rather hear talk about the tourist industry or the fishing industry or something else where we're creating jobs.

I would say, Mr. Speaker, that we have to take initiatives to cause people to go into businesses that are as mundane, if you like, and that are as probably unusual as trust companies. I would say that for every dollar we can attract into Newfoundland trust companies so that they can lend out to Newfoundland businesses, they can lend out to Newfoundland individuals to access mortgage funds that they would normally not have, then I would say this type of bill should be supported to encourage that type of trust company development.

The reasons that are being put forward as being why we shouldn't do it, I would submit, are amongst the very best reasons why we should be getting this piece of legislation through. That is, number one, to attract investment from outside investors, which is not something that we don't want. It's something that we want. Surely if Canada wants foreign investment into the country Newfoundland should welcome Canadian investment and foreign investment into the Province. I say the quicker we get the investment in here and the quicker we get those trust companies in existence that do not exist today because of the help that this legislation will enable for them, then I say the quicker the better.

The people who blindly, as it were, seemingly, have some sort of an ongoing vendetta against that company that they call Fortis. There is a company called Fortis. There's a possibility they may benefit from this. I don't know. I say: so what if they do benefit from it, if in the long run their investment in Newfoundland, the capital that comes in here because of them being able to operate, causes and creates funds to circulate in Newfoundland, money to be invested in businesses, money to be invested in mortgages, money to be invested in jobs that will come out of the economic activity that will spin off, then I say let's get the bill through, let's get it through quickly. I would ask this hon. House to quickly support the bill and see that it is passed for the greater good of all Newfoundlanders in the long term.

We have to take the long-range view. We have to do what is going to benefit the Province tomorrow. Let's not be childish about a few dollars that some company might get a tax break on. Let's not be childish about that. Let us understand that a small investment, even if it is $150,000, give the devil their due, and let it be that they're right, that some company is going to benefit to the tune of $150,000. I would submit, if we are lending to the building of a stronger trust base, a stronger trust industry in Newfoundland, then I believe that we are doing the right thing by getting this thing done so that the boys can go home to their barbecue, Mr. Speaker, and so that all Newfoundlanders can be that much the better because of what we have done as a result of the enactment of the legislation.

MR. SPEAKER: We are voting on the amendment put forward by the hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West. It is known as the six-month hoist.

All those in favour, `aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: Those against, `nay'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

MR. SPEAKER: I declare the amendment defeated.

The hon. the Member for Humber Valley.

MR. WOODFORD: I want to have a few words, Mr. Speaker, on this particular bill.

I wasn't going to speak, to tell you the truth, but it is obvious, very obvious, from some of the comments I have heard - it is one thing to get up and attack the principle of the bill, that is, whether you give Fortis a break, Lundrigan's, or McNamara or anybody else a break, but it is another thing to get up and talk about this bill, and make it seem like, and make Newfoundlanders and Labradorians believe, if they were listening tonight, that it is going to do them a big favour by implementing this particular clause in this bill. This is going to do absolutely nothing for the ordinary Newfoundlander and Labradorian. All it is going to do if it is passed here tonight or tomorrow morning, is give the company the right to lend for mortgages, really, that's it - mortgages.

Where, in this Province today - what have Newfoundlanders and Labradorians been doing for years when they wanted a mortgage? Where do they go in this Province? They go to the banks. Fortis Trust or any other trust company in this country, Mr. Speaker, are no cheaper than some of the banks that are lending institutions. In fact, I know of two that are more expensive than any bank in this Province and in this country today.

Yes, no problem, if Fortis wants to introduce and start a trust company, but why should they be given a break? That is my question.

AN HON. MEMBER: It is already in existence, right now.

MR. WOODFORD: Yes, I know it is in existence, but why should they be given a tax break? I think we can do it for a lot of other smaller companies in this Province, and I can name some companies who went to Enterprise Newfoundland and never got a break, for a lousy, measly $6,000 and couldn't get it - I can name them if they want them. But yet, we come in, and just because they are big, just because they say they want to get started in the Province, just because they want to start a trust company - big deal! They are already started, the minister has stated that, and to add insult to injury, we are going to make it retroactive.

Now, come on, call a spade a spade; and I didn't have too many calls from Jackson's Arm or Hampden or Deer Lake or Cormack today, expressing concerns to me that if I didn't vote in favour of this bill I was going to be turfed out, and I won't have them tomorrow or the next day, next month, next year or three years down the road, because for the ordinary Newfoundlander and Labradorian, today, Mr. Speaker, it doesn't mean a row of beans whether Fortis Trust or any other trust comes into this Province and establishes. It doesn't mean a row of beans.

Most Newfoundlanders and Labradorians today, as I think someone mentioned earlier, just don't have the nickels and dimes to put in for an RRSP that the hon. member is talking about, that Fortis Corporation can pay on RRSPs, and he didn't look very far if he thinks Fortis Inc. can pay better on RRSPs than anybody else in the Province, I can assure you of that.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes, he had better look around.

MR. WOODFORD: He had better look around.

MR. BAKER: It is not Fortis Inc. They don't do it.

MR. WOODFORD: Well, Fortis Trust.

MR. BAKER: You are confused.

MR. WOODFORD: I am not confused, Fortis Inc. and Fortis Trust -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: You have been found guilty, that is your problem.

