The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Dicks): Order, please!

On behalf of hon. members, I would like to recognize Mrs. Eileen Houlihan of Freshwater, Placentia who is seated in the Speaker's Gallery and is the author of a book known as Argentia Revisited which was published in 1993.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, Hear!

MR. SPEAKER: On behalf of hon. members, I would also like to welcome to the public galleries twenty students from the Career Orientation Program in Witless Bay, Ferryland, accompanied by the facilitators for the program Ms Brenda Sparkes and Ms Dorothy Hawco.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in response to some questions I asked concerning the Trans City Holdings issue, the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board said that on April 29, 1993, the government tied into an interest rate of 9.41 per cent, I think it was, to finance the three health care centres that were constructed by Marco Construction back in the beginning of 1991, I guess.

Now that was the rate that was obtained a year-and-a-half after the contracts were awarded to Trans City. I would like to ask the Premier today - and I suspect he will pass it on - this question: In order to get that rate, did you agree to an escalating payment schedule that would have lease payments increasing over the 30-year lease period, and wasn't that in fact a major change in the original specs which called for a flat payment schedule?

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, the original deal had a clause in there which specified that the tie in point could be at any point up to substantial completion of the structures, and also there were two possible avenues of tying in and two possible schedules of payment. The analysis that was done just before tying in, leading up to the point at which government tied in, and government kept it as late as possible simply because the interest rates were falling at the time and falling fairly rapidly so we put it off as long as possible which explains why we were so late in terms of tying in; it was of tremendous advantage to the Province and we did tie in that late date and we did choose the escalating payment option rather than the fixed payment option.

MR. SIMMS: And that was the major change in the original specs?

MR. BAKER: There was no mention in the original specs of any method of payment.

MR. SIMMS: Flat payment.

MR. BAKER: There was no mention that there had to be a flat payment, no.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, contrary to the comments of the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board, information that we've obtained indicates that the escalating payment schedule in fact will cost taxpayers additional millions of dollars, as a matter of fact, is the number we've heard. Unfortunately most of that cost will be shouldered by our children and our grandchildren, because what happens is that because of the escalating payment schedule that won't kick in until twenty to thirty years from now.

I want to ask him this question: Will the minister table in this House - so we can all make a fair judgement on this - will he table the schedule of escalating lease payments over that thirty-year lease period, and will he also provide to the House a schedule of what the lease cost would have been based on the original or the other flat rate over that same thirty-year period? Will he do that?

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, the numbers are public numbers at this point in time so I would be pleased to. I would like to point out that I know what the hon. member is getting at. Certainly the escalating payments would result in, over a thirty-year period, of a higher payout certainly, total payout, simply because we are borrowing the amount of money for a longer period of time. If the Province were to borrow itself on the market it would never ever pay back any principle and so would be committed forever to pay interest payments, which would be a tremendous added burden. That is the approach the hon. members took in the years that they were in office. They continually borrowed money and never ever paid back principle, and burdened taxpayers for the next hundred years with an unbearable burden.

The analysis indicated that the fixed interest rate, slightly previous to the point in time which we tied in, was more than fifty bases points better than conventional sources. That same analysis indicated that that was the fixed rate, that was the fixed system, was better than fifty bases points better than we could get through conventional sources. It also pointed out that the Department of Finance recommended the escalating lease payments because it provided a further advantage to the Province of ten bases points.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, when the minister tables - I think he did indicate, I hope, and he will tell me again - when he tables the schedule of the escalating lease payments versus the flat rate payments, I think you will find, with a careful analysis, when the inflation factor over that thirty-year period is taken into account, the fact is that it will cost us several millions of dollars more than if the flat rate was used, the flat schedule was used, but I look forward to his tabling of that information because it will help us in the analysis.

We now know through sworn evidence that the government was told repeatedly back in 1991, by its own officials, that these three buildings, proposed in the bid of Trans City, had completely missed the functional requirements in the Department of Health specifications and would have to be redesigned. We now know that, through sworn evidence, all of which would cost the Province more. What we do not know and what I would like to ask the minister today is this: how much did these three finished buildings cost based on the deal made after you awarded the contracts? Secondly, how much will the government have to pay to buy these buildings back thirty years from now? Will he be forthright with that information as well?

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the hon. gentleman is getting his information but he is entirely incorrect in his preamble. Maybe what he is referring to is that an original analysis done of the three buildings indicated that in one of the buildings a company, which happened to be Trans City, had missed the point of the functional plan. The reason they missed the point of the functional plan was that they had made allowances for forty-eight beds instead of forty beds and because they quoted on a square foot basis, ultimately that meant that the buildings could be obtained more cheaply. That particular building could be obtained more cheaply than was estimated in the first place. So there was no missing of the total functional plan at all, Mr. Speaker, there was simply an adjustment that was made to reduce the number of beds as per the demands of government.

I indicated to the hon. member that I would table the information in the House and I also indicated - and he states it as if this is going to be a surprising result and that is one of his techniques -I also stated a moment ago that it will show that the total payout with the escalating payments would be greater than the total payout with the fixed payments and I explained why.

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. BAKER: Well I am simply stating the facts. It does not confirm anything except what the facts are. The facts are also that the escalating payments are better financially on government because the interest rate is lower but we do ultimately end up borrowing the money for a longer period of time. So there is an ultimate cost for that, but they are better on the Province than any other thing we could have done. The financial analysis indicates that it is at least fifty to sixty bases points better than we could have gotten through conventional sources.

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

MR. SIMMS: On a supplementary, I was hoping the minister would have answered the questions that I put to him. He avoided both of those questions. What I asked him -

MR. BAKER: I answered the questions.

MR. SIMMS: No, you didn't. How much did the three finished buildings cost? Tell us that.

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

MR. BAKER: The hon. gentleman can't have it both ways. He asked me to table the costs, and I said, yes, I would get the costs, the total costs, of both the escalating and the fixed payments, and I would table them in the House.

Now, if he is not satisfied with that answer, it is too bad. I will table that information.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: They are two different questions. You said you would table the schedules. That is what I asked for, the payment schedule. That is fine. What I just asked you now is: How much did the buildings cost to construct? Do you know the answer to that question?

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

MR. BAKER: I don't know the exact number, Mr. Speaker, but I will certainly get it and -

MR. SIMMS: That is what I asked.

MR. BAKER: Well, I have said I would table the information. That is part of the information that he asked for.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, a supplementary.

Another question I asked him, because originally we heard - by the way, for his information, the cost of building the buildings was somewhere around $23 million. Now, that is the question I want answered, because I want to find out if there was any additional cost added to the cost of constructing the buildings, totally separate from the repayment schedules.

The other question I asked him, which he avoided answering: How much will it cost the government to buy back these buildings thirty years from now, as per your contract, as per the Cabinet paper that I quoted from yesterday, as per the deal that you fixed six months after the contracts were awarded?

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I don't mind the hon. gentleman wasting the time of Question Period, but I will simply go back and repeat my answer again. The hon. gentleman asked me to table that information, the payment schedules, how much we are going to pay in what years, which would include the final payout, and I shall provide that information - get the information and table it.

Now, if the hon. gentleman wants to get up and keep repeating that, and waste the rest of Question Period, that is his choice.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, one final question.

I say to the minister, I was hoping he would be more forthright. Surely he should know what it is going to cost the government to buy back these buildings thirty years from now, because that is part of your deal.

In the original specifications it was going to cost the government $1. That was the original specification when the tender and bids were put out. I am asking him now: What will this 60 per cent of fair market value mean? How much will that cost the government and the taxpayers? That is the question I want answered. Now he surely knows the answer to that question.

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

MR. BAKER: I told the hon. gentleman, Mr. Speaker, that would be tabled. I don't know why he insists that I keep repeating the answers.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I am having trouble hearing the minister.

MR. BAKER: Just in case he doesn't understand it I will repeat it again. The hon. member has asked for information about the escalating lease payments which involves a payment at the end. That will be provided. He asked for information compared to the fixed rate lease and how much the payments will be, and the payment at the end. Mr. Speaker, that will be provided so I don't know why he is getting so exercised. Is he trying to create a press incident or what? I don't know. I have already indicated to the hon. gentleman, that will be tabled, and I answered all his questions, with the exception of the information that I have indicated will be tabled.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Health. The Minister of Health stated in this House yesterday, and he stated outside the House, that a decision has not been made with respect to rationalization of acute care facilities here in the City of St. John's, and he is quoted in today's Evening Telegram as saying, "But absolutely nothing has been determined with any finality as to which facilities will remain or be closed, or if indeed any will be closed."

Now, in a special edition circular, circulated at the General Hospital on November 4, it states that the new corporation board has been given a mandate by the Provincial Government to consolidate acute care services within the city to two sites. Now, Mr. Minister, you have led people to believe that no decision was made to reduce acute care facilities in this city when, in fact, a decision was made by you and your department.

Now, will you stand in your place in the House today and tell the truth?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

I will attempt to do as the member has asked me, to tell the truth as best I know it. I stand by the answers I gave to the questions, both to the member yesterday, who wishes he were minister, and also to the media outside the House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! I can't hear the hon. minister.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: There has been a fair bit of discussion over the past number of years with respect to the rationalization of health care in St. John's, with respect to how many facilities we need to deliver the best health care services and programs with respect to where they should or should not be located, given the current state and status of what is going on in some of the facilities. All of these matters will be for the consideration of the new health care board that takes over April 1 1995.

I just left a meeting by coincidence, five minutes ago, with Sister Elizabeth who is the chair of that new board. We had a discussion about the questions that we had yesterday and about what we said in the media, what she has been saying to the hospitals as she has been going about in her pre-establishment mode, I guess, before she takes over officially on April 1. I can tell you that final decisions on what facilities, which facilities, will remain have not been made with any finality. There have been scenarios put forward, there have been options discussed and considered, and these may or may not be the final basis of the ultimate decisions with respect to what we do in this region. Whatever we do, let the member be assured that it will be done first and foremost in the best interest of delivering sound, safe, efficient, professional and cost-effective health care for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. That will be the premise and the priority that we will establish and work from in anything that we do in this regard.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Supplementary, the hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is a pile of utter nonsense.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Ms. Davis has said jobs may be redundant, decisions will made quickly. The mandate was told to the hospitals and told people that there will be two facilities. The minister wants us to believe yesterday that whatever will be done will be done by the new board when it takes effect on April 1. Will the minister and stand in his place and confirm that the board and Sister Elizabeth Davis are acting on detailed instructions given to them by the department and this minister, including the decision to close down the Janeway Children's Hospital?

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

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My judgement on the substantiveness of my answer is not the same as your view of it, sir. My answer was correct. Let me tell you again that Sister Elizabeth Davis is not under any direct or indirect or implicit instructions from the Department of Health or this government to announce any such thing along the lines of a closure of the Janeway Hospital.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. L. MATTHEWS: No, that is not what she is doing, that is not what she is saying. If you want to put your interpretation to that effect upon what she may or may not be saying, then you will have to live with the consequences of the statements and interpretations that you are making, not the facts that we are presenting.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I tell the minister, he will have to live with the consequences of his failure to come clean and let the public have a say in what is happening.

There are hundreds of people in health care in the St. John's area whose futures are in slings and many clients of the health care system who deserve to have a right to have input into the future of the health care system. I ask the minister again: Will he table in this House the specific instructions he has given to Sister Elizabeth Davis and the new hospitals regarding reorganization of acute care facilities here in this city?

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

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, I don't know whether the hon. the Member for Ferryland is not hearing or whether he is just plain stunned. Whatever the problem that he has, the answer is again that no explicit instructions have been given to Sister Elizabeth to do as you are alluding to that she has been given instructions to do. So -

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible) writing. (Inaudible) it in writing! (Inaudible).

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Well, I have the Telegram here, so save your trip across the House. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that I've given the hon. Member for Ferryland the answer that is correct, that is factual, and I can do no more than that. Whether he chooses to believe it is really a matter that he will have to determine in his own mind.

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

MR. TOBIN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Premier.

Mr. Speaker, there is no one in this Province unaware of what is taking place on the Burin Peninsula. Today, the people are out protesting down there trying to prevent their jobs from being shipped away to Saint John New Brunswick, have been served with an injunction. The place is now crawling with armed police officers, with surveillance cameras and the whole bit down there.

