The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (L. Snow): Order, please!

Before we call Statements by Ministers, I would like to welcome to the gallery today a former member of the House, the former Member for Placentia, Mr. Nick Careen, who is sitting the gallery.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in January of 1996, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador committed to consulting the public on educational reform. This promise was communicated to the public and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador through a document released by the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador titled, Ready For A Better Tomorrow.

The campaign document stated, and I quote, "We are committed to an open, ongoing process of dialogue and discussion on all elements of implementing education reform before decisions are made," and went on further to say, "There will be extensive public consultation before any new school viability rules are adopted." A further commitment was made to not change the rules with respect to busing until after the consultation process.

In keeping with these commitments, nineteen public consultations were held throughout Newfoundland and Labrador during September and October of this year. I personally attended all nineteen meetings, along with officials from the Department of Education.

Mr. Speaker, we heard more than 250 presentations with respect to a range of topics. Three particular issues: school viability, the designation of uni-denominational schools, and student transportation, were dealt with in detail at all meetings. The meetings were attended by close to 5,000 people and, in addition to the submissions presented at the meetings, almost 1,000 people took the time to complete a response form attached to the consultation document.

I will briefly mention a few of the highlights gleaned from the presentations and the response forms:

The most significant finding was the widespread support shown by the public for not busing students further than the school nearest their home.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: The response forms themselves demonstrated 76.6 per cent support for this concept. Seventy-one point nine per cent of the respondents agreed that it is inappropriate to provide additional resources to maintain a school when a better learning opportunity for students is available nearby. The same view was reflected in the submissions at the public meetings themselves.

Sixty-five point five per cent supported maintenance and/or development of multi-grading in small schools to avoid busing primary students - from Kindergarten to Grade III - long distances. This was clearly reinforced by presenters at the public meetings as well.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: With respect to transportation and busing issues, Mr. Speaker, there was consensus that government busing guidelines should allow school boards the flexibility to deal with local situations such as road and weather conditions.

With respect to the exercise of parental preference regarding school designations, there was no consensus as to how the preference for a uni-denominational school should be expressed, although there was general agreement that government, through the school boards, must fully explain the designation process to the public and ensure that parents understand the consequences of choosing each available option.

Mr. Speaker, this government has demonstrated clearly that it considers the views of the people to be important in making ongoing decisions with respect to educational reform. The views presented to us during public consultation hearings and through the public consultation response form will be seriously considered as we do final drafting of legislation for the new Schools Act and Education Act to be considered by this Legislature.

Mr. Speaker, today I am releasing a report of the Ministerial Consultation Process to all members of the House of Assembly, to our educational partners in the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association, the Newfoundland and Labrador School Boards Association, the Newfoundland and Labrador Home and School Federation, the Denominational Education Councils, and also to the public through the media. When the draft legislation is finalized it, too, will be shared with our educational partners prior to debate in this Legislature. Then we will all be in a position to assess to what degree the public input influenced the final decisions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the minister for the provision of the ministerial statement. The report is quite lengthy, and obviously I have not had an opportunity to review the report but I have had an opportunity to review the statement.

The consultation process, from my understanding, was indeed an exercise with some merit. I had the opportunity, along with some of my colleagues, to attend three of the meetings, in Placentia, Harbour Grace and St. John's. It was certainly interesting, Mr. Speaker, to glean some of the responses from the public at large with respect to their concerns and how their concerns affected educational reform in this Province.

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note that the ministerial statement recognizes that there is no consensus with respect to the designation of schools. I would suggest and submit that this is going to be the area of greatest difficulty with respect to educational reform. The busing issues ought to be able to be resolved. The viability issues ought to able to be resolved. However, in our larger communities, particularly perhaps our cities, it may be a challenge to all of us, in particular to the government and to the hon. minister, as to how to best deal with the designation of schools, in terms of which schools will be designated as uni-denominational or which will be inter-denominational.

It is going to be very difficult, for example, for a person who may live in a neighbourhood and who always had a school that was designated as uni-denominational, now finding himself or herself in a situation where his or her child can no longer go to that school because it is now interdenominational, and vice versa. So therein lies the problem, Mr. Speaker. That is the challenge. I would suggest that this ministerial statement recognizes that challenge and that is why it is clear, as the result of the public consultations which took place throughout this Province; there is no consensus.

I would urge the government to thread very carefully and to make sure that the school boards throughout this Province are given proper guidance and direction, again with more consultation for the public, if indeed that is required, to ensure that the public of this Province gets what it voted for in a referendum of more than a year ago.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi, does he have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No.

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

MR. SPEAKER: No leave.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I have a statement which I wish to make on the pine martin but I was late getting the statement in, so if the hon. gentlemen opposite wish, I could wait until after Question Period and I would ask leave to come back to Ministerial Statements again after Question Period, to give them a chance to look at it and read it. Is there any problem with that?

AN HON. MEMBER: None.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions today are for the Minister of Health. It has been brought to my attention that there are serious problems occurring with the Peninsulas' health care board that serves Clarenville and the Burin and Bonavista Peninsulas.

Can the minister confirm that the situation has become so critical that the administrator was placed on extended leave?

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for the question.

There have been some issues brought forward by the medical staff at the Peninsula's institution down in Burin that are basically of a contractual nature that they have asked the board to address. They became a matter of, I guess, some public concern and debate over the weekend as a result of the concerns that they have raised, mostly which are contractual in nature. One however had to do with the lapsing of the servicing of equipment at the hospital.

I have been in consultation with the chair of the board, the executive of the board, and I have put in place a process that has been agreed to by the medical staff who have brought forward the concerns, and I have asked that the concerns that they have and any other concerns that any other medical staff have who works for that board, be addressed by this committee. The committee is starting its work as we speak. It is mandated to report to me by next Thursday and at that time I may be able to advise further on what has come out of that process.

To the other part of the question: No, the CEO of the board has not been put on mandatory leave. He is on vacation for, I believe, a two-week period, and he has taken that vacation by virtue of his own choice at this point in time.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Can the minister confirm that areas under the board were left without essential medical services because of the visions between the medical professionals and the administration? The minister was personally made aware of the situation when he was vacationing outside the Province and I ask him, when he stands, will he confirm that the administrator is coming back to his job on December 4?

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am not aware that there was any gap in service created as a result of any of the concerns that were brought forward. To the question as to when the CEO will return, he is on a two-week vacation and it is my understanding that he will back to work at the end of that period of time.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Will the minister confirm that the board's failure to renew maintenance contracts on medical equipment, contracts that expired in 1995, resulted in placing the lives of many patients and residents in jeopardy?

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

MR. MATTHEWS: No, Mr. Speaker, I cannot confirm that that happened whatsoever. I can confirm that the servicing of some equipment at the hospital did not occur in April as a normal schedule would have dictated. That was brought to the attention of the board by the medical staff at the hospital and it has been attended to and corrected.

As to whether or not there is a connection between inadequate service, or a gap in service, or inappropriate treatment being received at the facility because of non-serviced equipment, I can't confirm that there is any linkage whatsoever in that direction. The servicing of the equipment that was referred to has now been done.

Other areas and other concerns that were brought forward by the medical staff that are basically, as I say, contractual in nature, have been mandated to a committee that the medical staff are a part of and have agreed to, and a process that they have concurred with is now in place. The committee will do its work over the next seven to ten days. If there are issues that arise out of the work of that committee that need to be further dealt with, be assured that this government and this minister will be acting as expeditiously as is appropriate.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Is the minister aware that patients who have sought medical attention at the Burin hospital over the past several months have had to be transferred to Clarenville or to St. John's, either because medical equipment in Burin was not working, or there were no staff to operate the equipment?

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

No, I can't confirm that has ever happened. Obviously, within the jurisdiction of that board, and within the Province generally, people do have to move around to obtain specific services which are delivered at specific locations. People move on an ongoing basis from the Burin Peninsula or Northern Newfoundland or Central Newfoundland or the West Coast or Labrador into St. John's for services.

I'm not aware that anybody was denied services at that site that would otherwise have been appropriately expected to be delivered at that site. If there are situations or specific circumstances, I would ask the hon. member to bring them to my attention, and I can assure him that they will be dealt with in the firmest and the swiftest and in the most appropriate fashion.

Mr. Speaker, questions of medical treatment that people need, questions of services that doctors need to render to people in the Province, are decisions that have to be made by doctors. Ministers of health or officials or CEOs or boards do not decide, or the Leader of the Opposition, even, does not have the prerogative, the right, or the ability to decide on what is appropriate medical treatment, and where it can be best delivered. These are doctors' decisions and they will remain doctors' decisions as long as I have responsibility.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will ask the minister if he will speak to me afterwards because I have numerous instances, and I will give him specific names to go with those instances, of people who have not gotten the service at the hospital that was normally given at that hospital. I will give him many names.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions today as well are for the Minister of Health.

Mr. Minister, the married father of three children in Central Newfoundland has to travel Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, year 'round, from Grand Falls-Windsor to St. John's for three and a half hours of dialysis. Of course there are something like twenty-five to thirty people in the Central Newfoundland area just like him.

Can the minister put himself in the shoes of that gentleman for just a minute and tell us whether he thinks the access to basis health care services like dialysis are really adequate in this Province?

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We have dialysis services being delivered at the moment from two hospital sites in the Province, St. John's and at the Western Memorial Hospital in Corner Brook. These two sites provide most of the dialysis services that have to be provided for people who have to go and have institutional type services rendered. The hon. member would probably know that there are other types of dialysis that are provided to people.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. MATTHEWS: There is the type of dialysis that is given in the home setting, it is called home dialysis. There is the perinatal dialysis that is really a procedure that is ongoing in a person's body as we speak. For the people who have to go on equipment, there are two places in the Province where we render that service, at Western Memorial and in St. John's. At the moment there is deemed to be a sufficient level of services in these areas to meet the need within the Province.

I do acknowledge that people have to travel for dialysis and people have to travel for other services in the Province. We have geography, Mr. Speaker, that mitigates against everybody being able to get every service where they would like to get it and where we would like to be able to provide it. On balance, the best medical advice that I have for my officials is that we are providing an appropriate level of dialysis services at the two locations and people are getting the services as best we can provide them.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South, on a supplementary.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Now then, Mr. Minster, can you imagine what spending four hours on the road, four hours on a dialysis machine and then another four hours on the road, three days a week, can do to somebody's health? Can you imagine, in the case of the gentlemen I speak about today, who has to stay in St. John's, the impact on that man's family and on their prospects for employment? Should this man's wife really have to give up her job that her family depends on, so that her family can move to St. John's just to be near a dialysis machine? What does the minister have to say to this family and the dozen more like it throughout Central Newfoundland?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, let me tell the hon. member that I can to some degree put myself in the shoes of that individual or any other individual, but nobody can appreciate a circumstance like that like the person who is in that circumstance and their family.

If the hon. member is alleging that this government and this minister have no concern and no consideration for people who need a very critical service of that nature that requires high tech equipment that requires significant medical support and back up in order to be able to ensure that it is provided safely, if the hon. member thinks that we as a government or I as a minister do not have sympathy or feeling for those people, then he better think again. Because I can assure you that we have great empathy and great feeling and great appreciation.

I have meet in my office, Mr. Speaker, with people in this Province from Central Newfoundland -

AN HON. MEMBER: Spend some of the money you have spent on Trans City (inaudible) and you would be able to provide some services.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. MATTHEWS: It might be advisable for the hon. member to speak to his colleague because obviously the frivolity with which he is treating the incident over there is less than the dignity that the question deserves. Let me tell the hon. member that we are doing the maximum we can in the Province for dialysis patients, we will continue to do the maximum we can for the need that exists within the resources that we have on the best medical advice of people who are professionals and who provide that service in our facilities, namely the high quality, capable, dedicated professional doctors and nurses and technicians who backup and provide that type of service.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South, on a supplementary.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Is the minister aware that the people of Twillingate and the South Coast have raised money for the dialysis machine not currently located in Central Newfoundland? Why is this government denying reasonable access to basic health care services to the many tens of thousands of people in Central Newfoundland, and is it his policy that people in less populated areas - if you are finished, I will continue. Your own minister over there said that my colleagues would not listen, so maybe if you would listen, as you are from out that way, you might learn something.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to get to his question.

MR. FRENCH: Is it his policy that people in less populated area will have to put up with second-class medical services, as they are doing right now, Mr. Minister?

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, there may be issues that are raised in this House, and questions put by the Opposition, that from time to time may lend themselves to lightness or probably a little comedy, but I can tell the hon. members of this House that we, as this government, treat health care in a very serious fashion. We take the matters of health care to be very important, to be very critical, and to be very much the number one priority of the people of this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: That is why, Mr. Speaker, I remind the hon. member again, that this government, while we decreased the Budget of every department last year in government, we increased our health care Budget.

No, Mr. Speaker, it is not the intention, it is not the policy of this government, to ensure, to see, or to even cause to permit to continue people in rural Newfoundland to have a second tier or an inferior level of service. We are, and we will continue to provide the highest quality of service at the maximum level we can within the scope and extent of our capacity, to all people of all regions, in all areas of the Province. We are doing that, I believe, we will continue to do that, and I think the hon. member, if he were honest in his heart, will get up and acknowledge that that is really in fact what he thinks and knows is happening.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions today are also for the Minister of Health. We are talking about Central Newfoundland. Over the last several years, in particular, the Baie Verte Peninsula and the health care centre there has taken many cuts, I say to the minister. Whichever way you want to phrase it, there have been lots of cuts.