MR. WOODFORD: That is right, that is right!

AN HON. MEMBER: Newfoundland Light - they are all the same.

MR. WOODFORD: Newfoundland Light - they are all the same.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: You wouldn't do it, but `Clyde' (inaudible).

MR. BAKER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: You wouldn't do it if you had your way.

MR. WOODFORD: No. That is right, it is a good point. He would not do it, because it is coming from someone else, but one thing I have, Mr. Speaker, is, I have right, and that is the track record of Newfoundland Light. Any company in this Province today, anybody, any member sitting in this House, wouldn't mind starting a company if they had a guarantee of 13 per cent return. How many companies would we start? I doubt that there is a member in the House today, who would stay here if they had that opportunity, a guaranteed 13 per cent return to their shareholders. That is what Newfoundland Light got. Fortis Inc. is into all kinds of other buildings around this Province, real estate and everything else, in Corner Brook and St. John's and so on. Just the other day they bought into a few malls and a few government buildings in Corner Brook, St. Anthony and other places around the Province, and Fortis Trust now -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: There is nothing wrong with it, Mr. Speaker, if you want to start a trust company, but start it on the same terms and same conditions as anybody else has started it; but to give them a tax break to start it, as far as I am concerned, is wrong.

Mr. Speaker, hon. members opposite talk about investing capital in the Province. What happened to the Venture Capital program? What happened, especially, to the Newfoundland Stocks Savings Plan? Where is that today? Where is it? And hon. members have the face to stand up and say that this is a good deal when just the other day, with one hand, they destroyed something that was brought in, that Newfoundlanders were just starting to get used to, just starting to understand, really. And those Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who wanted to invest in the Newfoundland Stocks Savings plan didn't have the bucks that Fortis Inc. or Fortis Trust have, I can assure you. They didn't have the bucks, but they wanted to invest. They were just getting into it. Now, Enterprise Newfoundland is talking about the equity positions in businesses in this Province, recommended by Doug House years and years ago.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: It is not only the trust company. There are a lot of other businesses in this Province, in your district, and you should know them, who wanted to invest in companies and just couldn't get to first base with it. The same thing is happening today. If they come in to the minister responsible for development today, he has nothing to tell them only to go over to Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador and see if they could take an equity position. Then, I would say, nine chances out of ten it would have to be done in conjunction with ACOA because they do very little without the sanctions of ACOA today, I can assure you.

Mr. Speaker, the principle is the principle, and the powers and the money and the clout and everything else that is behind this country just turns me off when it comes to this particular situation, when every other day I have to deal with small businesses coming to me for help to try to get established, or else for help to try to stay alive. They can't pay this, they can't pay that, and at the same time, one of the things they cannot pay is their light bills.

Just yesterday, I was up talking about demand meters and so on in the Province. Now, to add insult to injury, we are right around talking about Fortis Trust. And there is no good in our trying to separate the three.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Fortis is Fortis is Fortis.

MR. WOODFORD: That is right. Fortis Trust and Newfoundland Light, they are all one and the same.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: I have nothing against Fortis, I have it against this government for what they are doing here. You shouldn't be giving them the break if they don't need it.

MR. SULLIVAN: Treat them the same as everybody else.

MR. WOODFORD: That is right. Any businessperson in this Province, when they come in to Enterprise Newfoundland - that is the only lending institution now by the Provincial Government - what is the first thing they have to show? The first thing they have to show is that it is a viable project, and the only time they come to Enterprise Newfoundland, they are told - the minister has stated in the House - is because it is a lending of last resort. That is usually when you come to government. If you can't get it through the banks, they tell you: Come in to Enterprise Newfoundland and we will give you either a conventional loan at 3 percentage points above prime, we will give you a term loan that you can work out, or else we will give you a small business loan at 2 or 3 percentage points below prime; other than that, go to the bank.

So here we have one of the largest - well someone said here today, 170 or 180 on the list of Fortune 500 or whatever it is, and here we are giving them a tax break of $150,000; not only that, look at the times.

MR. SULLIVAN: The wealthiest company in our Province.

MR. WOODFORD: Look at the times - the wealthiest company in our Province, at the worst economic time in our Province, and we are giving them a tax break of $150,000.

MR. SULLIVAN: A whole lot of people outside our Province.

MR. WOODFORD: Yes, that is another thing.

Members mentioned the shares that Newfoundlanders have in Newfoundland Light - that is another little plum. It is a good thing. They are paying some fairly good returns on their shares and their dividends are automatically re-invested every three months.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: It is another little plum for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to take in at twenty-five dollars a share and it is offered every three months - I think it is every three months unless it has changed; when last I saw it, it was every three months. And that is another little plum to keep -

MR. SULLIVAN: That's what it is, to give an excuse to fund them, then.

MR. WOODFORD: That's right, to keep Newfoundlanders and Labradorians quiet, just a little bit of bait: buy our shares, once you get a share in the company, well, it is only natural that you aren't going to criticize them, that is human nature. Newfoundland Light and Fortis Inc., no matter who you are talking about when it comes to that company, are used to it and they are carrying it in the same tradition right along and into Fortis Trust.

