The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!

Before we begin our Routine Proceedings, I would like to welcome to the gallery today fourteen Level III students from Sacred Heart School in Conche, the District of The Straits & White Bay North. They are accompanied by teachers: Ms Ida Gardiner and Ms Tina Fudge, along with chaperones: Ms Alice Flynn, Mr. Austin Gardiner and Mr. Melvin MacDonald.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to offer congratulations to a long time friend, a former member of this House of Assembly, and for many decades a leader in the Newfoundland and Labrador fishing industry, Mr. Alec D. Moores, on his induction later today into the Junior Achievement Newfoundland and Labrador Business Hall of Fame.

Mr. Moores was born at Blackhead, Conception Bay, in 1919 and began his working career at age sixteen with the Bank of Nova Scotia in Fogo.

Mr. Moores is a pioneer of the modern fishery and began his career in the fishery in 1947 with North Eastern Fish Industries Ltd. as Vice-President and General Manager. For many years North Eastern Fish Industries Ltd. was a major fresh fish producer in the Province. At its peak in the 1960s the company operated processing plants at Harbour Grace, Port de Grave, Old Perlican and Fermeuse, employing approximately 3,000 people and purchasing fish from approximately 10,000 fishermen.

In the late 1960s, Mr. Moores formed his own companies, Harbour International and Alec D. Moores Limited and continued to cultivate international partnerships developing relationships with the Norwegian and the Faroese fishing fleets.

Mr. Moores has also served his town and his Province in many roles. He has been the Mayor of the Town of Harbour Grace, a Member of the House of Assembly for the District of Harbour Grace, twice President of the Fisheries Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Director of the Fisheries Council of Canada. He is a recipient of the 1967 Centennial Medal awarded by the Government of Canada to recognize outstanding contributions to the country.

Mr. Moores is married to Maysie Babb, and they have three sons, Douglas, David and Darroch.

I ask all members to join with me today in congratulating Mr. Alec D. Moores on his induction into the Junior Achievement Newfoundland and Labrador Business Hall of Fame.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. ANDERSEN: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to inform Members of the House of Assembly that the 3A Provincial High School Badminton Tournament is scheduled to take place in the community of Makkovik on May 10 of this year.

Mr. Speaker, this is significant because it will be the first provincial tournament held in the riding of Torngat Mountains where participating teams from the Island portion of the Province will participate. This is a much anticipated event for the residents of Makkovik, as well as those of other northern communities as they recognize the significance of this event.

The organizers see this event as a golden opportunity to showcase the North Coast of Labrador. It is an opportunity to highlight the positive aspects of Northern Labrador - such as the wonderful people, their culture, and the scenic landscape - to a group of visitors who might not otherwise have the opportunity to see and experience Northern Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join with me in congratulating the organizers, the volunteers and all the participants who will take part in this sporting event.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to extend 90th birthday greetings to Harriet Florence Hann. Mrs. Hann was born in High Beach, Lamaline on this date in 1912 to John Hillier and Annabella Purchase. Now, a resident of Masonic Park in Mount Pearl, she enjoys excellent health and was the obvious guest of honour at a special birthday party held at the Recreation Centre at Masonic Park on Saturday afternoon, April 27.

As a young teenager, Harriet worked in St. Pierre during the summer months and, as a seventeen year old, was a witness to the 1929 tidal wave disaster that brought so much devastation and loss of life to the Burin Peninsula.

In 1936, Harriet Hillier married Clement Hann of Lamaline. Mr. Hann was primarily engaged in the fishery. Together, they raised four children, one daughter and three sons. While taking care of her family, Harriet also looked after the family's small farm and vegetable garden.

In 1950, the Hanns opened a small variety and grocery store which helped supply essential products to the local community.

Mr. and Mrs. Hann moved to Masonic Park in Mount Pearl in 1988. A widow since 1991, Mrs. Hann continues to be an active participate in many of the activities available to the cottage residents at the Senior's Complex. As a matter of fact, she still does her own shopping and cooking, et cetera. On Sunday, she is a regular worshiper at the Church of the Ascension in Mount Pearl.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join with the family and friends of Harriet Hann today in extending to her very best wishes on her 90^th birthday. All of us, Mr. Speaker, I know, wish her many more years of happiness and good health.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, Ms Betty Jerrett's contribution to Bay Roberts and area has made her town a better place to live. Because of her dedication, she has been selected as Bay Roberts Citizen of the Year for 2001, succeeding her husband who was last year's Citizen of the Year.

Her service to the community has varied with her interests, including: youth, health care, church work, and bettering the area itself.

Ms Jerrett's involvement includes working with the Conception Bay North Girl Guides, Trinity-Conception Health Foundation, Canadian Red Cross, Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Newfoundland Lung Association and the Canadian Cancer Society.

Betty is probably best known as the founding president of the Bay Roberts Heritage Society. A volunteer for thirty years, she has taken administrative, executive and leadership roles at the local, regional and provincial levels.

I ask all hon. members to join me in saying to Ms Betty Jerrett: A job well done, and congratulations on being named Bay Roberts Citizen of the Year.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

On Friday, April 26, I attended a party hosted by the Iron Ore Company of Canada in Labrador City to thank and pay tribute to thirty-four of their employees who will be officially retiring tomorrow, May 1.

These employees, Mr. Speaker, are among hundreds who have retired from the mining companies in recent years, who have made their home in the North, raised their families, made our community a great place to live, and contributed significantly to the mining industry and the provincial economy.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know what other employers do for their retiring employees, but I can say without question that the dinner, retirement gifts and acknowledgments bestowed on retiring employees and their spouses by both the Iron Ore Company of Canada and the United Steelworkers of America, Local 5795, is indeed a class act that I doubt occurs in too many other workplaces.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all those who retired, and their families, a long, happy and healthy retirement.

Also, Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge the presence of, in the gallery today, Mr. Dave Porter, Vice-President of the Iron Ore Company of Canada, responsible for Human Resources, and Mike Sefsik, who is the Manager of Human Resources for the Iron Ore Company.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SWEENEY: Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate Bill Barry on the success of the educational reality series, The Real Game. The game consists of educational activities where participants simulate real life by operating fictional towns in the classroom. Through living in those communities, players learn personal management, teamwork, decision-making and communication skills. The intent is to encourage students to make informed decisions in the future.

The Real Game Series is currently played in twelve countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, where it has a huge following with educators. Currently, the game is being adapted for other countries such as Germany and Australia.

Though The Real Game has been used sporadically in Newfoundland and Labrador for years, teachers in this Province are now being trained specifically to use the resource. The Minister of Education has endorsed the product and recently noted that the success of The Real Game Series indicates this Province's potential to produce things for the global market. This first-rate product was developed by a Newfoundlander, printed and packaged in Newfoundland and Labrador, and distributed worldwide.

Studies have proven success of The Real Game Series. Students have demonstrated a greater ability to make informed career decisions. The success of The Real Game is very encouraging for educators of the Province and worldwide. This a Newfoundland product that we can all be proud of.

Mr. Speaker, I want to recognize the success of Mr. Barry and wish him future success with The Real Game Series.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to provide hon. members with very pleasant and good news regarding a group of outstanding public service employees. This morning is was my pleasure to participate in a ceremony at the St. John's Arts and Culture Centre, honouring recipients of Newfoundland and Labrador's Public Service Award of Excellence for 2001.

This award, Mr. Speaker, which is being presented this year for the very first time, recognizes individuals and teams in our public service who have demonstrated exceptional work performance and have made positive contributions to quality of the work environment or quality of service to the general public. It recognizes, Mr. Speaker, important attributes of our public service, those being: leadership, valuing people, innovation and service delivery excellence.

A total of 102 individual and team nominations, representing more than 600 employees, were received for this award. This gives us a very important message about the high level of ability and commitment, as well as the teamwork within our public service. Public service employees take pride in one another's achievements and acknowledge one another's good work.

After review by an external selection committee, five teams and ten individuals were selected to receive the 2001 Newfoundland and Labrador Public Service Award of Excellence. The Clerk of the Executive Council presented the awards to fifty employees this morning from all regions of the Province.

Those honoured this morning, Mr. Speaker, are exceptional players on an exceptional team. Their professionalism, their dedication, their energy and their innovative ideas make our Province a better place to live and our government buildings and offices better places in which to work. I know I speak for all elected officials in this Legislature, Mr. Speaker, when I say that we have the utmost respect and appreciation for the public service and the work that they do.

I extend congratulations and thanks on behalf of government and of all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, to these outstanding employees who were honored today.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table for this Legislature the names of recipients of the 2001 Newfoundland and Labrador Public Service Award of Excellence.

If I might take just a minute to read them into the record because you may, on behalf of all of us, want to send them an acknowledgment of their recognition today.

The 2001 Public Service Award of Excellence recipients, Mr. Speaker, are:

Mr. Tom Beckett, from the Department of Government Services and Lands in St. John's.

Mr. Leonard Bursey, from the Department of Human Resources and Employment in Corner Brook.

Ms Joan Dawe, from the Department of Health and Community Services in St. John's.

Mr. Roger Haynes, from the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation in St. John's.

Mr. Gene Hickey, from the Department of Human Resources and Employment in Grand Falls-Windsor.

Judgement Enforcement Remote Access Team, in the Department of Justice, consisting of: David W. Jones, Pauline Butler, Robert Drake, Paul Foote, Sandy Hounsell, Brenda Malone, Joan McCarthy Wiseman, Debbie North, Dianne Noseworthy, Patsy Sheehan, Colin Tibbo and Joan Veitch.

Haseen Khan, from the Department of Environment in St. John's.

Labrador Tree Nursery Team, from the Department of Forest Resources and Agrifoods: Mr. Bruce Roberts and Diane Montague-Blake from Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

Anne-Marie McGrath from the Public Service Commission in St. John's.

Cheryl Penney, Mr. Speaker, from the Department of Human Resources and Employment in Corner Brook.

Rod Regier, Department of Industry, Trade and Rural Development in St. John's.

Kay Riggs, Department of Industry, Trade and Rural Development, Marystown.

The Team RuralEXPO 2001 from the Department of Industry, Trade and Rural Development: Terry Johnstone; Diana Cose; Carolann Harding; Paula Roberts; Margie Slaney; Lynn Sparkes; and Denis Sullivan from the Eastern Region making up that Team.

The Victim Liaison Officer Program Team from the Department of Justice with Dave Dewling; Jerry Belbin; Terry Billard; Jim Courtney; Sam Flanigan; Hector Freake; Elaine Hancock; Cecil Lynch; Dennis Morgan; Gordon Noseworthy; Glen Petten; and Tony Tobin.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the Western Region Quality Assurance Team from the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, consisting of: Mark Lowe; Hubert Anderson; Jeff Gould; Monique Hynes; Karen Loder; Tracy Slaney; and Alvin White; all from the Western Region.

I would like for you, on behalf of all of us, Mr. Speaker, to consider passing on your congratulations to these outstanding public servants.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Certainly we want to be associated with the remarks of the Premier. When you pass on your remarks, I believe you can certainly indicate that you pass them on unanimously from all the House.

Not to be redundant, but certainly congratulations to the recipients of the awards the Premier has outlined. I suppose, let it serve as a reminder to all of us, in the Legislature, and the people in the Province generally, that the servants who provide, on a day-to-day basis, the public services of this Province, in many ways - on a day-to-day basis they ensure our roads are kept clean, ensure that our health care system, with the stretched financial resources that we have, is being delivered to the extent that we can deliver it, and all public services. For many of our public servants, I suppose, the type of gratitude that we owe them is difficult to explain.

I want to, on behalf of the official Opposition, render our association with the remarks provided by the Premier, sending our congratulations as well to these outstanding public servants for the job that they do on behalf of the people of the Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am pleased to join in congratulating these fine public servants on the Awards of Excellence received today. I think it is fitting that the Premier, as Leader of the Government, be the person introducing this statement in the House, giving it the respect and honour that it deserves.

We do have, Mr. Speaker, a very high quality, professional public service in this Province and we owe a lot to them as members of the public. It is a pity that in making decisions - such as Windmill Bight, for example, made yesterday - that government did not listen to the advice given by these professional public servants when they asked for an environmental impact statement when they said that proper evaluation processes had not been followed, and when they said you had an obligation, as a government, to protect our parks and to protect our environment instead of doing what the government did.

So, it is a pity, Mr. Speaker, that we do not pay more attention to the public servants that we all pay that give advice on behalf of all of us in a professional manner.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Premier. On March 27, the Hay groups operational review of the Health Care Corporation of St. John's was publicly released. In that report, which was commissioned by government at a cost of something less than a half million dollars, it questioned the competence of emergency physicians at the Janeway, and, in fact, questioned the quality of health care at that institution. This government has already been asked, in this House, to retract these comments and apologize to the doctors in question, but they refused to do so. The physicians, themselves, have also written government repeatedly and asked for an apology and retraction but, again, no action by this government. Now, out of anger, frustration, embarrassment and concern for their reputations, they are now prepared to withdraw services from the Janeway as of 8:00 a.m. on Thursday morning.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Premier, himself, today to stand in this House in order to avert an effective closure of the only dedicated children's emergency department in this Province; by standing in this House today and publicly refuting those comments and retracting those statements and apologizing to those physicians for the insults that were rendered upon them in that report.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This issue has been raised in the House previously in response to the Health critic, the hon. Member for Trinity North, when he raised this very issue. My response to him was that, in fact, we have not associated ourselves with the comments that are in that report. I stated publicly that we certainly do not concur with the statements that are made there.

The letter that the Leader of the Opposition references, I received last weekend. We are looking at doing a response to the letter. This government and this department has not in any way said anything disparaging with regards to the doctors we have working at the Janeway. We have stated publicly that we do not agree, and we have also said that we feel that there is no reason for anyone to believe that the quality of service that is being provided at that health care facility, that they have any reason to be of any doubt.

I am not quite sure in terms of Leader of the Opposition and the doctor's concern. My understanding is, the letter was delivered at 12:30 today. I still have not seen a copy. It is rather interesting. I was here in the House all morning with my officials, from 9:00 this morning, dealing with the Estimates of my department, and we did not leave here until 1:15 p.m. We were kept here in this House until 1:15 p.m. today, trying to deal with the issues. It is rather interesting. In terms of the Leader of the Opposition wanting to take the issue seriously, I am sure he will recognize that I need some time to get briefed on the issue as well.

In terms of the issue generally, the issue is -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to now conclude his answer.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, as I stated at the beginning, the issue that the Leader of the Opposition has raised, and the doctors are referencing in their comments, relates to one item in the Hay Report, albeit it is an important one. It is important from their perspective. It is not this minister who stated that. It is not this department who stated that. It is not this government who stated that, and this minister has stated publicly that we are not in agreement with the statements that are made there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question was originally for the Premier. The Minister of Health has now stood and indicated that for some reason they were delayed in the House today and the Opposition are somewhat involved in this information not being made available to him. Well, on March 27, this report was released. On April 10, the doctors wrote government, wrote the Health Care Corporation, and asked for an apology and asked for those statements to be withdrawn. On April 17, the Health critic in this House questioned that minister and asked him to withdraw those statements and apologize. That is a month ago, as recently as two weeks ago, and three weeks ago the letter was written.

I ask the minister: Is he prepared to withdraw those comments, to refute those comments, and to publicly apologize to those doctors now? Or, by not doing so, is he telling the people of this Province that we do have a serious problem with health care and with treatment at the Janeway?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I am at a loss to follow the Leader of the Opposition's line of questioning. I just responded and gave him the information to the very question that he is asking again.

The comments that he references are not comments that were made by this minister or made by this department. I have responded to this in the House and I have stated it publicly, that we do not agree with the comments that were contained in the Hay Report. We have also indicated and made it clear to the people of the Province that in our opinion there is no reason for anyone to have any doubt or any concern with regard to the level of care that is being provided at the Janeway Hospital.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, one emergency physician has already left and gone on stress leave as of last weekend. In less than forty-eight hours, all the emergency physicians at the Janeway are going to leave that hospital. They are not going to show up for work at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday. At that point in time, the children in this Province are in jeopardy.

If the minister does not agree with the statements in the Hay Report, all I am asking, and all the doctors are asking, is a simple apology. Will the minister say he is sorry for the statements and apologize to the doctors? Because that is all they want. That is all they are asking for.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, at the risk of repeating what I have previously said in response to the earlier questions, we have already disassociated ourselves from the comments that are contained in the report. These are not the comments of this minister. They are not the comments of this department.

Mr. Speaker, if it is merely a matter of, I am sorry and I apologize, then I do that. If that is all it will take to satisfy the concerns of the people who are out there, the doctors who feel aggrieved - and I sympathize with them. Any time their professional integrity is being questioned, I understand where they are coming from, but this minister does not agree with that. This minister does not have that view or opinion of our health care officials in this Province. This minister does not adhere to that view with regard to the doctors who offer that very important service to the children of our Province.

I do regret that the doctors have seen it necessary to threaten to withdraw services. I regret that is the action that they feel is necessary, and I would hope that they would reconsider. I have directed my deputy to make contact with them this afternoon, and I have offered to make myself available to meet with them this afternoon, any time they are ready to sit down with me.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: The minister seems to be very well informed for someone who did not have time to get briefed, but I thank the minister for his public apology in this House of Assembly this afternoon.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: I would ask the minister: Has he considered the legal consequences of that report, and the statements that are in that report, that talk about concerns regarding the training of the emergency physicians in that department, their capabilities in emergency medicine, delays in providing treatment, and the burden on the nursing staff? Has the minister considered the legal consequences of that report, when hundreds of legal actions could be launched against this government based on the comments in that report, based on negligence?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, the issue is a very serious issue. There is nobody trying to downplay the seriousness of the issue. In terms of the legal implications, the people within my department, when we received the letter from the doctors some days ago, from their legal counsel, that matter is under review and under advisement. The suggestions that the hon. member makes, I do not know what the possibilities are. His background is legal and he would know better than I what possible implications there may be.