Mr. Speaker, since then, of course, a lot of the cases now go to Corner Brook or Grand Falls. Things like appendectomies and tonsillitis are not done at Baie Verte. Anything else in that area now has to go either to Corner Brook or Grand Falls, some two hours away, three hours for people in La Scie.

Now, Mr. Speaker, when those cuts started, we in that area were told that the Corner Brook hospital and the Grand Falls hospital would be upgraded so that they could take the increased workload.

Is the minister confident that the number of doctors and staff at Western Memorial Hospital can take that increased workload from the Baie Verte Peninsula?

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, I have a high level of confidence in both the capability and the level of services at Western Memorial, and at all of our hospitals, to do the job they are mandated and required to do. At any given time we may be short a doctor, either as a general practitioner, a specialist, or even a sub-specialist in some area of health care in some area of the Province. That will happen in perpetuity because doctors come and go, move from area to area, and change employment sites as everybody else does. But on balance, I have to say to the hon. member that I have had no indication whatsoever, recently, or as far back as I can remember, from your particular area of the Province, or from any area of the Province, that in any way suggests that we are not capable, that we do not have the resources, and that we are not rendering a high level of service, and an appropriate and a timely level of service at the Western Memorial institute, my information is and my confidence is that on the contrary we are doing an admirable, we are doing an adequate, we are doing a satisfactory and an appropriate level of service for people who go to that institution.

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

MR. SHELLEY: Mr. Speaker, first of all I can give him a long list of complaints I have from the Baie Verte health centre, but we do not have time for that today.

On his other statement that he is confident in the Western Memorial Hospital, let me give him just one example. We can give him the other 1,500 or so some other day. I would like to know if the minister is aware of Philip White, a young sixteen-year-old who was brought to the Western Memorial on November 5 during the night. He had to have an appendectomy in the morning. He waited throughout the night. The pain got worse. Nine o'clock next morning when he was scheduled for surgery, no doctor. At 10:00 a.m., still pain, no doctor; 11:00 a.m., still no doctor; at 11:30 a.m., a ruptured appendix, still no doctor. A call was put outside the hospital to a private clinic to have a doctor come in and perform an operation, six hours after he was supposed to have the operation. Are you still confident in Western Memorial, Mr. Speaker?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. MATTHEWS: If the hon. member has documentation or general information of a nature that he feels suggests that there is, even in one instance, at one point in time in this Province, inappropriate or inadequate medical services available to an individual, I would ask him to bring it to my attention. I will undertake that when sufficient detail is provided to me that it will receive the highest level of priority and attention from me personally to ensure whether or not there is factual basis for the allegation, if whether or not there is something that needs to be done to correct the situation, and I will be happy to report back to the House if, in fact, there is anything untoward that had to be addressed.

I am not aware of any individual who was unduly deprived of services, except what you have told me. I suggest probably that the question may have been thought to be coming to the House today, because just a few minutes before I came over it was suggested to me by one of my officials that a question may be raised in the House regarding an appendectomy situation at Western Memorial. I have no information from anybody, written or verbal, other than what you have given me. I will attend to it if you will give me the facts that you have.

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

MR. SHELLEY: Mr. Speaker, I say to the minister, you are a little bit out of touch. This was two weeks ago. None of your colleagues, nobody has called your office - the media, anybody, on this particular case?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: I asked the minister a direct, straight, serious question. I would ask his colleagues to listen to the question, because this family is very upset with this particular situation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. SHELLEY: Mr. Speaker, I say to the minister that a doctor was not available for up to six hours. They had to go out to a private clinic to have a doctor come in and perform -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

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

The hon. member is on a supplementary. I ask him to get to his question.

MR. SHELLEY: I say to the member that somebody should have been aware of it. It is pretty bad if two weeks later the Opposition has to be informed before the minister.

Mr. Speaker, is the minister standing on his statement that he is confident - and this is one story out of a million of the Western Memorial Hospital - that there are enough doctors? It is a simple question: Are there enough doctors at Western Memorial Hospital, in light of this situation and others, that he is confident can handle the workload out there?

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me answer the first question. He asked me if I am telling him that I became first aware five minutes before I came to the House that there is a potential for a question around an appendectomy brought to my attention. Yes, that is the first time I have heard it. It has still not been brought to me in any substantive or official form.

MR. SHELLEY: I will give you the official (inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: I would be happy to take notice of the information and deal with it, but let me re-affirm the answer that I gave earlier, Mr. Speaker. I have every confidence in the level of capability and the quality of service that is being provided at Western Memorial Hospital. If there is any suggestion by virtue of evidence of any nature that we are not providing a quality level of service, let the specifics be brought forward, and the appropriate level of investigation, and to the extent that we can, if there is action to be taken it will be taken.

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the hon. Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

Will the Minister of Justice please confirm for this House whether or not an out-of-court settlement with respect to the Trans City fiasco has taken place?

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

MR. DECKER: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: A supplementary to the Minister of Justice.

Will the Minister of Justice today, Mr. Speaker, table copies of the cheques the government has issued so that the people of this Province can see how this gross error in judgement has cost the people of this Province?

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

MR. DECKER: No, Mr. Speaker, I am not in a position to table that today. There are extenuating circumstances which would dictate that that, at this time, is not in the public interest. In due course, however, all of these things will be made public.

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Mr. Speaker, I find it difficult to accept the fact, when the Minister of Justice says it is not in the public interest, when we are talking about public money.

It has been reported that the settlement involves funds in excessive of $2 million, that these are public funds and very much a matter of public interest, Mr. Speaker.

I would ask the hon. minister: Will the government do the honourable thing and commission an independent inquiry into this Trans City scandal to determine what were the motives and who bears responsibility for this $2 million disgrace?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that no stone has been left unturned to make sure that public funds are spent properly by this administration, and in due course we will make available to the people of this Province all the facts. I can tell the hon. member at this time it would not be in the public interest to make all of these figures available, but in due course all will become known.

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Just out of curiosity, I understand the minister Chairs a committee which will delve into public expenditure with respect to numerous departments within this government. Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister, as Chair of this committee, this $2 million, which department will now do without the $2 million? Is it the Department of Education, closing of schools, affecting the busing? Is it the Department of Health, impacting upon the issues that were raised by my colleagues today? Is it the Department of Social Services, more cuts? Which department will have to suffer the blow, Mr. Speaker, of this $2 million fiasco as a result of this Trans City scandal?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, to attempt to satisfy the hon. member's curiosity, the Trans City deal, by the time the hospitals are paid for, will have saved the Province in excess of $6 million.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I can't help it -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DECKER: I can't help it if hon. members find that funny, but these are the facts -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DECKER: These are the facts that have been verified over and over, even in the court proceedings. Even in the court proceedings, Mr. Speaker, it was made perfectly clear that this deal will save in excess of $6 million.

Now, there was an out-of-court settlement for x number of dollars. That had to come out of the $6 million, Mr. Speaker.

Now, Mr. Speaker, in the court proceedings, the lawyer for the plaintiff said: We know it is a good deal for the Province, but we are fighting this on a technicality. And they walked off with some taxpayers' money on a technicality. If the hon. members want to support that, that is up to them, but the deal, in the long run, saved this Province $6 million.

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again we are talking about public funds, very much a public issue.

Will the minister please tell us - and as Attorney General and Minister of Justice he ought to know - are there other activities of this government that may soon end up before the courts, that could potentially cost us millions more of the public's money?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I know the member opposite is indicating his desire to see that the government is not given the burden of any additional cost because of activities of Members of Parliament, and perhaps he might have a word with his brother who, together with other members of the Canadian Senate in the Progressive Conservative Party, have announced they are getting ready to defeat the amendment to Term 17 -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

PREMIER TOBIN: - and in defeating, as a matter of policy by the Progressive Conservative Party, the amendment to Term 17, are stalling the reform of the education system in this Province and are costing all of the taxpayers of this Province lost savings.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, if the member opposite truly has an interest in efficiency, truly has an interest about what is important to the taxpayers of this Province, I suggest he call Senator Ottenheimer and ask Senator Ottenheimer why Senator Ottenheimer - notwithstanding a referendum in Newfoundland, not withstanding a unanimous vote of this Legislature, not withstanding indeed the member's own position, nevertheless, he is going to have an non-elected Senate, an unaccountable Senate, defeat a democratic initiative by the people of Newfoundland and Labrador!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A couple of weeks ago the Premier announced that he would be hiring a consultant to look at what he perceives, or what should provide him and his government some advice on an effective labour regime for the production aspect of the Hibernia project. Can the Premier enlighten the House, or inform the House today, has a consultant been hired? What are the Terms of Reference? When is he expecting to hear from the consultant? Was the consultant, or the need for a consultant, put out to public tender, or was the person just hired from the Premier's office? Was there a request for proposals, or did you just get somebody who was -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: When do you expect to get results or information back from the consultant?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Well, Mr. Speaker, the suggestion for a consultant - the member would know, I am sure, because I think the member is a serious member and does his homework in this regard - has come from both the Offshore Development Council, representing the sixteen trade unions which have, so far, been involved in the construction of the Hibernia project; the suggestion for a consultant comes from each of the players associated in the consortium with respect to both the Hibernia project and the Terra Nova project.

So the industry, both on the business side and on the labour side, has said to government: It is absolutely clear that if Newfoundland and Labrador is going to reap the benefit, the potential benefit, of an expanding and growing offshore oil and gas industry, that a labour regime which is efficient, which is productive, which is forward looking, which is stable and so on, is necessary. And the best way to achieve that kind of regime is not to arbitrarily impose something, but rather to seek the views of all of the stakeholders, to ask all of those unions and all of those private sector players, from the consortium to the labour unions to the members of NOIA, for their advice.

So, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Environment and Labour - who is not present today in the House - with his ministry, in the days ahead, will be announcing a consultant. The consultant will be an independent player not affiliated with the labour unions or affiliated with the oil industry, but rather someone who will report to government and give us advice in a manner that is in the best interest of the Province as a whole.

MR. SPEAKER: The time for Oral Questions has elapsed.

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, if I could take advantage of the leave that was offered to present (inaudible) ministerial statements.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader has a question.

MR. TULK: I am asking for leave to revert to Statements by Ministers, as requested earlier.

MR. SPEAKER: I believe that was agreed upon earlier, that the hon. Government House Leader - we are reverting to Statements by Ministers.

PREMIER TOBIN: (Inaudible) with leave. Go ahead.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

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

PREMIER TOBIN: Ask the question. Ask it with leave.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I would -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, a point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier on a point of order.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition is asking me a question across the floor, and I know he wants to ask it on the record. I suggest we give him leave to ask the question.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I believe the hon. the Government House Leader had leave to make a ministerial statement. We will get to the Premier's point of order when the hon. member has delivered his statement.

MR. TULK: I would certainly sit down and let the hon. gentleman ask the Premier his question, and ask for leave after the hon. member has asked the Premier the questions that he needs to ask. By all means.

AN HON. MEMBER: With leave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Is the hon. the Leader of the Opposition asking for leave to ask a question?

MR. SULLIVAN: If the Premier wants me to put a question on the record, I will deal with it during Question Period.

MR. SPEAKER: Does he have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave!

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, I ask the Premier if he is aware that on August 31 a person with a heart problem went to the Burin Peninsula health centre and had to be sent to Clarenville because there was no specialist there to deal with that problem?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, what the Leader of the Opposition asked me across the floor of the House, and this is why I wanted to give him leave to say it publicly, was whether or not the husband of the Deputy Prime Minister had been hired by the government, and he named him, Austin Thorne. That is what you said, and indeed the House will record that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the answer is absolutely not, no.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. TULK: Got your answer now? Mr. Speaker -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. TULK: I would like to take this opportunity to update the hon. members of the House of Assembly on the initiatives taken by the Department of Forest Resources and Agrifoods to secure the future of the endangered Newfoundland American Marten. The marten, which was listed as threatened in 1986 with a population of 600 to 800 animals, was listed as endangered earlier this year with an estimated population of 300.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to reaffirm this government's commitment to ensuring that the marten does not go extinct. I would like to outline some of the ongoing activities of the department which we believe will collectively lead to the recovery of the species so that it will no longer be considered threatened or endangered.

In cooperation with the Western Newfoundland Model Forest Incorporated, and stakeholders and interest groups, my department is involved in defining a proposed combined wilderness and wildlife reserve in the area of Little Grand Lake. This reserve will consist of 167,000 hectares in total, which will protect in excess of 50,000 hectares of prime marten habitat. Conservation of the marten habitat is necessary to protect the core population of marten at Little Grand Lake. With this well-rounded team of scientists, industry and community representatives working together to define the area to be protected, we will soon be able to make this marten reserve a reality. I would add that we have put our people on notice that we want this done as quickly as possible.

Establishing formally protected reserves is not the only strategy to protect marten habitat. We are negotiating with stakeholders such as the large pulp and paper companies to leave sufficient habitat for marten to survive in forest harvesting areas outside of these special reserves. Reserves alone will not ensure the long-term survival of the species.

One of the most significant dangers to marten populations is accidental snaring. To protect the marten, we have declared areas where this activity is no longer allowed. This year we closed a portion of the Main River watershed to snaring and trapping. As well, we are examining other areas to be considered for some form of closure over the next several years. Snaring and trapping has been banned in the core marten area at Little Grand Lake since 1973. Several years ago we expanded the "no snare" area to include Glover Island.

My officials are sensitive to the fact that we cannot ban snaring and trapping activities in all areas where the marten occur. However, it is still imperative to protect the animal as much as possible. To achieve this we, in cooperation with others, are also investigating modified snaring and trapping techniques which will allow for persons to continue with these activities without accidentally killing the marten.