With those few words, Mr. Speaker, I will sit down.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

The hon. the Minister of Finance.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have been sitting here and walking around outside trying to decide what I would say in closing off debate on second reading and, Mr. Speaker, I have made a decision. I have listened to so much drivel in the last few hours from members opposite, that I suppose I could assume what I said in my opening statement was correct, that deliberately - and I warned Your Honour about this - deliberately they would get into a political attack, pure politics, pure drivel, because they wanted to do it. Now, Mr. Speaker, I am a very understanding person, normally, very understanding.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BAKER: So I am going to give members opposite the benefit of the doubt and assume that some of them - not all of them - some of them are getting on with all that nonsense because they don't understand what they are talking about and didn't understand the bill. So, I will start with that assumption and I will try to explain very briefly, in different terms - so that now, maybe, they can grasp the intent and content of this legislation - explain in different terms what this is all about.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if we look at our business community, we have large and small businesses. In terms of, let us say, grocery stores, we have the Sobeys and the Dominions and so on. These are the big business grocery stores. On the other hand, we have the corner stores, the small neighbourhood stores, these are the small businesses in the grocery field. Now, Mr. Speaker, if we were to take the approach that we have, as a Province, a taxation level for the Sobeys and Dominions and so on, we would collect money from them because of their activities. If on the other hand, we were to have a different taxation level, forty or fifty times the percentage for all of the small convenience stores and all of the small grocery stores, Mr. Speaker, if we were to do that, we would quite rightly be booted out of this Province. Now, just hold that image in your minds for a minute. The large grocery stores with a tax rate, the small stores with forty or fifty times the tax rate. Now, what would you suggest we do? Would you suggest we double the tax rate of the small businesses? What would we do? Would we increase the taxes on the big ones forty or fifty times? Is that what you would want us to do?

Mr. Speaker, I put to you that what members opposite would be asking us to do, would be to give a break to the small businesses -and so they should - allow them to develop, grow and become part of the business activity in the Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BAKER: They would be making argument after argument, Mr. Speaker, against supporting the big businesses and in favour of supporting the small businesses, giving the small person a chance to start out at the bottom of the ladder and claw his way to the top. That is what they would be doing.

In the financial world that is what has happened. We have a tax level for the financial institutions but we have, through an accident in our legislation, an effective tax regime that will soak the small trust companies forty to fifty times the rate that the banks and the bigger trust companies are paying, the ones where the money flows to the outside. So, Mr. Speaker, we are making a generic change, and saying, no, we want to encourage the development of the small trust companies in this Province. We want to encourage people to get into the business to develop larger companies.

Mr. Speaker, that is what this legislation does. One would question the motives of members opposite. I don't, but some other people might. I will just assume that they didn't understand the situation. One could wonder why they would want to protect the banks and the larger trust companies from competition from smaller local trust companies. Why would you want to protect these big people? Why would you want to protect the bigger financial institutions? What is your motive? One could well ask that.

This piece of legislation brings fairness and balance to our tax system with regard to financial institutions. This piece of legislation corrects an inequity in our tax system that should have been corrected long ago. And, Mr. Speaker, we are not going to deterred by the political nonsense coming from people opposite. We are going to do what is right and proper and we are going to pass this piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I move second reading.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. W. MATTHEWS: More in Committee! More in Committee!

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

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Financial Corporations Capital Tax Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill No. 21).

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, Order No. 11.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Retail Sales Tax Act". (Bill No. 20).

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This particular bill needs a little bit of explanation. I ask members opposite to listen carefully. Mr. Speaker, I will predict again, as I did at the beginning of introducing the last bill, that in this instance I think we will probably get a reasoned examination of this bill. Because members opposite, I think, have gotten the politics out of their system by now, or they should have.

This amendment to the Retail Sales Tax Act has a background that I would like to explain. For the last fifteen to twenty years, we have been applying the Retail Sales Tax Act in a certain way. We have been taxing equipment in certain operations in a particular way. Certain types of equipment are considered part of the primary manufacturing process and so are exempt from sales tax. Other types of equipment we have determined are not exempt from sales tax and companies must pay sales tax on these pieces of equipment that are not integral parts and attached parts of manufacturing. So it has to do with the interpretation of the definition of retail sales tax as paid on manufacturing equipment.

Mr. Speaker, for fifteen or twenty years we've been applying our Retails Sales Tax Act in a certain way and collecting retail sales tax on a certain basis. Many times during the last ten years at least there've been challenges, as anybody knows - probably the Opposition House Leader knows, he was in Treasury Board - that there are challenges to retail sales tax assessments. Many times there were assessments to our retail - the way we interpreted this, our Retail Sales Tax Act, and always our interpretation was upheld in the arbitration and in the court process.

However, a short time ago we lost a court case based upon our interpretation of that particular part of the Retail Sales Tax Act. The interpretation given by the courts was that - it was a new interpretation given by the courts that opened up and broadened the intent - or re-interpreted a section of the Retails Sales Tax Act, - this is the Hope Brook case, the Hope Brook gold. Which changed what we were doing, changed the interpretation we'd been putting on it for years, and gave a different interpretation and granted an exemption on equipment that we have been interpreting for years to be not exempt from retail sales tax.

We went through the process of appeal to the Supreme Court and we were denied the right to appeal in the Supreme Court. One of the reasons is that they claim that the wording was not specific enough even though we've been interpreting it a certain way ever since the retail sales act came into existence. This amendment simply makes clear the way we've been interpreting the Retail Sales Tax Act over the last number of years. It makes it clear and specific as to exactly the way we have been interpreting it. It's not a change in our practice. It's to verify and re-confirm our practice of charging the retail sales tax.

