May 10, 2011                      HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS                   Vol. XLVI   No. 22


The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

Statements by Members

MR. SPEAKER: Today we will hear the following members' statements: the hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White Bay North; the hon. the Member for the District of Ferryland; and the hon. the Member for the District of Bay of Islands.

The hon. the Member for the District of The Straits & White Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House today to congratulate the members of the St. Anthony Polars Bantam Hockey Team, which secured an All-Newfoundland and Labrador provincial title winning the Bantam ‘D' division in the Easter Hockey Tournament at home at Olympia Stadium.

The team were prolific scorers, having home ice advantage, combined with a blend of tough physical defense and lightning quick attack, allowing them to progress through the championship final against the Lewisporte Seahawks with four victories and an opening game 5-all tie win with the Northeast Eagles. Their victories against Gros Morne (6-2), Lewisporte (7-2) and Stephenville (9-0) gave a sense that the Polars would romp away with the final, but it turned into one of the toughest games.

The Seahawks put the Polars under immense pressure early scoring after just two-and-a-half minutes. The Polars squared the ledger in the tenth minute, and with fifty-eight seconds remaining St. Anthony scored their second to establish a 2-1 lead which remained until the dying seconds of the final period when Lewisporte pulled their goalie leaving the Polars with a 3-1 victory.

I would like to congratulate the athletes: Joey Earle, Dylan Tucker, Brendan Burden, Brandon Sexton, Lincoln Hillier, Neil Pittman, Andrew Hicks, Scott O'Rielly, Josh Hillier, Colin John Baker, Jordan Richards, Zack Blake, Bradley Warren, Marcus Rose, Brook Noseworthy, Heather Richards, Kerry Patey, and Matt Carter. I would also like to recognize the coaches Kelsey Rose, Curtis Richards, Colin Noseworthy, Jason Sexton, and off-ice co-ordinator Chris Baker for dedicating their time and efforts to the youth and to the game of hockey.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join with me in congratulating this team and wish them well in future competitions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HUTCHINGS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate the Goulds Lions Club on the outstanding contribution they are making to their community and to the lives of the children in the Goulds area. On Saturday, March 7, 2011 I had the pleasure of attending their thirty-first anniversary Charter Night.

The Goulds Lions Club has been involved in many fundraising initiatives over the past thirty-one years, including donations to the Goulds Fire Department, the Goulds Arena, and the three schools in the area, just to name a few. Their generosity and hard work has been extended to seniors' projects, food banks, and Christmas hampers throughout the community.

The Lions have also been heavily involved with youth groups, in particular the Lions Max Simms Memorial Camp that provides a summer camp experience for kids with physical disability.

Mr. Speaker, it is groups like the Goulds Lions Club who continue to build and sustain the fabric of our communities through the values of sharing, caring, and providing a helping hand where required. It is indeed an honour and privilege to have such an organization as part of the Ferryland District.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members to join with me in expressing our sincere appreciation to the members of the Goulds Lions Club for the outstanding contribution they make in the lives of so many.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Bay of Islands.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LODER: Mr. Speaker, I rise in this hon. House today to recognize the 2840 Templeton Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps who celebrated its forty-third anniversary on May 3.

Mr. Speaker, I had the honour of attending the annual ceremonial review and it was indeed an exciting evening for me, as I was one of the first cadets who joined forty-three years ago.

Mr. Speaker, the Corps provided family and friends with a wonderful evening with drills, rifle, and other demonstrations.

Mr. Speaker, the following awards were presented: Top Green Star, Julia Brake; Top Red Star, Ashley Locke; Top Silver Star, Connor McNeil; Top Gold, Tyler Locke; Top Graduating Cadets, Julia Brake, Brittany Marche, and Maria Tucker; Top Color Member, Garrett Marche; Most Improved Junior Cadets, Zachariah Barnes, Rebecca Goulding, and Nichole Goulding; Perfect Attendance, Tyler Locke; Dedication to the Corps, Jacob Payne; Esprit de Corps, Maria Tucker; and the Cyril Wheeler Friendship Award, Jessica Marsden.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members here today to recognize the volunteer officers and cadets in this corps, and as Lieutenant Commander Hedley Smith, the reviewing officer stated, the financial support given by Canada to the cadet movement is the best dollar ever spent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Today, we are especially privileged to have some special guests visiting us from Greenland. Sitting in the Speaker's Gallery, we would like to welcome nine Members of Parliament from the Greenland Assembly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The delegation of Members of Parliament from Greenland is led by their President, Mr. Josef Motzfeldt.