My department has been very proactive in studying the American marten. I would like my fellow colleagues to recognize the value of ongoing scientific research which will help us to better understand this animal and put ourselves in a better position to ensure its survival.

Number one, we are partners in a study in the Little Grand Lake and Red Indian Lake areas. Number two, we are working with biologists in Terra Nova National Park with the objective of having the marten more widely distributed throughout the Island portion of the Province, rather than be concentrated in only one protected reserve. Number three, we have initiated a captive breeding program at the Salmonier Nature Park with the objective of enhancing the population and introducing them to new locations. I might add, Mr. Speaker, that has been fairly successful. Number four, we are planning to explore modified wood harvesting practices with both Corner Brook Pulp and Paper and Abitibi Price to protect the habitat from marten.

I would like to emphasize, Mr. Speaker, the financial support for marten research and management for 1996/97 will be $530,000, of which 27 per cent is a direct contribution from the Province. Other major research funding partners include: the Western Newfoundland Model Forest, Forestry Canada, Terra Nova National Park, and the Endangered Species Recovery Fund of the World Wildlife Fund. I wonder, could we keep the gentleman from Bonavista South quiet?

Finally, Mr. Speaker I would like to address the concerns regarding American marten habitat in the vicinity of Star Lake. Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge that a small amount of marten habitat will be lost as a result of the Star Lake Hydro Development. However, that loss will probably affect about four animals, and even then the efforts will me minor, amounting to a loss of about 10 per cent of each animals' home range - for the information of the Member for Kilbride. Therefore, my department does not consider this development as a major threat to the future of the marten.

Mr. Speaker, what we must strive for is a balance between protecting a sufficient amount of habitat for the marten to survive and recover, while allowing for the sustainable development of our natural resources. We believe that the strategy that we have in place will give the marten the best opportunity to recover and thrive.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you very. Mr. Speaker.

I would just like to make a couple to quick comments. I thank the minister for giving me the statement just after the House opened, but it did not give me time throughout Question Period to read through it.

First of all, like we say, when credit is due... We applaud the government for bringing forward this statement today. The next thing, of course, is to follow up on the legislation and, as the minister would probably agree, to enact it as quickly as possible because of the low numbers of pine martens in the Province right now; I think 300 is the number quoted. Also, in one of the lines it says, "With this well-rounded team of scientists, industry and community representatives working together to define the area to be protected.." I think it is very important that we do involve the community representatives who are very concerned about this particular animal in our Province, and hopefully we can move forward quickly and expedite this process so that it is in place before we have any more decline in the pine marten in the Province.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi. Does the hon. member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No leave.

MR. SPEAKER: No leave.

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

MR. DICKS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I wish to table the audited financial statements of the Province of Newfoundland Pooled Pension Fund for the year ended December 31, 1995. Some points worthy of note include: that the pension fund, members will be happy to learn, grew by 13.1 per cent during the year and had investments with a market total of $1,116,000,000 at December 31, 1995. There were 11,171 pensioners on payroll, having a total cost of $158.7 million annually. The two largest plans, the PSPP and the teachers' pension plan, had pension fund balances of $785.8 million and $330.2 million respectively. The other two plans, the uniform services' pension plan and the MHAs' pension plan have no accumulated investment assets as they are in deficit positions requiring additional payments from the Province to cover their annual pension costs and, as well, do not have separately allocated assets.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

MR. A. REID: With leave, Mr. Speaker, I have six. I will make one statement and then say the bills after.

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce the following bills entitled:

A bill, "An Act to Amend The City of St. John's Act";

A bill, "An Act To Amend The St. John's Assessment Act";

A bill, "An Act to Amend The St. John's Municipal Election Act";

A bill, "An Act to Amend The Municipalities Act";

A bill, "An Act to Amend The City of Mount Pearl Act";

A bill, "An Act to Amend The City of Corner Brook Act";

Mr. Speaker, quite honestly in the almost four years I have been in the House this is probably the most important act:

A bill, An Act To Provide Fire-Fighters With Protection From Personal Liability.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise again today to present a petition on behalf of some of the residents of Mount Pearl, parts of St. John's and as far away as St. Bride's and St. Mary's Bay. This petition is again on the topic that I have been talking about each day since the House has been open. It deals with the safety of school buses and the safety of children.

Mr. Speaker, as we have said, there are circulating in this Province today great numbers of petitions that will be presented almost every day in this House by myself or some of my colleagues. Mr. Speaker, it goes to show that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are asking the Minister of Education if he would listen to the prayer of the petition.

The petition reads: We, the undersigned residents of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, do hereby petition the House of Assembly to direct the Department of Education to legislate a paid adult bus monitor program for all school buses in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, the issue that is raised is that we have many children going to school on unsupervised buses. We have many children who face risk because of the fact that they have to get on the bus and off the bus in all kinds of weather and that there is a real potential danger to their safety.

Now, Mr. Speaker, what the parents are saying is that they do not want the safety of their children to be compromised. They are saying to the Minister of Education, look at the issue. It may be, as I said the other day, that we have to have different kinds of bus monitoring for different age groups. We should have a look at, in particular, children who are in primary and elementary schools and school age children. Mr. Speaker, that is because the very young children are potentially the ones who will be the quickest to become distracted or probably they, because of their size, would have the greatest risk of not being seen by either a car driver or by the bus driver and so therefore they are the ones who face the greatest risk.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge that the Province has to readjust its priorities but we have heard the Minister of Education say that he is making tremendous savings because of consolidation, he is making tremendous savings because of changes to the staffing, the changes to the school boards, twenty-seven boards down to ten boards, and the lay-offs that have occurred at the administrative level. So there are, according to the reports, millions of dollars going to be saved in education in this year and even more dollars in subsequent years. So we are saying to the Minister of Education, put some of that money back into the children of this Province, put it into the classrooms, in some cases, but do not overlook the issue of school bus safety.

Now, Mr. Speaker, since the knowledge of this kind of petition has been circulating throughout the Province we are being told that more and more parents are today circulating petitions. They are not convinced that the Minister of Education is hearing what is being said on a daily basis in this House. They are hoping that if enough petitions get presented, the Minister of Education will come to a realization that this is a priority.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister today to listen to the prayer of the petitioners, look at the issue of school bus safety and place the safety of children very high on his agenda. In fact, it should be the highest on his agenda, on everybody's agenda, every day.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I ask the hon. House to give all due consideration to the prayer of this petition presented by the people who are listed here from Mount Pearl, St. John's, Outer Cove, St. Bride's and other parts of the Province as well.

Thank you very much.

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand today to simply second the petition as has been brought forward by my colleague, the Member for Waterford Valley. This issue, of course, is a very important issue to many parents throughout this Province. We have tens of thousands of young people who are bused on a regular basis to and from school, in many cases over not what we would describe as the best of road conditions. Mr. Speaker, the issue of bus monitoring is one which unfortunately was brought to the fore as a result of a tragedy which occurred not too long ago.

Mr. Speaker, bus monitoring ensures that there be a stability and a degree of discipline aboard school buses at all times. It also ensures, Mr. Speaker, that when children are boarding buses and getting off buses that they can safely either stay on the side of the street that they have disembarked on or safely cross the street. The purpose of monitors are to ensure that the safety and protection of children are uppermost at all times.

I recently heard, Mr. Speaker, how, in the City of St. John's, I believe as recently as yesterday, there is a parent who has taken an active interest in ensuring that this bus monitoring system be put in place as quickly as possible. It is clear, Mr. Speaker, that this is a growing movement. This is not something which just is important in an isolated way; this is a growing movement. We have parents in communities throughout this whole Province who find it, as a matter of priority, essential that they stand up, be counted and be heard on the issue of bus monitoring for the benefit and the welfare of their children.

So I support the petition as presented by my colleague and I would ask the hon. minister opposite to please heed these petitions. I mean, these are petitions that are presented daily. Sometimes it may give the impression that the only people who are talking about the petition are the presenters and the seconders. Well, that is not the case, Mr. Speaker. These petitions are filled with names of ordinary Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who see it as important in their lives that this issue be addressed. So it is not the hon. member sitting in front of me and myself who are just making these petitions to the floor of this House, it is the dozens or hundreds of Newfoundlanders, and I would say on this particular issue, quite conservatively, thousands of Newfoundlanders, who find this issue important and will ultimately want to have this issue addressed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I did want to take an opportunity to make a few comments with respect to the petition presented. I think the issue, Mr. Speaker, that we have been dealing with for some time is actually much broader than that presented in the petition. I know it is not appropriate in a petition to debate and I do not intend to debate the issue, but I think at some point it might serve some purpose for clarification for the record, that we had the two hon. members today stand and support a petition that, in its specific plea to this House, deals with one aspect only of a very complex issue with respect to school busing and school bus safety and that is the issue of monitors but specifically paid monitors, and not only paid monitors, but paid, adult monitors.

The reason that I even make the point, Mr. Speaker, before I go on to two or three other things I would like to say with respect to the issue generally of school bus safety, is that following a recent tragedy in the Province, the Opposition critic for Education who spoke in support of this petition today, which calls specifically, directly and solely for support for the concept of paid, adult monitors, indicated to the media that he felt that the solution was monitors, but that it did not require paid monitors and that he recognized the difficulty with finding money for these kinds of things, and that volunteer monitors could very well be part of the solution. Now, Mr. Speaker, we have both members today supporting a petition that deals with one aspect of school bus transportation and safety, which is paid adult monitoring.

The parent groups that have met directly with me and with our departmental officials have dealt with the much broader range of issues. They have dealt with the notion of the actual physical condition of the buses themselves, the fact that we have regulations allowing buses in this Province to be older than in some other provinces. They have dealt with the issue that school buses do not have reverse back-up warning systems on them, whereas they have those for all kinds of commercial and industrial transportation initiatives, but they are not on school buses. They have dealt with the need for wider arms for protection, and direction signals and so on to be there when a bus is stopped so that we can enforce the actual no-passing of school buses. They have dealt with the issues, and we are dealing with the issues of driver education and training. What level of training should a bus driver have other than just a Class 2 license? They have dealt with issues of whether a school bus driver should be trained in CPR and/or first aid.

It is not just monitors that these parents have been coming to the department and meeting with us about. It is a broader range of issues. They have dealt with the issue of the monitors themselves, whether they need to be paid, whether there should be different levels, as the hon. member in supporting the petition pointed out, for different grade levels and different ages of students. They have dealt with the issues, and we are dealing with the issues of safety training for the children themselves, for any monitors, for the drivers, and also the whole idea of additional emphasis upon the programs that are provided in schools already, to make students themselves aware of some of the potential dangers involved in travelling on school buses, that we accentuate our safety programs so that students themselves become more aware of their need to practice safe habits when using the school buses in the Province.

Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with the issue. There is no need for the Opposition to feel that they have to stand up and repeat this petition every day looking for adult-paid bus monitors, because the parents are not particularly asking for that, and I am sure that the first response from the Opposition through the official critic was that they did not think that this petition needed to be the answer, that adult-paid monitors was the solution. Now, Mr. Speaker, they are standing and saying, by virtue of presenting the petition and signing their names to it, that the most important issue with respect to school bus safety, all of a sudden, is an adult-paid monitor. There are many other issues, and we are dealing with them in order.

MR. TULK: Motion No. 2, Mr. Speaker, to get some first readings out of the way before we move to second reading of some bills.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Environment and Labour to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Labour Standards Act", carried. (Bill No. 26)

On motion, Bill No. 26 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Justice to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Freedom Of Information Act And The Privacy Act", carried. (Bill No. 39)

On motion, Bill No. 39 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, we have to do something in order to get those bills read a first time a lot faster. That procedure is tongue-twisting. It ties you up in knots and, to be quite frank, I think it is kind of crazy. I think we should take a look at a simpler way of doing things in this House.

MR. J. BYRNE: Does tradition mean anything to you?

MR. TULK: Tradition means a lot to me, but I tell you something today, too; efficiency has to mean quite a bit.

Mr. Speaker, I move Order No. 2, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Fish Inspection Act". I call upon the best Minister of Fisheries this Province has ever had, to introduce that bill.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Fish Inspection Act". (Bill No. 21)

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

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, with the introduction from my hon. colleague, the Government House Leader, I was very enthused when I stood to my feet, but looking across the House and seeing my friend on the opposite side with his measuring tape out I am starting to get nervous. I have lost my enthusiasm, Mr. Speaker. One thing I can assure the hon. member, whenever it is time for me to go, I am going to be taken away by a Liberal; so it is not going to be a Tory. The only fellow that I am sure of that is in that position is Carl Moores out in Clarke's Beach.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, I will get on to Bill No. 21, "An Act To Amend The Fish Inspection Act". I am going to just mention briefly the reason why the changes are necessary to the Fish Inspection Act. I will just simply read this, "Clause 1 of this Bill would broaden the scope of the Fish Inspection Act to enable the Lieutenant-Governor in Council to make regulations for non-quality related purposes. Clause 2 of the bill would confirm the minister's authority to impose conditions on licences issued under the Act."

Mr. Speaker, the processing industry in this Province has been the total responsibility of the provincial Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. The federal government is responsible for the fish harvesting, licensing, the issue of licenses, quota, conservation measures, and all those other issues related to the industry, but when it comes to the processing it is the responsibility by the Department of Fisheries, or the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture of Newfoundland and Labrador, to issue licenses for processing plants, wherever they may be located or deemed to be located within the Province.