It's a very important amendment because if we don't do this then it could end up costing us one heck of a lot of money in terms of claims for rebates and so on going back ten years. Mr. Speaker, this is a change to confirm our interpretation of the way that retail sales tax is applied to manufacturing equipment.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess this is very similar to a case too where a court doesn't make a ruling that is government's interpretation of that ruling, so they would do like the MUN act. Bring in legislation that would overrule what the court said, basically. Once again it's really - the court made a decision. Whether it's right or wrong the court made a decision. This government did not agree with the decision so they decided to bring in legislation that would make it retroactive and they wouldn't have to pay monies that would be owed in the past as a result of that decision. I think that's my understanding of what the minister's saying.

For example, certain equipment purchased in primary processing or manufacturing are exempt from RST. That's basically what he's saying. In certain interpretations of that act, equipment that was exempt in some cases that a company considered to be exempt, and the Department of Finance indicated that it should not have been exempt, and they followed that ruling and denied them that right.

They went to court I understand. As a result the court ruled in their favour saying that it should be exempt, according to the courts interpretation of the act. That is basically my understanding, therefore that company could, or other companies that would come under that interpretation, could really be owed by this government considerable amounts of money right back to the time when the interpretation was rendered that was not the courts interpretation, right from the beginning, which could go back twenty years. If you have been interpreting them wrong for twenty years, really this government could be liable to pay to that company, based upon the courts interpretation - now, I guess that puts to light a matter that is saying, that if you have been doing something for the past twenty years, we must have been doing it right. That is the logic that it is based upon really. Why could it not be appealed?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, I understand. No, I understand that you make the laws. You make the laws and the court may be forced, in some cases, to interpret those laws and the court has done that in this case. They have interpreted the laws that you have made and their interpretation of the law was not what you would figure the interpretation should be. So basically, we are now going to amend it so that it will come out to your interpretation or that you will not be liable for any arrears that are owed as a result of that. That is basically, I think, what you are saying.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Pardon?

MR. ROBERTS: This interpretation, I will expand upon it, this interpretation has been in effect for twenty or thirty years -

MR. SULLIVAN: I understand that, the Minister of Finance stated that.

MR. ROBERTS: - the court in effect has said that the words of the act do not do what everybody always understood they did.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, I understand that. That was made clear, I think, by the Minister of Finance, quite clear. I know exactly where he is coming from on this bill. It does put a company that had not been paying sales tax, let us say for a number of years - if government determined that they should have, technically - in other words they were forced to pay it and they got it under a rebate -

MR. ROBERTS: The question is, whether we have to pay it back.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, because in certain cases there is an exemption on purchases of certain equipment, others you will pay it and you look for a rebate.

MR. ROBERTS: Consumables and capital (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, is there a specific category that this relates to? Is there a specific category? Is there only one specific category that this fits under?

MR. ROBERTS: I forget the details, I can look them up - whether a given part of the process is the fixed machinery or the consumable part of the process.

MR. SULLIVAN: What dollar value has been determined by finance that is involved here if they had to pay retroactive as a result of that court rule -

MR. ROBERTS: - about $15 million.

MR. SULLIVAN: It is spread over a wide variety of companies, I would assume?

MR. ROBERTS: Not just Hope Brook.

MR. SULLIVAN: Okay, so -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) do you have any idea?

MR. SULLIVAN: How much is in the Hope Brook?

MR. ROBERTS: What I can do is I can look it up - I will bring the case in, in the morning, my report of the case.

MR. TOBIN: Would this affect Fortis?

MR. ROBERTS: Not to my knowledge but I do not know that. Unless Fortis owns Hope Brook.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: In closing, Mr. Speaker, I just want to add that certainly the government would be put in a difficult position to have to pay, because of that court decision, large amounts of money. The courts did make a ruling. I know it is up to the government of this Province to set the laws and rules the way they want them, so the courts can interpret them the way they established them in the beginning. I guess it was not clearly stated and it was left open for interpretation. The courts interpreted it, the companies operated under the interpretation of the courts and they were due to receive the money back and in this case they have not. So, it is a matter of - once again, very similar to the Memorial University Act, we are now changing the laws when we do not get the desired response that we want. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. ROBERTS: Well, Mr. Speaker, if my hon. friend from St. John's East wants to speak I will yield because I can then perhaps respond to anything he may say as well.

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

MR. HARRIS: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the bill in general although I do have a question on another section that has nothing to do with the Hope Brook Gold interpretation but I have to say that I do not have any real difficulty in the government doing what it says it is doing, which is saying that the interpretation - the intention of the government through the legislation that has been carried out for the past twenty or thirty years or whether it is ten years or five it does not make any difference, if that is the law that has been understood to be the law by the government and been applied holus-bolus to everyone and is considered to be fair, I am not commenting on that because I do not even know.