My understanding is, in terms of the department's dealing with this particular issue, I am satisfied that the issue from our perspective has been properly dealt with. We are not in agreement with the comments as they reference the doctors and the emergency service at the Janeway Children's Hospital. We regret the fact that this situation has happened today, that the doctors have threatened to withdraw their services; but in the event, Mr. Speaker, I have also been informed - I received a note since I came in the House - that communication has been made with the Health Care Corporation. In the event that - yes, with prudent planning - if what none of us wants does happen, the Health Care Corporation will proceed with some contingency planning, because obviously we do have an obligation to ensure that this very important service continues without any disruption. That is the challenge that we have. That is the commitment that we need, all of us, to make sure that we are able to continue to deliver on to the people and particularly the children of this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the minister: Did he or any of his officials in his department have an opportunity to review that report before it was publicly released, in order to concur with those statements that were in it concerning emergency physicians?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the report was reviewed by my department and also by the Health Care Corporation, and in fact there were some issues that were highlighted - this was one of them - and they went back to the consultants and raised these concerns, and there were some modifications made on the basis of that; but it is also my understanding that the consultant said - and the issue here, I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, is with the authors of the report, not with this minister, with this department or with this government. In fact what they said was, they stood by what they had written and were not prepared to make any further changes to it.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: So, in fact, government concurred with that report when it was released.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WILLIAMS: Now I give the minister an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, and I would ask him: Does he now wish to refute any other statements in the Hay study?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I must say that I am at a loss to follow the hon. Opposition Leader's line of questioning. I really do not know where he - you know, this issue has been raised here. It has been raised publicly. It is interesting, Mr. Speaker, when I arrived on the job a few weeks ago one of the first issues that I was briefed on, when I arrived here, was this particular one.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, at that point in time the media were calling to inquire about it and my deputy did a briefing for the media to inform them as to what exactly was contained in the report, what comments were made there, and what exactly the issues were. Mr. Speaker, that was done some weeks ago. Since then the matter has been raised here in the House by the Health critic, the hon. Member for Trinity North. I responded to it there and I responded today, saying that the comments which are contained in that report are not the comments, neither are they the view of this minister, this department, or this government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions today are to the Minister of Finance. On November 16, 1999, this government gave a commitment that as of January 1, 2000, the basic personal tax for income tax in this Province would be reduced from 69 per cent of the federal rate to 62 per cent of the federal rate. On January 1, 2001, it would be reduced from 62 per cent to 55 per cent of the federal rate, and of course, the commitment at the time was that on January 1, 2002, it would be down to 49 per cent of the federal rate. I want to ask the minister, with today being the deadline for filing income tax, why are Newfoundlanders and Labradorians now paying over 70 per cent of the basic federal rate, a higher percent than before they instituted any tax cuts at all on personal income tax?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, the last time I checked, we have control over our own provincial tax rates, not the federal tax rates. We have had a steady plan. The member opposite knows that we deferred this year of our own third-year plan to put the $25 million in our pocket. We made it public so that we could help maintain health care services and education services. I am wondering now, is the member opposite suggesting that we should have spent more money? I would like to know the answer to that question.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Before we separated from the federal rate, it was sixty-nine. The federal rate was 17 per cent, the basic federal rate. Today it is sixteen. I am using the old federal rate, minister. Today they are paying, in fact, over 70 per cent of the old federal rate before deductions. Now, I would like for the minister to tell us why, based on her commitments and a separate tax rate, why is the average Newfoundlander and Labradorian today paying 26 per cent more in personal income tax than you committed to give them during that tax break?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if I heard his question, but I will have a shot at it.

Mr. Speaker, we have done what we said we would do, and that was decrease our tax rate over a period of years. We have done that over two years. Mr. Speaker, we have done that over two years, and I would say to the member opposite, I would challenge him. He has raised a similar type of scenario in the House before, saying that we are paying more of the federal percentage, and by and large people are paying more. I would challenge him today, and I offer to the people in the Province: If you believe that, speak to my officials, and every single case without exception are paying less taxes than they were.

Now, Mr. Speaker, maybe he is suggesting we shouldn't have taken back or deferred the third year for this year, but we made a decision because health care is our number one priority, to keep the money here and keep the services to help grow health care, not cut health care.

Mr. Speaker, people are paying less taxes this year than they were last year, unless, of course, they are making more money. There are more people working and there are more people making more money.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will say to the minister, I have talked to Chartered Accountants and people preparing hundreds of incomes taxes, I have looked at hundreds of examples myself, and the minister is misleading the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: I will explain, in Budget Debate this afternoon, for the minister, if she would like to sit and listen.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, this government is misleading the people of Newfoundland and Labrador into thinking they are getting tax breaks when, in reality, they are not getting them.

My question to the minister is: Why won't the minister, Mr. Speaker, come clean on this issue and tell the people of Newfoundland and Labrador the real truth of what is happening today?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Come clean, I say. Tell them. Tell them.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Relax, Loyola, relax.

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

The hon. member has asked a question, now I ask him to give the minister an opportunity to answer it.

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible).

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

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the only person misleading the people here is the member opposite. The only person! Talk about coming clean: Maybe he should stand up and answer the question -

MR. SULLIVAN: You don't know what you are talking about.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, he says I don't know. No one knows anything unless he says it. That is the way it is. He is the only one who knows anything here, obviously.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS J.M. AYLWARD: That, Mr. Speaker, is why he is there and we are here.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, the people of the Province will know, by him answering one question, and maybe he should come clean. Are you paying less taxes this year than you were last year, or more?

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible) and making less money.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well, you must be making a whole lot more money than the rest of us, I would say to you, because everyone is paying less taxes this year than they were last year, unless they are earning more money, and that stands to reason. It is as simple as that, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, today my questions are for the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

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

The members on the other side are a bit testy today.

Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

This past Thursday in the House of Assembly, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, on questions from myself, left the impression that she and officials of her department knew very little about the proposed changes to the trouting regulations. Now that the minister has had more time to check into this matter, would she now confirm that in fact officials of her department have been involved with this issue for some time and that the department is receiving pressure to accept these changes as they are?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BETTNEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do appreciate the opportunity to clear up the misinformation which has been caused as a result of the member's question last Thursday, and the subsequent news articles that were bled. Mr. Speaker, as representatives of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans have confirmed in numerous interviews since that time -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

If members wish to converse, I ask that they do it outside the Chamber while Question Period is going ahead.

MS BETTNEY: Mr. Speaker, as representatives of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans have confirmed in numerous interviews since the question in the House, the interpretation that was being promoted by the member opposite is completely wrong. It is totally inaccurate. The suggestion that the amendment to the regulation was going to institute a minimum length of thirty centimetres has been said to be totally false.

What was provided by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was that this was a conservation technique that was being suggested to provide the capacity for that department if conservation warranted, to single out one species, if necessary, and institute a very specific size limit as needed; that the thirty centimetres that was suggested in the illustration was simply that. The representative even went so far as to say that he realized, at this point, that even using thirty centimetres was a mistake -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. the minister now to conclude her answer.

MS BETTNEY: - even though he only put it forward as an illustration.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, the minister may be trying to spin out a point of view but, in fact, sources tell me that officials of her department have known the details of this issue regarding the changes to the trouting regulations for some time and maybe even months. Are the officials of her department recommending approval and support for these proposed trouting regulations? I have a nine-page document here with the all the proposed changes, and it is not examples. It is proposed amendment -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I believe the hon. member has asked his question.

The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BETTNEY: Mr. Speaker, I believe that I indicated in my response to the question last Thursday that I needed to get more information; because certainly I said then, and I would repeat now, that I make it a practice to get accurate information before providing information to the public, unlike my colleague opposite who has run with very inaccurate information here -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BETTNEY: - and continues today to promote information which everyone else has recognized is inaccurate, that the authors of it have contradicted publicly on the radio, on the television, in the newspaper.

Mr. Speaker, this information, these amendments to these regulations were developed as a result of major consultation. I have information provided by my department since, which I will certainly provide to the member opposite, that both the recommendations and the amendments were presented at the Salmonid Advisory meetings held last November 29, which were looking for advice, consultation and reaction, and have since been discussed with others.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister now to conclude her answer.

MS BETTNEY: Mr. Speaker, yes, members of my department have been involved in this development and, as I indicated last week, I needed to get more information. I have it. It has been presented.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

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

Mr. Speaker, it should be noted that it is a complete contradiction of what she said in his House on Thursday. I have in my hand the draft amendments to the Newfoundland Fishery Regulations with respect to the trouting regulations in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and officials of her department have been involved for some two months.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. J. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, again I ask the minister: Will she commit to this House of Assembly, and thousands of trouters in this Province, to vigorously oppose these undue, unnecessary changes to the trouting regulations, as does the Newfoundland and Labrador Wildlife Federation?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BETTNEY: Mr. Speaker, the table that was presented with the proposed amendments was purely for illustrative purposes and is attached to the amendments according to the officials in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, not according to my officials, not according to the member opposite, but according to the author of the regulations, to whose system they have to provide this information that this table could have xx, .. 00, or thirty, or ten, or five. It is simply for illustrative purposes, according to the author.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is for the Minister of Health and Community Services.

I have asked before, for this government to do something about the lack of assistance for high-cost drugs for people with Multiple Sclerosis and other debilitating diseases. The only assistance in this Province, under the provincial drug program, requires people to be on social assistance, or a low income senior. Every other province in this country gets help. We are not talking about universal drug coverage. What these provinces have is a co-payment system with sliding scales based on income. At present, it would make financial sense for people suffering from diseases like MS who have a decent income to move to another province and earn half that amount because then they would get help with the cost of their drugs which are quite expensive.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. COLLINS: I say to the minister, people are forced to spend their RRSPs, their children's education fund, any savings they may have, and then, Mr. Minister, your government will help them. I ask the minister: When can we look forward, in this Province, to being treated like every other Canadian citizen and receive help on a sliding scale when we have to purchase high-cost drugs like those required?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The hon. member raises a very important issue. In terms of the demands for drug care within this Province, we know that the demand has been increasing. We also know that advancements in that field are bringing more and more drugs on the market and a lot of them, as all of us in this House would be aware, bring a fairly high price tag with them as well.

The hon. member references a fact in terms of comparing what is happening in this Province with other jurisdictions. I think you have to acknowledge and recognize that at the present time our drug subsidy program is at $73 million. I think the hon. member would have to acknowledge that is certainly significant. I think it is also fair, and I think it would be less than prudent for me, as minister, and for us as government, not to ask of people who are coming forward and looking for a particular drug, at least to undergo a financial assessment to try and determine whether in fact they are able to purchase this particular drug. Right now, that is the requirement that we make. I think, Mr. Speaker, that it would be great if we could say, in response to every request that comes in -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister now to conclude his answer.

MR. SMITH: - that yes, we will put this on the formulary and yes, you will be able to get it. That is not the reality and I think what we are doing right now with the policy and practice that we do have in place, I think we are just being prudent and we are being good stewards on behalf of the people of this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. COLLINS: I say to the minister, Mr. Speaker, that he may be prudent with government's money but the people out there, who are hard-working people, are suffering as a result of their prudence. Two years ago -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. COLLINS: Why is the minister insisting that in every other thing that comes up about this Province, we are ahead of other Atlantic Provinces, that we are doing good and great things over and above them, while we cannot meet the commitment that they are making to their citizens in terms of helping them out through a very bad time in their life?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The hon. member referenced the fact, if I heard him correctly, that this minister has repeatedly been extolling the virtues of this jurisdiction as compared to the other Atlantic Provinces. I think we have to recognize that we certainly, I think, in some areas, acquit ourselves very, very well. I am not suggesting that in terms of such an important issue as providing drugs to people in this Province, who require them, that I would want to relegate it to that type of level as to whether or not in fact we are able to measure up to the standards in the other Atlantic Provinces. That is not what concerns this minister in a sense of what I would prefer to do. The best thing that we could have, if we could afford it, would be a universal program that would be available to everyone.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister now to conclude his answer.

MR. SMITH: But, we recognize that is not the reality. That is not the reality that we are dealing with.

Mr. Speaker, I say to the hon. member that we are trying to respond to the needs that are out there. We are, in fact, co-operating with the other Atlantic Provinces in trying to work towards a common formulary.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister now to conclude his answer quickly.

MR. SMITH: - and we are doing what we can to address the very pressing and important needs that the hon. member has raised.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has ended.

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

MR. MATTHEWS: I am not sure if this is the right section or not, presenting reports?

MR. SPEAKER: Yes.

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay, I thought it was. It is a long time since I have been up.

AN HON. MEMBER: How long have you (inaudible)?

MR. MATTHEWS: Not long, and I am back for a good while.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Always the bridesmaid and never the bride.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present the Report on Mining Leases and Mineral Licenses issued for the period April 1, 2001 to March 31, 2002.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to also present today the 2001 Annual Report of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

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

Mr. Speaker, I stand to move the following Private Member's Resolution:

WHEREAS the residents and visitors to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador rely and depend heavily on our road system for transportation, business, health care, tourism and for basic quality of life; and

WHEREAS provincial roads and highways are in a serious state of disrepair in virtually every region of the Province; and

WHEREAS the condition of the Province's roads and highways are a significant competitive disadvantage for Newfoundland and Labrador companies that market products in Canada and the United States; and

WHEREAS there are over 900 kilometres of dirt roads and some 1,500 kilometres of twenty-five-year-old paved roads in the Province; and

WHEREAS over $300 million is immediately required for provincial roads; and

WHEREAS the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation admits $900 million is required in the long-term to bring our roads to a national standard; and

WHEREAS the government has said it will divert money from the highway construction on the Island over the next six years to build the Labrador Highway; and

WHEREAS there is only $23 million budgeted in this year's Budget for provincial roads which is completely insufficient; and

WHEREAS the Roads for Rail Agreement is coming to an end;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the government negotiate a new cost-sharing agreement with the Government of Canada for road repair and construction that will bring the quality of the Province's roads and highways up to North American standards and contribute to the Province's overall productivity and competitiveness.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand today once again to present a petition on behalf of the people in my district, and once again it has to do with roads, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: I wonder if the hon. member would just allow me to interrupt him for a minute. I want to welcome to the gallery today Mr. Scott Wells, Mayor of Cox's Cove, who is presently in the gallery.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition once again on behalf of the people in my district and it has to do with the conditions of the roads in my district, Mr. Speaker. Particularly, this petition is from people from the community of Angels Cove on the Cape Shore, and St. Bride's. They send this petition along because once again they are very concerned about the safety aspect of the roads in my district, and it is something that these people have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

I have raised several petitions that have been brought forward to me from the people of the Cape Shore area. It is not the only place in my district where we need work on the roads, Mr. Speaker, but it is the area where these petitions are coming from, where the people in that area have decided to speak out and bring to the House of Assembly, through these petitions, the concern they have with the roads in the area. The concern they have is that these roads are touching on twenty-five years since they have been paved, especially the road from the place we call Cuslett lookout on the Cape Shore over to the community of Branch, through the community of St. Bride's and Cuslett, namely Route 100.

Then there is a side road to that, Route 100-16, which is what we refer to in the area as Point Lance road. This road is in a deplorable condition. It has been ongoing for a number of years now. The main area was paved from Patrick's Cove to St. Bride's in 1979. Since then, there has been very little done in regard to repairs and maintenance. These roads need some major work done. These people have brought them forward because they believe there is a safety issue here for the travelling public. We get buses that are travelling back and forth from Point Lance and Branch in the Cape Shore on a day-to-day basis. There are some major concerns there with seventy-two passenger buses and other buses travelling, they have to steer away from holes in the road. It is a danger to the students who are travelling. It is a dangerous to emergency vehicles. Ambulance services and fire services are impeded by the fact of the road conditions.

The people in the area are very, very concerned and they want to raise the issue here in the House. They want to advise the minister that they are hoping to have some funds spent in that area this year. I have had the opportunity to speak to the minister on a couple of occasions on this particular situation. He tells me he is still waiting for funds to be allocated in his department. I want to stress to him the importance of putting this forward. I have with me today some pictures that have been forwarded to me on the condition of the roads. I will be passing these on to the minister shortly. I showed this to somebody this morning and the person said to me: Is that a road? That just goes to show the conditions that - the situation that people are dealing with.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. MANNING: By leave, Mr. Speker, just for a minute to clue up.

People are very concerned, and I am sure when the minister looks at that he will also question if this is necessarily a road. What we would like to see done is the complete job done. We understand the fiscal restraints of the government and, hopefully, the minister will see forward, that some necessary funding will be required. It will certainly take care of some of the major problems that are on these roads and to make it a safer place for the people in that area to drive.