Welcome to the House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador, and welcome to our Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Statements by Ministers.

Statements by Ministers

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Canada's census is currently taking place throughout the country.

Earlier this month, census packages were delivered to approximately 265,000 households in Newfoundland and Labrador, providing residents with the information they need to complete the census online or on paper. Completed questionnaires will provide valuable information that will be used by all levels of government to make decisions about neighbourhoods and communities.

Mr. Speaker, the census collects information about every man, woman, and child in Canada. The answers from each census form are combined to create statistical profiles of age, groups, communities, and other topics of interest. The completed forms are kept strictly confidential. Only Stats Canada and the employees who work for them, directly working with the census, ever see the completed census forms, and only on a need-to-know basis.

Mr. Speaker, census results are important to Canada, and they are particularly important to this Province. Funding formulas for major federal transfer payments to provinces are based, in part, on population counts. Every person not included in the census will be lost dollars to the Province and, therefore, lower funding for essential programs.

Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, this Province uses census information in planning and monitoring programs in such areas as health care, education, and social assistance. Communities depend on census information when planning roads, waterworks, public transit, police and fire services. Town planners use census data on households and families to plan current and future housing needs, health care and day care centres.

Mr. Speaker, the Census of Agriculture is carried out at the same time as the Census of Population and collects information from agricultural operators who have sold or intend to sell agricultural products. Results from the Census of Agriculture will also be used in a variety of federal and provincial crop, livestock and land management programs.

I want to emphasize the importance of the 2011 Canadian census to the Province, Mr. Speaker, and I urge every resident of Newfoundland and Labrador to participate in the May 2011 census.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for an advance copy of his statement. He is finally issuing a statement that I can absolutely agree with, probably because it is a federal initiative, Statistics Canada and Census Canada, as opposed to anything that he or his Administration might do. In any case, I thank the minister for his statement.

It is, of course, important that everybody count themselves in because there are so many of the provincial programs that are based on per capita funding, and every person that is left out and does not take the opportunity to count him or herself in, of course, that means money to this Province. We also would encourage everybody to make sure that they do complete the necessary census forms. I, myself, did mine on-line yesterday. So, anybody who has access to a computer, it is quite simple, it does not take very long at all, a minute or two and it is done. As we say, it is very productive and necessary when it comes to planning stages.

Many people feel that it is very unfortunate that the federal government decided to gut the long form registry because that in and of itself was very helpful as well, a lot of information was obtained. Albeit it took a bit longer to do it and some people felt it might have been a bit invasive and got into their privacy issues, of course, there were a lot of benefits to be gained for it. For example, even how you provide access, mobility issues to people who build new homes and so on, all of that information used to come from the long form registry, but we will not have that any more. Hopefully, there will be some compromised solution found and we will be able to obtain those necessary results in the future without compromising the brevity and the privacy issues.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, it is a red-letter day: the two Opposition parties agreeing with the government. This is an excellent statement by the minister, and I thank him for getting the statement in advance.

It is extremely important, and I think it is important for the government to get the message out to the people in the Province that everybody fills out the census form, whether it is short or long. As we know now, only the short one is mandatory, but all of it needs to be done.

I, too, did mine on-line, and I was one of the ones chosen to do the long form. As I did the long form, I realized, even more than I did before, how important it is that everybody should be doing the long form.

I encourage the minister, in talks that he has with the federal government, to try to urge the federal government to change their decision with regard to the long form because of all the reasons that the minister has outlined. It is extremely important, for all kinds of reasons, that we have the information that the census requires.

I thank the minister for taking this initiative today and hope he will go further with the initiative.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to inform this hon. House of Newfoundland and Labrador's representation at the annual Offshore Technology Conference in Houston from May 2 to May 5.