Unfortunately we did not get a very good explanation about what the particular law was, what the particular tax was, so I cannot really discuss the policy of the exemption that is being referred to, but as far as the principle goes of the government bringing in legislation to maintain the fact that it collected these taxes under an interpretation of the law that was accepted by the people who paid the tax, that was accepted and intended by the government who imposed the tax, and has been paid all along, I have no disagreement in principle with the government continuing to accept that tax. I suppose there may be some if they - I presume that Hope Brook Gold, who brought the matter to court, is going to keep their exemption, and maybe the Minister of Justice, if he is listening, can deal with that point.

The question that comes to mind is whether or not Hope Brook Gold is allowed to maintain the fruits of its case, whether we are judicially overturning the case in the case of Hope Brook, and asking Hope Brook to lose the benefit of their court case by having to pay the money after having gone to court. I would wonder whether that was fair or not, and I would like the minister to comment on that. If an individual who seeks to change a law or seek an interpretation of the law that differs from that of the government, goes to court and wins, if it were an individual who had expended the funds to do that, and we are dealing with a matter of principle of interpretation, I would have some concern about a legislative reversal of a court decision in a particular case.

Now we have not heard what the merits of the case are, one way or the other, how much money is involved for Hope Brook Gold, whether the minister intends - I do not propose to speak for Hope Brook Gold here, but I do not know what the circumstances are. Is the minister saying that Hope Brook Gold went and sought legal advice and were advised that the interpretation being placed by the government was wrong and they spent the money to go to court to fight it and won, and now the minister is saying: Well, you may have won but we are going to change the law, and if the $500,000 tax that you were supposed to pay, the court says you do not have to pay, we are going to make you pay anyway.

That hardly seems, as a matter of principle, fair. Presumably the government would return them the cost of their court case and pay their legal fees and everything else. That might be a fair thing to do, but we do not have any details on that and it seems to me that the Legislature is entitled to receive those details before being asked to pass this legislation. It is another example, I think Mr. Speaker, where all the facts are not being put before the House before we are asked to pass on it. We are asked to treat it as a matter of principle.

As a matter of principle I have no difficulty in the government changing the legislation so it is clear, making sure that people who have paid the tax in the past do not come looking for rebates, but I am not so sure that we should pass legislation denying a litigant who has been successful in the fruits of their litigation without some compensation to them. As a matter of principle, that seems to be sound. I would like to hear the facts of the case, how much money is involved, and what the government proposes to do in reimbursing Hope Brook Gold for the cost of their case.

That is Clause 2 and Clause 3 which is referred to in the explanatory notes, does not appear in the act. I am wondering what happened to Clause 3. Maybe there is one that got left out, or maybe 52.2 is Clause 3. I do not know, but perhaps 52.2 is designed to replace Clause 3.

MR. ROBERTS: 52.2 (inaudible) with the explanatory note, I think.

MR. HARRIS: Alright. That is fine then, but Clause 1 seems to me to be something different entirely. We did not get an explanation of that. Why is it that the Cabinet wants the power now to pass retroactive exemption laws for taxes? We're now going to have regulations being made under paragraph 1 and (k) of the act which provides for exemptions, according to the explanatory note, extending "...the authority of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council to make regulations with retroactive effect to include additional categories of tax exemptions."

Now the Cabinet wants the power to retroactively - we don't know how far back - to create new tax exemption categories and make them go back into past history through regulation. About what, we're not told. I haven't had time since this bill was printed yesterday to examine the regulations, to examine paragraph 1 (g) (h) (i) (j) (k) and (l) of the Retail Sales Tax Act to find out what categories of tax exemptions the minister now wants to create. Not only create, but make them retroactive for whatever purposes the Cabinet has in mind, to deal with whatever companies the Cabinet sees fit to deal with, and to presumably have significant costs or benefits, in the case of exemptions here, retroactively.

It's very unusual, Mr. Speaker, it's unusual enough for legislation to have retroactive effect, we're now being asked to give the Cabinet power to make regulations with retroactive effect. Not only retroactive effect for regulations but retroactive tax exemptions which would cause a particular benefit to individuals or companies who seek to benefit from them. We have received no explanation as to why that is necessary or desirable and what the intent of the government is in that field.

I realize that it's 7:30 on a Thursday night and people are anxious to go and leave, but these are important questions that rise from the legislation that we're being asked to deal with. I know if the Minister of Justice on behalf of a client went to court and won a court case based on his correct advice as to interpretation of a piece of legislation he'd be pretty upset if the Legislature went ahead and changed it. No doubt his client would be pretty upset after paying him a couple of hundred thousand dollars to take the case. If the minister had received a couple of hundred thousand dollars to take the case his client would be pretty unhappy having paid out the money and the Minister of Justice having been right, and giving him good advice, and then the Legislature comes in, takes away the benefit of the victory that he achieved for him, and still has to pay the Minister of Justice for the good advice he gave them.

There seem to be some questions here that are raised. I have no problem with the principle that the Minister of Finance raised which says: we've been interpreting the act this way. We don't want, just because one person won a court case, everybody else to be coming in and saying, give me back my money. I have no problem with that. I have no problem with that principle.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible)!

MR. HARRIS: I say to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, if he had paid good money to a lawyer who was right -

MR. EFFORD: Not you!

MR. HARRIS: To a lawyer who was right, went to court, won his case for him, saying that his interpretation was right against the Minister of Finance, and then the government turned around and said: we're going to take back -

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible)!

MR. HARRIS: I think the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation has proven that he doesn't know what a conflict is. So I wouldn't want to receive advice from the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation as to what is and what isn't a conflict.