So I put forward this petition today on behalf of the people, knowing full well that there are numerous other petitions en route here to me here in the House, and as I receive them I will be glad to stand and present them in the House.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I have another petition to present today:

To the hon. House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador in legislative session convened, the petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland and Labrador;

WHEREAS the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is charging sales tax on its $3 tire recycling fee even though it does not charge sales tax on the beverage container recycling fee; and

WHEREAS we feel it is unfair and unduly costly to consumers in Newfoundland and Labrador to tax the tire recycling fee;

WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to remove the sales tax on the tire recycling fee.

Mr .Speaker, I have received a number of phone calls to my office. I have sent out a number of petitions now. The people of this Province clearly do not wish to pay sales tax on a recycling fee. I have no problem admitting that I have sent out this petition. On this side of the House we listen to the people.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. T. OSBORNE: On this side of the House, Mr. Speaker, we listen to what people have to say instead of turning a blind eye. I have no problem admitting to the Premier that I have sent out this petition. I am honoured to have sent out this petition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

MR. T. OSBORNE: Like I was saying, Mr. Speaker, I will say it to the Premier: I am honoured to say that I have sent out this petition, and I am honoured to present this petition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. T. OSBORNE: Unlike the crowd opposite, such as the members for Labrador, I will present petitions in this House when I am given petitions to present.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. T. OSBORNE: Mr. Speaker, the tire recycling fee was put in place to promote tire recycling. It is unconscionable that this government and the Premier and the Minister of Environment and the Minister of Finance would impose a tax on the tire recycling fee. That is certainly not what the people of this Province are asking for when they are asking government to promote recycling in this Province. To add a tax to a tire recycling fee is nothing short of a tax grab by this Province. It is nothing short of a tax grab by the government of this Province. It is a means, Mr. Speaker, of robbing every possible cent that they can rob from the consumers in this Province. Some people in this Province are struggling just to get by, struggling week by week to put food on the table, to put clothes on their children's backs to send them to school -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. T. OSBORNE: - and to rob every possible cent they can rob from the people of this Province is criminal.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. T. OSBORNE: - and the people of this Province, Mr. Speaker, will speak in the next election.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair hasn't recognized anybody at this point.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I gives me pleasure today to rise and present a petition on behalf of residents of Labrador West, and I will read part of the petition, Mr. Speaker:

WHEREAS the Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund was set up with $347.6 million from the federal government for transportation in Labrador; and

WHEREAS the Liberal government has announced that $97 million that is remaining will be taken out of this fund and added to general revenues, the undersigned petitioners believe the raiding of the Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund is a gross violation of the purpose of that Fund and a breach of trust with the people of Labrador, and hereby petition the House of Assembly to direct the government to immediately put this $97 million back into the Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund to be spent on transportation initiatives in Labrador.

I say, Mr. Speaker, that if any member of this House wants some copies of this petition, of which I have many, I would be more than willing to provide them with copies so that they can get up and speak and add their input into what has happened to the money in this fund.

Mr. Speaker, the people of Labrador are very concerned about this money coming out of the fund because they know and I know, and member of this House know, Mr. Speaker, that once that money comes out, Phase III of the Trans-Labrador Highway is being seriously jeopardized because we do not believe, Mr. Speaker, that this government will have the wherewithal to commit money to funding that portion of the highway as they said they intend to do. All we have, Mr. Speaker, in Labrador - they took $97 million from the fund and in return gave a promise that they will not be around to meet; and if they are around, Mr. Speaker, they will not have the ability to do so.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, not only the Phase III part but all other road work that has been done in Labrador over the past number of years, including the road sections that are already completed, the necessary upgrades to that, money came out of this fund to provide for that work. That will not be there in the future, Mr. Speaker. That money will be gone if government gets their way and takes the money from the fund, as they have stated their clear intention, and indeed have introduced legislation, because, Mr. Speaker, they cannot take that money at the present time. They have to change the legislation in this Province to make it legal for them to do so. That, Mr. Speaker, is on their agenda for this spring sitting, something we will vehemently oppose when the bill comes forward for discussion.

Mr. Speaker, many people rely upon the Trans-Labrador Highway to receive goods for their business. People rely upon that highway to make a livelihood to feed their families, and people use it to visit back and forth. Mr. Speaker, with the deterioration that takes place on that highway each and every year, we will now have to compete -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. COLLINS: - for the few meager dollars for transportation in this Province, to do the necessary upgrades on the Trans-Labrador Highway, something we did not have to do in the past, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you.

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

MR. HEDDERSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to petition this hon. House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador regarding the public library located in Brigus. The petition of the people who have signed this petition, Mr. Speaker, is to allow the operation of -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair is having difficulty hearing the hon. member speak.

MR. HEDDERSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Just to continue, Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed here, presented to this House, asking that the hon. House consider to allot the necessary hours for the operation of that library to accommodate the needs of the surrounding area, and I speak in particular of the eight communities which surround that public library, Mr. Speaker, and that would be the communities of Brigus, Cupids, Georgetown, Marysvale, Makinsons, Cupids Crossing, Roaches Line and South River.

I would say to you, Mr. Speaker, that the prime mover of this particular petition - I moved the petition just before Christmas, but these are some additional names that have come in - was a young student, a Level II student, Raylene White, who attends Ascension Collegiate in Bay Roberts. She brought this to the attention of not only myself, but she presented a petition around the communities and received about 500 names.

The point of the petition is that the Brigus Library, for the most part, has been allotted, over the last number of years, simply ten hours of operational time. Despite just that short period, that small allocation, I would say to you that the librarian, Ms Elsie Percy, has certainly gone and provided an excellent service, given the time that she has.

I speak not only for Brigus Library, I would say, Mr. Speaker, but I also speak for libraries around Newfoundland and Labrador, and how important it is to make sure that they have the basic allotment of hours, certainly more than ten hours, but you need to look at allotments of twenty-plus hours for these public libraries in order to meet the demands that are placed on them. I cannot stress the importance of having access to the public libraries. It is most, most important.

That is why this petition is coming forward, to encourage the government of the day to look at the public libraries that are around this Province and to absolutely ensure that they have the very minimum amount of hours - twenty-plus hours, I would say to you, Mr. Speaker - to ensure that the needs of the public are met in access to information and so on.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. HEDDERSON: I will just leave off, Mr. Speaker, in presenting the petition in the hope that something may be done to take care of this very real need.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for The Straits & White Bay North.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today also to present a petition, one similar to one I presented last year and a couple of weeks ago on roads in the district. I will read the prayer of the petition.

To the hon. House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador in legislative session convened: The petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland and Labrador.

WHEREAS the roads in Croque and Grandois are in deplorable condition and are in desperate need of upgrading and paving; and

WHEREAS two-thirds of this road is an old forest access road that has received little or no maintenance and therefore forcing residents of these communities to travel over a very substandard gravel road and jeopardizing the safety of the residents and other persons having to utilize it;

WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, and in particular the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, to make this road a top priority and commit to begin the upgrading and paving of this road this season;

As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, as the petition points out, this is a very substandard road. Two-thirds of this road is approximately twenty-four kilometers. Two-thirds of the road, at least, is an old gravel road that was put in by forest logging companies many years ago, probably twenty-five, thirty or thirty-five years ago. Two communities depend on this road, their only access to the outside world, so to speak. I fail to see how people in this Province can expect, and the government can expect people in these communities to diversify their economy, to build a tourism trade, to be able to move ahead and take advantage of the opportunities around them when the basic infrastructure, like a road, is really not at their disposal.

There is no way in this world that anybody is going to travel over the road out to Croque. There is very little chance that people in any significant numbers, tourism, tourist traffic, fifth-wheel rigs, RVs, are going to travel out to Croque and St. Juliens-Grandois, to an area that has a rich culture, steeped in history. Actually, Mr. Speaker, Croque was at one time considered to be the capital of the French Shore. There is a very strong history here where French rooms with the names of French sailors and French ships and the years that they actually anchored in and fished from Croque, is carved in the cliffs out there. There is evidence of an old French oven. There is a French graveyard here. The opportunity for some tourism development, for some traffic into these communities is substantial, but it cannot be realized without basic infrastructure, such as a road.

Again, the community of Croque - I have to keep mentioning it - the harbour, the bay, in my view, has tremendous potential from an aquaculture perspective.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the member's time is up.

MR. TAYLOR: By leave, Mr. Speaker, to clue up?

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?

MR. LUSH: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Government House Leader for a couple of seconds to clue up.

As I said, there is potential in this area. There are potential developments for these communities but it is hard to realize these developments without basis infrastructure, such as a road. I have travelled this road many times over the past twenty years and I can say that it is absolutely deplorable. It just highlights, once again, the need for a federal-provincial agreement on roads. In the next ten years we will really need upwards of $1 billion spent on the roads in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Northern Peninsula Highway is in a deplorable condition and needs to be resurfaced. The Conche road, the Croque road, and the side roads in The Straits of Belle Isle area need upgrading and resurfacing.

So, Mr. Speaker, I urge the government to consider this petition on behalf of the people of Croque and Grandois, and I urge the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation to give it his consideration when he decides on his funding allotments in the days to come.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, I want to move a series of Motions for first reading. Rather than going through the tedious work of reading them all, I wonder if hon. members would agree to give first reading of Motion 6 to 16 inclusive?

MR. SPEAKER: Is that agreed?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Is it agreed that we do these Motions altogether?

It is moved and seconded that the appropriate ministers shall have leave to introduce Bill 16, Bill 10, Bill 13, Bill 14, Bill 12, Bill 15, Bill 9, Bill 11, Bill 19 and Bill 18. Is it the pleasure of the House that the hon. ministers shall have leave to introduce said bills?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

Motion carried.

O motion, the following bills read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

A bill, "An Act to Amend The Gasoline Tax Act." (Bill 16)

A bill, "An Act to Amend The Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund Act." (Bill 10)

A bill, "An Act to Amend The Public Service Pensions Act, 1991." (Bill 13)

A bill, "An Act to Amend The Adoption Act." (Bill 14)

A bill, "An Act Respecting Student Financial Assistance." (Bill 12)

A bill, "An Act to Amend The Highway Traffic Act." (Bill 15)

A bill, "An Act to Amend The Automobile Insurance Act." (Bill 9)

A bill, "An Act to Amend The Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Act." (Bill 11)

A bill, "An Act to Amend The City of St. John's Loan Act, 1978." (Bill 19)

A bill, "An Act to Amend The City of St. John's Act." (Bill 18)

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair inadvertently overlooked Bill 17.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs to introduce a bill, "An Act to Amend The City of Corner Brook Act, The City of Mount Pearl Act, The City of St. John's Act, The Municipalities Act, 1999 And The Urban And Rural Planning Act, 2000," carried. (Bill 17)

On motion, Bill 17 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

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

MR. LUSH: Motion1, Mr. Speaker, the Budget. Motion to move "That This House Approves in General the Budgetary Policy of the Government."

I believe that the Member for Ferryland adjourned the debate.

MR. SPEAKER: Motion 1, the hon. the Member for Ferryland.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I was not really intending to talk again about income tax but I have been compelled today by Question Period to spell out in fairly simple terms what this government has done and how they are misleading and deceiving the people of this Province into thinking they are getting a tax cut when we are not getting a tax cut.

I am going to go back to the government's statement and what they said they were going to do. I will tell you what they did and when they did it, basically. On November 16,1999 - I will include details if the Member for Humber East wants it. I will give as much detail as the member wants. On November 16, 1999, the then Premier of the Province, Brian Tobin, and the then Finance Minister, Paul Dicks from Humber West, announced what they called $175 million personal income tax reduction to be phased in. Now, lets look at the math of this, if anybody wants to check with a calculator next to him or take figures, they can do so. I am just going to point out -

AN HON. MEMBER: I can do it in my head, boy.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, I would say the minister probably can, lots of room there. I am only joking of course, I say to the minister. It is not intended in any way - a bit of humor, I guess, won't go astray. We wouldn't want to overtax that minister.

Here is what government said on November 16, 1999. They said: As of January 1, 2000, the basic personal rate shall be reduced from 69 per cent of the basic rate to 62 per cent of the basic rate. Now, at the time, the federal basic rate, in the lowest bracket - I am going to take the lowest bracket, rather than complicate it with our brackets, because since that there are four federal brackets and there are only three provincial brackets. I will take the lower bracket that is not even the same, but it is very close, because our Province, with bracket creep, is even taking more. I understood somebody indicated from the Department of Finance a year ago that was another $11 million. I will leave that aside, I will keep it simple.

The announcement at the time said 69 per cent to 62 per cent in January 1, 2000, and in January 1, 2001, it would go to 55 per cent. We got those two decreases in taxes, they are telling us. I will tell you why we didn't get them. They said, it is going to go to 49 per cent in 2002. So, they said, we will shelve that last one, because we can't afford to do it.

Let's look at the rate. In 1999 and even 2000, at the rate, the federal tax there was 17 per cent, and it went to 16 per cent. So, we separated that before the federal went down. I am going to take the higher federal rate, what it was at the time, just to give the benefit of the doubt and not hassle over that 1 per cent. I am going to take the worst case scenario, and take the 17 per cent when the commitment was made. Now, 17 per cent of 69 per cent tax - I am going to show you what we are paying now and what you said we are going to pay. That is what I am going to do, I say to the Premier. The federal tax rate was 17 per cent back at that time, and our Province was paying 69 per cent of that. Now, 69 per cent of 17 is 11.73 per cent. Now, they were going to reduce it to 62 per cent of the then federal rate. The then federal rate was 17 per cent. So when you take 62 per cent of the then federal rate, that comes to 10.54 per cent, but we are still paying, right now, 10.57 per cent.

Then they said, the second rate, the one they gave us a year ago, was 55 per cent of 17 per cent. That would have been 9.35 per cent. So, the two tax rates should have put us down to 9.35 per cent, just the second one, and we are now paying 10.57 per cent.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: (Inaudible).

MR. JOYCE: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, I am having difficulty with the Finance Minister singing out, and the Member for Bay of Islands. She wanted me to explain to her today, and I said I would, in this session under Budget, I would explain the points here to her, but she is not prepared to listen, because she doesn't want to hear the truth. That is why, she doesn't want to hear the truth.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS J.M. AYLWARD: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Finance, on a point of order.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just want to make it clear, that there was never, at any time, a request from the Minister of Finance to the member to explain anything. What I said to the member opposite - and I hope he answers the question - is, are you paying less tax overall? Tell the people of the Province, because I am sure they are on the edge of their seats right now, Mr. Speaker, with all those numbers.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I realize your ruling there. It is not a point of order. The minister has to learn the rules of this House. When I have unlimited time that I am allowed to speak, I should be afforded that courtesy, to have unlimited time, I say to the minister.

Maybe I mistook her. Maybe it was her asking the former Minister of Finance, sitting next to her, to explain it. I am not sure, but I thought she asked me. If I made that mistake, I apologize. I have told the former Minister of Finance. He understood what I was saying.

Now, I am going to get back to, before I was interrupted, explaining why we are being deceived, why we are being misled, into thinking we are getting a tax cut, and we are not. It is very simple. In 1999, I say to the minister - and you know it, Minister. You know it. It is in your booklet. It is in your books that are produced, in your own government statement, that in 1999 the federal rate was 17 per cent. Can somebody tell me that 69 per cent of 17 per cent is 11.73 per cent? They were going to reduce it two years ago to 62 per cent.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Are you saying (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, would the minister please stop interrupting.

I will say for the record now, I am paying less tax this year because I am making less income this year than I did in the last several years, I say to the minister. That is why I am paying less tax, I might tell her, and the minister does not want to hear it but I am going to persist. I am on unlimited time. I will stay here until July and talk about this, if I have to do it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: I have dealt with this topic before. I had a couple of more to deal with and now they do not want to hear the truth but I am going to give it anyway, Mr. Speaker.

Sixty-two per cent of 17 per cent is 10.54 per cent. What are we paying now, the provincial published rates, in the lowest tax bracket? It is 10.57 per cent. That is only after the first decrease. The second decrease we should have gone to 9.35 per cent. The decrease that they were going to give that they reneged on in January would have been 49 per cent of 17 per cent which is 8.33 per cent. That would have put us down to a bracket in which right now we are paying 26 per cent more provincial tax that we were promised on November 16, 1999. That is what we are paying on provincial tax.

I will get to another issue on bracket creep a little later, that the minister did not know what it was. Basically, she did not know what it was last year. I am going to explain how they are gouging more money out of people. I don't mind if you are going to take the money but you tell them up front you are going to take it. Don't take it by the back door and tell them on the front door you are doing something different, because that is wrong.

Now, if you took the new federal rate - they knew that the federal tax was coming down, that Paul Martin was going to decrease federal tax because he was pressured so much by reform and Preston Manning on personal tax cuts, they forced the federal government into getting a tax cut. Now the federal rate, the lowest bracket, is 16 per cent; the lowest federal bracket today. If we had to go with the new federal bracket, not the old one, with the new federal bracket - I gave them the benefit and took the old one, but if we had to take the new federal bracket: 69 per cent of 16 per cent is 11.04 per cent; 62 per cent of 16 per cent is 9.92 per cent; 55 per cent of 16 per cent is 8.8 per cent; and 49 per cent of that is 7.84 per cent.

If we had to keep separate tax, we would paying 7.84 per cent if they had to live up to their commitments, not 10.57 per cent we are paying now. Also, I might add, there is a 9 per cent surtax on provincial tax, over, I think, the $7,000 level would be the surtax on provincial tax here in our Province.

You can see, Mr. Speaker, they did not even institute the full of the first tax cut, not telling us we got two and they are just going to suspend the third one, because the numbers do not add up. The numbers do not add up.