The conference is one of the largest international offshore oil and gas shows, attracting close to 75,000 visitors from over 115 countries. It is the premiere event to showcase Newfoundland and Labrador's tremendous resource potential, our innovative technologies, and our service and supply capabilities.

Mr. Speaker, I accompanied a delegation of approximately 175 people from the Province including the hon. Premier, officials with Nalcor Energy, and delegates representing seventy-five local companies and organizations. During the week, we met with geoscience contractors, technology providers, existing participants in the Province's offshore, and prospective players interested in the potential that lies in Newfoundland and Labrador's offshore. I am pleased to report that these meetings proved to be productive and profiled Newfoundland and Labrador as an attractive exploration and investment destination.

Mr. Speaker, the Offshore Technology Conference is an opportunity for our experienced service and supply sector to increase their international presence, and pursue export market opportunities. It provides networking opportunities and information exchanges on industry trends for the sector, which in the past has resulted in numerous joint ventures and contracts for many Newfoundland and Labrador companies.

Participation at the conference is a major part of the Province's promotional efforts to support the continued growth and development of our thriving oil and gas sector. Promotion of this sector is a key commitment in the Province's Energy Plan, and has enabled us to enhance our marketing efforts at large-scale international trade shows and exhibitions to solidify our reputation on a global scale.

Mr. Speaker, part of this includes the sponsoring of a Newfoundland and Labrador booth. The booth provides a level of exposure and access that many companies, especially junior companies, would not be able to access independently. Our companies had the opportunity to promote their expertise, to explore export opportunities and to meet with other suppliers. Representatives from the Province's academic and research and development community also promoted their expertise and gathered valuable information on the latest technologies and research as well as presenting at the Atlantic Canada session.

Mr. Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador holds tremendous opportunity for the international oil and gas industry with our undiscovered reserves promising potential discoveries and development. With 6 billion barrels of oil and 60 trillion cubic feet of natural gas waiting to be discovered, Newfoundland and Labrador is home to a wealth of opportunities waiting to be explored.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for an advance copy of his statement.

We certainly want to recognize the importance of the annual Offshore Technology Conference. This gathering has been an important promotional and networking opportunity for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and people in the Province's oil sector for well over a decade and through a number of previous government Administrations.

Of course, Mr. Speaker, the importance of the oil and gas industry and sector to our Province cannot be overstated. It accounts for approximately one-third of our total revenues today. Unless we can achieve diversification and engage in developing other industry sectors, there will continue to be a tremendous dependency in this Province on oil in order to fulfill the fortunes of our people and the fortunes of our communities. It is unfortunate if it has to be continued to be tied solely to oil prices.

This being said, Mr. Speaker, we certainly hope that the conference was a success for all the people who attended from Newfoundland and Labrador. We hope that it was an opportunity for them to be able to capitalize on partnerships and working with other businesses and entities within the oil industry. As you know, in Newfoundland and Labrador we have a tremendous wealth of business expertise and knowledge built up in the oil industry. We can certainly export a lot of that knowledge and a lot of our services and practices to other jurisdictions, especially those in the North, in places like Greenland, Mr. Speaker, who could be looking at the oil industry as well.

So, Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that we will be looking with great optimism to see what kind of businesses can foster from things like the oil and technology show that the minister just participated in. We will certainly look forward to seeing the tremendous rewards that the oil industry keeps bringing to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I, too, thank the minister for an advance copy of his statement.

Obviously this annual event is an excellent place for both our elected members of government as well as members from industry, researchers and scientists-to-be once a year. It is really important that our junior companies in particular get an opportunity to get a crack at the international markets. The networking is extremely important, the sharing of information and even the learning that goes on, not just information; it is all very important. The more that we can be connected with the international market the better it is going to be for what happens here with regard to exploration of oil and gas.

It is why we should also see what kind of events we can further promote here in Newfoundland and Labrador. I think about the recommendation of Judge Wells when he recommended in his report that the C-NLOPB initiate high-level safety conferences with the oil operators, the helicopter operators, worker representatives and stakeholders at least every two or three years here. It strikes me with the research that we are doing in the Province and with our proximity to the water, of course, that we could become a centre of excellence with regard to conferences dealing with safety when it comes to exploration in the sea under the water.