Nevertheless, if the minister had gone and paid some competent lawyer who had given him good advice and had a won a court case for him, he would be very -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Then I would say that the minister would be very upset and he would expect at least that the government would pay him back the cost of his lawyer. Maybe the Minister of Justice has the answers to all these important questions. No doubt if I sit down and go answer the phone that everybody seems to be telling me is ringing for me in another room, no doubt if I sit down the minister will rise in his place and give us the answers to not only the questions that I asked about this Clause 2, but also the ones about Clause 1 and the idea of retroactive effect.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I shall be very brief, but I want to say that my friend from Gander, the Finance Minister, made a magnificent speech on the Fortis bill which I heard, I was not participating, but an absolutely magnificent speech.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Sorry? No, I did not participate in the debate, no I did not, in any way, but I can commend him on a magnificent performance. We are so used to seeing magnificent performances from the Minister of Finance, as my friend the Leader of the Opposition has seen on the 3rd of May.

MR. SULLIVAN: You are getting boring.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, if boring is to be a rule-out rule in this House, my friend from Ferryland would have left a long time ago, I could tell you. Now let me come back to the bill.

Mr. Speaker, what has happened is that the Court of Appeal, on the application of, I think the corporation was Hope Brook Gold Mine, it is the old Hope Brook, it is not the present corporate owner at all, it is the old BP company which is now called Talisman Energy, so this has no impact upon the present operators of Hope Brook, but the people who owned it before it went into receivership and then it was sold and whatever happened to it. They had an assessment on some equipment and I will come back to what the equipment is. They paid the assessment because that is the way the tax law works in this Province and all across this country; you pay the tax guy, then you argue.

They lost at the trial level. They went to the Court of Appeal as they have a right to do, the Court of Appeal agreed with them in a decision, agreed with their interpretation and that had the effect, not only of offering our friends at Hope Brook the right to collect back, their, about $650,000, but would have opened up a spectrum which we were advised could be between $12 million to $15 million. Now that is a revenue outflow that we are not prepared to contemplate except in circumstances where it is justified and it was not justified here. The interpretation the Court of Appeal placed on it, and it is not for me to say the Court of Appeal is wrong, I have disagreed with them from time to time during my career at the Bar and when I am back before them as I no doubt will be someday, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, I will again perhaps say they are wrong on occasion, but the Court of Appeal adopted an interpretation that surprised just about everybody. It may or may not have surprised Hope Brook or the solicitors for Hope Brook, I can make no comment on that, but my friend for St. John's East, being a lawyer, is not unfamiliar with the situation where lawyers will say, well, we will fight this just as far as your money takes you and the cost of a court proceeding -

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. ROBERTS: - would - I have no idea what they paid, but $50,000 or whatever it may have cost them to do a trial and the Court of Appeal, is little enough to risk at a chance to getting $650,000 and those of us who have litigated are not unfamiliar with that type of calculation, particularly by people who have a little cash in hand and are prepared to wager, a modest wager, 50 against the chance of getting 650, which in fact is about a million now if you add any interest we would have to pay, if we paid back the money.

The equipment involved I am told, were electric trucks that operate underground. The Hope Brook mine has an underground component, I am advised, I have never been to Hope Brook. I have seen some fool's gold in my time but I have never seen the Hope Brook mine, yet the people running the mine chose to use underground electric trucks. The argument then became whether these were sufficiently part of a manufacturing process that they will exempt as a conveyor belt would have been and is still, or whether they were not exempt as ordinary trucks are. For example, the trucks used at the iron ore mine in Labrador West, there are the two mines, IOC at Carol and the Wabush project, are not exempt, they pay the sales tax; now that was the issue.

AN HON. MEMBER: Mobile equipment.

MR. ROBERTS: Mobile equipment is taxable. The Court of Appeal, in a line of reasoning that is laid out in their Lordships reasons for judgement, came to a different conclusion, sobeit. It turns upon nothing more or less than the interpretation of some words in the tax act and regulations, it is not a matter of principle.

MR. HARRIS: There is no morality in tax.

MR. ROBERTS: There is no morality in tax, my friend from St. John's East says and he is right. It is a matter of what the statute, the act and the regulations say, so all we are doing now is, we have come back, after we lost in the Court of Appeal, we sought leave from the Supreme Court of Canada which said in so many words: Don't be foolish. If you do not like what the Court of Appeal did, you have the remedy in your own hands. The Supreme Court of Canada simply refused to hear the appeal, fine, sobeit, so we are back here. Now we are not going to open up the Treasury of this Province, which is after all the receptacle of taxpayers and what is in it comes from taxpayers, to have to pay back $12 to $15 million.

That is, I think, the long and the short of it and the matter is really that straightforward. It will not hurt any company. It will help the Treasury. It will cost Hope Brook the $1 million roughly they would have gotten if the Court of Appeal judgement were allowed to stand unaltered. We will still have to pay, I assume, their tax costs. My friend for St. John's East has been very solicitous about the fees that Hope Brook incurred. We have no doubt been ordered by the Court of Appeal to pay costs. We will have to pay those. We are not trying to overturn the judgement. We have written the act, we hope with great care, so that another challenge cannot be sustained.