On top of that, what have they done? Not only that, here is what they have done. Back when the announcement was made, the lowest personal rate of tax was $29,590. The second bracket was twice that. It would be $59,180. That was the second bracket, and the third bracket was just above that. Now, what has happened since is that this government allowed inflation to creep into the tax bracket. Bracket creep. I asked the minister and she said: I don't know. I know what creep is, she said - she knew what a creep is - but she did not what bracket creep is. Bracket creep, Minister, will allow inflation to eat into the levels. So, if your income was $29,590 you would have paid the lowest tax rate, but in two years' time, in four years' time, $29,590 is not the same disposable income as it was two and three and four years ago. There is an erosion, eating into your disposable income. What did the federal government do? They said: We are going to stop eroding and eating away at it.

That is the thing, I remember, that the former Reform Party were adamant and the PC Party talked about: this tax cut is cutting down disposable money. It is lessening the impact. It is reducing jobs in this country and it is having a big effect.

I have read in economic magazines and reviews lately, the impact - even by Paul Martin, tells us - the impact that taxation cuts have had on the economy; and this minister says: Oh, we cannot give you a tax cut because we cannot afford to.

Basically, tax cuts induce people to go out and spend money and help promote the economy. It is all part of the big picture. You cannot say this thousand dollars or million dollars doesn't promote it, or this million or two does - that you have to have a big chunk. Where, exactly, is the straw that broke the camel's back? It is a progressive impact that it has as you give tax breaks. Smaller levels are not as impacting. Higher levels are more impacting.

I cannot see why people today are filling out their income tax, and people are paying 72 per cent, 74 per cent, 71 per cent of the federal rate. Even if you took the old federal rate, we are still paying up to 69 per cent and 70 per cent of the old federal rate basically, when we have been told we have a tax cut. How do you get a tax cut when you take in more revenue and more income, when you are paying more people in lower paying jobs?

This government is not telling the truth to the people. They are telling them, we are giving something, and they are not doing it. You ask the people today - you poll it, you talk to chartered accountants and CGA's, and talk to people who are working in the financial area and doing income taxes - ask them what they are paying? This is a complaint. If the minister has not heard it, she is living in a vacuum. She is living away from everybody. She is in a bubble, removed. She is in her ivory tower here at Confederation Building and does not know what is happening if she believes that, because that is not the case.

Sit back, anybody, go back and look at your taxes. Look at your per cent of federal taxes this year, what you paid, and compare what you paid in provincial and federal last year. Look at it. Go back to your last year's taxes and the year before and the year before and look at it and see, basically. Compare it to last year in particular; because, as inflation creeps into the tax bracket, we get a significant amount of money. I will probably ask the minister that on Monday night in the Estimates. I am going to ask her how much is allocated to each of these there, so she can be prepared on Monday to give me an answer to that. I am going to be asking some of these questions, when we have the Estimates, because they are questions we should know. We are entitled to know. We are entitled to know the impact on each of these areas, and the increments, because when you give certain incentives you need to know that there is going to be a stimulation effect that is going to better us overall. That was the plan of that. That was the plan in 1999 when the Premier then sat in that Cabinet there and endorsed this proposal here.

Now, can you tell me why 62 per cent - actually, if you took 17 per cent of federal tax at the time and take 55 per cent of it - we are supposed to have gotten that rate - 55 per cent of 17 per cent, I say to the Premier, is 9.35 per cent. Why are we now paying 10.57 per cent in the lowest bracket if we have two levels of tax cuts? If we only got one, if they only give us the first year out of the three, it would have been 62 per cent times seventeen before they separated the tax, that is 10.54 per cent. We are paying 10.57 per cent. We did not even get one full year out of the three years of tax cuts when we look at the percent when we removed it. I removed it. I took the higher level before the feds reduced theirs. So I would not be playing the game that government is playing with numbers I took the worst-case scenario for us, or the best case to present your case when I looked at it and tell us why.

That is only part of the reason why. That is only part of what is happening on the tax system. There are other areas that have happened in the tax system, apart from those percentages that we are playing. In fact, had we gone with the tax cuts that we were promised, under the 17 per cent federal at the time, had we gone with them we would be paying the lowest bracket today of 8.33 per cent. Right now we are paying 10.57 per cent, which is 26 per cent more provincial tax than we would have paid according to the promise.

Now, with the feds reducing theirs to 16 per cent, if we went to that level, we would be down to 7.84 per cent from what, at the time, was eleven. If you looked at 69 per cent of sixteen, it would be 11.04 per cent. We would have seen a figure of over 30 per cent difference had you gone at the lower rate in taxes, but it did not happen. We are paying more taxes than this government told us we were going to be paying.

PREMIER GRIMES: Are you suggesting that we should reduce taxes (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: No, I will tell the Premier what I am suggesting. I suggest when you stand up and tell the people of the Province - the Premier and the Finance minister - you were going to do something, you should do it. You should honour that and not try to hide behind false figures to justify what you have not done. You should tell the truth, that you are going to do it or you are not going to do it, that is all I am saying. I am not saying whether you should or should not. We will have the access the figures -

PREMIER GRIMES: You don't (inaudible) what you believe in.

MR. SULLIVAN: I will tell you what I believe in. I believe that this government is misleading the people on this. I believe that tax cuts stimulate the economy, and when you give a commitment you should have continued and finished the commitment. I said that here. I said that months ago, Premier. You must not have been listening. I said that months ago that they should have gone ahead. I did a news release. I went on the public record and told where we were on that issue. I did not hide behind false figures and so on, misleading statements that this minister -

PREMIER GRIMES: You are saying (inaudible) spending more money than we have. We are spending too much money when we should take in less. So now you got both those figures at the same time.

MR. SULLIVAN: What is the Premier trying to say? Did you say you taught math in school, I ask the Premier? He said he taught math. Now, I am starting to really wonder. Was that the old math or was it the new math? I am wondering if it was the new math or the old math because it just does not add up, Mr. Speaker. It just does not add up what he is saying. It does not add up. I guess it has been a long while since he has been in the classroom. He has gone a bit rusty. He is about fifteen or seventeen years up in the classroom and rust does set in. It does set in, I might say.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Loyola, that was before (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Now we have the Minister of Finance yapping again and trying to interrupt me again, Mr. Speaker. She is at it the whole time. I did not interrupt her on her Budget Speech, so I would like not to be interrupted here. Go back to the public record and you will see.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Loyola, say that again so the people can hear it.

MR. SULLIVAN: She is not using parliamentary language either, Mr. Speaker. She is not using parliamentary language, but I won't waste my time calling for an apology because the member does not like apologizing and owning up to the truth, I might add.

I am going to continue and talk further about taxation which I had hoped that I had put this to rest before. On top of all that, here is what else they are doing. Here is why we are paying over 72 per cent, not just because they deceived us in terms of the cut - I will mention one thing they done because the tax reduction percent just does not measure up, number one. Secondly, bracket creep; at the time the federal bracket was at $29,590 the lowest bracket. The provincial bracket was $29,590, the lowest provincial bracket. Today the provincial bracket stays exactly the same as it is. The lowest federal bracket has now climbed, I might add, to $31,677, which means on over $2,000 worth of income we are now paying the middle bracket when we should be paying the lower bracket, and that is at 16.16 per cent. That is from 10.57 per cent. So we are paying almost 5.5 per cent more tax because of that shift, that overlapping $2,000 that they took away. Move up to the next bracket and they are doing the same thing. It is higher because of the percent. We are taking out of there between $2,000 and $3,000. We are taking out of the next bracket - our Province is collecting at a rate of 18.02 per cent when they would be collecting at 16.16 per cent. That is what they are doing. That is the sneaky game of deception that is being played here on taxation and telling people that we are giving them tax cuts. Yes, they gave tax cuts at the front door and took them away at the backdoor, and they did not even give at the front door what they said they would give. They only gave one-third of the way, not the two-thirds they advocated.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I will give leave if the former minister wants to stand and tell me why 10.57 per cent, that is only about 62 per cent of seventeen, if we got two levels of tax cuts down to 55 per cent, how do you get 55 per cent of seventeen and get 10.57 per cent? It should be 9.35 per cent. That is there. If anybody could show that to me, I will sit down and listen. If they can do it, I will not get up out of my seat again. I will never get up out of this seat again, if they can show that. They just cannot do it, because 62 per cent times seventeen is 10.54 per cent and we are paying 10.57 per cent. If we were getting the 55 per cent, it would be 9.35 per cent. We are not getting the tax they told us we were getting. Not only that, not only did they stall the third one, they didn't even give us the second one. We did not even get the full effect of the first one, basically.

In fact, the reason we are paying more taxes, when you cut taxes - how do you cut taxes and get more money? More people making more income? No, you have more people working but in lower level jobs. There are a lot of people in this Province working for $5,000 and $6,000 a year. An average fish plant worker in Newfoundland and Labrador last year made $5,500, approximately. Between $5,000 and $6,000 on worked income, and another $5,000-some they averaged on unemployment insurance or EI, as it is now called. So that is about $11,000 split almost equally between work and EI, and at that level you do not pay much taxes. I can tell you, you do not pay very much taxes on that amount because the basic personal exemption - I dealt with these a bit earlier but I am compelled to make reference to them again.

The basic personal exemption; what we have federally with the inflationary factor, our Province does not move with that. Our basic personal exemption is a different level than federally. Our spousal amount is a different level than federally for someone who can claim their spouse, if the spouse is not working or has a low income; it is different. For people going to university or post-secondary institutions, it is $400 a month federally and only $200 provincially. You pay more. For somebody who is disabled, the disability deduction is a $2,000 difference. They clawed away at every single area, and the basic non-refundable tax credit. They have clawed away at every single thing they can get their hands on in the back door that they try to tell you they put in the front door. Every facet of tax. Tax forms here, I have gone through them, I have looked at them. Anybody who looks at basic personal amount, exemption federally differs from provincially. Education deductions differ. It differs for disabled people, and I have spoken to disabled people who called me, who came into my office, people on disability who came in here and asked the same question, and people who have called me from all over this Province. I have had calls referred on this issue and I know a little bit about it myself because I have prepared, I guess, in the hundreds if not thousands of taxes over the years. I am a little bit familiar. I will admit I am not an expert on taxation, but questions I do not know I talk to accountants, chartered accountants and CGAs, and I have talked to people on them and they have concurred with me on this one. They have concurred with me on this one, that they are seeing their clients are paying 72 per cent of the federal rate, and we were supposed to get a tax reduction. What a farce, we are finding out, on taxation here from this government. The minister has the audacity to stand up here and tell us we have tax cuts. We got tax cuts, she tells us.

Seeing we have quieted them down over there with the truth, I am going to talk about something different now, in taxation.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, and if I get provoked about it again, I am not going to let something that is not true stand out there because the people of the Province have a right to know these figures. I am prepared to sit down with anybody and discuss this. If anybody can stand and tell me how the 55 per cent we are getting of the 17 per cent federal is 10.57 per cent, when it is over 62 per cent - it is over 62 per cent - we have not even got the second level of tax cut. That is a game of deception, a game of misleading people. I am not saying it is intentionally. If it is not intentionally, it is really stupidity or trying to con people in the Province, if that is the case.

There are numerous other areas I want to address under this particular budget. I want to talk about health care next. Now, health care is an area that is near and dear to the hearts of people in Newfoundland and Labrador. I might add, health care is the number one priority of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. When you look around the Province and talk to people on a regular basis, I spoke to a person today, just an example, and I will not bring it up here in the House but I did send the minister a note on it today and I am not going to discuss it here, but just one example of -

MR. MATTHEWS: A point of order, Madam Speaker.

MADAM SPEAKER (Ms M. Hodder): On a point of order, the hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I understand that the hon. member has unlimited time. I would not normally interrupt him, either, and I do not normally rise on points of order in this House but I think it is appropriate from time to time to point out and ask the Chair to consider the type of language that the hon. member is using in the speech that he is giving, in the Budget speech. I have been making some notes.

He was referring a few minutes ago to the government as being engaged in a sneaky game of deception. I would suggest, Madam Speaker, that not only is the government not engaged in a sneaky game of deception, that the language in and of itself is not parliamentary. It is inappropriate, and it conveys not only information that is not factual, and a wrong perception; I think it diminishes the view that people have of us in this hon. House generally, when we can stand to our feet and accuse each other of those sorts of things in that type of language. Then he carries on, Madam Speaker, and speaks about: this is the type of con job or the type of conning that government is doing on the people of the Province.

Madam Speaker, this government is not in the business of trying to con people. Government is not in the business of trying to deceive people. Government is not in the business of trying to provide anything other than a fair and accurate accounting for the finances of the Province, and a fair and accurate description of why it is that we make the decisions we make and the basis on which we make them.

Madam Speaker, I would ask that the hon. the member be reminded that language that is unparliamentary serves no useful purpose. It serves no purpose in allowing him to convey what it is he is trying to say, and it serves no purpose in raising the view of the people of the Province with respect to the level of respect that I believe they have for this House and for the members who sit in this Legislature.

Madam Speaker, I would ask you to take under advisement the comments that I am making and give the hon. member some direction with respect to the type of language that is or isn't unparliamentary. Now, if the descriptive words that I have picked up from him today are parliamentary, then I accept what he is saying as being appropriate. If descriptive words such as sneaky games of deception and con jobs are appropriate parliamentary language, then I accept what he is saying and I accept the language he is using, but I would ask the Chair to consider whether or not, in fact, these words are unparliamentary and, if so, to direct the hon. member, if not chastise him, to certainly direct him to be more prudent, to be more circumspect, to be more vigilant, to be more cautious, and to be more honourable in the descriptions that he uses to represent to the people of the Province the practice of this government.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

MR. E. BYRNE: To the point of order, Madam Speaker.

MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader, to the point of order.

MR. E. BYRNE: Madam Speaker, to the point of order, the minister should know - he has been here the same length of time that I have been. He has participated in some contentious and hotly contested debates in the House; but, for his information, I would like to point out to him that since 1958 it has been ruled parliamentary to use the following expressions: arrogant - the member didn't use that although he could have; barefaced falsehood - he didn't use that but he could have; blackmail - he didn't use that but he could have; casting reflections - he didn't use that but he could have; deceive - been ruled parliamentary. The member has certainly been within the context of rules established in this House long before either he or I or other members in this House had been elected to this Chamber. All of the statements, the language used, the context that has been used by the Member for Ferryland, has been in accordance with the practice, traditions, expressions and what has been deemed acceptable; not by us but by the rules set down both in Beauchesne and Erskine May in terms of what is parliamentary and what is correct in terms of parliamentary language.

The minister obviously does not know that. The Member for Ferryland, the former House Leader, knows that and he has been, Madam Speaker, as I submit to you today - any thoughtful, sober-looking and frank assessment of the language put forward, the context in which it has been used in terms of the Budget Debate by the Member for Ferryland - has been more in keeping with the practiced traditions and the acceptable expressions that we use in this House as we try to explain ourselves to the people of the Province, and the issues of the day to the people of the Province.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I very intentionally and deliberately prefaced my remarks by suggesting, and by stating, that if the language being used by the hon. member was, in fact, parliamentary, that I accept the use of that language in the House. I have no problem with using accepted parliamentary language; but I also made the point - and I want to reiterate the point - that notwithstanding whether or not these words are parliamentary or not, they do nothing to enhance the image of the people who sit on either side of the House. They do nothing to add positive descriptiveness as to what our non-impugned motives are as members of this House. I believe that every member who sits in this Legislature, all forty-seven of us now, are honourable people. I believe we come here to do an honourable and respectable and an honest job on behalf of the people in the Province. To the extent that the hon. member uses language parliamentary accepted by Beauchesne or Erskine May or whomever, because I readily admit I am not as familiar with the green book that the hon. the Member for Kilbride uses as his point of reference when he is up on points of order. I admire his knowledge of the green book, I call it, and the diligence that he pays to parliamentary procedure and parliamentary language. But, Madam Speaker, I submit to you that notwithstanding whether or not the green book contains these words as being acceptable, they do nothing to enhance our image and they do nothing to seek to convey and honest perspective as to what government is doing.

The least I would ask of the hon. member, because I believe it would be his intention and his desire, is to be honest in terms of his descriptiveness of the intent of the actions of this government. I believe he believes that we are honourable people. I believe he believes that we are doing a good job. I also know that he has to play the role of an Opposition critic and I cut him that amount of slack, but I am not prepared to cut him the amount of slack that gives him the latitude to use language that is - if not insulting- at best diminishing and confusing to the people of the Province. I believe it does him no credit to be involving himself in that type of ‘ling-grittery'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. E. BYRNE: I am not sure who is confusing who. I do know that the Minister of Mines and Energy has employed a tactic that the government has used from time to time with less frequency, I might add, over the last several weeks since the House opened, but a tactic, nonetheless, that has caused a good - they say that a good defence is a strong offence. That is what we are seeing from the Minister of Mines and Energy today.

Maybe what he should have done, Madam Speaker - because nothing that the Member from Ferryland, nothing he said today was unparliamentary in this House. Not one single word, expression, or the context in which he used it was unparliamentary.

The Member for Ferryland, on a very serious matter, dealing with taxation, in terms of showing the people of the Province correctly how government has said on the one hand, of the tax benefits that we are going to receive, yet on the other how they have, in a certain way, in a way that he has defined, demonstrated to the people of the Province why we are not receiving that tax break.