Mr. Speaker, I do encourage the government to look at this recommendation, to speak with the C-NLOPB and promote the idea of really pursuing safety as an issue that we can promote here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

Oral Questions.

Oral Questions

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yesterday, in the House of Assembly the Premier stated that the only reason that the costs have risen on Hebron is because oil reserves went up by 11 per cent. However, we have learned that if you put aside all the cost around drilling whatsoever and you just focus on the cost of the offshore platform itself, the cost still comes in at $6.5 billion. That is 30 per cent higher than the whole project was originally forecasted to be.

It brings me back to my question, Mr. Speaker, from yesterday. I ask the Premier: What it will mean for the taxpayers of this Province if Muskrat Falls is to come in at 30 per cent over budget such as the Hebron project has just been constituted as?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we have been dealing with the same series of questions. We are into our sixth or seventh week here in the House of Assembly, Mr. Speaker, and we have been dealing with the same five questions. Mr. Speaker, it does not –

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: (Inaudible).

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: – I hear the House Leader for the Opposition shouting across the way. It does not seem to matter –

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: - what answers are provided, Mr. Speaker. They do not seem to be able to distill them regardless of the information provided.

Mr. Speaker, when we do the financing and forecasting of the financing required for projects, we build in contingencies. We build in contingencies for overruns. We have done that on Muskrat Falls, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Premier may not want to answer the questions but when you are talking about spending taxpayers' money to develop projects that, at the end of the day, they are going to have to reach further into their pockets to pay for, I think they have a right to know what the answers are.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier may want to defer the cost because she knows that the vast majority of any overruns is going to be left to be paid by the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. They are on the hook for 50 per cent of the overruns on the Maritime link, a link that will be owned by a private corporation out of Nova Scotia. Mr. Speaker, that is not fair or right for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I ask the Premier today: Why would you negotiate a deal that puts the people of this Province on the hook for the vast majority of the cost overruns while letting Emera, a private corporation in Nova Scotia, off the hook?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the first thing I have to say to you is that I am absolutely delighted that the Leader of the Opposition is concerned about overruns. I just wish she had been so concerned when she was a member of the government that negotiated the Grimes deal with Hydro Quebec because in that case, Mr. Speaker, the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador was responsible for all of the overruns. All of the overruns, Mr. Speaker, and if we could not finance those overruns, which was highly likely given the fact that we were $12 billion in debt, Hydro Quebec would have ended up owning the whole project. Now, Mr. Speaker, that is what they know about overruns.

Mr. Speaker, in terms of the Maritime link, the cost of overruns is shared between Emera and Nalcor. Not only are we able to transport our power across that line, Mr. Speaker, but eventually we will own that line.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Premier, it all comes down to what the cost is going to be to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador under your deal, not under previous deals that were negotiated and scrapped and are no longer in existence. It is what you are proposing today – to charge Newfoundlanders and Labradorians for the cost of energy. What we are saying to you is that almost every mega project in the world has seen cost overruns.

We want to know what the implication of a cost overrun is going to be on Muskrat Falls if it is at 30 per cent or 40 per cent, what it is going to mean to the ratepayer of Newfoundland and Labrador. Surely you must have the answer to that.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Your deal, their pocketbook.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, Emera will own the Maritime Link for thirty-five years, no question about it. They will use over 20 per cent of that for their own power, Mr. Speaker. Essentially, 67 per cent of the capacity on the Maritime Link for all of that period of thirty-five years, will be for the use of Nalcor and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: – to transfer our excess power through Nova Scotia, into New Brunswick, and down into the United States, 40 per cent of the power that we do not have, bargained for, either by the people of Newfoundland and Labrador or by what we have already sold in Atlantic Canada, Mr. Speaker.

This is a good deal for the people of (inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is a sweetheart of a deal for Emera, I say to the Premier, which is going to get power for thirty-five years without paying a dime to the people of the Province, 20 per cent of the power alone.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things the Joint Review Panel asked Nalcor to provide was a detailed year-by-year financial analysis of Muskrat. It wanted a breakdown of all of the costs, including debt and equity payments, as well as revenues. In other words, the panel themselves wanted to see how it was possible for Nalcor to make money on this project. So, it was looking for proof.