Now, my learned friend also asked about retroactivity. I am advised that we are expanding the section that makes regulations retroactive in effect by adding a number of sub-paragraphs and the effect of that is to make it impossible for anybody to claim a refund. Now, I do not think the House wants me to go into any detail. All I will say is that the British Columbia Court of Appeal had a lot of difficulty with comparable problems and this is the wording which we believe will stand the text.

With that said my friend the Minister of Finance asked me to move second reading of the bill.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Retail Sales Tax Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House presently by leave. (Bill 20)

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

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Justice.

MR. ROBERTS: We will start with Order 5 and then we will ask the Committee to deal seriatim with 5 through 16, all the matters that now stand for consideration in Committee stage, Order 5 then on through to Order 16.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill No. 8.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, if I read the mood of the Committee correctly it would be in order, perhaps, for Your Honour to call everything with a bill, the very minimum you may call, unless some member objects. If any member wishes to be heard he or she will stand and obviously Your Honour will recognize her or him. Other than that I think it is the mood of the Committee that we move with great expedition.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order 5, Bill No. 8.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Workers' Compensation Act." (Bill No. 8).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order 6, Bill No. 9.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Schools Act." (Bill No. 9.

Motion, that the Committee having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order 7, Bill No. 10.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Government Money Purchase Pension Plan, The Public Service Pensions Act, 1991, The Teachers' Pensions Act, The Uniformed Services Pensions Act, 1991 And The Memorial University Pensions Act." (Bill No. 10)

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill No. 18.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The City Of Mount Pearl Act." (Bill No. 18).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill No. 17.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The City Of Corner Brook Act." (Bill No. 17).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Municipal Elections Act.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The St. John's Municipal Elections Act." (Bill No. 19).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill No. 20.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Retail Sales Tax Act." (Bill No. 20).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill No. 21.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Financial Corporations Capital Tax Act." (Bill No. 21).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall Clauses 1 and 2 carry?

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: As we discussed earlier, could we skip this one and move on to the other -

MR. ROBERTS: Would it be in order to leave this until the end of the committee stage? Just let it stand for the moment, please.

MR. SIMMS: To see how we feel.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill No. 11.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Teachers' Pensions Act." (Bill No. 11).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill No. 16.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Insurance Adjusters, Agents And Brokers Act." (Bill No. 16).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, I have some amendments to this -

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

MR. ROBERTS: - which my friend from Port de Grave, the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation will move because I cannot amend a bill that stands in my name. In fact, I cannot even participate in this debate. This is one of these I am under.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, since I am not participating -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. ROBERTS: Hon. members opposite have seen the amendments.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, his colleague has refused to introduce it, so we will go on.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Tourism.

MR. WALSH: Bill 16, Mr. Chairman. I move the amendment.

MR. TOBIN: What is the amendment?

MR. ROBERTS: It puts in prison terms as an alternative to fines.

MR. WALSH: I will read the amendment, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. WALSH: You have a copy of the amendment.

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

MR. HARRIS: Are you going to speak to it?

MR. WALSH: I was just going to read the amendment, but I understand that you have copies. I was only going to read the amendment.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WALSH: I will read the amendment, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Minister of Culture and Tourism.

MR. WALSH: The amendment would add a term of imprisonment as a penalty for default of payment of fines under the proposed subsections 46.(1) and 46.(2).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am pleased to see that some response is made but I am curious as to why - we still have not answered the question as to why we have taken away the possibility of imprisonment as a penalty for the breach of the act.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I am sorry, I have read the amendment as well. You do not have a copy of it, it just says that you can go to jail if you do not pay your fines. It does not say that you can go to jail as part of the penalty. The previous legislation -

AN HON. MEMBER: Sit down.

MR. HARRIS: No, I am not going to sit down. I am going to say what I have to say.

The previous legislation that this is replacing, Section 12 of the act - not Section 12 of the act but whatever section it is replacing - that Section 46, the previous Section 46 of the act has been replaced and provided for a fine of a maximum of $2,000 or up to twelve months in jail or to a fine and imprisonment of up to twelve months in jail. Now, what the legislation is proposing to do is replace the possibility of a jail term as a punishment for an offense with a fine only for the first time. Now they are saying yes, we have a fine only, a fine with a maximum of $100,000 for a first offense or six months in jail in default, previously it was $2,000 or twelve months in jail in default or to a fine and imprisonment. Now, the question still has not been answered as to why we are, for this particular category of offenders, removing the possibility of a maximum jail term of twelve months and having no jail term at all possible except for the non-payment of a fine.

I raised this question in debate at second reading and the minister promised to have someone go off, see about it and find out what the explanation was. Now there has been no explanation but there has been an amendment proposed in Committee of the Whole to add the phrase; `imprisonment not more than six months'. It seems to me as well, and maybe the Minister of Justice is correct here about the idea of having amendments happening on the floor of the House or in Committee or in last minutes or whatever but it is the fault of not having this bill before a committee, I suggest to the minister. We now have a piece of legislation which - in fact if I look at the section itself, at Clause 10 - Clause 10 provides for a maximum imprisonment of six months in default of payment for a first or subsequent conviction and that six months imprisonment is only for nonpayment of fines. So, there must be some reason why the government has decided to remove the term of imprisonment that was provided in the previous section when the fine was $2,000 or up to twelve months in jail. Now we have a fine of up to $200,000 for a second offense but no jail term unless you do not pay the fine. Perhaps the Minister of Finance has an explanation, the Minister of Tourism and Culture may have an explanation, somebody may have an explanation but I have not received one yet.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Minister of Tourism and Culture.