Mr. Speaker, losing the work is one thing, but not knowing why the work is going is another, and I would ask the Premier, and I say to him, up front that today in the galleries there are the leadership of the Marystown union and they too, do not know why the work is leaving. I would like to ask you, Mr. Premier, can you tell us today why it is going?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: It is fairly simple.

I disagree with the reason given but the reason given to me is that, HMDC does not have confidence that the work can be completed in time at the Marystown Shipyard to avoid causing a delay in the overall completion of the Hibernia production platform and so causing significant adverse consequence.

Now I do not share their view; a lot of people I know do not share their view but I do not have responsibility for the decision that they have, therefore I am not prepared to do anything to impose my judgement which is, that they are wrong on it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Burin Placentia - West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, if the Premier does not accept the fact that HMDC is doing it, let me ask the Premier, can he tell me when HMDC told him they would expect to get the work back from Marystown, completed in Marystown and, when they have told him they will receive it back from Saint John, New Brunswick?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: HMDC indicated to me that they thought it would not be produced at Marystown until well into 1996. That, they said, they couldn't take. They couldn't take that risk and they did not know that it could be produced even in early 1996; they had a great deal of uncertainty about it. Now I do not share their judgement in that. Nobody else that I have talked to shares their judgement. A variety of people in Marystown Shipyard and a variety of people otherwise do not share their judgement.

I don't know when they expect to receive it back from Saint John Shipyard; I don't know that at the time that I was speaking with them they had any firm date, but they did expect, that their judgement was it could be back from Saint John, New Brunswick in time to be incorporated in the overall work without causing any delay. I enquired as to how they could come to that conclusion and that was their view of it. I cannot alter that, I can challenge it, I can question it but I can't alter it.

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, The hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I guess that is what causes all the problems. Nobody knows when it is coming back from Saint John, New Brunswick and I understand the management of the Shipyard told the Premier that they could have had it done in the fall of 95. There is no doubt, Mr. Speaker, there is a very strong, hidden agenda here by HMDC, who wants to scuttle the work from Marystown and unfortunately, it is supported by the government opposite by not preventing it from happening.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, let me ask the Premier this. The barge to carry the livelihood of 350 employees of Marystown Shipyard will be arriving there on Friday. I understand from the media that there is a meeting called there tonight to set up some sort of a blockade where people are going to try to arrange boats and the whole bit and I want to say for the record that, that bothers me greatly and I am very concerned about what that might mean; and I would ask the Premier now, Mr. Speaker, if there is anything, if there is anything he can say or do at this stage in the game to prevent that work from leaving?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: We have been trying ever since. The answer is up until this point in time no, there is nothing I can do; and if that idea of a blockade bothers the hon. member so much, then I recommend strongly to him, that he take steps to persuade people not to do that. He takes steps to persuade people not to do that. All that that is causing is more harm to Marystown Shipyard and Vinland Industries and diminishing the ability to get work in the future. No company, no company is likely ever to give Marystown or Vinland Industries another contract to do work if they have to face that kind of interference and blockade. Now, all that action will do is cause more harm than help. It certainly will not help. I think the hon. member agrees with that, and I would invite him to say so to the people concerned, to persuade them not to do that.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, and concerns the site selected for the Cabot legacy project.

Mr. Speaker, the preferred site, and I think universally agreed to be the preferred site, is a waterfront site in the City of St. John's, the downtown area of St. John's. I want to ask the minister, since he is the man who announced this site selection process back in June, whether or not the government is prepared to make further efforts to obtain a site on the waterfront in St. John's because of the increased tourism, economic and business development potential for the downtown area of St. John's to have that building there in a magnificent site on the waterfront of St. John's? Is the government prepared to make further efforts to do that?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly appreciate the question because it is a topic that has been in the public domain, particularly in and around the capital city region, for some time now.

It is clear, I think, to everyone who has been following this issue, that the government was clearly in favour of the preferred site of having this kind of a legacy structure on the waterfront so that we could contribute to the revitalization of that waterfront area and all of the things that the hon. member mentioned in his preamble to the question, but having gone through a complete exercise of negotiation and discussion with the people who actually held title to the preferred property and properties, it was seen at the end of the day to be inappropriate for the government to pursue the issue further, despite the obvious advantages as pointed out by the hon. member in the question.

We have now basically decided not to return to any significant efforts to try to move back to a waterfront site, but have committed ourselves to the Fort Townshend site which was announced publicly last week.

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that there are difficulties with that site as well. I know the minister and the government - the government has been very creative when it comes to finding ways, and the Minister of Finance has been explaining it the last couple of days in the House, of finding ways of financing projects that they decide that they want to do in a particular place and location, or with particular contractors. Why isn't the government prepared to try and still, at this stage of the game, find ways of making that project to be the desirable project that it could be, instead of not contributing in the way that it could to the economic and tourism and small business development in the downtown area of St. John's?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I guess, it causes some confusion from time to time when members of the Opposition in either of the parties change their view as to what this government is all about, because normally we would expect the question to be the regular one saying: Why don't you go and impose your view on the people on the waterfront, whether or not they have good reasons why they don't want to give up the property on any volunteer basis or otherwise, and say that would be the normal record for the... We have heard all that tirade many times and now, because we make our normal, reasonable decision not to impose our will, which is to take a waterfront site upon the owners of that property, just as we will not impose our will upon people on a wide range of issues, now the hon. member will rise and say that the government should have found another way to force some people to do some things they didn't want to do at the waterfront, when we went through exhaustive and extensive discussions and negotiations to try to secure that site because it was the preferred location.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture.

Would the minister undertake to table a list of all sea urchin processing licences that have been issued by the provincial Department of Fisheries and, as well, table the date on which these licences were first issued? Can he confirm that a sea urchin processing licence was issued in the last few days to 3 T's Fisheries of Bonne Bay?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture.

DR. HULAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, I can confirm that I will table such information that you have asked for. I can also confirm that a licence was not offered to 3 T's in Bonne Bay - was not in the last few days.

AN HON. MEMBER: Was there ever?

DR. HULAN: I will have to take that under advisement and check that out.

MR. SPEAKER: Is there a supplementary? Some of this may have gotten picked up in Hansard.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

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

I thank the minister for answering what he could and for undertaking to table the list of licenses and the dates that they were first issued. The minister knows why I am asking it, so does the Premier, it concerns the situation with Sual Fisheries and Frenchman's Cove on the west coast, which I believe is in the Premier's district. It has been an item of great concern out in that area.

I want to ask the Premier a supplementary, is the Premier aware that last night his parliamentary assistant, Mr. Joyce, executive assistant for the west coast, Mr. Ed Joyce, released about sixty copies of a confidential document, a business plan of Sual Fisheries at a public meeting; information about wages to paid for harvesting, processing wages, cost of packaging, shipping - about sixty copies of confidential, private information paid for by this company, released it at a public meeting? I do not think I need to say any more about it. When this information was provided to government it was clearly indicated that it was to be treated as confidential information. I want to ask the Premier is he aware of it? If he is not, would he undertake to see, first of all, where Mr. Joyce got the information? Number two, under whose authority he made this confidential information available to the public? Because we all know the implications and ramifications of this, everyone now has this, a new prospective industry in this Province that was paid for by this company and that is now available to everyone. So I would ask the Premier would he undertake to do that because this is a very serious matter, in my opinion?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I know nothing about the event that he is speaking about but I will undertake to determine what in fact happened and advise the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time for Oral Questions has elapsed.

Order, please!

During Question Period, the hon. the Minister of Health used the term `stunned' in one of his answers. I merely want to point out that I checked Beauchesne, as it struck me as perhaps being unparliamentary, and there are a variety of `s' words referred to as unparliamentary, including `scurrilous', `sleazy', `stinker' and `stupid', but not `stunned'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: However, having said that, in my view, `stunned' is a particularly colloquial Newfoundland expression. I infer that it still means `stupid', so I ask the hon. member not to use it again, and ask other members not to use the expression.

Thank you.

On behalf of hon. members, I would like to welcome the Ambassador of Korea to Canada, His Excellency Kee Bock Shin, who is visiting St. John's from November 23rd to the 25th.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. CAREEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Today, it gives me pleasure to stand and present a petition in this House. The petition reads: To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland in Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland and Labrador ask the House of Assembly to accept the following prayer:

`We, the undersigned, do hereby request that Cabinet immediately rescind changes in regulations which cancel mandatory vehicle inspections. As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.'

The minister is at it again. Every time this thing about inspections is brought up, he ridicules anybody who brings it up, anybody who is responsible, who has a feeling for people and who wants safety first on our highways in Newfoundland.

Thirteen months ago on October 22, this Minister of Works, Services and Transportation put in more stringent regulations for motor vehicle inspections, but last week he threw safety out the window by saying mandatory inspections are no longer in force. He based part of it on national statistics by Transport Canada. He based his decision, he said, on national statistics while those national statistics put Newfoundland's rate of unfit vehicles on the highways higher than any other province.

He said he consulted with other provinces, but did he consult with the Insurance Bureau, who said that insurance premiums will go up. He never consulted the auto industry. Did he consult the police? I can see the RCMP now with twin holsters, one holding a gun and the other, a wrench. These people who look after their vehicles are concerned that more and more indiscriminate people will want to get their vehicles on the road.

During this past week there have been numerous cancellations of brake alignment to be done in garages because they don't have to be done under mandatory inspection. These people are taking it upon themselves not to have their cars done. The minister can say what he likes about it still being in place but these people are taking a chance and not having it done. This government is willing to get two shots at people now who take a chance. People are now putting cars on the road that are unfit. They pay the government $120 and when they are caught they pay X number of dollars for their fines. There are going to be more and more cars on the road that are unfit.

The minister talks about saving $15, fifteen loonies like themselves. This thing was aided and abetted by the minister and fourteen other members of Cabinet, fifteen people, fifteen loonies threw this out, threw safety out the window. What were you thinking about, Sir, or where did it originate? This has taken on a life of its own. I never brought politics into it, you did, Sir, when you brought it to the forefront in Newfoundland. With all our problems on this little Island and Labrador, you brought this to the forefront, and people are not satisfied.

People want to be in safe vehicles on the highways. Their own might be safe but there are going to be more and more indiscriminate drivers, and those who postpone getting their vehicles done.

MR. EFFORD: May I have a copy of that?

MR. CAREEN: Of what?

MR. EFFORD: The petition.

MR. CAREEN: Yes Sir, you may have a copy.

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible) number of names.

MR. CAREEN: There were only a few people who showed up here today; because of weather conditions outside St. John's, many people couldn't get here. The numbers don't count. These people - there are 40,000 to 50,000 signatures that will be passed in here in a week or two to show you what is going on.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. CAREEN: You will be called, Sir, the minister of nuts and bolts and clunkers, after this is over, with what you are doing. There are going to be more wheelchairs sold than brake cables. Sir, you are not responsible. You are putting forward a feeling of irresponsibility. You are irresponsible.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. CAREEN: Insurance, I say, will rise. There will be more and more unfit cars. The automotive industry of Canada is noting, and they are projecting, that by 1998 73 per cent of vehicles on the roads in Canada will be one to ten years old, and 26.6 per cent will be ten years and older. They are projecting that by 1998, cars older than fifteen years will number 522,000 from Vancouver to here. What average of those cars we will have, I don't know.

The minister never consulted, and quite often he is insulting. What he did to the people of this Province was he threw safety out the window. He tried to put it over on garage owners being indiscriminate. That happens in isolated incidents.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. CAREEN: The minister is irresponsible.

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

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to have a few words in support of the petition presented by my colleague, the Member for Placentia.

Since the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation announced this change whereby there is no need for any vehicle operator in the Province to have an inspection done, people around this Province at first said - I even heard it in my district when I came into the airport last Friday evening - they said: What a great thing! Some of the boys came to me - in fact, some of the taxi operators who must have their inspections done twice a year, thought they were included.

They said: Oh no. I said: Hold on now, no you are not. You continue on as always, two inspections a year. But anybody else, no inspections.

Mr. Speaker, every day now there are more and more people coming to realize what a catastrophe that is going to be for this Province. Innocent people are going to be hurt. We are going to have vehicles on the highways today that should never be on. People who could not get their vehicles inspected before now are just taking them out. As long as they have a good set of tires on her, good enough, way to go, and this is wrong.

I think the minister woke up one morning and he said he had a dream. What is after happening is that dream the minister had is after becoming a nightmare for the garage owners and the people of this Province. As the days, weeks and months go on we will know and the minister will know the repercussions of his decision to do away with inspections.