Maybe the Minister of Mines and Energy would be well advised, if he wants to deal with the issue at hand, to demonstrate to the people of the Province how he, as part of a government and as part of a Cabinet, and as the former Minister of Finance, could stand up and ask the Member for Ferryland, could he have fifteen minutes of his time, Madam Speaker, so that he could correct, if he believes the Member for Ferryland is wrong, correct what the Member for Ferryland has said is incorrect.

I would suspect that the Minister of Mines and Energy is not going to do that because he knows full well that the Member for Ferryland is exactly right and dead on in what he has portrayed to the people of the Province when it comes to the debate on taxation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: Maybe he would like to take advantage of that, and I am sure that the Member for Ferryland and we as well would give him that opportunity to try to stand and correct, if he believes what the Member for Ferryland has said is wrong or non-factual or not true. I submit, Madam Speaker, that he will not do it because he knows the difference. He knows full well that the Member for Ferryland today is standing, dealing with an issue forthrightly, dealing with an issue correctly, and explaining to the people of the Province the exact nature of the tax cuts or non-tax cuts that this government has provided to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I say to the hon. member: It is not my phone, nor has my bell rung either, nor has my bell been rung, but I have a feeling, Madam Speaker, that the hon. the Member for Kilbride is a little testy because he fundamentally believes that the use of proper and good and the higher standard of ethical language in this House would serve us all better. I will not take the opportunity of taking fifteen minutes of the hon. member's time. I believe I have already taken too much of the hon. member's time because he was, rightfully so, debating and participating in the debate. So, I will not take him up on that offer, but I would ask him to pay attention.

MADAM SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. minister has had sufficient time for the point of order and the Chair rules no point of order.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I asked the former minister and I asked the minister to stand up and refute the figures I gave him and he did not do it. I don't mind if anybody wants to stand up and refute the figures that I have used. I will give them time to do it. I just said what this government did is sneaky. I said it is sneaky, what they did. I will say it again in the House, in the House, outside the House, from here to Timbuktu. I said they are deceiving, basically, deception - the government - deception to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador . If that is unparliamentary and it is proven to be, which I know it is not, I would have withdrawn it. I said they are misleading, and it is not unparliamentary. They are misleading the people. I did not say deliberately misleading. That could be ruled to be unparliamentary. I am well aware of words that are parliamentary. The context in which they are used can also determine whether they are parliamentary, whether I said the people of the Province are being deceived or whether I said the minister is deceiving the people of the Province.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) had a big bill to pay.

MR. SULLIVAN: The Minister of Finance, for the first time since I can remember, the first time in a long while, I got a nice refund cheque, I might say to the minister, in a long, long while. That is more than I can say the minister has had in a long, long, long time, I might add. That is it. When you overpay your taxes, you get money back. That is basically the way it happens. When you underpay them, they come looking for it. That is the way it works when you underpay it. Can the minister stand and say the same thing, that he got a refund on his taxes?

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. SULLIVAN: No, he cannot do it, that is right. Can he stand and say the figures I used are wrong, and tell me what the right figures are, and how he arrived at them? Because I have explained how I arrived at it. I took your statements, I took the figures published by this government, and I took the percentages, and the federal rate prior to the change, the current federal rate, and they cannot be refuted, those figures, basically, because they are taken from government records and the methods used to assess tax here in this country and in this Province.

Now, I wanted to talk about health care before the minister got up on his little tirade there. I think he was only trying to use up some of my unlimited time. I don't know if that was his strategy. If they keep doing that, Madam Speaker, I just might stay here until July and talk until July, I might add.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: We won't need to reconvene the House in the fall; we will be continuing the House in the fall. That is what I might add.

MR. MATTHEWS: You will have as much time left in July as you have now, because it is unlimited.

MR. SULLIVAN: That is correct. If the minister wants to get up and give me a little break now and then, providing he makes sense, Madam Speaker, I haven't heard him make sense very often, I might add, not too often.

Now, I want to get to talking about health care, a budget that we are being told is a $1.4 billion budget, representing about 45 percent or 44 per cent of the expenditures of the programs here in our Province, of our budget. It is a very significant area, I might add.

The Leader of the Opposition today raised a question, the Hay Report. The paid people marched in from Ontario without doing proper in-depth investigative work and analysis, drew conclusions on the health care system in our Province and insulted, basically, skilled doctors who have been providing a great service at the Out-Patients at the Janeway. I know anybody in this House who has visited there or had children visit there.... I will not say I had the privilege to visit the Janeway; it is never a privilege to have to go to a hospital with somebody at all. It is a misfortunate, I guess, more so than a privilege, but I have had to go there and most other people have. I think the reception at the Janeway has been outstanding, and I have never seen it questioned. There are some tremendous specialists at the Janeway Hospital. What should have been done in this report, what should have been done when the Hay Report, without proper in-depth analysis and without knowing the full operations involved in our system, the minister should have come out with a news conference and had a concurrent statement indicating that we do not support, we take offence to the attack on the doctors and so on and the professional people here in our Province. Come out and stand up for the people who are out providing health care service. That is what should have been done. People march in, they wanted a quick report. Maybe they are not at fault because maybe the timeline they gave to do it did not give the chance to do the in-depth analysis. I do not know what the reason is, but this government has to be responsible.

They fund the health care system, commissioned the Hay Report, came through to look at ways of saving money in the system. You didn't have to go to Toronto to get a consultant to tell you that, if you keep closing down beds, you will save money. I don't think we need to be rocket scientists to know that if you keep closing beds and do not put people in the hospital when they need it, it is going to save money.

Lengthen the waiting lists. Talk about waiting lists in emergency, I will give you an example. Back in March, I once again had the misfortune to have to go to the emergency of the general hospital with my son who separated his shoulder at 10:15 p.m. on a Friday evening, right from a hockey arena. He separated his shoulder and was in pain, and sat in emergency from 10:15 p.m. until 6:15 a.m., with ice packs and lying in the emergency room for eight hours. Actually, eight hours before he could see a doctor in the emergency room. When we went in, the waiting list was five hours. They changed it to six hours, to seven hours. Waiting lists in hospitals are inordinately long and people - if a separated shoulder, and you are in pain, is so minor and it takes eight hours, God help the people who have less minor injuries assessed. How long are they going to have to wait?

I know of people who came into emergency, they were so sick they could not sit up. They had to go out and lie down in a car in the winter and start the car, and their spouse stayed in the waiting room to hear when their name came up so they wouldn't miss it. They went for several hours, ten to twelve hours; a person from Harbour Main-Whitbourne. I can tell you hundreds of stories just like that and a lot worse, of what is going on. That was not last year or the year before. That story I told you was a case in March, in my own personal case.

Look, we are run off our feet. The doctor came in and he could hardly stand up. He could hardly talk he was so tired. The doctor was so tired, that is a fact. I really pitied the doctor then, he seemed to be so fatigued. I asked the question: Don't you have two doctors on at a time? Sometimes.

I know a doctor, personally, who specialized in emergency medicine, worked in Ontario for a few years, graduated, a good doctor, married a Newfoundlander and came home here to go to work and look for a job in an emergency department. He got a shift every several weeks. That person bought a house, bought a nice home, with two young kids, in Mount Pearl and that person flew back to Ontario for two years. He flew back for a month and worked, and then came home for a few days or a week and went back again. After two years, just last summer - last June, I believe, I am not sure of the exact date, or September, last summer anyway - that person put their house on the market, sold it, weighed which offer they were going to take they had so many in Ontario. They went up to make either double the money, double or even triple the money, with reasonable working conditions there in the province and left. They would not hire anybody else. They did not want to hire. The corporation does not want to hire an extra doctor. No matter how long you are in there, they do not want to hire. They turned down people and did not want them, basically. They did not want extra people. They do not want to reduce waiting lists. There has to be a solution.

When someone is in pain and have injuries and so on, there has to be a reasonable period of time. I mean, that is unacceptable. A lady called me just a couple of weeks ago from my district, and the Member for St. John's West raised that in the House and I will just relay it as an example. This lady from my district who had some complications and minor surgery and possibly further surgery, went to her doctor and the doctor gave her a requisition and wanted her to have a mammogram. That person went and had a mammogram last September and went to get a mammogram just a few months back and was told January 17, 2003 you can get a mammogram. Here, the minister stood in this House and made announcements on how we are improving breast screening. How we are improving early diagnosis.

MR. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: The minister is trying to interrupt me again. The Minister of Mines and Energy is not in his seat even. You are not entitled to speak when you are not in your seat. Now, he is over next to me shouting and interrupting. This is a serious matter, I might add. This is a very serious matter, and the Member for St. John's West raised it.

The lady was forty-eight years old with a requisition from her doctor, who went for minor surgery and possibility other surgery, was told she could not get a mammogram until January 17, 2003. It was recommended by the doctor that she needed it. That person went to visit her in-laws in Ontario, a little community in Ontario called Uxbridge. She inquired: How long does it take to get a mammogram here? Oh, you can get one here within a month. Her daughter's mother-in-law called and within one week - in a little, small community called Uxbridge, Ontario, she got a mammogram in a week and was told here in 2003, for a person who had complications. To me, that is not promoting early diagnosis.

We had been told that we were going to shift. When we changed the money - all the savings we were going to save when we consolidated hospitals we are going to put that into community health; prevention and promotion. We are going to take the money and put it into (inaudible). To tell someone who needs a mammogram that they cannot get one for a year, how is that going to get early detection? That person in a years' time, if there are problems and complications, could have something diagnosed that may be fatal in a year. I know people who have been diagnosed and died within two months; several people. Numerous people that I could name in the past year, some close friends. Everybody knows of some people in those categories where that has happened.

We have not done the shift. We have not put it into promotion and prevention and we have not improved our diagnostic very much here in our Province. We have one MRI which is used for ten or eleven hours a day. Basically, in other jurisdictions some use them twenty hours. You can get one in a week, in some areas, an MRI. People are being told in one year. Oh, it is not everybody who should have an MRI. Well, in the States they are talking about the bad system they have there. Down in the United States you can go and get an MRI in a day. Early detection could save your life. It could keep your job. It could feed your family. You could live for another decade, two decades. But if you wait to get one here, you could be dead within two months.

I was always taught - and I went to university. I did pre-med and science. I worked at the hospitals, the emergency department and elsewhere, for thirteen months to be exact. We were always told that early detection is one of the most important aspects in getting a quick recovery. I have been told by specialists here that when they cannot get their surgery in the hospital, that that delays the recovery. I know for a fact that in every case getting done for heart surgery bypass today, it is almost a critical case. You cannot get your surgery done unless you are almost critical. Then your convalescence is slower. You will probably never get back to work because you were allowed to wait so long.

I know of a person who was on a waiting list for over two years, and passed away a couple of months ago; was on a waiting list and never did get that call. I know of others who never did get that call. When you on a waiting list you cannot work. You have blockages. You know there is a problem. You know that you are sick and have to get into hospital. You almost have to have a heart attack to be able to get in and get your surgery. Specialists will tell you - and I have talked to my share of them in different medical areas - that it probably is so counterproductive in a sense that these people never get back to be contributing members of the workforce because we left it so long. We were starting to conquer this problem. We were talking about conquering this problem, I say to the minister. We were getting it under control to a degree.

Back in 1993, when I first served as a critic in Health in 1993, there were 115 people on a waiting list for heart surgery. That number rose and rose to 200 and as high as 300. I have raised this issue on many occasions in this House, and outside, and I have indicated we have to do something. When people come in with emergencies and so on, you cannot be cancelling all these surgeries. You have to have a separate area dedicated. Submissions were done to government, government moved in certain areas, and I compliment them on moving in certain areas at the time. They had an area dedicated for cardiac surgery, a separate operating room for cardiac surgery. You had a separate recovery room, and those areas were needed. What did they do? They corrected and spent millions, recruited another cardiac surgeon, the third one in the Province, kept him here for a year with no surgeries to do. The only had it up to ten. They were doing five each, the two who were here, and they kept him on the payroll for a year, paid him as if he was doing them, just to keep him here because we would need him down the road. It took awhile to fix that problem. We got three cardiac surgeons.

Then we had a problem with perfusionists who left, too. I think they were a husband and wife team. We had to solve that problem. We had to solve the problem of a dedicated space. That got solved and what happened then? I won't display it; the licence plate tells it all, when the nurses went out on the streets and were legislated back.

The reason why heart surgeries were not getting done is because they did not have the nurses to work in the operating room and in the recovery room. Not because we did not have the surgeons, not because we did not have the space, not because we did not have the anesthetists, or the perfusionists, but because of nurses. When you have several parts, the same as needed to operate an automobile, you need tires, you need an engine, you need basic structures. If you are missing tires, it does not work. You take out the engine and it is no good to you. Nurses are needed, perfusionists are needed. We need doctors, anesthetists, and we need the space. If you take away one of them, you cannot preform it. People came in to work in the morning and were told: Go find something else. They sent them off somewhere else, they had nothing for them to do because they could not do surgeries. They did not have nurses. So, what did they do? They got called back on weekends on overtime and extra time, loaded the system because they did not deal with the bottleneck. That is what I talk about when I say waste in the system.

An improved system is not necessarily in many areas going to save money but it is going to put twice as many people through that gate, through that turnstile, with the same dollars. That is better service. That is improved service. If you can put a turnover in hospitals by doing more surgeries in the same period, you have served people better. You have reduced waiting lists. That is improvement in the quality of service, and that is what we need to do.

AN HON. MEMBER: How, Loyola?

MR. SULLIVAN: I just said it. Read Hansard and you will see it. I do not want to repeat it because I have many other things I want to address and I will not get them done here today. Who knows when I am going to finish.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes.

Mr. Speaker, there are tremendous waiting lists and problems in the system. I have been in hospitals where I have seen people who came through surgery, orthopedic surgery, that they had no ice to put on their knees and so on after going through surgery. They had to go outside. I left and went outside when I was visiting someone in the hospital. I had to get ice and bring it in to use on a patient I was visiting, actually, a family member. I know other people in the same category who had to do that. I have been in hospitals where people could not get a pillow, and had to go over the hospital looking around to try and find a pillow.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) not in Newfoundland?

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, there have been in Newfoundland.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) not in Newfoundland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, but I say it has happened here right here in this city. Yes, it has happened in this city.

AN HON. MEMBER: The hon. gentleman is talking about (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I am not talking about Nova Scotia. I do not represent Nova Scotia. I do not represent Nova Scotia, I say to the Government House Leader. I represent a constituent in this Province and I am concerned about the health of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and I hope the representatives in Nova Scotia represent the health of people in Nova Scotia. If the minister wants to speak for Nova Scotians, he should go up there and run. We have sent a few Newfoundlanders up there to run and got elected in Nova Scotia. My concern is with the people in Newfoundland and Labrador, and it has not been served well. It has not been served well overall, I might say.

MR. LUSH: What the hon. member is saying is the same (inaudible), in every province. (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I say to the Government House Leader, they are trying to use the excuse as to why we should not have care, because other parts of the country do not have it? Utter nonsense!

MR. LUSH: Tell the truth (inaudible) your taxes. Put it in the right perspective like you did with your taxes.

MR. SULLIVAN: Madam Speaker, the Government House Leader is getting into a fit of interference over here in this House.

MR. LUSH: (Inaudible) you didn't mind that.

MR. SULLIVAN: I said, if you can stand up and correct what I am saying -

MR. LUSH: That is what I am doing now.

MR. SULLIVAN: No, I didn't say that.

I will not sit down or stand up for something - you give a speech - if you are not correcting something I have said. I have not said one thing in this House that you can prove to be false, not a thing that you can prove to be false, because I did my research. It comes from personal experience in dealing with people. When people tell me - and I have produced information and I have tabled stuff, and I have given stuff out to back up my points on things I have raised in here.

MR. LUSH: Fearmongering.

MR. SULLIVAN: It is not fearmongering, I say to the Government House Leader, not by any stretch of the imagination. That government is trying to paint a rosier picture, and now they are getting offended. They are sensitive. They are sensitive to it now. That is why they do not like to hear the truth being told, because the truth is a reflection on them and their inability to do something about it. That is basically it.

MR. SWEENEY: What would you do?

MR. SULLIVAN: I have already said what I would do. You should be listening, I say to the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace. If he was listening, not back on to the House and the Speaker, he might hear what we are saying, I might add.

Now, there are numerous people - I will use an example of a person very recently, a gentleman in my district, a gentleman from Trepassey - people who went into hospital, people who went in to hospital and were getting home care. There were people getting home care and they had to go to hospital. They got so sick they had to go to the hospital. When they got discharged from the hospital and came home, they told them they could not get home care. They needed thirty-seven-and-a-half hours, forty hours, varying amounts. I know several cases. Before you went into hospital you needed forty hours. They went to hospital - they were elderly and needed continuous assistance - they came out and, because there was a freeze on it, they put a freeze on home care, no new people, the person came off home care to go into hospital because they were sick and came back in the community and could not get home care. Oh, no, we have a freeze; you have to go on the waiting list.

That should never happen. I raised the issue and went public on that issue. The next day, when I went to visit that gentleman - I drove all the way to Trepassey. I went there to visit and sat there, there was a nurse there doing an assessment. Within that day they had their hours back because they should have gotten them back. It was the right thing to do. Government had to come out and make a statement then and say: Oh well, we are going to change that.