All of the years that have passed since the Fish Inspection Act was brought into the Legislature of this House, and passed by the House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador, the authority of the minister to issue licenses was never challenged until, I am not sure, I believe it was a year ago, or just recently, when it was challenged in the courts by a processor in the Province who deemed it necessary that he could go out, without the authority of the minister, and process whatever species of fish he sold or they so chose to process in their operation. When the then Minister of Fisheries, the Department of Fisheries, found out what was happening in the Province they went, of course, and issued orders to stop the processing for those species of fish which they did not have licenses to process. Naturally the individual, the processing company, did not agree and argued against the minister's authority. Therefore, upon doing that, he challenged the authority of the minister to place conditions on licenses in court. By doing so and challenging the court, it was judged by the court of the day that the minister did not have the authority to control the conditions, or add conditions to the processing of species of fish into the fish processing sector of the Province, except for quality purposes.

Mr. Speaker, when the Department of Justice reviewed the act, at the time they challenged it in court, it was decided upon that some amendments had to be made to the changes of the act so that the Lieutenant-Governor in Council could provide provision in the Fish Inspection Act so as it would give the authority to the minister to place conditions, though the Fish Inspection Act, on the conditions of licensing into a processing sector of this Province beyond a quality control; in other words, socio-economic reasons, processing species. They wanted to be able to have the total control without dispute or without a challenge in court.

In doing so, two changes had to be made to the Fish Inspection Act. To just simply read this:

"Subsection 4(1) of the Fish Inspection Act is amended by striking out the word `and' at the end of paragraph (d), by striking out the period at the end of paragraph (e) and by substituting a semicolon and the word `and', and by adding the following immediately after paragraph (e)...."

Which states, "(f) which relate to the regional distribution of processing licences, the development of the fishing industry of the province and other matters that are not directly related to fish quality."

In other words, it broadens the scope of which the minister has the authority to issue or not, to issue licences or to say to a processing industry that you can only process one or two or whatever species the minister of the day or the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture deems necessary.

Clause 2 reads: "Section 5 of the Act is amended by renumbering the section as subsection 5(1) and by adding the following immediately after that subsection:

`(2) The minister may issue licences under this Act subject to the conditions that the minister considers to be appropriate, including conditions which relate to a matter set out in section 4.'"

Simply, these two clauses added to the present Fish Inspection Act would give the minister authority to place conditions on the licence beyond that which is already deemed his authority in the Fish Inspection Act, such as quality. This will take it to the necessary step so that the minister has the full authority to do so.

Mr. Speaker, the processing industry in this Province is in turmoil, not only because there is a lack of fish. We now have some 220 fish plants across the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, approximately 220. That is the total number of buildings. That may not be exact, but there are approximately 220 buildings across the fish processing sector, some with pelagic, some processing one species, some processing just the groundfish, some just processing shellfish from different species; the main problem being the number of plants around the Island with the amount of resource available.

The history of the processing sector of this Province has been very clearly understood by everybody. There are few opportunities in these plants for people to get long season employment. The main contributor to the socio-economic employment conditions in those communities has been the fishing industry, but it hasn't been sustainable to the fishing industry except to get enough weeks of work to either get to a make-work program, to be supported by either the provincial or federal government, or to barely scrape enough work weeks to get UI, or in the future EI, insurance premiums.

What we have to do in the fishing industry of the Province is that the minister must have the authority to be able to regulate the fishing industry, to control the number of fish processing plants within this Province, so that wherever the plants are located they must be a multi-species operation, quality conservation measures must be top on the list, but nevertheless the minister must have the authority to impose licensing, either restrictions or to allow them to operate in a manner in which they can get the longest season possible of work for those people in the community.

It cannot happen with the number of plants that we have now. There have to be some major decisions made in the very near future. There have to be major changes made with the whole of the processing industry. This is only one step to give the minister authority to make decisions, and the necessary decisions, to ensure that the fishery of the future is going to be successful and sustainable to the people who depend upon it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I stand today to add a few comments and a few words on Bill 21, "An Act To Amend The Fish Inspection Act." I am the first one to agree with the minister that we do need changes. We need changes in fish inspections and we need changes to the way things were done in the past. I am quite familiar with the way things were done in the past, I say to the minister, having worked in the fishing industry myself for fifteen years, and I am the greatest believer in quality and I think that what we have done in the past has been nothing short of criminal, when you see - Mr. Speaker, it was not uncommon. I know in the plant where I worked, and I think it was pretty well the status quo for just about the whole fishing industry, it was not uncommon to see somebody out during the day trucking asphalt with their dump truck, and at the end of the day they would take it up in front of the tank that distributed diesel oil or something and spray it down, then go on down, Mr. Speaker, on the wharf that evening, fill it up with fish, take it back to the fish plant; up goes the dump in on the floor of the holding room. It was common practice, Mr. Speaker.

People were going out with their dump trucks and hauling gravel and asphalt and any other thing that you might mention during the day, and at the end of the day they would probably spend their next four or five hours trucking fish into fish plants.

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible) your area.

MR. FITZGERALD: It was not just in my area, I say to the Leader of the Opposition. That was common practice. It was common practice to go and see fishermen get into their boats in the morning and load up their trap skiff with oil and gas, provisions for the day, no ice, no boards to cover the fish, no tarp, go out and spend the day or maybe two days out on the fishing grounds, load up their boats, come back in, tie them up to the wharf under the blistering sun, go home and have dinner, come back whenever they had a chance after they made grass or after they dug a few spuds or whatever, and then start unloading the boat and throwing it up on the wharf.

I remember going down to Black Tickle, which was one of the areas for which I was responsible in my duties, Mr. Speaker, first when we started buying turbot down there. At one time, anybody who knows anything about the fishery, it was not too long ago that there was not much of a sale for turbot, nobody even bothered catching it. All of the sudden there was a market established for turbot and the fishermen were going out and putting some effort into harvesting it. It was not uncommon to go down to Black Tickle in the middle of the summer, Mr. Speaker, and see pen boards put around the wharf and thousands and thousands of pounds of turbot left on the wharf for days and days at a time; left on the wharf before it was taken and put aboard a boat and probably shipped over to Cook's Harbour or somewhere where it was unloaded and taken somewhere else to be cut and frozen. So you can imagine what this product turning up in the marketplace looked like. You can imagine, Mr. Speaker, the kind of thoughts that the consumers must have had when they went to the stores to purchase some of this product made here in Newfoundland. Those were some of the things that were happening and there is certainly a great need for fish inspections and observers.

Mr. Speaker, it was not uncommon to go down on the wharf and see the fishermen with their pitchforks. That was the accepted thing at the time. They would go down and jump down in the midship room of the boat and take their prongs and, as fast as they could, Mr. Speaker, it was up on the wharf; two-forked prongs, up on the wharf with no regard whatsoever as to where the forks of the prong went. It didn't matter how the fillet turned out, if there were holes in them or if there were bruises in them, it did not matter as long as they got rid of their fish.

Today, Mr. Speaker, that has suddenly changed, and so it should, because I think it is probably a reflection of the compensation that not only the fisherman got in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, but it is also a reflection of probably the high unemployment levels. People did not want our fish, it was not of good quality, it was not of any significant value.

I have to tell you this story, Mr. Speaker, of this one particular fish plant where I was. It was not one that I worked normally. This gentleman was the cutter in the fish plant and they would have an hour for lunch. Do you know what he spent his hour at? He would go out at the side of the plant and cut hair for that hour. He would cut people's hair. People would go out and sit down and get their hair cut. Then they would dust themselves off and go back on the production line. Those were the kind of things that were happening. You would see people going to work in our fish plants and you did not know if they were going grouse hunting or if they were going into a place to cut fish.

Then all of the sudden somebody realized that we were doing something wrong, we were not doing things right. Our fish wasn't getting the price that it should be demanding on the marketplace and other people's products were outselling ours. A better quality of product naturally commanded a bigger price. It took awhile, and in fact we are not there yet, it took awhile to change people's attitudes. It takes awhile to change people's attitudes, not only fishermen and fish plant workers, but it takes awhile to change attitudes, period, Mr. Speaker.

All of the sudden people's attitudes started to change and people were told time and time again: Boys, listen, what you are producing there, what you are handling there, is being eaten by somebody. It is food and it has to be handled like food. That, Mr. Speaker, is where we fell short and I think we still have a long way to go, but we are getting there.

I thought when I read that bill that that is what the bill would be. It reads, "An Act To Amend The Fish Inspection Act", but it does not really touch much on inspections. It touches on other things. Mr. Speaker, back some time ago we delved into fish inspection again and had a situation whereby the inspection department decided they were going to go out and look at cost recovery. They were going to look at new ways of having processors pay back government the cost of doing inspections. They looked at new ways of having fish processors pay back government so they could have some way to recover the cost of wages for their inspectors and the cost of providing that particular service.

Here again, Mr. Speaker, they fell short of the mark. They did not go out and consult anybody. They did not go out and ask the industry what they thought was right, what they thought was reasonable, and what they thought should be done. Instead they went and sat down in a room up in Ottawa and decided this would be a fair way to treat the fish processors in Newfoundland and Labrador. It was not a very fair way at all, Mr. Speaker. In fact I had a couple of processors in my district, and there were dozens of them right across this Province, whereby small processors with about 1000 square feet of production space could end up paying more than some of the giant companies like FPI and National Sea. It would have put them right out of business. In fact, inspection fees would have went in excess of 4000 per cent.

This was happening at a time when we had a moratorium declared and it was happening at a time when we were encouraging fish processors to get involved in doing new products, being innovative, to put new products in ready for the marketplace, right out from the plant to the supermarket shelves. This is what we were promoting ourselves as people who believed in the industry. On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, while we were trying to encourage them to do this and to get into pickling, spicing and smoking, we were saying that, we are going to charge you now for even trying to get this product into the marketplace. In areas where sometimes they had to go and pay as little as $10 for a license they were going to be paying $400.

The fair way of doing it, Mr. Speaker, if we are going to expect people to go and expand their business, keep involved with the industry, hire new people, the right way of doing it would be to go out and first of all consult, talk to the people involved. They know of the services, they know what it is to expect people to come to their plant and carry out and exercise an inspection. They knew what it was costing them because they are dealing with employees every day; and ask for their input. That wasn't done. It was done unilaterally by Ottawa, Mr. Speaker, and instead of going out and saying that probably the fair way of doing this would be to charge an inspection fee on the total volume of sales or on the floor space that you use for production, so much a square foot, instead of doing that Mr. Speaker, government in its wisdom decided to go and do the other thing and throw in the negativity, Mr. Speaker, of charging processors for every species of fish that they were producing and every way that they were processing that particular species.

The minister is well aware of what I am talking about because I brought it up to him before. Granted, there were changes made and they were made because the industry revolted. The industry said this is wrong, we need help, we need to be able to get some support from government in order to be able to put this new product that we are putting forward to market. We do not need to be burdened with all this expense that you people are bringing forward now.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: The minister knows what I am saying is true. He probably did not get involved in it because it was a little bit above his head, could not relate to it, Mr. Speaker. Certainly this is the way things have happened in the past. When I read this Bill, that is what I expect to see happen here. So, Mr. Speaker, those are some of the things that need to be done, the stakeholder's need to be consulted.

This past year the provincial government got into dock side monitoring. It is now a situation, Mr. Speaker, where the government of the day is telling the fishermen of the day that we are going to start controlling what you are doing. We are going to start looking at what is happening right from the wharf, out in the boat, and the way the product is brought back, to make sure that it arrives at our fish plants in good shape in order to produce a good product. You cannot ship a good product out from the shipping room door if you do not bring in a good product from the receiving door. From what I understand, it has worked very well. From what I understand, Mr. Speaker, there might be some fine tuning that needs to be done, but for the most part it has worked very well. I have witnessed the dockside graders out in my district on the wharves and it seems like the fishermen have cooperated. The dockside graders were well trained for the most part, did a good job, got along with the fishermen, Mr. Speaker, and I would encourage that kind of an environment to continue.

Mr. Speaker, what concerns me when I read this bill is when I see such things like the second part of the bill. Section 5 of the act is amended by renumbering the section as subsection 5(1) and by adding the following immediately after that subsection. Now, Mr. Speaker, those few lines, only one paragraph, but just listen to it, just listen to this paragraph, I say to the members opposite. `The minister -

MR. J. BYRNE: What minister?

MR. FITZGERALD: `- may issue licenses under this act subject to the conditions that the minister considers to be appropriate.'

MR. J. BYRNE: For now.

MR. FITZGERALD: `Subject to the conditions that the minister considers to be appropriate, including conditions which relate to a matter set out in section 4.'

Now, Mr. Speaker that gives me great concern. Section 2, the new addition to subsection 4(1) is paragraph (f) which relates to the regional distribution of processing licenses; the development of the fishing industry of the Province and other matters that are not directly related to fish quality. So, what are we talking about here, I ask the members opposite? Do you know what we are talking about here? Do you know how many people are involved, or were involved in July of 1992, in this particular industry in Newfoundland and Labrador? Does anybody here know how many were involved? I ask the minister, does he know? Well, there were in excess of 27,000 Newfoundlanders who qualified for the NCARP program, so it is safe to say that there were over 30,000 people involved in our fishing industry. The lifeblood of rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and what are we going to do with it, I say to the Member for Terra Nova? We are going to put the livelihoods of those 30,000 people, and we are going to put the livelihoods of the fish processors in this Province, not in the hands of Cabinet, not in the hands of the Liberal Government or the government of the day, not in the hands of the House of Assembly; we are going to put the lives of 30,000 Newfoundlanders and 227 processors at the minister's will.

MR. J. BYRNE: Oh that's shivering.