The insurance companies will have a field day. In four to six months the insurance companies will have a field day. They are always looking for an excuse, just a little excuse, anything at all, to whack up the insurance rates. They are doing it to the young people today, especially if you are a male; it goes way up because the report shows that more accidents are caused by young people.

Mr. Speaker, I would say that the minister, over the next couple of months, if the Premier doesn't soon have a talk to him - first, with respect to drinking, he reduced the acceptable alcohol level from .08 down to .05, and the two reasons he gave last week in the House was because of drinking drivers and safety. Then, in a complete about-face, he does away with inspections for vehicles in the Province. Now, that is a complete U-turn, Mr. Speaker - pardon the pun - and the minister is going to have to take responsibility for his actions.

Mr. Speaker, the minister - you talk about inspections - I think the minister needs an inspection, because I'm sure his ball-joints have got to be gone! I'm sure, from what has happened in the last week or so, that he hasn't got his bearings, and if the minister keeps on going with what I am hearing today, I think he is after blowing a head gasket, Mr. Speaker!

AN HON. MEMBER: There are a few gaskets blown over there.

MR. WOODFORD: There are a few gaskets blown, yes, that's right, and if the minister keeps up with what he has been doing - just in the last few days, he has been causing more turmoil, worry and torment for the people of this Province, innocent people.

Most people will have their cars inspected, most will make sure that they are driving a good vehicle for the safety of their family and whoever is in the vehicle, but there are many others who won't.

Mr. Speaker, the minister knows full well he is getting a hard - he got on Open Line Show the other day and there was no way in the world he could keep up with them. The women, everybody who called in, they had him. They got the minister's number, and, Mr. Speaker, if he doesn't change, some of those innocent - it is another money grab.

Mr. Speaker, look at the budget for last year, for vehicles and drivers licenses: $12 million in one year, from $32,500,000 in 1993-1994 to $44,500,000 this year - $12 million, Mr. Speaker, that's what is happening. Everybody knows that this is going to be another money grab for the minister and his officials -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. WOODFORD: - for his department and for the insurance companies, Mr. Speaker, in the next five to six months.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. EFFORD: Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt about it that there is sensationalism being made about this issue but there is one thing that strikes me as being very interesting: for months and months, everybody, the Opposition included, asked, `Where is Efford? We don't see or hear tell of Efford anymore.' Now, Efford is doing something, it's: `Why doesn't Efford sit down and not do anything?' Well, you fellows can't make up your minds. You really can't make up your minds at all. The one thing I am glad of is that I woke up this morning, because the hon. member - if I hadn't awakened, then there would have been a real problem in the House of Assembly today, wouldn't there?

AN HON. MEMBER: A lot of people wish you didn't.

MR. EFFORD: One interesting point I made out there today talking to the mechanics - I will touch on some of the points. Half-way through the debate back and forth, I asked the question: How many people here today arguing about the policy of changing the regulation, are not mechanics or garage owners? Raise your hand. Not one hand went up, not one hand, which means it is a self- serving interest group.

Now, let me ask you a question. Everybody who owns a vehicle must have a regular maintenance program to keep the engine in good running condition. You must have a grease and oil change on a regular basis. Are we saying that we should be told, by government, that you must go and pay a fee and we must instruct you to do it at certain times of the year? that you must be told to do a regular thing with your vehicle by government? In other words, you have to be directed. I mean, we aren't children, we are responsible adults and if the ball-joint or the gasket is blown or the tire is bald, are you going to drive over the Trans-Canada at 100 kilometres an hour?

Another point, if your vehicle inspection comes up in January, what happens in June, July, August, September, October, November and all other months? If the brake lines are bad in June, you don't have to get them inspected until January or next spring, so you are going to leave everything as is until the inspection date comes. How silly can you get!

The other point the hon. member made was that Newfoundland is going to have more vehicles on the highway in a dilapidated or junked condition than any other province. Do you realize all provinces, Quebec and west of Quebec, have the same regulations as we now have? Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, B.C. - all other provinces have the same regulations we have. In other words, the rest of Canada can manage their vehicles and keep them in safe driving condition without being told, but Newfoundlanders are the people who must be told? Because that's what you are saying, that the only way they are going to keep their vehicles in repair is they have to be ordered to. You know very well why the garages and the mechanics are saying what they are saying, and why they are the only ones who are out protesting.

The insurance companies - if the insurance companies want to have an inspection on a vehicle - they don't want to insure a vehicle that is a 1972 or 1982, they can require the owner of that vehicle to go have it inspected; there is nobody stopping them, that is their choice. They cannot use that to up the insurance rate. They have the right to ask the owner of that vehicle to get an inspection. There is no reason in this world why that should be done.

The final point I want to make is, there is still the law that every person owning a vehicle must keep it in a safe driving condition. The only regulation that is changed is that you do not have to pay for a one-time mandatory inspection once a year. All commercial vehicles must be inspected, all private vehicles, used vehicles, at the point of sale, must be inspected. All taxi and passenger vehicles must be inspected. All school buses must be inspected. The hon. members know full well that they are trying to play politics, as my hon. friend over there, the Member for St. John's East did when the mechanics and the garage owners were in the foyer of the Confederation Building at lunch time.

It is merely a - they see it as a money-losing venture for themselves. The issue is not: Should people be told, or should people have to not keep their vehicles in safe driving condition. It is a one-time thing where they feel that they will lose money because people will not now come in. People will come in at their own choice, at their own will, and not be forced to once a year, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Green Bay.

MR. HEWLETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to present a petition on a matter I've raised on a number of occasions in this hon. House. The prayer of the petition is as follows: `We, the undersigned, request that the House of Assembly instruct government to take such steps as are necessary so that moose antler can be obtained legally for use in the craft and souvenir business.'

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. HEWLETT: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation needn't get upset about this one, Mr. Speaker. It is not a subject matter he is responsible for - thank heaven for small blessings!

There are a couple of points I want to make today. As I said, I've raised this on a number of occasions. Ordinarily, I could probably have raised these points and brought them to the minister's attention in Question Period, but of late, speaking as one member of the Opposition, we find it very difficult to get all the various issues on in Question Period in any given day or any given week. There is such a tremendous number of scandals afflicting this government right now that we have a tremendous backlog of pieces of subject matter that we are trying to bring forward. So, Mr. Speaker, I will have to raise this during Petitions.

The hon. Minister responsible for Wildlife indicated some time ago that he was looking at the idea of changing regulations so that people involved in the souvenir and craft industry could legally and legitimately buy the raw materials necessary for them to pursue their craft and pursue their industry. I have had discussions with my constituent, who is basically shut down now waiting for some word from this government as to what exactly can be done. My constituent has had a large number of discussions as well over the last few days with various people, various principals, various stakeholders involved in the craft and souvenir industry who make use of moose and caribou antler.

They are pleased that the minister appears to be willing to take their concerns seriously and to go about changing the law and/or regulations so that they can establish their businesses on a sound, commercial basis, and they are pleased that the minister has indicated that he is willing to act sooner rather than later on this. In the case of my particular constituent, Mr. Speaker, I do hope the minister acts before that particular business goes out of business.

One thing the stakeholders in the craft and souvenir business would like, Mr. Speaker, is to have some input into the final draft of regulations being prepared by the minister, so that the regulations not only establish a sound, commercial basis for their industry, but have the benefit of their experience, usually several years of experience of acquiring, often buying antler to produce their souvenirs.

They know the ins and outs of this particular business, Mr. Speaker, and I think it is only fair and just and proper that the department concerned consult with these people before a final draft of the regulations is put in place. And I would ask the minister, if he wishes to respond to this petition, to rise in his place and indicate just where we are with regard to the drafting of new regulations and what his views are on the possibility of involving the stakeholders in the industry, in having a say in the final draft of the regulations themselves.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, this is the third day we have had this petition. The minister answered yesterday. I move that the Orders of the Day be now read.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved that the Orders of the Day be now read. All those in favour, `aye'.

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

MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I realize the Government House Leader has the right to do what he has done here today, and I remember him doing it on occasion back during the heat of the Hydro debate or something extremely controversial, but I ask the minister if he could explain, a little more thoroughly to the members of the House and to the general public, the people in the Province, who have concerns they wish to have expressed by way of petitions, why - the Member for St. John's East has one; I know the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes has one and so on, Mr. Speaker, so I don't quite understand what the urgency is to move on to Orders of the Day, when members have every legitimate right to present petitions.

In the case of the one from Green Bay, the Government House Leader makes a point that it was similar to a petition he presented the last couple of days, but, so what! So what, I say to the Government House Leader, so what! It is an important issue; they are a different petitions, different names and a very important situation, so I raise it on a point of order only because I don't think there has been a satisfactory explanation provided.

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

MR. ROBERTS: If I may speak to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. Three points: first of all, this is the third time we have had precisely the same petition raised by my friend, the Member for Green Bay. He has every right to raise it, I made no objection to that. Secondly, one must attempt to draw a balance, and my friend, the Leader of the Opposition, I think will concur; he has sat on this side of the House, he may some day sit here again, but he will concur, there has to be a balance. Thirdly, I said yesterday - he probably wasn't here when we adjourned at 5:00 or 4:30 whenever. I said: I must also advise the House, Sir, that after two petitions have been heard, I shall be attempting to gain the Chair's eye to move the Orders of the Day be read.

Now, Mr. Speaker, let me also say it is up to hon. members Opposite which petitions they choose to bring on. If they choose to bring on the same one for the third day, then I am going to stand, Mr. Speaker, and having been recognized as I was, move that Orders of the Day be now read, we will call government business; there is a deliberate filibuster on by the other side, the shilly-shally, the gentleman from Green Bay is doing it. Mr. Speaker, there is no point of order. I would ask Your Honour, if you believe it in order, to put the motion I made.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I still don't understand. The minister hasn't explained why - my question to him was, why. He went on, rambled on about, he gave notice yesterday, but he didn't know today, that the Member for Green Bay had a petition on the issue that he raised. I mean, he didn't know that.

MR. ROBERTS: He had two petitions (inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: I mean, what you said yesterday had nothing to do with the Member for Green Bay.

MR. ROBERTS: He had two petitions.

MR. SIMMS: What you are saying, what you said yesterday, is from now on, in your usual dictatorial fashion, you are not going to allow members in this House of Assembly to present any more than two petitions on any given day. Is that what he is saying? May I ask him to explain that?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes, to the point of order.

MR. MANNING: (Inaudible) point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: Is the hon. member speaking to the point of order?

MR. MANNING: Yes, I am, Mr. Speaker. I am speaking to the point of order put forward by the Leader of the Opposition.

I had a petition here, Mr. Speaker, from thirty-three people in the community of Point Lance, concerned about the employment generation program this year that the government hasn't brought forward yet, and I felt that being an elected member of the House of Assembly, the people's House, we will call it, that I should have the opportunity to bring this forward.

There was nobody who stood in support of my colleague, the Member for Green Bay, in support of his petition. I was only bringing forward a petition - as far as I am concerned, there is a gag order here again. We are experiencing the same thing we experienced last year with regard to Hydro.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. MANNING: If I bring it forward today, or bring it forward some other day, the voice of the people of Point Lance will be heard in this House, I promise you that.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

To the point of order raised by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, the Chair recognizes individuals when they stand, in the order in which they stand. The Chair has no idea, when a member stands, what topic he is going to raise or what point he is going to raise; however, the hon. the Government House Leader did place a motion which is perfectly in order, and the Chair has no choice but to put that motion.

All those in favour that the Orders of the Day be now read, please say `aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: Against.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

MR. SPEAKER: Carried.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, would you be good enough, please, to call Order 13, Bill No. 20? I believe we are in the third day of debate now on a very minor, technical bill. When we talk about filibusters, this is what we are going to see. We are going to have to deal with it. There is important legislation in addition to this important legislation that we are going to ask the House to deal with, so Order 13, Bill 20.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes, Bill No. 20.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As long as we are operating under the Roberts Rules of Order here, I am pleased to stand and say a few words on Bill 20, just to say that I was pleased to hear the Minister of Finance last week announce some positive news in relation to this year's current account, but I also bring forward to the House today that to many people across this Island, and especially in my district, it doesn't mean a heck of a lot when people are in a desperate situation.