These are some of the things that are happening. Should a person who is in bed a lot, disabled, his spouse is taking care of him, has several disabilities - one side of her body was affected, she had difficulty walking and had to try to care for her husband who was confined to bed most of the time. That was not justice, I might add. That is not justice because someone who goes in hospital, who gets very sick, should be restored to the same level of care that they had before going in unless a reassessment shows that they would need less. If the reassessment shows that they need more, they still don't get it. People do not get the assessed care they need.

We looked at this government on personal care homes. It seems like they are trying to squeeze personal care homes out of existence because the amount of money that is needed to keep people going is far below what is reasonable to be able to stay in existence. Many have gone bankrupt over the past number of years because the cheapest type of service that you can give is in a personal care home. It is the cheapest cost to government. People go into those homes and it becomes their home.

I will use an example, this is a sad case. Two weeks ago - this is a very touching case, I think something has to be done - a person went into a personal care home who was Level I or II at the time, who got to Level III and the directive went out that anybody with Level III had to get out of personal care homes into nursing homes. This man and his family refused to leave because they were happy there. They were looked after and they were comfortable. Obviously, the home was told -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) gone bankrupt?

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, several; sold and gone bankrupt. They cannot survive. There are several on the brink; overdrafts in their banks. I have met with them on occasions. The minister must know about it. We have met with them. I have raised questions in the House. They came into the gallery. They have pleaded with government here. They have gone bankrupt. They cannot survive.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where?

MR. SULLIVAN: Well, I do not want to mention here a person who once had - here on the Avalon Peninsula, and others have sold out for next to nothing.

The example I was telling you - I do not know what the solution is but I will mention this example. A man who had progressed to Level III - personal care homes are licensed for Level I, in some cases Level II, if you provide that service. Nursing homes now are basically only taking in Level III people, or Level IV if you look at the more advanced.

This person and his family responsible for him - he did not have any children. He had siblings and I guess his niece was looking after him and his interests, and they said: No, that person is happy in that personal care home. He does not want to go. People are happy, they could handle him. He was active, talking and involved, but pretty well confined to bed. I had meetings with community health on another individual similar, and this case came up. When that person was told that he had to move then they put the pressure on the home: He does not move; they put on a freeze. No more new people are going in your home. The home had no choice then. They could not have their license revoked or stop doing business. So they informed the person and said: Look, you are going to have to go into a nursing home. The man and his family were devastated. He said: I am not going to any nursing home, I am going down on that hill there on the top of Cape Broyle. He said: That is where I am going. He went eight days and didn't eat, basically, and he died in eight days; a guy who was functioning in there, the family could visit him, the people in there were happy with him, and he was happy in there because he had progressed to Level III. I mean, he gave up the spirit, basically, and he said: No, I am not going there. He had his mind, he was conscious, and they were only pleased to be able to handle him, but their license didn't permit it. If they could have taken that person out of the personal care home, brought him home and cared for him or tried to care for him - and there is nothing wrong with that, that could be done. That is legal, nothing wrong with that. They could take him into their home and get no care, and a person could pine away, but you can't leave him in a personal care home where he has the attention. That is a difficult situation. I have been aware of it and I have discussed the issue with the Department of Health and Community Services.

What should government policy be? Should there be any exceptions on personal circumstances? If the home can handle a person, the family are prepared, the guy is happy, he is adamant, should there be some compassion, should there be some allowance? The person has been confined to bed for some time and he has been in a home for a number of years, should he be uprooted? That killed that man, basically. That is what happened. We cannot blame government for killing him, but the policy did. The policy said, I am not moving. You know, older folks, when they get to a certain point, are content with the people around them, it is their home. To uproot somebody at that stage and move him from his area into St. John's, into a home where, probably, he wouldn't see as many people and make friends at that age, or be confined to a room, it uprooted his life and was kind of devastating.

They are personal examples, basically, of human suffering based on government policy. I am not saying anybody should be allowed to go in there. I mean, you have to have certain sets of rules and guidelines. I acknowledge that. But that is what happened in this case, and it is unfortunate. I think that person was the last one or two people in the whole area who had to be moved. Everybody else had moved. I think there were only a couple of cases left who were waiting to move into nursing homes in that category. This person just adamantly refused to do it.

Now, we need to look at, certainly, nursing homes. I have asked the question before and the minister has said we have enough. I have asked the question, do we need more nursing homes, and the minister has said we have enough. Maybe we have enough because they are looking at privatizing, having the private sector do it. Maybe that is what they are planning on doing. I do not know. I can't see how you have enough beds when you have to wait months and months to get a bed. How can you have enough beds, when you have to wait months and months to get a bed? That doesn't make sense to me. I mean, where are they?

They are saying: Well, we have people in those homes now who were Level I when they went in there, and now they are Level II, but we can't tell them to get out, and I agree with that. If someone is in St. Patrick's Mercy Home or Hoyles-Escasoni, and they are Level I or Level II and they are there fifteen years, you can't walk in and say: You are there fifteen years, now go out somewhere else. It is difficult to do that. So, it is going to take a year or two, they said, before these people progress to Level III, and we will have all Level III beds for hire.

There has to be some way to look at it and say, if a waiting list is inordinately long, to me that means there are not enough beds, and there are not enough beds in homes. We have looked at areas before, and I have raised the issue here in this House - I asked a few years ago: Why, with the Bonavista Peninsula, the Clarenville area - I have used that area - why, with the oldest population age wise, the people in the upper end of the population in the Province, shouldn't we look at a long-term care facility in the Clarenville area? Because that is where the elderly people are. Should a person in Grand Bank, for example, have to come into St. John's, if they want to be able to stay in Grand Bank. Within areas of reasonable driving distances for family, they should try to be accommodated, within reason. We have to have a basic plan that will project - and we cannot do it on the short-term basis. They have to look at it on a long-term basis and say, what are the needs of the future, not just the needs today which may not be the needs of the future. We are seeing that with school systems in Newfoundland and out-migration.

I will use Trepassey as one quick example. Coming into Trepassey in Kindergarten, for example, and in the next few years, there are four or five students a year when there were forty-some graduating there a couple of years ago, and in the thirties. There were thirty and forty graduating, and four and five coming in. So, you plan for the future, basically, for at least a reasonable time in the future. That is what should be done with nursing homes and with - well, personal care homes are a little more on a voluntary basis, in a sense, because people can go into these in an unsubsidized basis, but there are a certain number of subsidized beds. We have never said, when we talk about personal care, that you shouldn't subsidize the client or the person. Now, we do not have a problem - and we have said that - with subsidizing the client, because -

MR. LUSH: (Inaudible) you are going to correct the inequities in the system.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, but here is the point I am going to make, Government House Leader. Here is the point, and I think this deserves consideration - I think we did a Private Members' Resolution, and I talked about this before - but here is the point. People who went out - and you had to have subsidized beds. I think, in personal care homes now - maybe the Health critic could give me a specific number - there are in the vicinity of 1,100 or so subsidized beds; 1,100 roughly. The Government House Leader I know was following attentively, and I will get to that in a second. We need to look at, basically, what do we do in the future.

Now, if you subsidize a client, there has to be a certain responsibility to people to provide a reasonable level of care, and there has to be a responsibility for people who invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, and went to the bank to get a loan for personal care homes. There has to be a certain responsibility to them. You cannot cut them loose when they are mortgaged to the hilt based upon a subsidy that is now going to pulled away, if the home is subsidized. There has to be a certain agreement, a certain settlement, something reached, to cross that bridge. I am going to say that to the Government House Leader because I think it makes sense. I agree, that is where it should go, to subsidize the client, but we have to look at the 1,100 or so who are in personal care home subsidized beds now.

These people went out and built their businesses, they expanded to meet certain regulations, and they bought homes by going to the bank and getting a loan, and the bank gave them money because with every subsidized bed, they knew you had a guaranteed income; the same as someone who has a fishing quota, you are guaranteed to have a certain catch, so the bank will give you money for your boat. When you have a certain number of subsidized beds, you can get the money from the bank to be able to build a home or buy a home and, therefore, you have mortgaged yourself for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Now, when people have their money and they are leveraged financially on that basis, then government says: We are going subsidize clients now. We are going to cut everybody loose. Go where you want. These people, who carried the industry for twenty and thirty years, cannot be cut loose. There has to be a way to level the playing field first. There has to be some consideration. We have said that all along and government has not been receptive. What they have been doing is, they have been starving them out, pushing one into bankruptcy, one shutting down, and one after another they are falling off right now because they are being pushed. To me, that is really not fair to these people.

I might add, something has to be done to address it, because you just cannot go from point A to point B and disregard past policy, ignore it, and cut people loose. There has to be something worked out with these people, where they can now at least compete on a level playing field. They could use that money they had to modernize their homes because these people have homes that are older. Lots of homes have good reputations and people want to go into them, but a home that is more modern, newly built, is more enticing to people in a sense, and people might have a tendency to go there. Therefore, the people in the other homes cannot expand, because if you expand, I think, beyond 25 per cent, or up to 25 per cent, you have to install a sprinkler system. Twenty-five per cent, I think - I ask our critic there - is the percent beyond it. So, they cannot afford to expand, but at least if you level the playing field then they could use that money, the amount that they could by moving to a client basis, to at least stay competitive and compete with somebody else out there, instead of being squeezed and dropped off the edge one after the other.

These are some of the things that we have advocated. We think it is reasonable policy, we think it is fair and reasonable, and something like this should be done. That has not happened, Madam Speaker, in our Province. They have pushed the people to the hilt, right to the very edge and they have fallen over, one after another, and the fittest are trying to survive.

I have talked to probably, I would say, the majority of personal care homeowners. I have been at their AGMs, I have met with them on several occasions, and I have met with their association. I went into some of the homes, myself. I have been in some of the homes even outside my district. There are several in my district and I am sure in other members' districts here in this House and I have been in, I think, every single one in my district and I have been in several outside my district, and something has to be done to be able to level the playing field and move forward.

Now, we have looked at, and I have mentioned before in this House on occasion, another area I am going to touch on. It is a very significant area, the area of cancer and oncology. That is an area that has been in the media several times over the last number of years. Cancer is probably one of the diseases you get where there is the most anxiety and the most concern. At one time when you heard cancer it was considered fatal, you were finished, that was it, basically, at one time. People got that impression. You did not want to hear that word. Today, there have been improvements. We have had early detection, early diagnosis, access to MRIs and scans. These things are imperative to getting early detection, to allow people to live a longer life and, hopefully, overcome cancer, because early detection is the answer.

We had a problem here in this Province at one point, just three years ago, I believe - and it has been an ongoing problem - where every medical oncologist left, except the one in charge. It was, I think, part-time between the one in charge and Memorial University. They all left.

I spoke to, I think, two of them, at least. One went on to Saskatchewan. I talked to one from Winnipeg. I wanted to find out, you know, why are people leaving. Is there a reason? Is it just the monetary part? They have indicated: Look, the monetary part is a factor. Because we were paid so much below the lowest paid was a factor. But the horrendous workloads, you know, you just cannot cope. It is like taking a chunk of time out of your life. Anybody who has been busy, whether it is in politics or on the job, and you are working day and night, seven days a week - I am not saying they work seven days a week (inaudible), but they work similar to it. You are working, and you can only put out at that level for so long. After that you start to realize that there is no such thing as a family life. You have a family, you are neglecting them. We would like to get a little bit of stability in our lives in terms of work. We would like to be able to, at least, come home from work in the evening. We would like to be able to have reasonable compensation for that and to do that.

People left, not just because of money, but money was a factor, because if you paid more money and you paid a competitive rate you would not have the problem I am seeing with supply. You would have more people coming for the positions because they are paid at a competitive level and that would solve your problem with workload. Because, workload cannot get solved without dealing with the salary issue. They have to pay them competitively to get the people they desire to have that job here.

I spoke with and had occasion to visit on several occasions, because of a family member, a doctor - it was a shame! - who we lost here at the Janeway Hospital, Dr. Jardine. I think he had ten kids. He was a very respected, prominent pediatric oncologist here and hematologist; a very prominent individual who left because of workload and low pay. He went to set up, I think, a pediatric oncology unit at Western in London, roughly two years ago. A little over two years ago he left.

Fortunately, another Newfoundlander, actually who grew up in the Kilbride area, had agreed to stay on here, became an oncologist and worked almost continuously on call. He got relieved a bit by some pediatricians who would relieve him to a certain degree, but he was the sole one here for over two years until another Newfoundlander went away to train and finish. She is back now as a full-time person. So, we have two now, thank God, here at the Janeway and there is a little stability.

We have people who have left because of workloads, no time with family and because the pay was not competitive. When you get competitive pay more people want the job and you are going to solve that problem. Regardless of what they tell you, working conditions is one thing, but what is the best way to solve working conditions? By paying appropriately. The same way with nurses, what we did when nurses left this Province. We went out and everybody graduating was promised a job, we gave signing bonuses and we advertised across North America for them.

I talked to a couple out in B.C. who wanted to come back to Newfoundland, but they would not pay them the amount. They were giving them so many thousand to come back. We cannot get all of our stuff back for that. We have a car each and have to drive. We cannot even get back home for that amount of money. They did not come back, but had they gotten enough just to cover expenses to get home, they said, they would have done it. We just bought a new car, the spouse had to have a second one because of the work situation. Had they gotten enough to cover their cost of getting home and so on, either ship their car or get their things back they would have come back nursing.

What happened? We went through, and the nurses went through, a strike. We all know that. Then there was a raise. They called it a reclassification, but it was a raise because it applied pretty well to everybody. Reclassification should be an ongoing process in which your job requirements and so on are reviewed. Call it what you like anyway. They called it reclassification because everybody else would not have to jump up and say they got another raise on top of the 7 per cent. Basically, that is what it was. Nobody around the table, in dealing with bargaining anywhere else, knows any difference. They did not care what you called it. As long as you get a competitive wage, you don't care. Call it reclassification, call it an increase, call it what you like. We need a certain level, and the level did get up eventually with this raise. It should bring a starting nurse in the vicinity of $45,000 or $46,000, I think, to a peak of around $53,000 or $54,000. It is in a competitive range now. But what is happening now, I hope it does not happen again, the bonus is dropped now. It is not being offered. Graduating nurses this year are being told that, with not as many nurses being hired, they will probably get twenty-five hours a week, fifty hours every two weeks, two-thirds of a regular workload and so on. Are people going to stay around?

I know a person who will be graduating next year, who will owe over $70,000. Do you think they are going to stay here on twenty-five hours a week? It cannot be done. You cannot even pay off your loan and live on that amount. You just have to get out of the Province. That brings in student debt as another area that is connected to it.

There are concerns, and there are a lot of concerns. There have to be solutions. Look, you have to be competitive with Atlantic Canada. I know the minister stood and said: Look, how do compete with U.S. in Canada? I said: Look, I never indicated in my political life that we should be paying compared with the United States and the better parts of Canada. I said, we should be competitive with Atlantic Canada. That is all I have said in any of the areas there. We cannot expect our economy, even though we are told that it is booming and we never seen anything like the GDP before, and when it comes to negotiations we cannot afford it, but that is the political spinning and so on that goes out. When you brush all of that aside and look at the issue, we cannot afford not to be competitive with Atlantic Canada. We cannot afford not to be competitive. We have to be competitive.

If a nurse in Port aux Basques gets several thousand less than a nurse in Cape Breton, just a short ferry ride across the Gulf, are they going to stay for $7,000 or $8,000 less? Now, the gap is being closed significantly and so on. I know when contracts come up, and negotiations, the gap will widen a bit again. That is an ongoing process, but at least - it is not only getting to be competitive; we have to look at staying in the competitive range. That is why, I think, we are competing with our neighbours for these personnel.

Newfoundland specialists and Newfoundland nurses, you name it, and other medical professions are sought and in demand across North America and, in fact, across the world. I think if we have run good programs here and people come out with good skills and they are capable of going out and performing and doing the job that is required there. We turn out good products in many of our institutions, not only in our medical areas but in our universities and in our colleges and so on. We produce good students with a good education and I think we have something to be proud of, that we are turning out students in many of these areas, but we have to consider, if we are turning out students, too, there has to be hopefully a workplace that will be able to absorb and take these in and create jobs and employment for these people. We have not reciprocated in comparison with providing the environment and the workplace to be able to employ these people.

Unfortunately, many of these people are finding employment in other parts of the country, in other parts of the world. We have always, I know, traditionally had people leave home. We have had people years ago go to Greenland and you name it, all over the place to get jobs, and back home again, but there seems to be an inordinate number of people going and not returning. I think the statistics bear that out.

It is pretty alarming when we have gone from 542,000 down to 513,000. Almost 40,000 people in a five-year period, that is an alarming statistic. I never expected such a significant change in our population in that period of time. I think that is a sign that all of us should be concerned about. We have gone from 583,000 people back in 1989 down to 513,000; 70,000 people. Seventy thousand people times $2,800-and-some for every person on equalization is an example. Look at those figures. It is an enormous amount of money that has been lost out of the provincial - hundreds of millions in equalization, just on those populations alone; and in other areas and other services.

This year the loss - if you look at the loss of 40,000 people - that is equivalent to taking the City of Corner Brook, taking Stephenville and Grand Falls-Windsor. Can you imagine taking those three cities and towns here out of our Province, to pull them out in a five-year period. Imagine how much in goods and services people buy: 40,000 people. How much do they contribute to the Gross Domestic Product? The GDP is primarily based on the service industry. The service industry is what contributes most to the GDP. Oil and gas and those areas only provide less than10 per cent of the GDP. Now, most of the growth in GDP has come in the oil industries and so on but it is those service industries that produce the great amount of that.