I ask the Premier today: Why did Nalcor refuse to provide that information to the Joint Review Panel?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, that is the job of the panel. That is why we go to environmental assessment, a completely open and transparent arm's length process where questions can be asked and answered. Mr. Speaker, we all look forward to the report of the environment assessment panel and its recommendations.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: On top of that, Mr. Speaker, we have already gone to two independent audits of the methodology, of the process, and of the whole gamut of issues that occur in a $6.2 billion project.

Mr. Speaker, unlike the former Administration, which did not share the details of its deal, not even with the Board of Directors of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, let alone with the people of the Province, we are having these audits done and we are making the information (inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Nalcor did not provide the information, just like the Premier will not provide the information, because it is not information they want to have out there for the public right now.

Mr. Speaker, it is hard for a panel to do its job if it does not have the proper information to do it in the first place. One of the foremost experts on hydro generation in the country is Philip Raphals of the Helios Centre. Mr. Raphals told the joint review panel he does not see how Nalcor can meet all of its costs on Muskrat unless your government defers its return on the money it is putting up. In other words, in order for Nalcor and Emera to make a profit on the power sales, which we know they have to make, the government will have to give up its share of the revenue.

I ask the Premier: How does this make sense?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it might make more sense if the Opposition Party took some of the generous amount of money they have for research and applied it to this issue. Mr. Speaker, they are grasping at straws. Every time somebody gets up and says something negative about this project they take it as gospel and they tout it.

Mr. Speaker, we have spent a great deal of time planning this project. We tested in two external audits the methodadology and the information that we have used for our projections. Mr. Speaker, we are engaging in a third audit. The project has been engaged by their former national leader, by the current Prime Minister, by the Leader of the Third Party. Mr. Speaker, we have endorsements from financial institutions and our creditors across this country.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A great speech Premier, but the question is very simple: Will we have to give up any of our revenues on this particular project?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, I do not have a crystal ball. I can tell you in terms of contingencies, in the best advice we have gotten from experts around the world who are involved in these kinds of projects, we have done the appropriate planning.

Mr. Speaker, our information, that we have provided a number of times to members of the Opposition, shows that we have a regulated rate of return and that that return comes to the people of the Province during the whole life of the project.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It was recently announced that Quebec and Ottawa had signed an accord allowing offshore drilling, and that accord, I guess, sets the boundaries between Quebec and our Province as per a defunct agreement of 1964.

In February, Mr. Speaker, the Premier acknowledged she had a copy of the accord –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: - but she neglected to mention at the time that both Ottawa and Quebec had already established a boundary. Mr. Speaker, I understand from my Estimates Committee with the Minister of Natural Resources that this boundary was the 1964 boundary that was set out on paper.

I ask the government today: What actions has your government taken so far to initiate negotiations with Quebec, when are you going to start those talks, and what bargaining position does this now leave us as a Province?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, I can only plead with the Leader of the Opposition - given the fact that we have dealt with this issue a number of times on the floor of this House - to please familiarize herself with the process that is used to settle boundary disputes within this country. Now, Mr. Speaker, the boundary between Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia was able to be settled because we had accord acts with Ottawa. That laid down a process by which we could enter into a negotiation and an arbitration of our boundary.

Mr. Speaker, we have not been able to do that with the Province of Quebec because they did not have an accord agreement with the federal government. The first step in the process is for Quebec and Ottawa to develop an accord agreement. That is what we have been encouraging Quebec to do, that is what we have been encouraging the federal government to do. They have done that and now we can get on with the rest of the business.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We know that Ottawa and Quebec has established an agreement, what the Premier did not tell us is that they also established a boundary. Mr. Speaker, this was what the Minister of Natural Resources revealed to us in the Estimates Committee of the Department of Natural Resources that the boundary had indeed been established.

I ask the government today: Why would the federal government and the Province of Quebec establish a boundary around the Old Harry oilfield in the absence of Newfoundland and Labrador being present even at the table?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the most recent attempt to establish a boundary between the Province of Quebec and the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador was the 1964 effort. Mr. Speaker, that boundary has never been ratified by the parties. It is not an official boundary, it is not accepted. For the purposes of setting the accord, that demarcation was put in, acknowledged by all parties that that is not the official boundary, it is not the accepted boundary. The boundary has yet to be negotiated, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Now we are starting to get somewhere. So, the 1964 boundary has been established and has been recognized in the agreement between Quebec and Ottawa.