I would like to relay a couple of stories I have received over the past couple of days in relation to my district, and I am sure they can be applied to any district in this Province, including the districts that are within the boundaries of St. John's.

Mr. Speaker there are people out there, over the past couple of months now, who have been looking forward to this Fall coming, and government announcing something in relation to an employment generation program, and for some reason or other the Province has been dragging its heels on that. I am pleased today to see that the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations has made it a point to travel to Ottawa to attempt to have what I hope to be fruitful discussions in Ottawa in relation to some type of cost-shared program with the Federal Government so the people of the Province can have a part in some type of employment generation program.

In the meantime, apart from the considerations of a program that will be shared by the Provincial Government and the Federal Government, I say that the Provincial Government has an onus on themselves to provide something to the people of this Province.

It is easy to say that they don't want to be part of the game where people are being, we will call it `stamped up' in order to qualify for UI, but the problem is that we are in a very difficult time now in this Province, and we are very fortunate, I should say, to enjoy the TAGS program, which has played a major role in the economy of especially rural parts of this Province over the past couple of years. But there is a fair number of people, I have to say, who really were indirectly employed because of the fishing industry in this Province. I relate to the babysitters, to the people who worked in the stores, to the taxi-drivers, to the carpenters. You could go on and on in relation to these people who found work indirectly because of the fishery in many parts of our Province, and these people have been left out in the cold.

Just the other day, Mr. Speaker, I had a gentleman call me from my district who sat outside the social services in his car for two hours trying to determine whether or not he was going to go in, and for the first time, Mr. Speaker, a gentleman of forty-eight years. He has three children in school, home in the community, and for the first time he had to look at the possibility of obtaining social assistance for his family.

Mr. Speaker, I believe there is a level of dignity that we have to recognize. These people were proud working people in their environments. They may not have had jobs that some others have, but they had jobs they were proud of. Everybody cannot be politicians, lawyers, or whatever the case may be, because there has to be a fair number of people who make up the whole complete system, Mr. Speaker. These people are hurting and for the first time in their lives many have had to turn to social assistance.

I say, Mr. Speaker, I was totally appalled today when standing here a few minutes ago trying to present a petition on behalf of a small community in my district, the community of Point Lance, a petition of thirty odd names of people who have reached the point where they are desperate for jobs, are looking for work, to have to stand here today as the people of that community along with other people in St. Mary's - The Capes who have elected me, and be denied my right as a member of this House. As far as I was concerned I was denied my right as an elected member of this House to present a concern of the people of my district.

We can talk about Bill 20, Mr. Speaker. We can talk about all the bills here, and talk about the good financial situation this government is in, but how can the government smile and at the same time think about the hurt that is going on in this Province at this time. People are hurting more than ever before, and they are ordinary people, Mr. Speaker.

We talk about training programs, and we talk about all the incentives that are there, but most of the incentives, as I am sure most members will agree, most incentives that both the provincial government and the federal government come down with now in relation to training programs are only a one-way ticket away from this Island. You size up everything, in relation to TAGS program training, in relation to any training that HRD does, or whatever, most of this training is basically a one-way ticket to move off this Island.

As I travel around my district I have people who have built their own homes, have made their lives in the community, have raised their families in the community, and now we look at a situation where many, for the first time in their lives, have to turn to social assistance. I think it is wrong that we are denied a right here to present petitions. I have enough petitions here to keep us going until Christmas and I will try my best to present them every day in this House, if I can, in relation to unemployment generation and other issues, whatever the issues or concerns are.

For the hon. member to stand up in this House today, the former Minister of Justice, I should say, and use his power as House Leader to deny me my right to stand up and present my petition, I say definitely appals me. As we look throughout this Province people are hurting and people need help from government, and I think government has to play a role in that. We just cannot sit by, Mr. Speaker, and watch their dignity just rolled into the ground because of government's inaction.

I can remember back in 1989 when the Premier of the day travelled around this Province and he was going to bring every mother's son home. I am sure we all remember the famous quote. When I am elected jobs will be created in this Province and I will bring every mother's son home. I have to say, Mr. Speaker, from my experience in my district that many a mother's son has left this Province since 1989 and the way things are going now maybe mothers and all will have to leave.

I think it is a sad, sad, commentary on this government and what fiscal plans they put forward. For them to stand up and gloat because they have had a little profit this year, and be happy with that while so many people are hurting in this Province, is totally, totally unfair. I say there are other things going on in my district in relation to the finances of people. We talked about the councils, and I am sorry that the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation is not here, in relation to his proposed plan regarding snow clearing in our community. Most people understand now in rural parts of Newfoundland, and especially in my district, that there are many councils which depended on the tax base of the fish plant in their communities or on the tax base of the fishermen in their communities to collect taxes for their councils. Many councils are hurting. Over the past couple of years with the fishery shut down, really, the possibility of collecting taxes is becoming more difficult.

I spent a couple of terms on council myself, Mr. Speaker, and even in the good times, we will call them, if we can call them that, it was difficult to collect taxes. Now more than ever it is more difficult, but still it seems like the long arm of government is coming down on some of these councils very hard. I will just touch on the snow clearing because today we are experiencing one of our first... what you call minor or major, whatever way you want to put it, whatever part of the Province you are in, I guess, it could change. We are receiving our first snow fall. It will come to light now that this will be a concern for many small communities in relation to the snow clearing budget.

Back in June I brought up, along with another colleague of mine, the concern about the snow clearing and what government's plans were for the snow clearing in rural communities, and we were more or less told to look out the window, it was June. The problem is that we brought it up at that time because I knew it was going to be a concern. It is a concern of many communities in my district. I think that government really has a role to play in assisting those communities now as we all try to get through it together. None of us are at this on our own, government is not at it on its own or any of the communities. We have to try to get through this period in our history as best we can.

I think that for government now to come in and lay out the long arm of the law in relation to snow clearing or anything to do with councils in that matter of fact I think is wrong. Now is the time we need some type of compassion, and really I don't think we are going to get it from this government, but still the people need it.

I have to say that I have met with several councils in my district over the past month or so, and not only this concern was brought up. Several concerns have been brought up in relation to the long arm of government I will call it, with snow clearing and everything else. It is a concern of the people in my district and it is a cost factor that many councils in my district didn't really take the time to consider back when they were doing their budgets last year. I hope that the government will reconsider or will assist those people in whatever way they can to get through this.

Another concern of mine, and it certainly is a concern that has been brought forward over the past number of weeks when I had some meetings in my district, is the possibility of what we want to call regional council for the eastern Avalon. A fair amount of my District of St. Mary's - The Capes, is part of the plan for this eastern regional council. I say it is definitely a concern in my district when we talk about this regional council, for the simple reason that a fair number of my communities are either one or the other, are not incorporated or are really not considered for council or even local service districts.

I guess time will tell, but I really would like to know what government's plan is in relation to this eastern regional council that it is talking about. Because a fair number of smaller communities in my district are very concerned about that. Is it a plan of the government to really go out among the outlying parts of St. John's and Mount Pearl and go out and bring in a property tax to all of those people that would be paid into a regional council? If I thought that the services that will come under a regional council would be improved or would be of any more benefit to the people in my district, I'm sure along with myself that all the councils and indeed all the people in my district would want to be a part of it. Looking at it from the first glance - and we will have to wait I guess to see what really comes out in the long run -this regional council concept for the eastern Avalon will really not benefit my district very much. It is a concern that has been brought forward by many communities in my district.

I would like to bring another concern forward. Down in the community of Gaskiers today we had some problems with a lower road situation there, that the council brought forward in relation to safety. Schoolchildren on a school bus down there, and they needed some emergency funding. I say thank you to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs for his swift action in taking care of a portion. When it is time to thank somebody I have no problem with that. I thank the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs for his swift action in providing part of the funding needed to repair the road down in Gaskiers. It is a very important -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MANNING: Yes, I know. I said to the mayor this morning, I said, we should have asked for the $10,000. I said to the mayor, we should have asked the minister for $10,000. We asked for $5,000, we got $5,000 but hopefully, Mr. Speaker, this will keep the road safe. I am sure the minister is concerned with the safety of the children who travel on this school bus every morning and -

AN HON. MEMBER: Peter Miller on CBC (inaudible) 15 per cent of that $5,000 paid for (inaudible).

MR. MANNING: Like I said, desperate times bring desperate measures and as the minister is fully aware, the council in Gaskiers has been trying to obtain money for that road now for many months, as a matter of fact, well over a year. When they had no other choice they contacted CBC radio and brought the issue to a highlight. I am very pleased to say, like I said before, Mr. Speaker, that the minister did see in his wisdom to provide $5,000 for that community.

I talked to the mayor, as a matter of fact, just before I came into the House today and he is very pleased. His only problem is that he wished he had asked for more but I mean that is the same with everybody, Mr. Speaker, you do not very often get what you ask for. We are used to that but I must say that the minister did act swiftly. I must commend the community council in Gaskiers, headed by Mayor Clyde Kieley, I must commend them on bringing this issue forward. In a non-political sort of way, Mr. Speaker, he brought it forward based on what many people have been preaching in this House over the past couple of weeks, the safety. He brought it forward because he was concerned and his council was concerned about the safety of the students in his district. I would like to congratulate the council on a job well done.

Getting back, Mr. Speaker, to what I guess is very pressing in my district, is the situation with jobs or I should say, the lack thereof because people are in a desperate situation. I have been receiving calls, Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, I have several petitions here that people have forwarded me from different communities around the district asking me to bring forward those petitions to the House of Assembly on their behalf, to try to encourage the government to come up with some type of a job creation program. I am sure there are members on the other side of the House who are receiving calls, Mr. Speaker, because we are not the only members receiving calls. I am sure there are members on the other side of the House receiving calls because people are seeking work in some shape or form.

Mr. Speaker, over the past number of years those job creation projects, job creation programs or whatever you like to call them, have received, in some cases, a negative outlook. Mr. Speaker, I think that is unfair for the simple reason that it is not the programs themselves but maybe, as I touched on earlier, it is the delivery of those programs.

When I drive around my community, as I am sure many members in this hon. House drive around their communities, they can see a fair amount of good finished product, shall we say, in relation to those programs. As I drive around I can look at fire halls, Mr. Speaker, and community centres that are being utilized. I cannot look at the water lines but I know of water lines that have been done through those programs, Mr. Speaker, very important concerns for the smaller communities. It helps, like I said before, where they do not have a major tax base and revenue, those programs help them establish some infrastructure in their communities that is very, very needed. Those programs have helped, Mr. Speaker. So the negativity that surrounds some of them in relation to people, whether they come from Ottawa to tell us or whether they tell us from here in the provincial government, is that the negativity surrounding those programs, Mr. Speaker, is not necessarily in every case. I have no problem in saying that there is a fair amount of very well run projects that have created very positive results for the communities, especially in rural Newfoundland.

I plead today, Mr. Speaker, I hope that when the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations returns from Ottawa that he has some positive news that we can pass on to the people in our district in relation to those programs. Mr. Speaker, I hope that the positive news that the Minister of Finance passed along last week in relation to the current account is that we can take a few of those dollars or that this government will come up with the dollars somewhere to create this much needed employment because, Mr. Speaker, like I said, you are not going to come up with enough money to find a job for everybody in Newfoundland, Mr. Speaker, but I have to say that I hope that the government comes up with something in particular.

Mr. Speaker, in relation to the finances of the Province, we are looking forward now, somewhere in the next few months, when the Province comes down with some expenditures for their capital roads program next year. I look over at the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, and I say that there are a fair number of places in my district that need some road work done. I just relay a couple.

The road from St. Bride's into Patrick's Cove from my district was paved, it must be going on well over fifteen or sixteen years now, and there are some major problems with that. It definitely needs a recapping job if possible.

There are other parts of my district, such as the road down from Riverhead, from St. Mary's back up to the turn-off to St. Joseph's in my district that is in desperate need of some work also. As a matter of fact, I had some problems there with the road myself last week. When I was going down to a meeting, I struck a hole in the pavement and ended up on the side of the road.

There is one road in my district, the road down to the community of Mall Bay, which starts with a bridge in Riverhead. The area surrounding the bridge is in desperate need of work, and I know that the minister's department has been notified because some of his people have been down in that area looking at that bridge. There is a possibility that if something is not done fairly soon this bridge could be washed out and therefore create a need for much more money to fix the problem, so maybe a stich in time will save nine.