I am wandering a little off track from the health issue but I am going to get back to the health issue and to hospital boards. I remember being here in this House when they decided we are going to change all the hospital boards in the Province; we are going to reduce them. Every board - what, twenty-five boards, twenty-five financial statements, twenty-five administrations and so on. I have never been opposed to reasonable consolidation. I said: Well, if we are only going to shift chairs around the boardroom table - and that is the statement I used in response to a Ministerial Statement - if we are only shifting chairs around the boardroom table, I have a concern. If we are going to do something more constructive than that, it is quite possible.

I am not saying it has been a bad thing, the concept of it. The same way as I said the day that I went to, I think, the music building at Memorial University, when they announced we were going to close the Grace Hospital and the Janeway and we are going to build a new Janeway, basically. I said at the time: Look, if money that we are spending out there on hospitals to pay light and heat, and cleaning, and all these other costs, if you can do that more efficiently, in structure, less plant costs, if we could use that money for the health of people, I would support it, if we do not have to spend it on bricks and mortar. We have to spend as much money as we can on services, not on bricks and mortar.

Now, what happened? That did not turn out very well, or what has happened since hasn't been a very good management of that. I do not know what the reason is. That would require more in-depth analysis, and certainly things that I do not have available to me, but we did not get what we were told we were going to get. Number one, they grossly underestimated the cost. That is one thing. Number two, they did not get the savings they said they were going to get. They said at their first AGM, the Health Corporation of St. John's at the Holiday Inn - I went over there. I think I was leader at the time, and I sat there and I asked the question: What are the savings going be? How much money is it going to cost? The response to that was: $100 million. We are going to borrow that. We have permission to borrow. We are going to pay it back over ten years, basically, at $20 million a year. That is $200 million. There is $100 million in costs but we are going to save $10 million. We are going to save $10 million - or they were going to pay it back over twenty years, probably. Over twenty years, I think, at $10 million a year, but we are going to save $20 million. We will pay back $10 million a year on debt, and the other $10 million we will have to put into services and so on, is what they have indicated, but that never came. The costs went beyond $100 million. They went to $130 million and they went beyond. Now, the health boards that are out there have debts of, I think, $208 million in long-term debt.

Not only that, that is why I find it is very wrong. Whether it is deception, you can call it what you like, sneakiness in this Budget, we are not acknowledging the accumulated deficit over the past just two, three years, I think, since 1998, the last three fiscal years, because we eliminated the debt up to that point. It is now up to $120 million. That is not counting the $208 million. It is $120 million we are not claiming responsibility for. We did not include it in our statement for the Budget. We did not show we were going to do anything with it. We did not show we were going to pay it. We are not going to put money in. It is just left in limbo and not included. That is debt on our Province. That is debt that shows up in the consolidated debt of our Province. When we look at the accrual method, we would be factoring in those costs. That is not included. That is ignored.

When you take that $120 million and count that - we did not include, for example, I will just use the Harbour Deep issue on budget-wise. We did not include the $5 million. That is wrong. We knew Harbour Deep, there was a reasonably good chance that it is going to be moved and we are going to need money. That did not come in the Budget. Here, the Budget is not even approved. That is where I am hoping the minister is going to stand and move an amendment to that Budget to deal with Harbour Deep and have it debated and discussed and added to the Budget, because that Budget was presented knowing that this was in the works. That should have been in the Budget. You should not be coming after with that. There is $120 million coming on health boards. They are things that we knew. Special warrants should be for unexpected, unanticipated expenditures. That was anticipated, that was known, and it should have been included. Not to include it is forming - you could say, the people of this Province have been deceived into thinking our deficit is $93 million when this government knew they were going to be incurring other debts very shortly. In fact, the ink is not dry on the Budget. I am still debating it. No one else has gotten up to speak on it yet, and here they are, bringing in new additions that I hope are going to be coming as amendments to this Budget because that is what should be done, basically. That is not right. The people should be told: Look, if it is $117.5 million, if it is $93 million, whatever it is, give it to the people, say: Here it is, look, those are the facts. That is all. At least tell us the truth; we did not want to increase taxes, we borrowed more, or whatever the case may be. All I am saying is, tell them the truth. That is all.

Now, when you look at hospital boards and debt, what are we going to do with $120 million? That is a lot of debt. That is current. In fact, that is not even converted. I heard you were told not to convert it into long-term debt. When you start to convert that, it has to be listed and included in the debt. So, it is being carried out there in limbo. It is going to have to be dealt with because it is going to be looked at under our net position when we look at our consolidated statements and our Public Accounts get tabled here in this House in November, or whenever they are tabled. They were tabled at the end of November last year, November 28, I believe. We will get the full figures on it.

We were being told last year that our deficit was only going to be in the $30-some million range, and we went to - what? - $349 million, almost $350 million. Now, we are being told it is $93 million. Good help us! We are going to be looking at $500 million or more, probably this year when we look at it, on top of that. That is pretty serious. In the last four years, from the government's own statements - Ron Williams, Comptroller General, Public Accounts tabled, and by the Auditor General indicating - our net debt has increased from about $7.3 billion to $8.3 billion in four years, not counting this year. So we are going to be close to $9 billion. So, we will have increased the debt of our Province, in that period of time, by an alarming amount. An alarming amount would have gone to increase the debt of our Province, about $1.5 billion in that period of time. That is a lot of money. That is a 20 per cent increase in our debt in the last five fiscal years. That is a lot of debt.

Our average debt per capita is a significant factor, because we had a population of 583,000, if you wanted to divide that debt per capita. Now we have to divide it by 513,000, and less probably, because if that is the last statistic we got from 1991 and the trend is down, if it hasn't bottomed out yet, we are probably below that now in population, and that increases a tremendous amount of debt per individual to have to deal with in this Province. We are on a crash course, at the current trend, unless something is done about it.

We have hospital boards out there. Some are saying, this one operates efficiently and, therefore, we are not going to give you any more money. Do you feed the one that is not operating efficiently and give them more money to meet their overruns? Do you do that? What do you do? Some boards - and I won't mention names. I have spoken with CEOs, I have sat down in their offices with them. One of my colleagues actually, when he was health critic, the former health critic, we sat down and indicated that maybe we didn't get our fair share. Money is allocated, I understand, to those health boards historically, historic amounts. Does that mean the Central West or the Central East or the Western Health Care Corporation is getting that amount of money?

The reason they are running a deficit, for instance, in Corner Brook, as an example, the Western Board, is because they are not getting enough money. They are not getting enough for the level of services they are providing. They are not getting enough. Is it possible they can operate at a break-even - well, you can eliminate services, obviously, if you are going to break even, but are the historic levels set? Are they set at the right levels? What do we use? When you are looking at levels - in St. John's, for example, we have tertiary facility here at the Health Sciences. The Janeway is the sole pediatric hospital in the Province. Obviously, you have to get allocations based on these, because that is the point where many people move for certain surgeries. They are only performed there.

Other regions have to expect a certain level of services, are expected and should be expected, within reasonable distances. Actually my district, to use as an example, Trepassey, I have been told, is the farthest place by road from any hospital in the Province, that is here on the Avalon Peninsula. The longest distance by road without a health facility. They do not expect to have a hospital in Trepassey. It is not expected because it is too far away but at least reasonable levels of services. They just took a half unit out of there in nursing. That has hurt because the doctor is very busy up there. He is sought after from all over the area, from St. Mary's Bay, even Mount Pearl. They come to the doctor's office in Trepassey. He is exceptional. He works at it seven days a week, and that brings new people into the clinic who go down to the nursing station; extra pressures, and a half unit has been moved out of there because they have a declining population in the area.

Areas that are more remote and farther away should expect to have at least better clinical services. There is a person there who is cross-trained in x-ray and laboratory work. It probably would not be practical to have two full time people working there, one doing x-rays and one doing labs. Basically, we have looked at cross-training as being an issue and a whole concern with specific unions in those areas. I have met with them and raised the issues here in the House at the time. If someone is going to perform a job, my main concern is that adequate training is there - whether you were trained to do both. If you were trained sufficiently to be able to do both and the adequate training is there that should be the determinant in who does the job.

We have to look at providing reasonable levels of services. Everybody does not expect services in all parts of the Province. I made a statement back when we only had dialysis here, and I think Corner Brook. I said: we should have dialysis in more than two centres in our Province. The minister said it is more than plugging in a machine, at the time, and I said I know that. I have talked to specialists and I have talked to people and did some background research on what might be the cost. Since then, a young man from Grand Falls-Windsor, who came into my office - and this issue was raised here in the House - passed away unfortunately with a young family a year later. They were successful in getting dialysis in the Central Newfoundland Regional Health Centre there, and that was very positive.

I cited examples on this issue. A person from St. Anthony, an eighty-three-year-old man, and the family called him and said he has to come to St. John's to live in an apartment. He said: look, the man has never been out of the St. Anthony area. I am not sure what community it was now at the time but the call I got was from St. Anthony. He has never been out of there before, to come to a basement apartment. I got a call a little later, he said, look - I think their father or whoever it was, he said passed away. He died brokenhearted; destroyed. To come out of that community and have to move completely into St. John's for the last few years of his life, when he lived there.

I think we need reasonable access. We do not expect, and I do not expect, to have dialysis in every single hospital facility in the Province. The one in Stephenville, for example, is under the sort of auspices or overseen by the specialists at Corner Brook, and that is find. You do not need an (inaudible) at each of these. An internist and so on can oversee the operation of it. That is what is happening with Corner Brook and Stephenville, in that area; and that is functioning, I understand, fairly well. But there are concerns out there and there are areas where we do not have efficiencies in the system.

For example - and I won't mention the communities because I do not think it is appropriate, but I do know people can go into a certain hospital that is an hour or two away and get surgery within a week or so, but the closest to them have to wait three and four weeks. They do not know that. They are not informed that if you go to the other hospital you can get it quicker. They are not told that because the hospital wants to protect its base and surgery, and do those areas and so on. I might say, that is not far from the Member for Humber Valley. It might even be in your district, for example.

I will just use an example, toss out an example and say, people - and I do not want to mention the community. This individual, for instance, was waiting on surgery. He could get it in Corner Brook, for example, in four weeks - I will use that as an example - but probably in Stephenville or somewhere else in two weeks or a week. Most people are not fed into the shortest waiting list and they are not aware of that until well after the fact. I think if somebody is in a reasonable area and they are willing to go there to get their surgery done, they probably should be aware that they can get it done in a shorter period in this hospital. There is only an extra while. If that is their wish to do that, that option should be available. So we are moving people in to shorten waiting lists, because right now we are competing. We have one hospital competing against another. We have one board competing against another. I do not think we should have that competitive fighting among boards and so on. I think we need a more streamlined system to be able to facilitate shorter waiting lists and work in the system and do that because I think that is better health care. Faster health care is better health care.

With $10 million seeing 100 people is better health care than having to wait longer, and you probably could get double the people through in that period of time under those costs. Moving people through a system is better health care. Avoiding bottlenecks and things is a more efficient system.

A lot of things in the system, and I have said this before, will not necessarily save money but we will get more people served with the same dollars, and I think that is improvement. There are a lot of areas - I might add, I haven't followed as closely this past year, not being the critic there, but there are hundreds of areas and discussions on areas. I have talked to people in the system. I have talked with specialists. I have talked with nurses and people in other capacities. I have talked with people who use the system, patients and families and so on, to try to get a grasp of every single issue around that, to get an understanding; that they are not just making an issue without knowing some background information on it.

That is why we have seen a growing number of dialysis units. I might add, the one in St. Anthony is still not there. We were committed two years ago, I think. Two budgets ago, I believe the Premier was the minister, committed Clarenville and St. Anthony.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Three years ago.

He went out and made an announcement, and the Clarenville one got up and running about a year later. It took about a year after a gentleman put up a fight there. I met with him. I went to visit him actually in his unit. He stayed at the hostel over at the Health Sciences. He had to come in with his truck on Sunday evening - his pickup with a little fridge. He came into the hostel and they told him he had to get out on Friday. So he had to pack up and go home on Friday. Go back home again. Come back Sunday evening again because he needed a bed, and that went on and on. Fortunately, that person got a transplant. I think the Member for Bonavista South is aware of him. I think he is doing, or at least was doing, very well. He was really pleased. In fact, I remember getting a call after.

Those types of things, I think, are important. We need to look at them within a reasonable cost and within the number of people that are served. It is not practical to set up a very expensive unit in an area that has only a small number of people who could utilize the service. There has to be some rationalization there. There is not unlimited resources. We do not have unlimited dollars at all. We have great strains on our system. I am not saying all the blame is provincially, but we have had numerous cutbacks federally. We are getting less since 1996. We are getting $776 million less, we have got in Canada Health and Social Transfers from 1996 to now, this past year, than we were getting prior to that. We were getting $427 million that previous year, and the year before that was $443 million, when you combine Established Program Financing and the Canada Assistance Plan, and the figure dropped down to $272 million, an all-time low. It dropped to $272 million from $427 million. Can you imagine, $155 million in a year. That was devastating. What would $155 million do for us here in our Province? That would do wonders, I might add.

PREMIER GRIMES: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Did the Premier say that he was listening very attentively to me, from his office, so much so that he wanted to come back here and convey that to me personally? Well, I am really flattered, I say to the Premier, that you would go to that great length to consult with every household in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The last time that anyone did that was when the former Premier, Clyde Wells, picked up the phone on a petitioner and called him and said: Did you sign that petition? Can you imagine? Imagine the Premier calling somebody on a petition that was not complimentary to the government, and asking them - how intimidated would that person, who was sitting in his house here in St. John's, be intimidated by a Premier who asked if he signed the petition? That person did not know but he was going to get his power cut off the next day. He did not know but they were going to have a demolition order on his house. How intimidating. I am glad the Premier is listening carefully to what I am saying in his office. That alone tells me that he did not do anything else all day; he did not do another thing all day.

I said to him a couple of weeks ago, you know: When you are down here, who is running the Province? I didn't get an answer. I am just wondering, who is running the Province? I think I know the answer to that. I think he put her on automatic pilot. I think she is on automatic pilot, and I hope their course is set in a good direction. I hope she is set. I have been told -

AN HON. MEMBER: I think she has stalled.

MR. SULLIVAN: One of my colleagues said she has stalled out. She is stalled, she is not going anywhere. That is why we are seeing so much spinning. I have heard each department has ordered another few dozen spin tops. They are trying to get another spin on some of these issues.

Now, the federal government, I think, has a responsibility in maintaining a certain standard. So, they tell me that the principles of the Canada Health Act - and that is something that is under very much discussion right now. So much so, it is under so much discussion now that the federal government does not want to talk about it. They want to put it on the back burner of the Romanow Report, I guess, with Mazankowski's Report pushed agenda. Alberta is pushing the agenda on health care reform. This government now, by the way, has not -

AN HON. MEMBER: The Liberals in B.C. are pushing it.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, and the Liberals in B.C. are pushing it, and this government, I might add, has not ruled out privatization and user fees in health care. They have not ruled it out. When asked in this House, the former minister did not rule it out. That is an option that is considered. I do not know if the current minister did not rule it out. If the current minister wants to stand now and say that there will be no user fees in health care and we will not be privatizing more, I will sit down and give him time to just stand and make that statement and then I will move on to my next topic..

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: No, he does not.

Under the Canada Health Act, we are being told that we have the comprehensiveness of that act, the universality. They said it should be portable, portability from province to province, publicly administered and accessibility are they five basic principles of the Canada Health Act.

Do you think, when a lady from my district, who has a recommendation and a requisition from her doctor, who needs a mammogram, was given January 17, 2003, who had complications, had minor surgery, and possible surgery, and goes to visit in-laws in Uxbridge, a little community in Ontario, and in one week gets a mammogram, that is equal access to health care? No, I tell you, it is not. It is far from equal access to health care. To me, there are different standards of health care.

The federal government has destroyed the Canada Health Act. In fact, it destroyed it to such a degree that there are huge differences between the standards of health care we are getting in Newfoundland and Labrador than we are getting in other parts of this country. If the federal government wants to have a say in the delivery of health care, and if they want to ensure the act, they have to pony up and pay the piper, if they want to call the shots. That is basically what Alberta said to them: You contribute so little now to health care in our province, we might go alone without you, basically.

That, to me, is going to be a bad signal for the future of health care in this country. We have to convince the federal government. We have done a very poor job of it. We have had a Premier here who was a powerful minister in the federal government, went back to a minister, got appointed right straight from the premiership of this Province into the federal Cabinet and we could not bend an ear to get changes. We sat in and presided in the federal Cabinet when they changed the Canada Health and Social Transfer; sat in the federal Cabinet around the Cabinet table and allowed a per capita allowance to our Province to be put in as opposed to per diem basis.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, it is there.

Basically decimated health care with the Canada Health and Social Transfer; $776 million, three-quarters of a billion dollars, in the past six years that we have taken out of health care in this Province, and we have sat back and done nothing about it. I think it is a shame. It is an outright shame.

We talk about, what are we going to do to improve health care? Well, what are we going to do? When the current Minister of Mines and Energy was minister and an election was on federally, they had to do something about it so they changed ministers, and the new minister is now the Minister of Finance. They said: We will have a health care forum. They went into Littledale, went behind closed doors, sent out invites. They invited who they wanted and they had their health care forum, and came out. Studied to death.