MR. FITZGERALD: At the minister's will. That is exactly what we are going to do and that is frightening. That is what we are going to do with this piece of legislation. The minister does not have to take it back to Cabinet. It does not have to be done with the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. It could be done by the flick of a pen at the will of the minister.

Mr. Speaker, the forty-eight people who are sitting in this House of Assembly were sent here to represent their constituents. Every one of us here was sent here to speak out and speak up for, I suppose, anywhere from 4,000 people to 15,000 or 20,000 people that we have in our riding. Now we are going to sit here and allow a piece of legislation to pass through that affects hundreds of Newfoundland rural communities, and put it in the hands of one man. Now whether we have respect for the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture today is not issue. That is not an issue. I do not care about that. There has to be a minister, there has to be a head of the department. We have a minister today, we will probably have another one tomorrow, and no matter if that is the minister today or a minister from this side, nobody should be granted that much power.

Mr. Speaker, when the minister gets up and reads his bill, and he goes on to say that there is not much to it, there is nothing to it; we are going to leave out a semi-colon here and we are going to leave out a dot somewhere else, and we are going to take, `and' out of another paragraph, we are going to take that out.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: So it is only a housekeeping bill; but this is piece of legislation that scares me. When it comes to a time in this Province - and we are supposed to be living in a democracy - but when it comes a time when people have to go in and bow down to one man in order to make a livelihood, or in order to keep a license, or in order to be able to go and take part in a processing industry, when people have to do that we are in big trouble.

Before we had a moratorium on the fishery here in Newfoundland and Labrador I am not sure how many people here really, really understood what the fishing industry meant to this Province. I am not sure if people really understood. A lot of people in the communities, or I should say some of them, some people in the communities would say to me when I came home from the fish plant, `Gee boy, get away from me; you stink.' Nobody said it when I went to spend my money. Nobody told me that they did not want the money that I made.

I remember working out in Gaultois, when they start up the meal plant. For those people who have been out in Gaultois, you know the way the plant is laid out there. The plant is down by the wharf, and the meal plant with its short stack just reaches up probably right in line with the road that leads up the back way. When they would fire up that meal plant, boy, I will tell you, everybody in the community smelled alike. Whether you had clothes on the line or on your back, it all smelled alike. But the point is that people were working and people were happy, and people were going out and making a pay cheque.

What do they have to do today? What do those same people have to do today in order to maintain that plant, or get another operator to come in there? What do they have to do? They have to come and see the minister, make a trip to the minister's office if they want another licence.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible)!

MR. FITZGERALD: You are going to make every plant a multi-species plant, you are saying. Is that not what you are saying? Yet in order for fish plants to be able to operate today and become viable they have to be located in a regional operation and be a multi-species plant.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible) you don't understand what you are talking about.

MR. FITZGERALD: No, boy, I don't understand, I know all about it. But I can guarantee you, if I want to be enlightened I know where I'm going.

So now we are going to go and we are going to make every plant a multi-species plant. Now we are going to give everybody a crab licence. We are going to give everybody a crab licence now, okay? Now, if we give everybody a crab licence - the scientists are already saying that we have to take a very serious look at harvesting this particular species. The minister is probably going to go out and issue more licences. What is he going to do? What is the bottom line?

People now who are working in the crab fishing industry are saying: We want more work, we want to work, we want more work; and you don't have to go and catch crab in June or July or August. This particular year you could have been catching it since March. You could have been catching crab since March, I say to members opposite. What did they get? For the most part they probably got about thirteen weeks. I know in my particular district, Mr. Speaker -

AN HON. MEMBER: Shame, shame!

MR. FITZGERALD: Shame is right, I say to the minister, but it is not their fault. It is shame because they are not allowed probably to go back (inaudible). We have been so uncaring in the past that we have taken advantage of everything that was put before us, and today they are not allowed to go out and catch other species of fish that would allow them to work longer.

Now we are going to go out, and if we follow the minister's advice, or if we let him go on with his way of thinking, and we are going to issue more crab licences. If we are going to issue more crab licences, what are we doing? Just stop and ask yourselves, what are we doing? Are we going and creating 200 new jobs down in St. Lawrence? Are we going and creating 500 new jobs in Burgeo? No, Mr. Speaker. What we are doing is saying to the people who are already taking part in this particular industry, what we are doing with them is taking the normal weeks of work that they would get and transferring it to other places, and those people will be getting seven and eight weeks' work, and the other people will be getting seven and eight weeks' work, which is no good to anybody.

We have to be very realistic about this. He knows what I'm saying is true. If everybody over there was allowed to go and take a secret vote, and there would be no chance of being identified for the way they voted, I can guarantee you that they wouldn't allow this minister to dictate, by himself, what the fishery of the future is going to be like.

MR. EFFORD: This minister should dictate because it is making sense (inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: Makes sense to you, minister. The minister goes on - and I will come back to this. There is something else, Mr. Speaker -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. FITZGERALD: They didn't give him much fish when his association went looking for a box of crab for a fund-raiser. They didn't get much. The Tories got a lot, though.

Mr. Speaker, look at clause 2 under the Explanatory Notes. It says, the minister wants to "confirm the minister's authority". Now he wants to confirm that he is the minister! The minister wants everybody in this House to confirm that he is the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture! He wants his authority confirmed. He is not clear. He doesn't know what he is, he doesn't where he is going, but still he wants to manage our fisheries. He wants to be the sole voice.

Mr. Speaker, this is wrong. It shouldn't be allowed to happen. I don't think it will happen. I think people are going to look at this, and the people who have fish plants in their district, and have fishermen in their district, in excess of 30,000 - and if you look at the families you are probably talking about 300,000 families or more going to be affected - and we are saying that we are going to allow this minister -

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: I say to the minister, this is the kind of situation that scares me, because what I am saying makes a lot of sense. I stand here sometimes and I fall in with the crowd, and I joke and I carry on, but today I am very serious, I say to the minister, because this affects my district to the extent that if this minister makes a wrong decision, which he is capable of doing, and which he has done in the past, then those people will find themselves on the way to Alberta or British Columbia because of the actions of one man. That is wrong.

The fishery of the future is one on which we all have our thoughts and ideas. We got away from placing blame; all that is over and done with. Now we are looking ahead to the way things should be. We all have our ideas on what the fishery of the future is like, or what the fishery of the future should be like. The minister has his, the Member for Burin-Placentia West has hers, the Members for Terra Nova, Trinity North, because we are hearing it every day. Every day, everywhere we go, somebody is saying to the Member for Trinity North, and to me, and to other members here, what they would like to see the fishery of the future be. Everywhere he goes he is seeing the hurt that has been brought on, and the despair that is out there, by the mistakes that were made in the past.

Now today, because somebody has a great feeling about themselves, because somebody feels that he has all the answers, somebody comes out and decides: I'm going to put forward a piece of legislation that is going to give me the authority to do what I always want to do. What happens to this particular minister if he makes a mistake? Let's look at the minister for a (inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: I don't make mistakes.

MR. FITZGERALD: Minister, I hate to refer to it, but what you did the other day as it refers to a certain industry in our Province is unforgivable. You know it and I know it, and I will say no more, because I don't even want to be a part of it. The Member for Bay d'Espoir knows it.

MR. EFFORD: What are you talking about?

MR. FITZGERALD: You know very well what I'm talking about. Here is the same minister who is coming forward now and saying: Trust me, because I have all the answers. Leave it in my office. Let them come forward to Exxon House and I will tell them what they can do and what they cannot do.

Mr. Speaker, there are only two ministers on the opposite side, and I say this in all sincerity, who really scare me. It really scares me that they have influence. There are only two ministers, and the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture is -

AN HON. MEMBER: Two of them.

MR. FITZGERALD: No, he isn't two of them, he is one of them. Scares me (inaudible). Just stop and listen. What happens if the minister makes a mistake, and if he is flicked out of Cabinet, and if he goes back to his native home, saying (inaudible), you know, what happens to him? He goes back. I saw him a couple of terms ago here arguing with somebody on the other side about who had the most money. They were flicking their credit cards and all that, Mr. Speaker.

What happens to the minister? He goes back to Port de Grave, and he goes into oblivion and retires. He travels around the Province in his boat, completely removed, completely unaffected, by the decision that he makes.

What happens to the people in your district, I say to the member for Trinity North? What happens to the people over in the district of the gentlemen from Burgeo & LaPoile? What happens to the people in your district? What happens to the people in Bonavista North? Here is a prime example, right here. `Old suspenders' himself. Here is a prime example of a person who should be concerned.

MR. SHELLEY: He called himself a natural gas plant the other day.

MR. FITZGERALD: Here is a person who should be concerned. I mean, I know a lot of people on the north side of Bonavista Bay. There are a lot of good fishermen there. Do you want, I say to the member, do you want one man - forget who he is today, although you should never forget who he is, but lets lay him aside for the argument that I am putting forward here. Would you want -

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

MR. SPEAKER (Barrett): Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader, on a point of order.

MR. TULK: My friend there from Port de Grave is being assailed and I want to assure the hon. gentlemen from Bonavista South that after Port de Grave is taken care of Bonavista North is next in line.

MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Abuse, Mr. Speaker, that is total abuse. We are here dealing with a very, very serious subject today and the Government House Leader shrugs it off as a laugh. We are not use to seeing that. We are use to seeing a Government House Leader that would come here and listen to a great speech like I am giving today and make notes and nod his head in agreement.

The former House leader may have been involved in drugs, but he had his wits about him, I say to the minister. He had his wits about him and he knew, Mr. Speaker, what was happening. Very professional, Mr. Speaker. This member here comes forward and just taps his old buddy on the back and says: We believe in what you are doing and we trust you, but minister you have to be careful. You are a fellow who is supposed to sit in the House and you know the House rules very well. I will praise you a little bit now. You know the House rules very well, I will give you credit for that, and you have been around for a long, long time. I know when you were sitting in the opposite benches, Mr. Minister, that you would never let one minister, one person, control the lives of the 300,000 or 400,000 Newfoundlanders. Do not depend on the person, you have one man there today and another minister there, Mr. Speaker, in two or three years time.

So if we are going to go and allow one person to decide what the fishery of the future is going to look like and push his views forward on everybody involved in this particular industry, then God help us, Mr. Speaker. I do not know if we should be allowed to survive. If any member opposite will speak in favour of this piece of legislation, then they are no better.

If the minister really believed in helping this particular industry, rather than having the ego of wanting to go out and put the rubber stamp, stick out his chest and say, I did this or I did something else, Mr. Speaker, the minister wants to be serious and sincere. Let him go out and consult the people, go out and ask the people. Don't go into the communities and ask only the school teachers or only the doctors, go out and consult the people out there that work in the industry.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do you want a license for Port Union?

MR. FITZGERALD: Do I want a license for Port Union? I want anything that I can get for Port Union that will allow the people to go back to work. That is what I want for Port Union, nothing less, and I am scared that that will not happen if you are allowed to continue in the same vein that you have been operating in for the past five or six months.

So, this piece of legislation gives me great concern, Mr. Speaker.

MR. J. BYRNE: When is Chuck coming home? Is he allowed to come home? What is he after doing now he is not allowed home?

AN HON. MEMBER: He is coming home for Christmas.

MR. FITZGERALD: I doubt it.

MR. J. BYRNE: I'll be home for Christmas.

AN HON. MEMBER: Does he give you the willies?

MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, he does give me the willies.

When you look at this minister being able to dictate where plants go, what type of plant is allowed to exist here, what they are allowed to process, who gets the license, who is allowed to transfer licenses from one area to another, what have we come to? Why do you need a Cabinet? You have a one-man show over there and it seems like there is nobody in Cabinet who is going to question this. If I were part of an organization and if I had to accept the blame of what happened, then I would want to be part of the decision making. I would want to be able to express my constituents' views and my views before some of those decisions are made.

The minister, in his wisdom, is saying: First of all, I want you to confirm that I am the minister. I want you to tell me I am the minister, confirm that, and then give me all the authority to go and decide who gets a fishing licence, what species they are allowed to process, where the plants are, what I consider to be regional areas. Leave it with me, trust me and I will look after you. Mr. Speaker, this is what gives me great concern.

If we are going to exercise our judgement in a partisan way, a partisan way as has happened here in the past and happens far too often with such an important piece of legislation and with such an important industry in this Province today, Mr. Speaker, then we deserve to get a black eye and we don't deserve to have this industry come back and flourish as it was before. I do not believe that is going to happen. I think it is obvious that this piece of legislation is not going to pass through the House today, it is obvious.

I would think there are members opposite who are now looking, and if you see some movement around the House, they are going out and are getting Bill 21, to see exactly what it says.

AN HON. MEMBER: Bill what?

MR. FITZGERALD: I believe that. When you say Bill what, I believe that minister. I doubt very much minister that you have even read the bill.

MR. J. BYRNE: Which minister? The Minister of education. Put it on the record.

MR. FITZGERALD: I ask the member for Marystown, if she has read this bill, if she has talked to her constituents about it, and if she has not, would she go back and ask them if they are willing to put their faith, their trust, their livelihoods and their future in the hands of one man? Ask them. As much faith as the people of Marystown has in the member, came in top of the poll in all of Newfoundland and Labrador, so they obviously have a lot, I can assure you that when she comes back again and privately speaks with the minister that she will tell him that she has some problem with this.

She has some problem with this bill, because she went to Tim Hortons in Marystown the other morning and ten people approached her and said: I heard Roger Fitzgerald in the House the other day and he made a lot of sense. The Member for Bonavista South made a lot of sense in what he was talking about, he knew what he was talking about and he pointed out something that might be allowed to slip through the House.