I hope that somebody in their wisdom within the Department of Works, Services and Transportation will be able to provide some money, since the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board has said there are a few dollars kicking around that he has found and saved, and I hope they will find some money for this much needed work.

Mr. Speaker, as we sit here today there are people in this Province who are really struggling trying to find some work. We talk about the Marystown situation, which is in everybody's mind - when we talk about big numbers like 350 people and 450 people, it is no sweat to get headline news. When we talk about the St. John's Shipyard, we are talking about 800 jobs; it is headline news again. My concern is for the lonely guy or the lonely woman who is out in the district, who really has nobody to speak for them only their member, and really the only way they can ask is through the form of a petition. Those people are now numbering, I would say, in the thousands across this Province who are looking for work.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that the government, in their wisdom, comes up with some money so that these people can enjoy some happiness, I should say, to put it point blank, Christmas, because we are less than a month now away from Christmas, and I think it is very important that the government come up with something.

Mr. Speaker, I conclude my remarks in hoping that what I touched on before, that the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations has a fruitful trip to Ottawa, and that when he comes back he will have something positive to announce, and I am sure the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board would be happy to hear that also.

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

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise and speak on this matter. I did not intend to do so, but the Government House Leader has indicated that we on this side of the House were going to engage in some kind of a filibuster because we wanted to speak on this very important matter. That is not the case at all. This is an opportunity for all hon. members to get up and talk about what is happening in their districts, and how people are responding to the government's initiatives, or lack of initiatives, and certainly in this particular session of the House we have had some cause for concern.

Last August we had the Premier on the radio and television, and in the print media, talking about the heavy legislative agenda that was going to come forward in this session of the House, talking about educational reform, and how that was going to be such a priority, but as we got nearer to the autumn session, the legislative agenda got smaller and smaller and smaller, until today we find ourselves here into our ninth day and we have had two pieces of legislation from the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation. He has frustrated the garage owners and others by his new policy on motor vehicle inspections and I do not believe the government has had one single, positive, new story other than the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board saying that we are not as bad off as we thought we were and certainly, that is good news.

But when today, the Government House Leader curtailed, stifled, put his thumb down on petitions from the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, we have cause for concern, because this is the people's House, this is where the people, the ordinary people who have elected their members can have a voice and we have had, on this side, a petition arriving almost every day, in some cases we have four and five petitions arriving in any one day. Mr. Speaker, one of the concerns that people have, my colleague, the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes, has just talked about them, what is happening in his district, he talked about the lack of an emergency employment program.

Now, Mr. Speaker, nobody wants to be without a job, and certainly, when we see all the fuss that was created on the other side of the House when five people lost their jobs earlier this year, when only five people lost their jobs and all of the fuss it created, then certainly we have to ask ourselves the question: why would we not expect an equal amount of fuss for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador where there are thousands and thousands of people losing their jobs. In Marystown we have 350 people who have lost their jobs or about to lose them in the next few days so, Mr. Speaker, people are concerned about jobs.

I remember when the present government was campaigning, they said that the real issue in Newfoundland was job creation. They said that, that was a priority and they said that in 1989 and they said it in 1993 and we agree with them. Job creation, economic security for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, that is what the government's initiatives are supposed to be. I am only saying back to the government exactly what their campaign literature said, I am saying back to them what they said in 1989, I am saying back to them what they said in 1993 and, it is the major part of the federal government Liberal Party's Red Paper, which of course, got them elected a year ago.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we have a situation in Marystown that is causing so much concern. What the people of Marystown want is assurance from the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador that they are going to stand up for Newfoundland, going to stand up for jobs, going to preserve, protect, sustain, encourage, promote all the jobs we can create in this Province, and what the people of Marystown are saying is that they are not convinced the outcome of the negotiation between the Premier's office and HMDC could not have been different.

I find it appalling that the Premier will go down to Marystown and say to the people who are members of the union there, that if you will give us the concessions, we may be able to keep the jobs, and, Mr. Speaker, I can only say to you, that if the Premier did not have the guarantee in his pocket, that if he had that concession, that, that facility would continue to be able to build the infrastructure needed, then, Mr. Speaker, I would say that the Premier should have had that guarantee from Hibernia Management and Development Corporation.

If he had it and then the Hibernia people backed out afterwards, then I find that appalling. I would find it appalling that the Premier would not have had the guarantee or, if he had it and then the Hibernia people backed down on it, I find that incredible.

Of course, the Premier has not said whether he did have it or didn't have it, so we will have to leave it to his good judgement.

Mr. Speaker, we have seen in this year the effects of tremendous increases in tuition fees at the university level. The students across this country are very concerned. We have had demonstrations in Ottawa. We have had demonstrations in every major university in this country on what the effects of increased tuition fees is going to be.

Mr. Speaker, the greatest fear of parents in this country is that we are going to have a university system that is going to cater to the wealthy, cater to the elite, and that either students are going to come out of university with huge loans that have to be paid back over ten, fifteen or twenty years, or we are going to have many people who are going to make the judgement call and say they can't go to university.

Now many of us who sit in this House today know what it is like to go to university on a shoestring. A few of us in this House know what it is like to be able to go to university and not be on a shoestring. Most of us know what it is like for our parents to work hard to keep us in university at great expense.

Mr. Speaker, we deserve to give our young people no less of an opportunity than we ourselves had, so therefore I am saying to the government, if we are going to get better balanced budgets, or we are going to achieve a greater degree of balance in the budget, then we have to make sure that we make provision for our post-secondary students, and we have to be aware of the fact that we can't be looking forward to the future that includes a condition that will have students end up having mortgages on their education for half of their adult living time. That is unacceptable.

Mr. Speaker, I also wanted to speak about an issue concerning child poverty. A study done by the Department of Social Services, the Department of Education and Training, and the Department of Health is now four years old. It says that 30 to 40 per cent of all children in this Province go to school every day hungry. What an astonishing indictment of the educational system and our society. This is not a study that was done by some advocacy group. It was done by the Department of Education and Training and the Department of Social Services. It says that 35,000 students go to school every day in Newfoundland without adequate nutrition.

Mr. Speaker, before we get up and start talking about how significantly we have been able to balance our budget, we have to ask ourselves, at whose expense? When we talk about increasing the level of achievement in schools, we have to look at the conditions under which some children go to school every day. While all of us have not seen the real face of poverty, everybody in this House, at some time or another, has seen and witnessed and know families that really have a great difficulty putting bread and butter on their table, and knowing that their children go to school without having to ask teachers or the school, or some agency within the community, for some food because they didn't have any breakfast.

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about our social needs, we can't ignore the people who can do the least to help themselves, and that is our young people. When we have nearly 40,000 students going to school every day without adequate food, we have to express great concern.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to speak as well for a few moments about the conditions of some municipalities in the Province.

I understand the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs has left the Chamber. The other day in the House the minister talked about the infrastructure program and how that over 100 communities haven't been able to pay their commitments to the infrastructure program. How can they? How can we expect the citizens in rural Newfoundland, where we have such high rates of unemployment, to be able to pay the money that will represent their proportion of their capital loans? That is unrealistic. It is not unrealistic to expect the larger municipalities to pay their fair share, but it is unrealistic to expect the smaller municipalities who need water and sewer, who need to have good roads, who need to have a minimum level and an acceptable level of municipal services.

Certainly I want to say to you that I find it very disconcerting to hear the minister say in this House that 108 of 114 municipalities have not been able to live up to their financial commitments. He showed no compassion whatsoever. He didn't say: We will look at it again. He simply said that if they don't pay up they won't get any consideration in phase two, and tough luck. Is that the way we show a commitment to rural Newfoundland? I say no. When we have a situation where we have all those municipalities who can't pay - and the question you have to ask is: Why can't they pay? They can't pay because the people there who are living in these municipalities can't afford to pay their taxes.

We know there are people in some municipalities who can afford to pay and they don't pay. I certainly don't condone that kind of thing. But when we have unemployment levels in some municipalities at 70 per cent, sometimes higher than that, how can we expect these people, whose children go to school hungry, who have to depend on social agencies for clothing, who are living at the very minimum standard of living, how can we expect them to reach up to the top of the fridge and take down their municipal council's bill? They don't. What they do is they pay their light, they pay their telephone, they pay their heating bill, they often have to pay a mortgage, they try to keep body and soul together. It is not any astonishing thing to me to learn that they don't pay their municipal taxes.

We say those who can pay should pay; those who can't pay, then this government has to be a little more compassionate. It has to say to these municipalities: We will give you longer terms, give you a greater level of forgiveness of your loans. Certainly we can't go out and say to these people: Because you can't pay we are going to be cutting off your water, cutting off your electricity, we are going to be cutting down your level of services, and that is all we are going to do about it.

We have the situation mentioned in the House today about the hospitals in the St. John's region. Many people are expressing great concern. The Minister of Health today would not give any precise information. We happen to know that the Minister of Health has set up a new governance procedure for the St. John's region. We know that it is his intention to have two acute care facilities in the St. John's region. He has communicated that to the people who are entrusted with developing the new model. There is nothing to be gained by the minister denying that is the intent. That is well known in the region. Why the minister would say that there have been no final decisions made - the minister previous to him basically said that thing a year ago, that that would be the strategy.

To say to the people of this Province, who have put in millions of dollars, that there would be no longer a Janeway Childrens Hospital facility, a paediatric hospital, a hospital given to Newfoundland and Labrador by the American government when Fort Pepperrell was closed, to say that we are simply going to close that facility, and we are going to terminate its use, is an offence not just to the people of the St. John's region, but an offence to all Newfoundland and Labrador.

Every single year there is the Janeway telephone and donations flood in from Nain, St. Lawrence, St. Mary's, Port au Choix, all around the Province, every community. One only has to listen to the commentaries during that telethon to know that this is not a hospital for the St. John's region only. This is a Newfoundland and Labrador hospital and we have to say to the minister that any attempt by him to downgrade, to change that particular hospital will raise questions, not only from the people of the St. John's region but throughout this Province.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the minister will have an opportunity to rise in a few moments. We would love for him to rise and tell us what his strategy is, tell us where the two acute care facilities are located. We know they are the Health Sciences Centre and St. Clare's Mercy Hospital. We would like for him to tell us what is going to happen to the Grace Hospital because this is a very big issue. Every single day in the last few days we have been getting questions on it, asking us if we know what is going on, asking us to raise questions.

Mr. Speaker, we know that the new administrator is already targeting who is going to be laid off, targeting strategies to downsize the administration. Certainly if the new administrator is going to take office by April 1, you know and I know, that a lot of the groundwork is now being done. I say to the Minister of Health to tell the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, tell the people of St. John's, Mount Pearl, and the Avalon North region, exactly what he intends to do with hospital care in this Province, and to particularly address the issue of the Janeway. We are not saying to the minister that there will not be a provision made for the care of young children. We are not saying that, but if he would tell us exactly what he plans to do, then of course the anxieties that people have will be somewhat reduced.

I want to just go back again to the issue of an emergency employment program. We are delighted that the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations has saw fit to go off to Ottawa. Now, yesterday we saw in the House here the federal minister. As we know, and all of us in politics know, there is not too much that is going to happen with his journey to Ottawa without the consultation of the federal minister from Newfoundland, so therefore I trust that yesterday opportunities were provided for the Newfoundland government to make representations to the federal minister, the hon. Brian Tobin, when he was in Newfoundland, to try to address this issue with his federal counterpart.

AN HON. MEMBER: He did.

MR. HODDER: He did. That would be an assumption that I would make and I assume that today all parties, with the federal minister, Lloyd Axworthy, and with the Newfoundland representative, will all meet together and say to the federal government that Newfoundland has a very special need and that we cannot go and make the complete transition from one system to a new system without an interim measure. That is what people want to hear.

We know there are going to be changes in the UI system. We know there are going to be changes to the social programs of this nation. And I say to the Minister of Finance, that would happen regardless of whether there is a Liberal Administration in Ottawa or Conservative Administration. We recognize the realities of this country. But in this Province, where we have had a traditional, seasonal nature to our employment, we are saying to the government, do something to -

MR. BAKER: We got along well with the Tories in Ottawa.