We had another one just this year, just recently, another health care forum. Look, forums and discussions and so on, in health care, and input, is buying time. That is all it is doing. What better way to buy time than create a committee, sit around for a year, let the clock run, and then wait for time to run out and then come up with some other excuse? That is basically all it is doing. Where are the constructive results? Where are the recommendations?

What do they do? They go to Ontario then and they get a company to come in here and tell us, in a very short period of time, some of the problems that exist in our system and what you need to correct it, and tell us that we will save money by laying off people and closing beds. Now, do you think we need to pay nearly a half million dollars to somebody to tell you that if you lay off people and close beds you will save money?

Not only that, they went too far, and that is why I say that government should not have sat back and taken it. They went too far. Either one of two things. Either they did not have the time to do the in-depth analysis and draw the right conclusions. If they did not have that, I blame it on government and so on for not ensuring they had adequate time. When they did come out and release that report - and the minister said when the report came to them, came to officials, he said: We made some changes in that report. I thought that was what he said today. Is that what he said? He said: We made some alterations. Did anyone - correct me on that, if that is what he said. Well, it is in the record anyway.

AN HON. MEMBER: Modifications.

MR. SULLIVAN: I think he said, we made some modifications or corrections or whatever on that report when we got it, before it went public. If he did, I am not sure. I don't want to put words in the minister's mouth because I will read it in Hansard tomorrow. He said, we had that report, officials, and they made some - I am not sure of the word he used - modifications, corrections or changes on it. We will see it in the written record tomorrow anyway when we get a copy of Hansard , what he said. Whatever it was, that is the impression I got, that they did see it and that they did make some adjustments. If I am not entirely correct on that, I will certainly let the minister correct me on it. I do not want to say unequivocally he said it; but what should have been done then, if the minister in the department felt: look, that is an attack, that is an unjust attack on our training of people, it is an unjust attack on the ability of our people and doing their job, we should have put out a statement at least and saying: This government does not concur with this. In fact, we should have had a news conference the day it was released and have a report issued by government indicating that effect on that particular -

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

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services, on a point of order.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I am reluctant to rise but the hon. member, I think, has been asking questions so I think he would want me to rise and set the record straight.

First of all, in terms of the report itself, in my questions in the House today, I referenced the fact that in fact the draft of the report that we received, when the reference to the Janeway emergency service, when concerns were raised with that, representation was made to the consultant group and this was pointed out to them, that there were some difficulties, not just from the department but also from the Health Care Corporation, that there was difficulty with the reference that was there. My understanding is, there were some modifications made and these were reflected in the final draft.

The thing is, the consultants, their final line was that they said they stood by what they wrote. It would not certainly have been appropriate, and the hon. member would recognize, for the department or the Health Care Corporation to cherry-pick from the report and say certain sections would have to be removed; and, rightly, we would have been criticized for that.

The issue is, the bottom line issue as I referenced here in the House and in response to questioning earlier with regard to this issue, is that it has been fairly clear that government is not of the opinion as is set out in the Hay Report as it relates to the emergency service at the Janeway Hospital.

Again, when you are talking strategy as to what might have been done, I guess, from our perspective, the fact now that it is out in the public, the more that it is talked about is giving it a higher profile than perhaps - because I can tell you that maybe as of today, because of the issue that has arisen today with the doctors themselves threatening this action on this coming Thursday, I am sure it has caused some concerns within the Province. Certainly, I guess, from my perspective we never have agreed with what was stated with regards to the emergency service. We have complete faith and confidence in the doctors who offer that service on behalf of the children of the Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think the minister said upon their, I guess, discussion or input, there was some modification. I am not advocating - in fact, I do not at all - that we force somebody to change a report that they did. I would not, in any way, want to affect the integrity of any report that is asked to report because that would reflect on the integrity of the group, not having confidence in what they found.

The point I would have made at the time was that, if you disagreed with the preliminary in the report, say to them: Look, we do not think that is right. You need more time to go back, more in-depth analysis, and go into this area and make sure that is the right conclusion you are drawing. Then, if you draw that conclusion, you stand by your words.

They were under a tight time frame, I do believe. Was it that they had to report back in four weeks? I am not sure. I am sure the minister probably knows, but they were on a very tight time frame on reporting there. If they did not do an in-depth analysis, they should not have commented on it. I really think it was an affront to those skilled people, to the pediatricians there, or the emergency doctors. What should have been done, I think, government should have said: Look, we disassociate ourselves from that. We believe we have a competent staff. We think our training and so on - if you felt that way, there should have a concurrent statement to that effect upon its release. At least it would have shown the government's confidence in the people that we have out there on the front lines and so on, here in our Province looking after our health system.

That would not have taken too much. If that in any way differed or made the people, the Hay group, feel a little out of joint because of that, if that was our belief, so what? So what if it was? Maybe some of the things there are positive things and certainly others, I guess, were not what we wanted to hear and what we did not believe to be the case.

I have talked about facilities and we have looked at different levels of service and so on.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I think somebody is getting a call. I hope somebody can answer the call.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: (Inaudible) for you.

MR. SULLIVAN: The Minister of Finance said it is for me. When I get a call, somewhere around July, I will adjourn debate then or finish debate. It could be the former Minister of Forestry who got that call with the foresters, was it?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, the guy who woke up here in the House and said: I didn't get a call. Was it?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, that was probably it. Maybe that was his call because he did get a late call the last election, I say to the Member for Windsor-Springdale. He got his wake-up call in the last election, but who knows.

Now, I touched a little on health care. There are a few other areas that I wanted to touch on also. One is on the condition of roads in our Province, and certainly overall in my district. I will start with my district and I can certainly relate in other areas.

If you look at work being done on roads, at one point there was a considerable amount of money put into infrastructure in our Province, up to $50 million a year, and now it has hovered from $13 million to $22 million a year. You now, transportation is one of the most important aspects in promoting and facilitating business and running business efficiently. Transportation costs can be horrendous. Transportation costs determine whether a business is going to survive or whether it is going to go bankrupt. It is going to determine whether someone is going to go into a business because of transportation links. In our Province, transportation is a big issue. A big issue. If we are getting a perishable good out of this Province, we have to fly it, basically. If we are sending out other produce that can be held for periods of time, that has to go overland, across the ferry system, we have to go over highways in our Province that are in bad shape.

The trunk roads in our Province, some of them are in deplorable shape, and I use, for example, from Trepassey here to St. John's. The minister made reference, for example, in that proposal that went to Ottawa, regional trunk roads, he talked about immediate priority. He talked about doing forty kilometres of a highway from Trepassey to Ferryland. That is only half the distance. That is not forty. That is double the distance. Whether he is intending to submit half, it is in terrible shape, a lot of it, unless the figures are not accurately reflecting the amount it should be.

In my district, four or five roads are in really difficult shape, even dangerous. Look at Petty Harbour-Maddox Cove as you go across Sharp Point. The road should be moved out further. There is ice that comes out across the road. I know the minister went down and had a look at it when the municipalities had their meetings there, and I think he was down to a meeting the Monday before last and had a look at that. As you move along, Tors Cove, for example, as you drive down through, up in the Southern Shore, and look at the road there, I am sure that the Minister of Finance is very familiar with that area, because I think there is even some family property in the general area and she can tell you that it is in deplorable condition. There is, in Port Kerwan, a road that they considered four years ago a priority to have to do. They did half and haven't come back to do the other half since. It was a priority four years ago. Well the rest of it, unbelievable. I gave the minister pictures for example, about fifteen photographs of the road. My colleague from Placentia & St. Mary's today, I think, had one on the road. They sent in a petition, which I presented here in the House. They had photographs and a letter, and it showed the deplorable condition of the road. It is unbelievable. They said the fire department does not want to have to go there. There was a house that just got destroyed there recently. Now the fire department did respond, of course. Regardless of how bad the road is, they will make an effort to get there. Ambulances, buses, and so on - people are complaining that it is in terrible shape.

Another area, a little section, Kingsman's Cove. There are not many livyers there, but the road is desperate. We look at Cape Broyle. Ferry Pond in Cape Broyle is really desperate, unbelievable. When you drive over it you do not know if it is asphalt or a dirt road. Sometimes a good dirt road is probably an awful lot or far better than that, because with potholes - you bring up against a piece of asphalt there, go off a dirt road and go onto a piece of asphalt. It is in desperate shape.

We need to look at our road system in our Province. When we are looking at our road system, we need and should get a commitment from the federal government to have to participate in this process. We have trunk roads, the main highway, the Trans-Canada - and the Trans-Labrador Highway should be a federally-funded highway. That is what it should be, a federally-funded highway. We gave up our federal rights to a ferry system that is costing over $20 million a year now. That is what it is costing right now. Double what they estimated it would cost. They gave it up to get a chunk of money that did not finish the job. Now we have to go from Goose Bay to Cartwright, yet there is no money in the pot to do it. That needs to be done, and it should be a federal responsibility.

The federal government should link up this Province, the same as Prince Edward Island is linked up to the mainland. It should link it up by completing the Trans-Labrador Highway because this government, in 1996, stood in this House and indicated we would have a paved Trans-Labrador Highway in the year 2006. That is what they said. I was here in this House at the time when that statement was given, and the representative for Labrador said that. Now that is not close to happening. In fact, in 2006, at the rate we are going, they will not have a completed Trans-Labrador Highway gravel road, let alone a paved road. In fact, even if they did not steal that $97 million, the fund would have been depleted in another eight or ten years anyway. Now it is gone. The fund is gone now. What commitment is there?

We have given up a commitment in legislation, a law of the Province, an act of the Province that is basically a law, which said this fund is here to serve the people of Labrador; their transportation needs in Labrador. That fund was taken away. By a few seconds in a budget they took away something that everybody stood and proudly supported in this House, the Labrador Transportation Initiatives Fund. To do that and take it away is not right. It is not right. It is completely wrong. The minister said, the reason she said: We can borrow. We can go out and - the cost of getting it there, we are not getting much money on it. Well, when they put the fund there in the first place the money they were going to get on that fund was less than the percent of borrowing anyway. So, the reason today was not the reason they used when they set it up in 1996-1997. Actually, I think in January of 1997, officially. This is one -

MR. BARRETT: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: When the bill comes in? The Minister of Works, Services and Transportation asked if I am going to vote for the bill to disband the Labrador Transportation Initiatives Fund. Absolutely not, I say to the minister, and anybody in this Province - the same people who stood in this House and got counted to support that bill - everybody supported it - are going to turn their backs on the people of Labrador now and take away what they gave them just a few years ago. No, I will not support it. I can guarantee you I will not. I will not be a traitor to my own thoughts on the same thing I supported back a few years ago.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are voting against Phase III of the highway are you?

MR. SULLIVAN: The minister is getting on with his nonsense over there now. The minister is asking if I am voting against Phase III of the highway. I support Phase III of the highway.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: In fact, I suppose leaving the money in that fund. I support leaving the money in the fund and using that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, and that is why the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair probably did not even get her executive elected down there. She even lost her own executive down there in the district, recently. Maybe because they feel betrayed by what has happened by the people here.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Put it in writing, I say to the Premier, put it in writing. Put it in writing because I don't trust anything that this government would tell me. I trust nothing they tell me.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Put it in writing. Have it duly notarized and delivered to me and then I will accept - I may not agree with what is there. I will receive it from you then and know you are serious about what you are saying if you are prepared to do that. If you are not prepared to do that, I say to him, I will just keep on trucking on the Trans-Labrador Highway.

Now, I will tell the minister where we are. How can every single person who stood here and applauded and applauded the transportation initiative, to put the money in, turn around next week or the week after and stand up and vote against something they believed so strongly in? What is your reason for changing your mind? What is your reason? How do you exchange a law, a commitment, a legislation, for a promise? You have given away a commitment for a promise. A commitment in writing, in a law, in a fund, for a future promise. That is what you have done, and try to tell me that that strengthens your commitment to a Trans-Labrador Highway by tearing up a bill, rescinding a bill. The House rescinded legislation to do it. That is utter nonsense, that is what it is.

I have so many areas that I want to talk about. I talked about that a bit before, so I am going to move on to another. I say to the Premier, I have only talked about Finance and Works, Services and Transportation so far. I do not think I have gotten to any other area under the Budget yet; only two areas yet.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: You have so many departments, minister, it might take me all year to get to them.

I say to the Premier, the first promise he made to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador at his leadership: I will have a smaller Cabinet. He turns around and the first thing he did was increase the size of the Cabinet. He broke the very first promise he gave, is have a smaller one and had a bigger one. How are you supposed to get off on the right foot? I would say to the Premier - I guess the alternative, I say to voting for the Premier, was not so enticing so people voted probably for the better of the two. God help us if it had to be the other alternative, we would be a lot worse off. That is not a compliment, I say to the Premier, it is not a compliment.

PREMIER GRIMES: (Inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, I would say on that, if I wanted to keep my word - if I wanted to give a word - and I did not give a word, I say to the Premier, I did not give a word!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: And I do not want to embarrass him, I tell you, because I could tell them some stories. I could tell them some stories, I can tell you. I could tell them a lot of stories.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: No, I told my colleagues lots of stories. Don't you worry, I told them. I told them some stories.

Now, education -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) turned redder than the shirt you have on.

MR. SULLIVAN: No, that is what I did not. The shirt is not red.

Anyway, I want to comment on education because it is getting late in the day and I want to get a few minutes on this, and I guess I will deal with this on the next day. We were told that there is going to be 208 -

MR. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible). You have unlimited time. (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I am going to have unlimited time plus now because the Minister of Mines and Energy used up some of my unlimited time. So, I am going to have unlimited time plus, I say to the Minister of Mines and Energy. I can see why they took him out of Finance. They are trying to put him further underground now, in mines. That is where they are trying to put him. Down a bit deeper he is going. That is where he is going, down deeper and deeper. He is digging them deeper.

I have been told by our Education critic, there are 208 people they are going to lay off. I read in The Telegram today, by the way, that there would be no program cutbacks because of layoff of teachers. Well, I spoke with the head of a school council in my district who told me yesterday that they are eliminating physics in Baltimore Complex School in our district. When I went to school, back in Grade 9 I did physics. Before I ever went there, it was offered. It was offered through high school. It has been offered every year since. At least forty to fifty years it has been offered and now, for the first time in fifty years, we are seeing the elimination of a program due to teacher cuts. For the first time, people may not be able to take a physics program in a school that is only an hour's drive from the City of St. John's.

That, to me, is an example of cutbacks that we are starting to see; because, when you take 208 teachers out of the system and spread them out, when you take a teacher or two out of a school, a class of twenty-eight, if it goes down to twenty-six with declining enrollment, or twenty-two goes down to twenty-one, you still need your phys. ed. teacher, your music teacher. If you have thirty-two in your chemistry class, or if you have thirty, you still need a teacher. You still need one unit. So, you cannot get the economies when you start going down in numbers. I am sure the Minister of Mines and Energy knows about economies from dealing with his business. He knows what I am talking about, economies of numbers.

Mr. Speaker, you get economies of numbers when you have larger populations. When populations grow, you get economies in numbers. When they go down you lose those economies and you start cutting programs. We are starting to see programs now being cut.

Not since the 1960s, even the 1950s probably, probably even back in the 1950s, but I can speak for the early 1960s, the course was offered in the early 1960s and back, I am sure, in the 1950s, and for the first time in fifty years they are not going to have access to something, I think, that is a very important subject that is needed and a very important one for people going into various science and engineering related fields. It is important. We are seeing program cuts occurring right away. We have looked at -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I was told by the chair of the school council. I have called the school the last three days to speak with the principal, who was in meetings these past three days. It is stated in the paper today, by the Director of Education with the board. He said, no program cuts. Then he said, if you do not have twenty in a course it may have to be cut; but that is not applicable here, I understand. The chair of the school council who has talked with people, and met with the school board members and with the principal, has informed me that there are courses being cut. I will take that person's word for it, I say to the minister. If you would like to sit down, meet and discuss that, or I will give you the number if you would like to speak further on that issue, I will give it to you, but that is what I was informed.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: I am in the process, and I have been told the principal will be back from meetings tomorrow and I will be speaking with the principal in the morning. I called yesterday, and it was indicated he was out in meetings. I called again today and they indicated that he is out in meetings. I will deal with it tomorrow also in that regard.

If the minister would like to attend the meeting on it, I will be only too delighted to have the minister there to hear first-hand what the perspective is.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Okay. The minister has a problem listening to me. She has a problem listening, so if she is not interested that is fine.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I said, if she is not interested. If she is interested, I could certainly arrange a meeting. I would only be too delighted.

Mr. Speaker, education is fundamental to increased prosperity to an economy, to having skilled people out there to be able to take up jobs. What is happening, the sad part about the migration out of our Province, is that our skilled people, the most skilled, the youngest, creative people with new ideas, people who are very positive factors in the workforce, who contribute to our Province, are the people we are seeing leaving our Province today. That is very sad, to see that happening.

Mr. Speaker, I know it is getting to that hour of the day. I understand that it is the hour of the day, I think, that the House Leader - it is approaching adjournment. I will adjourn debate now, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether the hon. Member for Ferryland is looking to establish a record in terms of response to the Budget but I, for one, would be willing to award him the record without further participation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, before moving the motion for adjournment, I would like to make an announcement re the Estimates Committees again.

The Social Services Committee will meet at 7:00 this evening in the House to review the Estimates of the Department of Education. The Resource Committee will meet tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. in the House to review the Estimates of the Department of Mines and Energy.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House on its rising do adjourn, and that this House do now adjourn.

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