MR. J. BYRNE: Ask the member for Mount Pearl what she thinks about it?

MR. FITZGERALD: The member for Mount Pearl, well, you know, she is certainly concerned about the fishing industry because it is an industry from which a lot of the revenue is spent in her town. She does not have any wharves there or slipways, but I can assure you she is concerned. Everybody who lives in Mount Pearl has relatives out around the bay. That is what Mount Pearl is made up of. I have all kinds of relatives in Mount Pearl and everybody here knows somebody in Mount Pearl, everybody here. There is a minister who has nobody in Conception Bay South. The Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs has nobody in Conception Bay South, but everybody else has people, I am sure, who live in the area somewhere.

If she were to go and speak to her people out there and ask if they trust this minister to have this much power, I am telling you that she will come back again with her wisdom and say that we have a problem here.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: You may have that faith in that minister, I say to the member, but what about the next minister? We do not say we are going to grant those powers to John Efford. We do not say we are going to grant those powers to the member for Port de Grave. What we are saying - this could even end up to be the minister who just walked in, God save us! Supposing it was him, God bless us, supposing it was him, would you have the same faith? Supposing it was the Member for Carbonear, would you have the same faith?

This is what is happening, Mr. Speaker, we are trusting on two people here. We are trusting on the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture and I suppose the person, in their wisdom, who decides who that person might be; and that's it. Cabinet is totally removed from the decision making process of what the fishery of this Province, what the fishery of the future, will look like. I, for one, do not intend to let this piece of legislation, with such grave implications, Mr. Speaker, on rural Newfoundland and Labrador, pass through this House without asking some questions, without asking why.

Why hasn't the system worked so far? Is it any big problem with our parliamentary system, as we know it, whereby Cabinet makes decisions, whereby decisions of this magnitude are brought back to the people's House to be discussed? Do we have a great problem with that, as legislators? That is why we are here. We are here because we want to make sure that every piece of legislation that is brought into this House, brought through here that will go out and affect our people, we want to make sure that we have every opportunity to ask questions, take part in debate, point out the inequities and the shortcomings, put forward our concerns and receive answers on them. Only then, Mr. Speaker, will such a piece of legislation, or any piece of legislation, be allowed to become law, be allowed to be proclaimed by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, Mr. Speaker. That is why we are here. That is the way our democratic process works.

I ask the Minister of Justice, if he has reviewed this piece of legislation and if he has passed it on to his solicitors and if they had any problems with this piece of legislation?

MR. DECKER: Yes and no.

MR. FITZGERALD: Okay and we can put them, I guess, in any order we want. Yes, he has concerns about them and no, he never asked anybody what it was all about.

Mr. Speaker, this is my great concern here. We have to stop looking at ourselves and we have to stop saying that we are okay. I would like to have the power myself. I would love to have the power to be able to go out and decide myself -

MR. EFFORD: You will never make it.

MR. FITZGERALD: I hope I don't. I hope nobody every grants me the power to be able to make such decisions by myself. I hope nobody ever grants it to me. I don't want it, I say to the minister. If I am going to go and make a decision, Mr. Speaker, if I am going to go and be part of a decision I would go out and seek input. I would talk to people and I would say to the Cabinet, Mr. Speaker, which is getting paid and which sits as a group together, to give me guidance and give me direction. This one minister today can make those decisions separate from Cabinet, separate from the members opposite, separate from the House of Assembly, Mr. Speaker. All you can do is come back and expect them to give you an answer or, in his own way, to answer a question that you might put forward as it relates to the people in your district. That is wrong and it should never be allowed to happen.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I hesitate to interrupt the hon. member but it is 4:00 p.m. and under our Standing Orders it is time to read the questions for the adjournment of debate at 4:30 p.m., but probably the member would like a break at this time.

The first question is: I am dissatisfied with the answer provided by the Minister of Health, re: my question, health care funding. That is from the hon. member for Conception Bay South.

The second question is to the Minister of Education, re: special education report. That is from the hon. member for St. John's East.

The third question is to the Minister of Finance on electricity rates, from electricity rates, the hon. the Member for Kilbride.

The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, those are some of the things that concern me. I do not think the minister of today, or any other minister, should be allowed to go and flick out licenses, and be allowed to decide how big the boats are going to be. He is doing that now, or at least he is not putting any effort into changing it. He is not dealing with his cousins up in Ottawa at all. From what I understand there is a rift there now. I am beginning to believe that. There is very little consultation between the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture and the federal minister up in Ottawa, very little reference between the two. I understand that is happening. That is what happened to Bud, the last minister. That was the start of it, and now it is happening here.

Mr. Speaker, many of the people here on this side are very anxious to put forward their suggestions. In fear of repeating myself, I say to members opposite: Pick up Bill 21, and when you stand at your convention on the weekend, and you look for direction from your people, when the times comes for you to stand on the floor of the Gander Hotel - I suppose there will be a few fishermen there - I do not know what you are charging for the admission fee to you event, but I suppose there will some fishermen there and some fish plant workers, some down-to-earth common people, I say to the people opposite, get up and ask your people.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, there will so when somebody makes a motion that it not be allowed to happen. Get up and ask your people if they are willing to put this kind of power into the hands of the minister, because this is what this piece of legislation says. I am not standing up here today because I enjoy shouting and hollering. I do not want to be here like this today. I would rather sit down and listen to somebody else speak.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. FITZGERALD: What was that?

Look at Bill 21, I say to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, and ask your people if they are willing to put this kind of power into the hands of one minister. I do not care if it is the Member from Port de Grace. I do not care who he is. Nobody should be allowed that kind of authority. Or ask if they would rather have it go back to Cabinet where collectively they make a decision?

Mr. Speaker, this minister was suppose to put in an industry renewal board that was suppose to travel the Province and seek input on what the processing sector would look like. The minister of the day said he was not going to get involved in deciding which fish plants are going to open or which fish plants are going to close. He was not going to get involved in that. He said he did not want to play God. He was going to let the marketplace detect what the fishery of the future would be like.

AN HON. MEMBER: Tell them what would have happened if I had not (inaudible) previous Minister of Fisheries. Look at all the control he would have had.

MR. FITZGERALD: That is right, and with the job I did on him as critic.

Mr. Speaker, it was only the other night when I was driving home that I was saying to myself: Roger, what have you contributed since you have been in the House of Assembly? Are you just there collecting a pay cheque? Or do your views and your opinions, and the things you say in the House, mean anything? I thought about the few things I have done since I have been elected, and I am going to pad myself on the back now for a moment.

First of all, because of the policies and because of the actions of the former Minister of Words, Services and Transportation, he disappeared - gone! Then I was elected and was the critic for the Department of Social Services. Now where is the minister who was the Minister of Social Services at that time? Gone, Mr. Speaker! I maintained being a critic for the Department of Social Services, and where is that minister now? Gone, I say to the member! Then I changed portfolios and they put me critic to the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture at the time. Where is that minister? Gone! So, minister, take heed.

AN HON. MEMBER: Take heed; you will soon be gone.

MR. FITZGERALD: You will soon be gone.

AN HON. MEMBER: Bud II.

MR. FITZGERALD: Bud II.

Mr. Speaker, not wanting to make light of this piece of legislation, because I am very, very serious when I put forward my concerns -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: You shouldn't either.

Mr. Speaker, what I suggest to the minister is that he refer this piece of legislation to the resource committee of the House. That is why committees are put in place. If there is a piece of contentious legislation, if there are some concerns expressed, that is why we have the standing committees of the House of Assembly. Put it forward and let those people review it and see if there is need for any further input or any further consultation. That is why we have the standing committees of the House. That is democracy.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is what the premier of the day said.

MR. FITZGERALD: Absolutely. But I guess this is the reason you see that democracy doesn't work, because the minister wants to sidestep, the minister wants to short-circuit, all those democracy rules and regulations. He wants to run a dictatorship. That should not be allowed to happen. That is what I suggest to the minister. I suggest that he use the committee of the House. I suggest that he look again at this piece of legislation. I suggest that he look at that, because I can assure you that our phones will be ringing this weekend, the processors will be calling, the fishermen will be calling, the fish plant workers will be calling, and they will be expressing their thoughts and their views and their concerns, and rightly so. We have to learn from the mistakes we made in the past. The minister is the first one to say this, but still he reaches out and says: Trust me, allow me. We have trusted politicians and one-man shows too much in the past, and that is why we are where we are today. That is why we have a process.

AN HON. MEMBER: (inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: I trust Cabinet. We come together as a caucus every morning and if we have some concerns, or if there is something that we feel is too great a decision for one person to make, we talk about it. We reason it out. I think most men and women on the opposite side are no less reasonable than we are.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: No, I believe that. I said most of them.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: What are you talking for? You have nothing to decide.

MR. FITZGERALD: Minister, you spent too much time out in Conception Bay South knocking on doors when you should have been preparing yourself for the House of Assembly. You spent too much time out in C.B.S. knocking on doors, I say to the member opposite. I don't know what good you will do.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Sunday afternoon, campaigning on Sunday afternoon.

MR. FITZGERALD: I saw him, I say to the member.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: Can I prove it? I don't want to prove it. Why would I want to prove that I saw him out there? Every time the Member for Topsail speaks, he goes right to the legalities of it. Can you prove it? What's the litigation?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FITZGERALD: Oh no, he isn't tied up with that. He is the first to admit that he isn't a QC. (Inaudible) and I should have asked you what you thought of this piece of legislation, because of the legalities that are there, because of the concern that - the Member for Topsail, QC, should be looking at that and reading it and studying it instead of shouting across the House at such a wonderful speech. That is what you should be doing. You should be whispering in the minister's ear, pointing out the inequities and the shortcomings of this piece of legislation.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: It isn't terrible, that is the truth. It is a terrible truth.

MR. J. BYRNE: You are an honourable man.

MR. FITZGERALD: I am an honourable man. There is no doubt about that. That is why I am pointing out the shortcomings.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, he is not allowed to do that, but he doesn't understand the rules of the House. That is the only way the member opposite will ever get in the front benches, to sit there illegally. The other member there from Labrador is smiling like a fox. Look at him. He is saying to himself: Such is not the case with me.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Madam Clerk. She says that I am making a lot of sense.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, I stand here today and use an hour of my time to point out what this minister did not point out. He stood on a piece of legislation, he talked about the commas, he talked about the ands and the buts, but he did not tell anybody -I suppose he did not think that we would read it either. He thought that we would stand up and say: Yes, there is nothing wrong with this piece of legislation. Mr. Speaker, there is a lot wrong with it. If any processor on this Island today has to go be a Liberal or a Tory or a New Democrat in order to decide whether they are going to get a fishing license or not, there is something wrong; and that is what is comes down to.

When you see the action of this Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, by granting the other three crab licenses without consulting the industry, without talking to the processors out there, without putting forward those licenses to people who probably very deservingly needed to get them, and wanted them, and should of had them, then you know that there is something wrong. When you look at the licenses, who they went to, how they got them, then you should be worried. You should be worried because the minister knows who the principals are at the fish plant down in St. Lawrence. The minister knows who they are. I have asked him here in the House, and I have told them the names, and he blatantly got up and said no; I know different than that, I know who they are.

Mr. Speaker, this is what is going to happen. This is what you are going to see the fishery of the future look like. You are going to see the buddies of the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture get their licenses; you are going to see the buddies of the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture being allowed to transfer their licenses; and you are going to see the buddies of the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture being allow to have processing facilities in their particular areas or their particular districts.

I think people on the Bonavista Peninsula, people on the Burin Peninsula, people on the Northern Peninsula, people on the South Coast and the West Coast, deserve better than that. I think they should be allowed to come forward, put forward their suggestions to an independent board, and the minister and the Cabinet should be allow to hear that board, and hear what their recommendations are. That should not be allowed to be done by one minister.

Only the other day he took a gentlemen whom he had sent out to bring back their suggestions, to talk to people and listen to people and bring back their suggestions of what they thought the fishery of the future should be like, and the minister did not like it. He said on the Fisheries Broadcast: I did not like what Cashin had to say, so I sent him back. Did any other Cabinet members hear what Richard Cashin had to say? No idea? He went before the Member for Port de Grave; he did not like it and he sent him back. I have to have a chat with the Premier about the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture because people out there do not trust him. People out there, once they find out that the fishery of the future is going to be placed in the hands of one person, whoever that person might be, I fear that you are going to hear a lot of people speak out.

AN HON. MEMBER: Best Minister of Fisheries since Bud Hulan.

MR. FITZGERALD: The Minister of Health said we have the best Minister of Fisheries since Bud Hulan.

Mr. Speaker, when I saw this particular act brought forward, I thought it was going to be an act on the inspection of fish facilities. I thought that was going to be the situation because the minister always speaks out and says how he believes in fishing, fisheries inspections, plant inspections and the like; and I do as well. When I saw him stand in his place the other day and he -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. J. BYRNE: By leave.

MR. FITZGERALD: Just to clue up.

MR. EFFORD: No leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member does not have leave.

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to make a few comments on Bill No. 21, "An Act To Amend The Fish Inspection Act," because -

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible) fish in Kilbride.

MR. E. BYRNE: Well there are a lot of fish in Petty Harbour and Maddox Cove. A lot of fishermen live in the Goulds.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: There are a lot of fishermen in my district on TAGS who have been equally and harshly affected by federal government decisions with respect to TAGS, I say to the minister.

Mr. Speaker, this bill really has nothing to do with, "An Act To Amend The Fish Inspection Act". Really the thrust and philosophy behind this bill is contrary to what government's philosophy and thrust has been on every other major issue.