MR. HODDER: You certainly did. We just want - the Minister of Finance said, you got along well with the Tories in Ottawa. I say that we are expecting the same clout in Ottawa out of Brian Tobin that your government got out of John Crosbie. We are just kind of waiting and wondering if Mr. Tobin is going to measure up to the impact that Mr. Crosbie had in Ottawa. We are waiting to see. We hope he does. Brian Tobin is an hon. gentleman, I am sure he is trying to do the best he can, but it is not easy when you come from a small Province, going to Ottawa and saying to Ottawa, Newfoundland has a special case. It is hard to argue it, and what we are saying to the government, pleading to the government is, do all you can to try to make sure, as we change from one system of social services to another, that we do something in the interim.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HODDER: Same bureaucrats - so we have a `bureautocracy' in Ottawa and government - a bureaucracy is, as we know, part of the difficulty that you have. And certainly, I know that the Minister of Finance knows the issue, he is familiar with it, he is getting representation from his constituents, too, probably not as many as you get from more rural districts - I don't get as many as do my colleagues from more rural districts. But we have to look at the total picture in this Province. We have to try to say to all hon. members, let's target all the forces we can, let's try to change the minds of the bureaucrats in Ottawa who cannot stand to have deviations from their plan.

We are saying, Newfoundland needs a modification, it needs an interim measure. So, therefore, we are saying to the government that they should be doing all they can to pressure our federal representative and our six other Liberal MPs, to pull all the strings they can, because in Newfoundland and Labrador this is going to be a very long, difficult, hungry winter for a lot of people. People who are - like the gentleman who called me a few days ago, age 52, an engineer - never, ever on UI before, he finds himself now, in another week, having to file for UI.

I have tried in the past little while to find jobs for people who have university degrees. In fact, I was successful in finding a job for a person with a Doctorate of Philosophy, PhD, just a few days ago - not in the area of his expertise but certainly he couldn't at this stage say: I will take a job only in my area of expertise. Certainly, I am saying to you, it is a case where we certainly want to encourage the minister to do all he can for the unemployed in this Province.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the House would want me to just pause here for a second and recognize that in the gallery we have, just arrived, Mayor Jerome Walsh from the Town of Marystown and, Mr. Speaker, I am sure that all of us would want to welcome Mayor Walsh. He is carrying out an honourable plea for his community. He is doing the very best he can to focus attention to the plight of the workers in Marystown. I mentioned earlier in my address about the fact that there are 350 people going to be unemployed there. The barges are leaving St. John's as I am speaking here. They are on their way to Marystown to take away the livelihoods of a sizeable proportion of the Marystown shipyard people.

I want to say, with Mayor Walsh present, that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are concerned, and I will just say the same thing I said a few minutes ago, when you have so much fuss created in government benches when five people lost their jobs a little while ago; they were saying to them: Why can't we have some of that kind of energy and that kind of - I suppose you could call it, plea, anxiety, whatever - all over the fact that there are 350 jobs being lost in Newfoundland's southernmost shipbuilding centre at Marystown.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to repeat: What the people of Marystown are asking for is fair treatment. They are asking for answers. They are asking, `Why did this happen?' Certainly, what the mayor and his colleagues and the people of Marystown are asking is: Would you please tell us the absolute details. This is too important to play political strategies or games with. We have a situation where we have 350 people who are going to be on the unemployment roll. We are not convinced, the Premier said he is not convinced, that that work could not be done in Marystown, on time, with equal quality.

Now, I know the Premier has said that he has been obliged to accept the word of HMDC.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) not true to their word.

MR. HODDER: The Premier said that he is obliged to accept the integrity of their word, but he disagrees with -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HODDER: No, he disagrees with the decision.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, you are wrong.

AN HON. MEMBER: He can't do anything about it.

MR. HODDER: But he said he can't do a thing about it.

We are saying, on this side of the House, we are not convinced that the Premier has done all he could do, or should do, to prevent those jobs from being lost.

The lesson we are learning from Marystown today is that in the future we have to show greater commitment, greater determination. We can never, ever, ever, let this kind of thing, this travesty that is happening, ever, ever occur again, so we are saying to the government: Learn the lessons of Marystown. Make sure that we do not let this kind of occurrence ever, ever slip through our fingers again, because the people of Newfoundland and Labrador want the Premier of this Province to be aggressive. They want him to be committed to jobs. They want him to go out there and say to HMDC, they are not willing to accept -

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible) like yourself, who knows the difference and knows the limitations of what anybody can or can't do, and to get up there and make that speech with no good reason is (inaudible). You should be ashamed of yourself.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, I say to the member who is interrupting on the other side, go to Marystown and listen to the people down there. Go to Marystown and hear the plea of the people who are going to lose their jobs.

MR. GRIMES: I understand the plea; everyone understand the plea. (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HODDER: The Cabinet, of which you are a member, must be supporting this particular lack of initiative by your Premier.

MR. GRIMES: It is not a lack of initiative, and you know the difference.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation is interrupting on a consistent basis and certainly, I say to the minister, we want action from the government, not talk. They have been doing a lot of talking, not enough action. Change it to action.

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible) won't say it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Kilbride, on a point of order.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that the Member for Waterford - Kenmount has been recognized by the Chair, not the Minister of Tourism, Recreation and Culture.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. E. BYRNE: I am sure, if he wishes to speak to this particular piece of legislation, the Chair will recognize him.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

The hon. the Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I just say to all members of the House that the people of Marystown aren't asking for anything that any other community in this Province wouldn't ask for. They are not asking for anything extra. They are simply saying that there has been a travesty of justice. Whether or not that travesty of justice could have been prevented, we will leave that to the judgement of the people of Marystown and to the judgement of the people of this Province.

Mr. Speaker, all we are saying is: regardless of whether or not HMDC has been fair with the people of this Province, that is something that the Premier of this Province should address to HMDC in a very forceful way and I am sure that he has been doing that in the last while - maybe he has been doing it for a long time. But certainly, we have to make sure that as many jobs as we can secure for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians out of the offshore, stay here - stay here. We want `stay in Newfoundland' jobs; Hibernia is our resource, the resource of Newfoundland and Labrador. We don't want Hibernia developed for the creation of jobs in other provinces.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to join in the debate on this financial legislation that raises for consideration, a lot of financial matters concerning this Province. We are constantly being told by the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board, by the Premier, by their colleagues in Ottawa and by their big business friends at least, not their small business friends but the big business friends, I don't think they have -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Just before the hon. member gets into his address, I have the questions for the Late Show so I can probably do it now if I have the consent of the House although it is only two minutes to four.

The first question is: `I am dissatisfied with the answer provided by the Minister of Health, re my question on the closure of the acute care hospitals' and that is by the hon. the Member for Ferryland.

`I am not satisfied with the answer provided by the Premier to my question on the Marystown contract', the hon. the Member for Burin -Placentia West.

The third question is, `I am dissatisfied with the answer provided by the Premier re my question on the Newfoundland Dockyard', and that is by the hon. the Member for Kilbride.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The issues that are being discussed this afternoon relating to the financial condition of the Province and the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board's views on these matters, constantly telling the people of this Province that we can't spend any more money, that we don't have enough money for the things that we need, and then being told a few weeks ago, or a few days ago really, that we are better off than he said we were going to be six months ago.

Now, this minister has a habit of being incorrect when he makes predictions about the financial state of the Province. He has been the Minister of Finance and before that the President of Treasury Board for a number of years now, and I suspect if we looked at the minister's track record, he is probably backing zero in terms of his ability to forecast -

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Now, the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, if we start talking about his track record, we would have a lot of problems dealing with the track record of that minister. If I were the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, I would be making tracks, because there is a big crowd of people in this Province chasing after you, after the kinds of things you are doing with your department even in the last week alone.

But I want to get back to the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board and his track record in predicting the financial situation in this Province. He hasn't had a very good record. He has been wrong more often than he is right. But we do have to consider the seriousness or otherwise of the dire predictions that we are getting from upalong, that are being echoed here in this Province by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations and by the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

Before too long, Mr. Speaker, we are going to have a situation where the Government of this Province is going to be saying what the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation said a few years ago. He said: `We can't do nut'ing, 'cause we haven't got nut'ing to do nut'ing with.' Only the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation could say it in that way. That is pretty well the statement of this government.

MR. EFFORD: I didn't hear you.

MR. HARRIS: I was quoting the Minister of Work, Services and Transportation. He will remember the quote. This is when he was the Minister of Social Services and he was asked to do something about serious problems affecting the people of this Province. He said: We can't do nut'ing 'cause we haven't got nut'ing to do nut'ing with.' And that pretty well sums up the kind of state we are going to be in, in this Province, if the attitude of this government keeps up.

We saw the picture of the Premier in The Evening Telegram several days ago. It was a caricature of the Premier. His caricature was saying: `Well, I didn't do anything for the fishermen, I didn't do anything for the unemployed, and now when I don't do anything for the Marystown workers, people get upset. What do they expect from me? Do they expect anything else?'

I think, Mr. Speaker, that unfortunately sums up the attitude of this government. They are buying into an attitude about the future that offers no hope for the people of this Province. They are listening to the Toronto Globe & Mail, Toronto-centred view of the world, which basically says that there shouldn't be a Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, or if there is, there should only be a handful of people living in it. And that is the attitude that the national media constantly and consistently portrays about this Province. If there is going to be a response to that, it is going to have to come from this Province and from the government of this Province. We have to insist at every turn that the kind of province we want to have is one that fully participates in the wealth and in the benefits and in the opportunities of this Canadian confederation.

When we see the kinds of things going on day after day that are beleaguering our people, and we see a government basically saying: Well, we understand the issues. Or the Premier, in the case of Marystown: Well, we don't really understand, but we accept being jerked around, essentially, by the operators of this particular project. As someone pointed out a little earlier, the same Premier who was prepared to hold up all of Canada on a principle that he believed in, gets up in this House and says: On this matter there is nothing I can do, there is nothing that this government is prepared to do, to try to insist that the work at Marystown stay here for our people.

We are in a serious crisis upon which depends the survival of this Province. Throughout Newfoundland and Labrador there are people who want to work. They want to contribute to their families' well-being, they want to contribute to their communities' well-being and welfare, they want to make productive use of their talents and skills and abilities, and they look to this government to help them find a way.

I won't say that this government has done absolutely nothing to try to help. They have done a few things: the completion of the Cow Head facility - it wasn't their idea, it wasn't their project, but they completed that project.

They did have a hand in trying to make the project a success with the Kvaerner interests. They made a mess of the first round, made a mess of the first bidding process. Some say they made a mess of the second bidding process by under bidding, and they have made a mess of the operation of the contract.

If, indeed, the contract was behind schedule, who is to blame for that? It is a provincial institution, a provincially-owned corporation, operated by this government, and if the project was so far behind schedule that HMDC felt they had to take it away, then I have to ask the ministry responsible, and the government responsible, why did they let that happen?

We know there were some delays caused by HMDC. They delayed the details of the contract, but that was looked after. There was a month delay in making the project documentation available, and there were a number of changes. They made up for that at the other end. The real delay was in not properly organizing the training opportunities to make sure that a proper and sufficient number of people were available to do the job and do it properly.

Mr. Speaker, this government did not do enough to insist and ensure that these jobs stayed here in Newfoundland, but it is not something that you do just one day of the week. I hear the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board say: What do you do now? What do you do with Marystown? What do we do now?

They have already given up, Mr. Speaker. They have already said, We are not going to do anything. They have already said, There is nothing that we are intending to do.

AN HON. MEMBER: What would you do? How many Cabinet meetings and caucus meetings did you have over that?

AN HON. MEMBER: Tell him what you would have done.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, we would have insisted that that work stay in Marystown.

AN HON. MEMBER: Okay, so they go to move it. Then what would you do?

MR. HARRIS: We would have insisted that work stay in Marystown.

AN HON. MEMBER: How would you insist? Explain it. You're a lawyer.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board, and the Premier are very busy talking about legal reasons why this and why that and why something else. We are talking about political action here now. We are not talking about legalities, we are talking about political realities, and what the minister is saying is that the Government of Newfoundland has no influence, no political influence, no say, no opportunities, to do anything, to have any influence whatsoever on a project of this magnitude operating within the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. That's what the minister is saying, that we are hopeless and helpless, that there is nothing whatsoever in the political armament of this government to have any influence whatsoever on what is going on, and what is going on in Marystown.

Mr. Speaker, this is a government that, when the horse is out of the barn, throw up their arms and say: Well, we can't really catch the horse - like the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations rushing off to Moncton to have a meeting after the Board of Directors of Marine Atlantic have put an end to the possibilities of the Newfoundland Dockyard doing work outside of Canada - doing any international work.