MR. WALSH: Mr. Chairman, we don't feel it's necessary, although if the member prefers we could always withdraw the amendment, but that's not what we would like to do. We believe that the amendment put forward is more than adequate to meet the needs of what the government is looking for at this time. Also I've been advised that it is comparable too and very similar to that of Ontario. We would like the amendment to remain as it stands.

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Chairman, that's no more explanation than: we're doing it because we're doing it. If that's all the minister has to say then: I think that that's good enough information for the people of this Province... well then I don't think that that is good enough. We have had a situation where the previous legislation provided for a penalty that presumably the government didn't feel was inadequate, and in fact what they've done is lower it.

On motion, amendment carried.

On motion, Clause 10 as amended, carried.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Insurance Adjusters, Agents And Brokers Act." (Bill No. 16).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill with amendment, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill No. 24.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Law Society Act." (Bill No. 24).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill 23.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Internal Economy Commission Act." (Bill No. 23).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill No. 21.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible)?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: We're only an (inaudible). That's not bad for us.

AN HON. MEMBER: We've done well tonight, haven't we? I think we've done well.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Why don't we leave Fortis till first thing in the morning?

MR. ROBERTS: Then the Budget.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Well, let's do the Budget first. We'll do the Budget speech - get that out of the way, and then do Fortis.

MR. ROBERTS: Not later than 1:00 p.m. tomorrow afternoon?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: If at all possible. (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) my hon. friend, not later than 1:00 p.m. tomorrow?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: I can't say that because there are variables here -

MR. ROBERTS: I can speak for our side.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: I can't speak for the Member for St. John's East.

MR. ROBERTS: Well, I'll ask him (inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: We will do everything in our power to finish by 12:00 p.m., 1:00 p.m. at the latest. That's all I can say.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) my friend for St. John's East? Not later than 1:00 p.m.?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I must tell the Committee, Mr. Chairman, that my fortune cookie in my Chinese supper tonight said: avert misunderstanding by calm, poise and balance. I only had to open 107 fortune cookies to get that. Avert misunderstanding by calm, poise and balance.

MR. SIMMS: You should have given that to your colleague, the Minister of Finance.

MR. ROBERTS: My friend for Gander made one of the very best speeches he's ever made, and he's made an awful lot of very good speeches.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: He's got a long way to go make his fortune, but he's getting there.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

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

MR. SPEAKER (Dicks): Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Trinity - Bay de Verde.

MR. L. SNOW: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole has considered the matters to it referred, and has directed me to report that it has passed Bill Nos. -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I cannot hear the report of the Chairman. Yes, go ahead.

MR. L. SNOW: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole has considered the matters to it referred, and has directed me to report Bill Nos. 8, 9, 10, 18, 17, 19, 20, 24, 23 and 11 carried without amendments, and Bill No. 16 with amendment, and ask leave to sit again.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you.

On motion, report received and adopted, Bill Nos. 8, 9, 10, 18, 17, 19, 20, 11, 24 and 23, ordered read a third time on tomorrow. Committee ordered to sit again on tomorrow.

On motion, amendment to Bill No. 16 read a first and second time, bill ordered read a third time on tomorrow.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, before I move the adjournment, it might be of assistance to members if I gave them my score sheet of where we stand, because the Order Paper, I think, has been left behind in the movement forward. The Clerks will no doubt be at it all night trying to straighten it out.

Tomorrow, by my understanding, we have Committee stage on one bill, and that is the Financial Corporations Capital Tax Act.

AN HON. MEMBER: Fortis bill.

MR. ROBERTS: Fortis if one wishes.

Then we have third readings on all of the other legislation. When those are done we shall call the Budget.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Well I am easy. It is all the same. Whatever suits hon. members.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: We will get that done. Then we have eighteen hours of estimates to finish tomorrow. Then we will go through the -

MR. SIMMS: We already had eighteen hours in March.

MR. ROBERTS: I remember it well, and I profited perhaps more than my hon. friend for Grand Falls by the outcome of it. I say to my friend, we did increase our strength by two seats.

Mr. Speaker, we will then do the supply procedure.

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible) only strengthened by one after you kicked Larry out.

MR. ROBERTS: The former Mr. Short left on his own, unfortunately. We would have liked to have him here, but we are glad that my friend for St. George's is now with us - the real Liberal in St. George's.

MR. SIMMS: The next Minister of Agriculture.

MR. ROBERTS: The next Minister of Agriculture is sitting in the seat here in the front row immediately to my left.

Mr. Speaker, we will then do the supply bill. There is a supply bill. It is ready, and in the spirit of Woodrow Wilson, who used to speak of democratic convenance openly arrived at, we shall adjourn the House not later than 1:00 p.m. tomorrow, so all concerned can make their arrangements accordingly, because I know they can rely on the good faith of the House Leader opposite, as on the House Leader here, and the House Leader for the New Democratic Party in the House.

Mr. Speaker, with that said, I move that the House at its rising do adjourn until tomorrow, Friday, at 9:00 a.m. and that the House do now adjourn.

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