We have another bill before us, for example, Bill 33, which is, "An Act To Amend The Expropriation Act." What government is attempting to do, in this piece of legislation, is provide an effective mechanism by where if there is disagreement between government and people outside in the public that there will be an effective mechanism independent, outside of government, to resolve it, an effective mechanism through the Public Relations Board. I only bring it to attention for one reason and one reason only, because government, in all of its dealings, in all of its departments have, on many occasions, each and every day, each and every year, since we have become a partner in Confederation, set up these types of processes so that the abuse and central power and authority does not belong to one individual, is not enshrined in one individual's hands.

With respect to other appeal boards; for example, agriculture, the minister responsible for agriculture and agrifoods, there are many, many mechanisms where people who disagree with government, who disagree with a minister's decisions, have the right to appeal.

Mr. Speaker, if there is one issue in the Province today that people in rural Newfoundland, in particular, are concerned about, especially those areas or regions that have depended solely upon fish plants operating in their areas, where many upon many people, hundreds of people in different regions working in fish plants are concerned about it is, will there be a fish plant in their region in the future and who will decide what plant will go and what plant will stay? Because it is at the heart, I say to the minister, and he knows it, it is at the heart of community and economic development for the future of this Province and for the future of many regions in the Province.

If I were the Minister of Development and Rural Renewal today I would be concerned. I would be very concerned because it is her responsibility to pursue and continue with the implementation and development of the economic development zones, to put in place boards that can make concrete and effective decisions about matters that affect a community that those boards will be charged with the power to represent, and to bring before government, private sector and any other group or agency proposals that will affect the future development of their region, and hopefully in a positive, positive way that will bring on the one hand economic development, that will bring increased jobs, that will diversify local economies and that in the end will bring increased taxes to the Province so that we all can provide better services.

What happens now? What role does the minister play with respect to, if a fish plant will survive in her district or in other economic development zones, if the minister responsible - and it is clear, I could be wrong but I don't think I am - but if the minister responsible, and it clearly says here, "Clause 2 of the bill would confirm the minister's authority to impose conditions on licences under the Act." It says, the minister may issue licenses under this, subject to the conditions that the minister - not Cabinet, not the Lieutenant-Governor in Council but the minister, outside of the present minister, whatever minister may be there, but that the minister considers to be appropriate.

So what happens if the minister, in his wisdom or her wisdom, whoever is sitting as Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, either today or two years from now, decides that fish plants, say on the Burin Peninsula, or a fish plant on the Southwest Coast: There are certain conditions around that which I think, and I solely think, that it should not go there, that it should go somewhere else? What happens? That is not just a matter for the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, that is a matter for the entire Cabinet. That is a matter for each and every legislator in this House, if decisions are being made detrimental to certain regions because of one person's decision or belief, that the decision they are about to make is what is right for that region or wrong for this region.

I am not sure that the people of the Province are so convinced that the present Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, or any other, should have the power to decide on whether their communities are going to survive down the road or not. I mean, each and every one of us does not have to be told the role a fish plant, or the licensing of a fish plant, plays in the sustainability of a rural economy. Nobody needs to be told that.

MR. EFFORD: You do not know any more than that about it, do you?.

MR. E. BYRNE: Is that right?

MR. EFFORD: You do not know any more than that about it.

MR. E. BYRNE: How is that? How do you figure that?

MR. EFFORD: You can have all licences you want, you can have all the fish plants, but if you do not have any fish, what, in the name of God, is (inaudible)?

MR. E. BYRNE: Well, minister, I suppose I make the same assumption that you do, that at some point in the near future there will be a limited fishery opened up, that with underutilized species which you are so fond of saying we should be pursuing, with development of multi-species operations, that there will be some form of fish plant operation and licences granted. You granted three earlier this year. I suspect that you would like to stand in your place next week and grant more if it was there, wouldn't you?

AN HON. MEMBER: Nobody from our district has asked for them.

MR. E. BYRNE: That is not the point. The point is you know that a limited fishery will return, you know that there will be downsizing in the industry. Now we have taken all of that capability and thrown all the decision making over to one person, in this case, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, in direct contravention to all other government initiatives.

Let me ask you this question and ask members here: Why did we set up a health care corporation? Why did we do that? We did it for one reason, government said, so that we could get all of the stakeholders involved in the decision making affecting health around the Province; an arm's length board of professionals, volunteer bodies set up to make those decisions. The Minister of Health did not want the decision alone, say on closing the Janeway. He said that was a decision made by the St. John's Health Care Board. He did not want that power; he passed it over. Government passed it over for one very good and solid reason. We may argue with the process, we may argue with the decisions they made, but for once, and for entirety, at least while the government is here, they have involved or attempted to involve stakeholders to help each and every one of us make decisions regarding the future of health care.

Now, why have we not done that with respect to the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture and the granting of licences both present and future? Government has the right to regulate, government has the right to ensure that certain criteria are met and that they are met equally, but at the same time we have a responsibility to ensure that decisions regarding communities, who gets a licence for a fish plant, who does not get a licence for a fish plant, are done with fair criteria in mind in a very independent way so that the process is depoliticized, so that the people who should get them, actually get them, the people who are willing to make long-term investments in rural economies, in rural Newfoundland actually get the opportunity to do so.

This bill is a piece of undemocratic legislation, Mr. Speaker, as I see it. I say to the minister, that whatever it takes to hold up the bill, we will do it.

MR. EFFORD: No.

MR. E. BYRNE: Absolutely, I say to the minister.

We look at recent documents coming out from the Department of Development and Rural Renewal, updating all members in the House, and indeed the general public, on the state of the development zones, and right across them everywhere, co-operation, written right across the documents. A federal-provincial initiative involving people in the process of community economic development was openly - that is what this minister's responsibility is about, to ensure that people who want to live in rural Newfoundland, who want to stay in rural Newfoundland, have the job opportunities to be able to do so. This minister, or any other minister for that matter, should not be frozen out of the process of deciding where a plant will or will not go.

If you take the plant out of Marystown, what would happen? What would happen if one of the FPI plants in Fortune were removed? Let us talk about it. What would happen if the plant in Fortune were closed down by FPI tomorrow? If FPI closed it down, Mr. Minister, what would happen to that community? What about the plant in Bonaventure - Trinity North? What would happen if that plant closed down?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Or in Trouty, sorry. What would happen if that plant closed down? What would happen to that community?

What would happen if one person, and this bill will give that one minister the complete and final say - we do not know what the conditions may be that he will consider from one week to the next, we have no idea what the decision may be. We have no idea of the criteria by which he will make those decisions. That is certainly provided here. He is under no obligation to provide it here, if this piece of legislation goes through, absolutely no obligation. So why should we even pursue this piece of legislation?

I will read it again, Mr. Speaker. "The minister may issue licenses under this act subject to the conditions that the minister considers to be appropriate." So, what would be appropriate, Mr. Minister? What would be the conditions surrounding what you would consider appropriate in granting licenses?

MR. FITZGERALD: What would he consider appropriate to get the plant down in Port Union opened? Tell us.

MR. E. BYRNE: Is he after the crab cartel that he talked about publicly last Spring? This is going to do that, is it?

MR. EFFORD: I have it done.

MR. E. BYRNE: Over, is it? It did not take you long. It did not take you long at all. The questions is: What would be the conditions? You have to be a Liberal is it? You have to be a Liberal to get a license.

MR. J. BYRNE: That is what the minister says.

MR. E. BYRNE: That is what you said. You have to represent a Liberal district. Is that what you are saying?

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible)

MR. E. BYRNE: You have to live in a Liberal district. Is that right or wrong? The plant has to go in a Liberal district?

MR. EFFORD: The plant has to be in a Liberal district.

MR. E. BYRNE: Right on.

AN HON. MEMBER: (inaudible)

MR. E. BYRNE: Oh, yes, the member represents Triton.

Mr. Minister, what happens, for example, if there is a major initiative put before Cabinet, a major proposal, a proposal that goes before your department in Cabinet to put a plant operation somewhere else? He still refuses to even say what the conditions are?

AN HON. MEMBER: It will not go before the Cabinet.

MR. E. BYRNE: That is the point, it will not go before Cabinet. It enshrines in one person in this Province, for the entire population, the authority to say, no you can't, yes you can. We do not even have to know the criteria or what the regulations are. We do not have to be told what the criteria or regulations are; nobody has to. That is not the way to do business in this Province today. This is the 1990s.

MR. SPEAKER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: I have been advised by the Speaker, it being 4:29 p.m. to adjourn the debate for the Late Show. I will finish up my next fifteen minutes, I guess, on Monday.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The first question is by the Member for Conception Bay South to the Minister of Health on health care funding.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am glad to see that the minister is back in for this. Several days ago I asked the minister a question concerning the Health Care Corporation, the construction of the Janeway, and the actual way in which we were going to construct the Janeway Hospital. I certainly was not happy with the answer given in this House, in Hansard, and I went back and researched it to make sure that I was correct. The minister assured this House that there would be some $25 to $30 million a year savings by closing the Grace, the Janeway and the Children's Rehab, and over a five-to-six-year period we would pay for the construction of the Janeway and have it attached to the Health Science Centre here in St. John's.

At the annual meeting of the Health Care Corporation, when asked how we intended to pay for this, we were told that it would cost probably some $100 million, that they really were not sure if the Health Care Corporation would borrow the money or if in actual fact the Department of Health would borrow the money, and that we would pay this loan off $10 million a year, and we would pay it out probably over a twenty-year period, which to me is roughly $200 million. It is certainly not the answer that the minister gave us here, I think it was May 24, if he can recollect that, and I think that somebody should be accountable for that. We have gone from $100 million to $200 million. I feel it is wrong, dead wrong, especially when the minister who is in charge of health in our Province, who this board answers to down the road, when they can say to us: No, no, no, we are not going to do it the way the minister told you we wanted it done, or the way we were going to do it; we are going to do this over twenty years. That is not what was said in this House on May 24; I think it was May 24. I may have the date wrong, but it was certainly May 24 that we were going to actually do this construction.

To me it is certainly a shame that we have to wonder now who really runs the health care. Is it being run by the Minister of Health? Is it being run by the Health Care Corporation? We asked the question and the minister answered in Hansard, and we certainly thank him for his answer, but he now has a different opinion. Earlier this week he told me that he was right and Sister Elizabeth Davis was right. Well, if we are going to pay if off in five years as the minister says, and we are going to pay it off in twenty years, as Sister Elizabeth Davis says, then, Mr. Minister, somebody's figures are wrong. Either your figures are wrong or Sister Elizabeth Davis' figures are wrong.

You told us five to six years. That is what you said in this House. I believe the Minister of Health, five to six years, I believe you. As the Premier would say, I believe he is an honourable man. That is what the Premier would say, and I have known the hon. minister for some time so I certainly believe the minister. As the Premier would say, he is certainly an honourable man. In my book he is an honourable man.

To go from five to six years to a twenty year period, there is something wrong here. There is something wrong when we are going to go from the figures that the minister gave us, over five or six years, to what Sister Elizabeth Davis gave us.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. FRENCH: Pardon? No, no, no, you should go back to reading your paper, Minister; you have been asleep most of the afternoon. Let me try and get an answer to my question will you, please? Just go back to the paper. Stay out of Conception Bay South; stay out of Ralph's district. Do not go up campaigning any more on Sunday with your fedora down around your eyes - the hon. Member for Topsail - so that hopefully nobody would see him; his wife driving him around in his four-wheel drive, fedora down around his eyes so hopefully he would not be recognized, hoping that his brother, or his brother-in-law, was going to make it on council. Now, if he had called the hon. Member for Topsail he probably could have done him a few favours and maybe got him a couple of votes, but I am sure the last thing that we wanted to see in Topsail was the Minister of Education campaigning in the local election.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: But he was discovered.

MR. FRENCH: He was discovered; he was found it. Now, that is not what this question is all about, so let him go back to doing what he was doing. That is okay, you are alright over there. So I say to the Member for Topsail: Be careful, because he might be sniffing around for another district; you never know. You have to be careful of these things.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, I hope that we get a good answer to this question -

MR. SPEAKER (Walsh): Order, please!

The hon. member's time has expired.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you very much.

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There are a couple of basic things that need to be addressed on behalf of the hon. member who puts the question today, or expresses a dissatisfaction with the answer of the other day. I suppose a little lesson in English wouldn't hurt him, in which he might learn the difference between the words `can' and `will'. If he figured out the difference between `can' and `will', he might be able to figure out some of the things that were in my answer.

The other thing that he probably would be helped greatly with is if he had done some math courses and found out the facts of life with respect to the issue of amortization of loans and paying back one's borrowed money, the basic cost that is inherent in that type of thing.

I want to reiterate again for the hon. member that both Sister Elizabeth in her answer to the question at the Health Care Corporation's meeting, and my answer in the House, are correct answers. What I have said is this, and what she has said is this: Number one, we will spend about $100 million to construct new space for the new Janeway and changes at the Health Science and St. Clare's. Number two, we will save - or at least it is projected, and I have confidence that we will save - about $25 million a year as a result of closing those two facilities. Number three, we can, if we wish, take that $100 million at $25 million a year and quickly pay off the cost of the new construction, which is $100 million. There would be a few dollars interest involved, of course. Or we can, or we may, as a matter of fact, as Sister Elizabeth proposed, decide not to pay off all of that over four or five years; in other words, decide not to take the $25 million savings and dedicate it totally to loan reduction. We may take a portion of that to put into other areas of health care service and take a portion of it, if you like, to pay off the amortized loan of $100 million.