Here we are, Mr. Speaker, sitting on the doorstep of all the North Atlantic shipping lanes, hundreds of ships passing by every week, perhaps every day, and we are listening to Marine Atlantic say: The Newfoundland Dockyard is not going to do international work, that we are only going to do domestic work? This is the same organization that ran the railroad into the ground. This is the same organization that downgraded the operations of the railway to the point that nobody went on the trains, that nobody used them.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) same thing with the buses too.

MR. HARRIS: They are doing the same thing with the buses right now, Mr. Speaker. They are doing exactly the same thing with buses. They are not going to run the buses seven days a week any more. They are going to cut back to six days a week. They are going to cut back the number of drivers. They are masters at doing it. They've practised it for years. These are the people who are running the Newfoundland Dockyard in St. John's. They don't seem to have any more interest in Newfoundland and Labrador than they've had in running a passenger train service across this country. None.

At every step of the way they are placing obstacles in the path of success of the Newfoundland Dockyard. Every time they get a contract they tell the union that they are not going to bid on it. Every time there is an opportunity to get a contract: We are not going to bid on this contract unless you agree to do this and this and this and this. The owners and managers of that company have treated the operation of that Dockyard in a shameful way, but do we hear anything from the Newfoundland government about it?

After there is a big announcement like this, after they are threatening to dismantle the whole thing - that is their latest threat! The latest threat by the wonderful, great, highly efficient, business-like managers of Marine Atlantic, of the Dockyard, is that: We are going to dismantle the entire thing and sell off all the assets if the union doesn't agree to make some major undefined concessions. I guess they probably want them to work for next to nothing. Get rid of any rights that they have and agree to some sort of - I don't know, maybe it is some kind of Maquiladora, they are trying to set up down there, the Maquiladora of St. John's South. Perhaps that is what they want.

They are saying: We are about to dismantle the whole thing and sell off all the assets. Do we hear any noise from the government? No. The Premier was asked about it in the House. He hardly even knows it exists. He hardly even knows that there is such a thing as the Newfoundland Dockyard, and then after three or four more questions from the Member for Kilbride suddenly the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology wakes up and advises that he wrote a letter a couple of weeks ago saying he wasn't very happy. But do we hear -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations finally realized that if he didn't go to Moncton the people of St. John's South would toss him out on his ear. If he didn't go to Moncton after the barn door had been closed and try and make some noise, the same way he went off to Halifax to talk to Mr. Demoine, I believe his name was, National Sea, after the plant was closed down, after they failed to meet the obligations to invest further in the plant, after they walked away from that plant, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations went off to Halifax to talk to Mr. Demoine. So he could come back to Newfoundland and say that he tried.

That was after the fact, Mr. Speaker. We are talking about a government that is supposed to have a Strategic Economic Plan in place that is going to change the face of Newfoundland. What we had the other day - one of the great benefits of the Strategic Economic Plan was presented to the people of Newfoundland the other day. It came from the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation. Do you know that he actually tried to justify the changes in the regulations to permit more unsafe vehicles on the highways on the basis of the Strategic Economic Plan. Can you believe it?

It is all written all through his big press release, how the Strategic Economic Plan, this was all in conformity with the Strategic Economic Plan and he was removing regulations as part of the Strategic Economic Plan. He was going to put $3.5 million into the hands of consumers in Newfoundland; $3.5 million, Mr. Speaker, into the hands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. That is what he was going to do, to save the people of Newfoundland, he was going to do that as part of the Strategic Economic Plan to save Newfoundland.

We are going to save fifteen dollars on an annual inspection fee. This is for a license now that costs $120 to license your vehicle every year and this is a rate that was raised by the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board, if we are talking about taxes. It was raised by the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board from $80 or $60 to $120; $40 he raised it, almost 80 per cent and now the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation says this fifteen dollars annual inspection is such a burden on the consumers of Newfoundland who have to pay $120 to register their vehicles, that this fifteen dollars inspection is such a burden on the people of Newfoundland that as part of our Strategic Economic Plan, we must remove it, and that is $3.5 million that somehow or other is going to save the people of this Province as part of the Strategic Economic Plan, but, Mr. Speaker, what is going to be the result of it?

We are going to have more unsafe vehicles on the highway. There were 6,000 vehicles turned down last year by the inspectors, by the people who are giving out inspection slips, 6,000 vehicles turned down last year. How many of them are going to be re-registered now, how many? Maybe the minister will probably be able to tell us in three or four months how many of those 6,000 that used to be on the road are now back on the road again, at $120 a shot to the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board for his coffers.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's right, a lot of money.

MR. HARRIS: A lot of money, and the minister is grinning from ear to ear over it. The Minister of Finance and Treasury Board is grinning from ear to ear over there, let that be on the record about all the money he is going to get from these cars being re-registered. He has a grin from ear to ear about how much money he is going to collect on that, but what is the consequence going to be, Mr. Speaker?

The consequence is going to be is that there are going to be more road accidents, there are going to be more unsafe vehicles on the highway, and sadly and unfortunately there are going to be more fatalities. In 1991, of the sixty-one accident deaths in Newfoundland from motor vehicles, seven of them were caused by motor vehicle defects that would have been picked up in an annual inspection; defective brakes, defective lights, matters of that nature that would be picked up in an annual inspection if they were done and done properly. Ten per cent of the fatal accidents resulted from that kind of defect in the vehicles.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I understand in 1993 it has improved, but it was not 10 per cent of the fatal accidents in Newfoundland in 1993 but seven deaths in 1991 were caused by defective vehicles. Now, Mr. Speaker, does the minister want us to go back to 1991 statistics, when 10 per cent of seven people in this Province were killed in motor vehicle accidents as a result of defective equipment, defective automobiles, automobiles that would not have passed inspection?

Now I know the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation likes to make a lot of political back chat about this and throw insults back and forth across the House; he likes to do that, he likes to engage in trading insults and making partisan political remarks but this is a very serious issue. The fact that the small businessmen who operate garages are complaining about it permits the minister to totally discount them. He turned his back on them out there in the lobby this afternoon and said that they were only interested in their own self-interest.

Mr. Speaker, are you going to turn your back on the fishermen of Newfoundland and Labrador because they are interested in their self-interest? Are you going to turn your back on social assistance recipients who might be complaining about the rules and regulations because they have an interest in it? Are you going to turn your back on the businessmen and businesswomen of Newfoundland and Labrador because they obviously have an interest in the policies they are putting forth? Is the Minister of Natural Resources going to turn his back on the mining industry and on the outfitting industry because they have an interest in the policies they are putting forth?

Is that the attitude this government has towards the people it is suppose to represent? I cannot believe it, Mr. Speaker. I cannot believe that a minister of this government, or of any government, would be able to say: I am not going to listen to you mechanics, I am not going to listen to you garage owners when you are talking about vehicle safety, because you have some sort of interest in it. That is the attitude that I hear from this government and from this ministry.

Mr. Speaker, on that issue alone the reports I have heard, that there are in a matter of a week between 25,000 and 50,000 signatures on petitions asking government to change that regulation, and to insist, for safety sake, that there be annual inspections of motor vehicles. I heard the other day of an individual who was over sixty-five and that there is a requirement that individuals of that age, in order to maintain their driver's license after a certain age, have to get an annual check-up. You have to get a letter from the doctor saying you are fit to drive.

Now the minister is saying that you have to have an annual check-up for a person to drive, an annual inspection of your health for a person to drive a motor vehicle after a certain age, but you can drive a vehicle of any age on the highway without such an annual inspection. The inconsistencies of this government in that particular matter are blatant, obvious, and cannot be supported and justified, especially when they try and justify it by some flimsy analogy or some flimsy reference to the Strategic Economic Plan and the fact that as part of their Strategic Economic Plan they are trying to remove cumbersome and unnecessary regulations.

There are lots of cumbersome and unnecessary regulations in the Province. I have no doubt about that, and it is my understanding that the Department of Justice has hired a couple of people to go through them, has appointed the Supreme Court Justice to assist in that process and look at all these regulations. Why are they starting, without that process having taken place, why are they starting from the top, starting with a safety regulation that is designed to protect the lives and safety of people using our highways?

The minister has not removed it from taxis. Why not? Why has he not removed it from taxis? I guess the answer will be because of the protection of the public, because of the safety of passengers driving around in taxis, and because of the safety of other people who the taxis might hit. Good reasons, very good reasons, Mr. Speaker. What about the children riding around in unsafe vehicles? What about the passengers in unsafe vehicles? What about other people on the highway? What about your children and mine, Mr. Speaker, who might be a victim of an accident that was caused by an unsafe vehicle?

If taxis must be inspected annually, or in this case twice a year for safety, why not have all vehicles that are on the road after a certain age when they are prone to have parts worn out, brakes worn out, or tie-rod ends, front-ends or back-ends, or things that can fall out of vehicles without much warning, why not have that annual inspection take place? To save $15.00 says the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation.

Yet, the Minister of Finance is quite happy to collect $120 each and every year from the Minister of Justice, the former Minister of Justice, and everybody else who wants to drive a vehicle but he is suggesting that the fifteen dollar charge is too much of an expense for people to have to bear - very, very small insignificant portion of the annual cost of operating a vehicle.

The annual cost of operating a vehicle, Mr. Speaker, can run into several thousand dollars. Several thousand dollars for gas and oil, maintenance, license, financing costs and everything else, can run into several thousand dollars, Mr. Speaker, to drive a vehicle in this Province every year. To start off a so-called process of getting rid of regulations by getting rid of a safety regulation, that is designed to keep unsafe junk off the roads, is a very deplorable way of starting off a process that they think they can convince Newfoundlanders and Labradorians is in their best interest.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that I think that this government is failing in its mandate to protect the interests of the people of this Province. It is failing to act in their interest in protecting jobs. It is failing its mandate and its obligation to fight against the attitude -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. HARRIS: - that we have in Ottawa and throughout this Province, throughout this country, this attitude toward Newfoundland and Newfoundlanders. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, Mr. Speaker, we want to debate the bill. We cannot close it off.

MR. SPEAKER: Oh, the hon. ministers bill?

MR. BAKER: I closed the debate.

MR. SPEAKER: Oh, okay.

MR. TOBIN: It is a good thing I was over here, Alec.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I thought it was the bill of the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation. I am sorry.

The hon. the Member for Menihek.

MR. A. SNOW: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I know, Mr. Speaker, the onerous responsibilities of the Chair. It is difficult at times to keep track of it all and -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: - Mr. Speaker, I suppose the other thing that occurs during discussion on a finance bill is that people get talking about other issues and other departments and in this particular case it is Works, Services and Transportation. So I can understand why the Speaker would think that we may have been talking about a bill that was being presented by the Minister responsible for Works, Services and Transportation but, Mr. Speaker, this is a finance bill. So thus we are permitted, as members of the House, to talk about financial matters of the Province and of course they are very, very important to us.

MR. SPEAKER: I wonder would the hon. member take his seat, it being 4:30?

MR. A. SNOW: It being 4:30 I adjourn debate. We will continue with the gong show, no the late show.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Opposition Party Whip, the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am not satisfied with the answer by the Minister of Health to my question in this House yesterday. It might be a good answer in the view of the former Minister of Health, the guy who started the stripping process in the department but now we will get back to the current Minister of Health.

Now the Minister of Health said in the House yesterday: a decision has not been made to do as the hon. member alluded to, the situation with respect, he said, is the subject of a lot of discussion. He was quoted in The Evening Telegram as saying, `..but absolutely nothing has been determined with any finality as to which facilities will remain or be closed or if indeed any will be closed.' This is what the minister said and quoted in The Evening Telegram today. Well it is no secret that this Province has established a mandate and given that mandate to Sister Elizabeth Davis to carry out the mandate of the department. She has been hired now for a few months. The board doesn't come into place until April 1. It will be called The New Health Care Corporation of St. John's.

In the meantime, the Chief Administrative Officer, or Executive Director of The New Health Care Corporation is setting in place to carry out the mandate of the Department of Health under this minister, and circulars have been circulated within the General Hospital - it is no secret - and anybody within the system knows what the directive is, and Sister Elizabeth Davis.