I ask the Premier today: Why was it that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, why is it that you or none of your Cabinet colleagues were invited to the table, informed or in any way participate in these negotiations, which is less than favourable to Newfoundland and Labrador, if that is the boundary they have established as a starting point in negotiations?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, she does not know whether it is favourable or not favourable. We have never said why the 1964 boundary was never accepted, Mr. Speaker, why it was never ratified. It just did not get done. Certainly, in terms of the fourteen years that you were in government, you did not try to do anything about it.

Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, please, I cannot hear myself speak.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask members for their co-operation. The Chair has recognized the hon. the Premier and I ask members to give her the right to provide her answer, as well as when the Opposition asks a question.

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, when the issue was raised with us, whether or not we would ratify the 1964 boundary, the answer from this government, rightfully so, I believe, was no. That boundary was based on fifty-year-old information. We have not had any discussion of it since. We need to revisit this issue and examine it thoroughly before we agree on what the boundary is. The boundary could very well end up being the 1964 boundary.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is about what the Premier is doing, and what her government is doing, not what others have done or failed to do.

I ask her the question again. Why would the Province of Quebec, the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada establish a boundary as the starting point in a negotiation in an oil reserve where we have a vested interest, Mr. Speaker, without ever consulting us, without ever allowing us to participate, or without ever asking us, in any way, what our view may be?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: We will try again, Mr. Speaker.

We have to ratify, Newfoundland and Labrador has to ratify, has to agree to any boundary demarcation. We have not done that, Mr. Speaker. To the best of my knowledge, nor has Quebec, nor has the federal government, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, what we have, in fact, in place is a process where this can now take place. The Leader of the Opposition is making all kinds of assumptions. You know nothing about the offshore on the East Coast. I can guarantee you, if it is possible to know less about the West Coast then you know less.

Mr. Speaker, we now have a process where the boundary issue finally, after fifty years, can be settled once and for all.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair has recognized the hon. Member for the District of The Straits & White Bay North.

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, when questioned yesterday on what solutions were coming forward from government to deal with the lobster industry crisis, the minister stated they were considering outside buyers to purchase lobster from our fishermen and a decision will be made in short order - to use the minister's own words. Given the urgency of this matter, I suggest to the minister that a decision is needed now before it is too late, not in short order.

I ask the minister today: What information are he and his department waiting for to make this decision?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, I heard last night the President of SPNL, Mr. Joyce, seems to be going for the nomination of the Liberal Party. I do not know if they are conversing with him, looking for information, and I do not know if we might be negotiating with a different individual in short order.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. JACKMAN: I do not know if Mr. Joyce will remove himself from the situation or not.

Mr. Speaker, since yesterday I have been in meetings, our officials are checking out further information. I will be contacting the union before the day is out looking for some additional information. Mr. Speaker, I will be speaking with the processors in the Province -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, there is one fellow over there who seems to be talking a heck of a lot more than the others.

Mr. Speaker, secondly, there are plant workers who are involved in this particular process, and we will be speaking with the processors and getting their point of view on it as well.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. DEAN: Mr. Speaker, the present Minister of Fisheries is becoming known as the minister of procrastination. Unfortunately, that is a term that is out there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DEAN: Again, the reason he is being evasive about making a decision here, as he has done on a number of fishing issues, such as the MOU - none more glaring than that one.

I ask the minister: Can the frustrated lobster fishermen of this Province expect a decision on outside buying this week?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, I have to retract some of my statements. Yesterday - I spoke later in the House on the Budget - I said I thought the fellow was a nice fellow. I have to retract that, Mr. Speaker, I really have. I really have to retract that.

Mr. Speaker, this is not a simple issue of just granting outside buying and at the end of the day everything is happy and rosy. I think the hon. member might live in a rose-petalled world if he thinks that way.