Sister Elizabeth said correctly that we can take $100 million loan and pay it off over twenty years and it would be a total cost of about $200 million. It is just like buying a house for $100,000, paying it off over twenty years; the house costs you $200,000. Or we can take the full savings from the closed facilities and quickly liquidate the capital cost that we have incurred.

We will make the decision at the time at which we have to, which is about 1999. We will either take all of the savings, if we don't need them in other areas of health care, and quickly liquidate the $100 million, or we may take a little longer period of time to pay off the $100 million -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: If the hon. member wants to ask a question, what is your question?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: What I said in the House before was entirely correct. I would suggest that if you really believe, or if you are really saying that you haven't heard what I have said, we have within the health care system, fortunately, some very good audiology services. I would be happy to see that you got your ears checked, because you are not hearing, or you are not listening.

We will decide at the end of the construction, 1999 or thereabouts -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. MATTHEWS: - how we will liquidate -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. MATTHEWS: By leave, Mr. Speaker?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

No leave.

MR. MATTHEWS: No leave?

MR. SPEAKER: No leave.

I distinctly heard "No leave!" to my right.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: The short answer, Mr. Speaker, is that we are both right.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair anticipated no leave.

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Mr. Speaker, earlier this week the hon. Minister of Education released a very important report, which was commissioned by government, with respect to the many issues surrounding special education in this Province. The report indicates that we have some very serious concerns as it relates to issues of reading, remedial reading amongst our young people, poverty, and how that relates to education, and other issues surrounding special disabilities and learning deficiencies among students in our Province.

In response to a question as to when attention will be given to these concerns, the minister gave an indication that it would still be some while. I am asking right now for some clarification, Mr. Speaker, to the hon. minister: Number one, why it is taking that long; and, number two, exactly when it is anticipated that these serious problems, which have been raised in this recently released report, will be appropriately addressed and corrected.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

With respect to the issue of timing, one of the real concerns I am sure shared by all members of the House, including members opposite, is that when any study is done of any particular topic, such as this one that we are talking about now directly, special education services in the school system of Newfoundland and Labrador, a group was commissioned and took the better part of the year to travel the Province, do some study, and at the end of it to make some recommendations. Mr. Speaker, they did a fairly extensive piece of work. They contacted a lot of people. In any event, the people that they contacted and the students that they are trying to make recommendations to serve better had no idea, until just a couple of days ago, what the authors of the report were suggesting as solutions.

Mr. Speaker, when people talk about timing with respect to this, I did meet with the primary author of the report in July month and we discussed a draft copy of the report. It was clearly indicated by the author, Dr. Canning, that she was anxious to let me see the draft copy because she wanted me, as the minister, to know the types of directions they were suggesting, but that the report at the time was not available for even printing because she admitted that their own committee recognized that it needed another read even for purposes of grammatical errors, spelling, and those types of things. We met early so that I would know the flavour of the report that they were going to make officially.

They finished their full review. The other thing - because of the extensive nature of the report - that I requested of Dr. Canning was that I felt it would be useful if there was a summary of the report, because most people who have an interest unfortunately do not have the time or the ability to go through the details of several hundred pages and several hundred recommendations. Many of the presenters presented on a specific issue, and with an executive summary they could go straight to that issue, look at the recommendation, and make some consideration and decision as to whether they agreed or disagreed. What we have done is provide the copies to all those people. They will now come back to the government and let us know whether they agree. These are not government decisions. There seems to be some misrepresentation of this by members opposite. This is a report from an independent committee who was given no specific direction from the government other than to study the issue and make recommendations. Now, Mr. Speaker, we have to consider the recommendations, and I do not think anyone would have thought it reasonable that I would have tabled this report on behalf of the government on Monday, in the Legislature, and announced the same day exactly what we were going to do about it.

So we have the fact that all of the prime educational partners, and the people who took the time to get involved, will now want to look at what they said to the committee in light of what the committee has recommended, because I made it clear publicly on Monday that there are advocates for groups of these people who will disagree with some of the recommended directions in this document. We have to give them time to respond to the government, as to whether they agree or disagree. So a study group has made a recommendation. The people of special interest in these special matters will now take some time to consider the views, tell us whether they agree or disagree, and then at that point in time, the government will see what actions it will consider to be appropriate and proper, reflecting the views of the committee, the recommendations made and the views of those people interested in seeing how these recommendations stack up against what they suggested. Just as I announced today with the public consultation with respect to Education Reform generally, we reported today on what the people said.

There will be a lot of people who will be very interested when we table the legislation, to see if the legislation incorporates anything of what they said. There are a lot of people out there today studying this report very interested in seeing if the recommendations in here reflect the directions that they proposed, and that will take some time, Mr. Speaker, for that process to have some credibility. We expect that we will hear back from the agencies and the interested groups maybe by the end of February. I said, in all honesty and openness, we are not trying to delay anything. We are trying to move, Mr. Speaker, at an appropriate pace and we expect that by the beginning of the school year next year, we might even be in a position to -

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. GRIMES: - take some action on some of the recommendations.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Earlier this week I asked the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board a question related to the increase of electricity rates as it relates to the new harmonized sales tax, and the impact that the harmonized sales tax will have on the electricity rates. I also asked him a question with respect to the recent decision and the recent process that the Public Utilities Board has gone through dealing with Newfoundland Power's rate application, and specifically asked him: Why did government, on the one hand, pursue at all costs, certainly at the request of many people in the Province as represented here by the some 70,000-name petition that was presented in the House, asking the government to do whatever they could, whatever was within their power to ensure that electricity rates would not increase any further from what they were at that time back in May. Government said: Yes. We are not going to interfere with an independent board such as the Public Utilities Board, we are going to operate at arm's length, that is why it is there; and we agree with that. At the same time the Premier responded saying that he and his government would do whatever was necessary and would give whatever resources, both personal and financial, of the government, of any department, to the Consumer Advocate to ensure that the consumer's case in this Province was represented; and to that end we supported that. The Consumer Advocate did an admirable job. He represented the interests of the average rate payer, taxpayer, and in essence the people of the Province, in a very professional way. It cost this government $300,000 to ensure that would happen, ultimately, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that electricity rates would not increase, because I believe government heard the message that was delivered to them at the day. Yet, Mr. Speaker, at the very same time government entered into an agreement with the federal government to harmonize the provincial sales tax, or RST retail sales tax and the GST, and the impact that will have on electricity rates in this Province will cause them to increase more than what Newfoundland Power was initially asking for.

Now, the minister stood and I asked him why, on the one hand, government provided so much support to the Consumer Advocate to ensure that electricity rates in the Province were kept to a bare minimum, but yet on the other hand, signed and entered into an agreement with the federal government on HST that had the effect of increasing electricity rates in this Province to close to nearly 8 per cent. Now, in the minister's response he said: Well, that is not necessarily true, they will increase some 4 to 4.5 per cent because what the hon. member has failed to do is factor in the cost of input tax credits that will be available to each and every rate payer at the end of the year. That is what the Minister of Finance said. It was a weak response. It was a very weak response. I suggest that the minister have a chat with some of the people at Newfoundland Power who publicly have said that the impact of harmonized sales tax on electricity rates will be about 7.4 to 7.8 per cent. That is what was said publicly by the utility that is collecting from each and every one of us.

Irrespective of the issue, Mr. Speaker, whether it is 4.5, 7.4, or 8 per cent, the fact remains that the impact of the HST will cause electricity rates on the one hand to go up significantly while at the same time government earlier this year spend a tremendous amount of money to ensure that they would not, to support the Consumer Advocate. That is what the people of the Province are asking.

The final question I asked the minister on Monday was: Will he consider, and will he bring before Cabinet, and will he make a commitment, that when the HST becomes law, when it takes effect on April 1, 1997, will he ensure that electricity rates are exempt and that home owners in this Province, people who are marginalised because of no jobs or on fixed incomes or a class of people, as we know, the working poor, that their electricity rates will not rise by some $300 to $400 a year. That is the question I ask the minister. He has yet to respond, in my mind, satisfactorily and that is why I propose it again here today.

Thank you.

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

MR. DICKS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just wish to say to the hon. member - he said my remarks in response to his question were somewhat weak the other day. I just want to say that I tend to gear my remarks to the mind that receives them.

MR. J. BYRNE: That is a good one.

MR. DICKS: Thank you.

May I just say first of all, the hon. member asked -

MR. E. BYRNE: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, sitting in this House with a former House leader, I can say to the Minister of Finance that that was a feeble attempt to mimic a former colleague of his, I can tell him.

MR. SPEAKER: No point of order.

The hon. the Minister of Finance.

MR. DICKS: I tend to agree with the hon. member on that, but not in response to substantive matters he raised. I would just like to say, the hon. member raised three issues. The first had to do with the government's response to a rate increase application by Newfoundland Light and Power Public Utilities Board. I think the government did the only thing that was proper, appropriate and effective and that was to appoint somebody to actually go to the hearings and oppose them.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DICKS: I see. I misunderstood to a point.

I agree that it was expensive, but I think it was very effective if one looks at the results of the increase. I am glad to see that the hon. member agrees.

The second thing is, on harmonization, the point needs to be made that harmonization is bringing down taxes in this Province substantially on essentially retail goods and services and it is bringing it down from 19.84 per cent to 15 per cent. That is going to be substantial benefit across the board to all individuals. The government studies that they have done using the statistical analysis of Stats Canada, shows that at all income levels people will benefit. A family that has a $10 thousand income will net approximately $182 in benefits and reduced taxes as a result of this tax. As a person's income increases the percentage of savings goes down, but the absolute amount goes up. So, for example over $75,000 we expect that most people, most family units, will be in the vicinity of $1100 in tax savings. Now, having said that -

AN HON. MEMBER: Just for my own information, there will be no such thing as the GST tax refund (inaudible).

MR. DICKS: Yes, there will be. The federal government will continue to send out the GST refund on its 7 per cent.

AN HON. MEMBER: On a quarterly basis the same as we are getting now.

MR. DICKS: Yes, the same as we are getting now.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DICKS: Yes, exactly. In other words, Mr. Speaker, all the GST system applies. I guess where the analysis - most people are not aware of it - we do have a concern with utility rates. Our concern is that there will be an impact on - an increase, and not as dramatic as the hon. member states. Our analysis shows that once the business, whether it is both Hydro and Newfoundland Light and Power, give input tax credit flow-throughs, that will eventually lead to reduction.

I point out two things that happened in the recent utilities board decision. One was that it cut back on the rate increase requested by Newfoundland Light and Power by 1 per cent to take that into account, and secondly it commissioned a study by an accounting firm, that I think is supposed to be due by the end of this year, to determine what the flow-through should be of RST credits, or GST credits. So I think eventually our analysis is that the impact of the GST will not be 8 per cent. It will be closer to 4 per cent to 5 per cent, but it is something we do plan to follow.

The final point I want to make is that we do share -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DICKS: Pardon me?

AN HON. MEMBER: There will definitely be an increase (inaudible).

MR. DICKS: There will be an increase, yes. So there are two points. One is, there will be an increase. I think it is overstated, and we will eventually determine that, and the utility board has a mechanism in place to do that. Having said that, we do have a concern for individuals who may be disproportionately affected. The group that I have in mind are people who are perhaps on low income, are living in older homes that are not properly insulated, and so on. That 8 per cent or 4 per cent or 5 per cent, as the case may be, may disproportionately affect certain groups.

For people on higher incomes I think it would be less so, that people who pay a little more on their domestic fuel will benefit from the broad spectrum of services and goods that will have reduced tax. So I have less concern for people with higher incomes, but I do say that we do plan to monitor what happens with the various income groups, but particularly lower income groups for whom a disproportionate amount of their income is dedicated to home heating fuel and electricity rates. We will have to monitor that and, frankly, if we feel that they are unfairly impacted then we may very well move to have some sort of program that addresses that, whether it is through social services or some form of rebate or another.

What I would rule out is any across the board exemption for every person who purchases domestic fuel in this Province, or electricity. I don't think we can allow everybody to have the marvellous advantage of a very drastically reduced tax rate on all the other goods and yet give them protection from any increases that may occur. We feel that most family units will see something of an increase on their electricity bill, for example, which will be more than offset by the other goods and services that they purchase, and a reduction in effect from 20 per cent down to 15 per cent.

We share the hon. member's concern. We don't agree with his analysis, but we do plan to follow this, and if necessary have some form of relief for the people who are unfairly impacted.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, before you call the adjournment motion, I would like to remind hon. members that by agreement the House will not be meeting tomorrow, Friday, and when we adjourn we will be meeting on Monday.

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

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We agree to that arrangement for tomorrow but maybe, before we leave, shall we say the temporary Government House Leader -

AN HON. MEMBER: Deputy deputy.

MR. H. HODDER: Maybe you might want to advise us when we may be able to receive copies of the two bills which were given first reading today, as they have not been distributed.

MR. DECKER: I will have to take that question under advisement.

I can assure the hon. member that they will be made available at the earliest possible date, hopefully on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, but at the earliest available date they will be made available. I should tell the hon. member that we would hope, on Monday, to finish up the Fish Inspection Act; that may be three or four minutes. Then we are going to move to Bill No. 23, "An Act To Amend The Registered Nurses Act", and if we get that one done we are going on to Bill 24, "An Act To Amend The Jury Act", and then, depending on how it goes, we will go from there.

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

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We agree with the order for Monday. I can assure the hon. member that if we get the same kind of answers that we got today from the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture we are going to be here for awhile, because we need some answers and some assurances that the kind of power you are looking for you are not going to get without a great deal of opposition from all hon. members on this side of the House. Do have a good convention (inaudible).

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until Monday, November 25, at 2:00 o'clock.