It states here very boldly that the corporation has been given a mandate by the provincial government to consolidate acute care services within the city to two sites. That is what is stated, and it goes on to mention: Ms. Davis brought with her a message of change, opportunity and new directions, and she acknowledges that some positions could be made redundant in the system. In fact, they are looking at doing now, and it is indicated, what they are looking at rationalizing now is trying to put the six basic areas together, six basic services together - finance and human resources, occupational health and safety, staff development, information systems, material management - to look at doing a centralized location of some of these areas.

The administrative functions might be carried on outside the two acute care hospitals. They are working on the logistics of this, integrating staff in all those areas she is working on, but her directions are clear from this department for two acute care hospitals, and the minister knows as well as I do that the Janeway Hospital is slated to be closed, under his direction and his department's direction, and he might as well face up to the facts and admit it. He knows fully well, and the minister is trying to give the impression out in the public that is not so.

Now the minister -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, he might called me stunned or stupid, or whatever he wants to call me. He can call me what he likes, but I say to the minister, all I ask the minister is to be up front, be forthright, and let the people in this Province know, and the people here in the city that are affected by it.

The Janeway Hospital serves this entire Province, and people in this Province, and interest groups, and clients of the health care system, and participants in the system overall should have an opportunity in a public forum, not to go now and move the direction. The minister will try to sell this to the public: Oh, we are moving out with ideas and proposals. What they are doing now is trying to put in place a process to facilitate the transition of these facilities, and the management and the staffs and so on, and do an integration of all those things so the Board, on April 1, can come in and rubber stamp the mandate given specifically by the Department of Health and this minister. Those are the facts of the issue there. He can say what he likes in the public forum; it is not accurate.

Why would the General Hospital circulate this issue? Why would they circulate it and indicate: Ms. Davis indicated that changes will occur quickly, but the staff will be given ample opportunity to present their ideas on how the refocused health care system will function - nothing to do with these options. If he thinks there are numerous proposals out there now; which one are we going to accept? I would ask him to put forward all the proposals here so everybody could see them, but he knows basically, they have looked at developing certain scenarios, but the bottom line - and the minister might as well admit it - is that the facilities of the Janeway are going to be closed. There is going to be an integration you are going to see within the system here in the Province -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. SULLIVAN: And the minister has no rationale that he has presented to support that. He may have it. I wish he would present it.

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

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

The hon. member raises, in his dissatisfaction, the basic questions that he put to me in the House yesterday and also today with respect to what is likely to happen with respect to realigning or rearranging or rationalizing health care delivery sites and services in the St. John's region.

I do agree with the member in the sense that his comments were made about the importance and the role that some of the facilities in St. John's do play in the health care system of the Province. I acknowledge that the Janeway Hospital is the ultimate paediatric referral centre in Newfoundland. I acknowledge also, as we all know that the Health Sciences Centre is the ultimate tertiary care referral centre in the Province for acute care services, and so he is right when he says that whatever we do in the St. John's region in terms of health care is important and has an impact upon the rest of the Province and to the people of the Province and to that extent, he poses a correct analysis and a proper proposition.

I don't think it is any secret either, Mr. Speaker, that over the last number of years there has been an ongoing discussion if not debate, not only within government but also within the community at large in this area, as to which way we should be going and what sites and how many sites we should have in terms of delivering health care in the St. John's region; and I would put the question to some extent to the hon. member himself and ask him, if he were today given the task of developing a health care system in St. John's, and laying out the number of institutions that we need and the services that would be delivered at each site, would he end up with seven separate sites in the City of St. John's in terms of hospital locations?

I would suggest to the hon. member that we probably would not end up with seven sites and that is what we have at the moment. We have seven sites, we can start with the Waterford Hospital, we go down to St. Clare's, the Janeway, we have the Miller Centre, we have the Rehab Centre, we have the Janeway Hospital, we have the Health Sciences and then if you want to throw in I suppose, also the hospital on Bell Island, we have eight hospitals that are now going to come under the jurisdiction of this new health care board and this board has a mandate and a responsibility to rationalize all of the delivery of health care services within this region.

Now, it is no secret, Mr. Speaker, that my predecessors have done a fair amount of work in terms of moving in this direction, not only in this area but also of course, throughout Newfoundland and -

AN HON. MEMBER: What minister are you blaming it on?

MR. L. MATTHEWS: No. I am giving the former ministers due credit for the work they did long before I arrived.

The former minister, last year, in a Ministerial Statement in the House, indicated that it would probably be the preferred option and the most sensible thing to do to have two acute care sites in St. John's.

MR. SULLIVAN: Did he name them?

MR. L. MATTHEWS: No, he did not name them; and, Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member recognizes that he did not name them and that is the whole point of the answer that I gave him yesterday and again today in the House. The fact of the matter is, while we may end up with less sites, the final decision on the number of sites and the location of these sites has not been taken by government. The new health care board that takes over responsibility, April 1, is not even officially in a position to comment on what should or should not be done and so -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: - and so I would - By leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No leave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. L. MATTHEWS: - and so I would simply say to the hon. member that my answer stands and I trust that he will accept the -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! No leave?

MR. L. MATTHEWS: - information that he has been given in good faith.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would say to the Minister of Health that it is the first time that I have seen three ministers, namely the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, the Government House Leader and the Minister of Education and Training withdrawing leave on a colleague.

MR. ROBERTS: Are we in a history class?

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes. He needed protection, yes.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: If I were you, I would think that I fooled up somewhere along the line.

MR. ROBERTS: We withdraw leave (inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Many times.

MR. SULLIVAN: He was good yesterday, CBC did a ten-minute -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

I have recognized the hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It seems like the Government House Leader feels left out because I did not mention him in the drive for the leadership of the party this morning.

Mr. Speaker, I was not satisfied with the response I received the other day from the Premier. I understand the Premier is attending a very important meeting and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology is here and he is going to respond to it.

There is a very difficult, delicate situation taking place on the Burin Peninsula. What we have, Mr. Speaker, is a situation whereby HMDC has decided to ship off 350 jobs or the livelihoods of 350 people. Unfortunately, the Premier of this Province has not really challenged it to the extent that we feel he should. We feel that it should be challenged, Mr. Speaker, in terms - another brown envelope I say to the Government House Leader.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that there are not enough answers. The people of the Burin Peninsula have not been getting the answers. Now the Premier has stated in a letter to Mr. Hull that he is not satisfied that he can answer the questions because HMDC has not given the Premier the answers either. So my question then is: how could the Premier continue to proceed, Mr. Speaker, to allow HMDC to do what they wish to do and what they want to do, if he is not satisfied that he knows the answer? The people, including myself, who have been around in this, feel that we have not been told the truth in all of the meetings that we have had and we had meetings from Ottawa back and we feel that the truth, Mr. Speaker, was hidden. The livelihoods of 300-350 people is a lot to ship out on a barge to Saint John, New Brunswick without someone telling you why it is happening. So I ask the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, in the absence of the Premier, if he can try and tell us why it is happening? I would also ask the minister, Mr. Speaker, if he can tell us if he believes that there is anything that can be done at this late hour, to prevent the work from moving?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, to the last part of the question, I appreciate the hon. members question, at this late stage we do not believe that anything can be done. We have, as you know - and I have kept the hon. member informed through the whole piece - we have worked very diligently to try to keep this piece of that contract at Marystown. I think it is important and prudent for people to keep this in context. We are talking about one-third of one contract. The value is in the order of $11 million or $12 million. I am not prepared to let a $12 million loss kill and ruin the future of that yard forever.

I think that one of the things we are seeing with the emotional uprising, and I do understand people's anger and frustration but the more we play this out on national television and elsewhere around the country, we continue to blacken the eye further. I am not going to participate in that. We disagree with HMDCs decision, we do not think they have taken the prudent course of action or the correct course of action. We do not believe that they have taken the prudent or proper course of action. We believe that the work could have been completed by December of this year. They do not believe that. They think it would have went into the new year and caused them severe difficulties and problems.

Mr. Speaker, I compliment the member on his comments publicly as well because I know he too wants to protect the reputation of the workforce, and indeed the reputation of the shipyard throughout the Province, throughout the county, and indeed the world, and I commend the union for their public comments this morning to not have any disruption whatsoever in the workplace. It is regrettable, I do not understand it, I disagree with it, but we must accept it at this late stage.

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked questions of the Premier regarding the possible decision taken by Marine Atlantic to shut the St. John's Dockyard out of the international marketplace as it bids for work. I also noted to the Premier at that time that in a brief presented to him last February and in 1994 the dockyard itself had submitted a brief dealing with the future viability of the St. John's Dockyard and that its opportunities lay in the international marketplace, and not necessarily in the domestic market because the domestic market is so small.

After asking the questions the Premier stood up and said he was not sure if such a decision had been made. He thought it had something to do with a story that broke about a contract in Peru. He thought it had something to do with that but it was obvious that he was not aware. My questions asked if he had made any representations on behalf of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to Marine Atlantic regarding this situation, and a pending serious situation?

Since that time, Mr. Speaker, I have spoken to officials at Marine Atlantic and they indicated to me that there was no decision to freeze the St. John's Dockyard out of the international marketplace. However, the caveat that was said to me today was that while we are concentrating on the domestic marketplace to get our own house in order, to get our own viability - I said, what do you mean by getting your own house in order? Well, the future viability depends on productivity and depends on labour co-operation and labour peace.

The reality is, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you right now, that privatization of the Newfoundland Dockyard is alive and well within Marine Atlantic. There is an agenda by Marine Atlantic to shut that dockyard down, by saying today that they are limiting the St. John's Dockyard to domestic opportunities until the future viability of the operation can be determined and that depends on modernization, it depends on labour peace, it depends on profitability, project productivity.

The reality is this, that Marine Atlantic and its forerunner, CN, have tremendous experience in shutting down industries in Atlantic Canada, and I don't need to go into them now. But I want to ask the minister, who is going to respond today, two questions: One, if he - and he indicated he did - made any representations to Marine Atlantic on behalf of the government, on behalf of the employees in the Dockyard, what were those representations, where did he make them, and at what time did he make them?

MR. FUREY: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Do you want me to ask again? Did you get it?

MR. FUREY: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: When did he make those representations to Marine Atlantic officials? Was it two weeks ago? Was it shortly after the Premier was presented a brief last February, in which these concerns were outlined? If so, Mr. Speaker, what were the natures of those presentations?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, I think I remember sitting in on a presentation by management of the Dockyard with the Premier. I think it was nine, maybe ten months ago and, at that point, they were showing us all of the various things that they had intended to do in the international marketplace.

I think also, it is regrettable, this announcement that has come through the news media. I've had it clarified to a certain extent today by Mr. Burgess from Marine Atlantic. I think he called the hon. member as well. He contends that there was no directive from the board of directors not to pursue international development work, but there was an implication that: you stick to the Atlantic marketplace for now and show that -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I'm having difficulty hearing the hon. minister. The conversation to my left is rather loud.

MR. FUREY: I think the way the hon. member phrased it was: Show that you can put your house in order right here in the Atlantic Provinces. I think that is a bizarre statement in many respects. Because if you think about it, the Pictou yard, MIL Davies, Saint John shipyard, Marystown - if you limit yourself just to this Atlantic marketplace where these yards are now running at around 30 per cent capacity, you are just blindfolding the devil in the dark, you are giving a sudden death to the Dockyard. I think they've held themselves hostage to this local marketplace, and it just is a forced closure.

We disagree with that. We made representation just recently, based upon the commentary that was in the media. I know the Premier is concerned about it. The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations is meeting, perhaps as we speak, in Moncton with the President, Mr. Morrison.

MR. ROBERTS: `Jack' has some kind of illness over there.

MR. FUREY: I also spoke, as I said, to the Director of Public Relations today who called me to check on my comments in today's paper and I stand on those comments. If you limit yourself to the Atlantic marketplace, it is surely the death-knell of the dockyard and this government disagrees with that policy by Marine Atlantic.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, to the regret of nobody, I will move the House adjourn but before I do, let me inform members so they can make their plans accordingly, that beginning on either Monday or Tuesday, next week, we shall be moving into extended sitting hours. Members opposite have demonstrated a desire to debate things at length. We are quite happy to accommodate them. The government have an extensive legislative program before the House at present and we shall move it forward. We are prepared to adjourn for the full day of Christmas, I assure members, so they can make their plans on that basis. With that said, I move the House do now adjourn, Sir.

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