Mr. Speaker, this can be precedent setting. We are working through the issues. We will come to a resolution, and we hope that the resolution will see a resumption of the fishery. We know the challenges that the harvesters face; we know the challenges that the processors face. We want what is best for the people in the Province, Mr. Speaker, and we will find that resolution.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, procrastinators are nice people as well at times.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DEAN: The minister has a responsibility here as well to ensure that the two parties he has mentioned, the FFAW and SPNL, also come together to work out a possible solution to this crisis.

I ask the minister again: Can you lay out the time frame that is acceptable to you that works for this industry as to when we can expect to have an answer?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, I cannot give him the exact time. All I will tell you is that we will find a solution to this as expeditiously as we can.

He is going to have to make up his mind, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday, he was up talking about not shipping shrimp down off the Northern Peninsula or shipping stuff out of the Province. Today, he is talking about we should be moving to outside buyers. I assume that is where he is going to. Mr. Speaker, he is going to have to make up his mind where he wants to go.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If we had as many lobster plants in the Province as we do shrimp, I would be a little more concerned about outside buying, I tell the minister.

Mr. Speaker, we are getting inside word, we might call it, that there is some issue developing with respect to the crab industry.

I ask the minister if he can confirm, as we are given to understand, that crab prices are dropping quickly in the US market and there is a glut that is causing concern from the processing sector, and does he know if we will be impacted?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, we can talk to many of the issues. I can go back to a comment by Richard Cashin and the issuance of shrimp licensed plants and when they were being doled out as if there was a free-for-all for everything, and as a result, we end up in the situations that we are into.

Mr. Speaker, to the issue that he is speaking about right now, I have not received that information. I will certainly check into it. Although I did speak to an independent harvester yesterday who told me that he had a call that crab prices had gone from $2.15 up to $2.35. To what he is specifically speaking about, I am not aware of, but I certainly will check into it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yesterday, I asked the Minister of Health about Eastern Health sending medical examples for testing outside the Province at tremendous cost when there are already labs in the Province ready, able, and willing to perform the work. The minister responded with a vague answer about there being operational issues involved, yet the first clause in the service agreement which NewLab Life Sciences signed just twelve months ago with Eastern Health states that NewLab has "the necessary qualifications, experience and abilities" to perform this work.

I ask the Minister of Health again: Why are hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical testing going to labs outside this Province when there are fully accredited labs, staffed by fully qualified technicians, here in this Province?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated, I have checked into this with Eastern Health, it is an operational issue.

Information provided to me indicates the following: In November 2010, Eastern Health met with Newfound Genomics to discuss a draft contract. At that time, Eastern Health had concerns. They were in three different areas. One, is that Newfound Genomics was asking for an upfront payment, which Eastern Health was not agreeable to; secondly, they were concerned about the ability of this company to meet the quality and safety standards as a stand-alone organization and vendor; and thirdly, that this request for start-up funding was not a typical relationship with a vendor.

Mr. Speaker, Eastern Health advised us that they are not aware of any testing having been sent to Newfound Genomics. I would suggest that, Mr. Speaker, if the member opposite has any questions for Eastern Health, those questions can be put to them. That is the information I have been provided.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Burgeo & La Poile.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Government has invested $17 million into the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Human Genetics in order to conduct research into this field; however, when it comes time to commercialize these discoveries, there will no longer be a local company ready to take advantage of that. Instead, the job of making money from these discoveries, along with the associated jobs and profits, will go out of this Province.

I ask the minister: Why is government allowing the benefits from research conducted in this Province to flow outside the Province instead of ensuring the jobs and the profits stay here?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, when we hired Ms Kaminski as the CEO and President of Eastern Health she was given a job to do, and that job is to run this organization. Mr. Speaker, testing is sent outside the Province all of the time in various types of testing. I will give you one example, of GeneDx.

I am a little bit surprised by the question of the hon. member having regard to my answer, Mr. Speaker. I have indicated that Eastern Health has concerns about the ability of this company to provide the quality work necessary. After the Cameron inquiry there are clear concerns that there have to be criteria, Mr. Speaker, to ensure top quality in our labs. That is one of the lessons of Cameron, one of the major lessons.

Mr. Speaker, Eastern Health wanted to be supportive of local work, but more importantly, Mr. Speaker, wanted to ensure that the highest quality and safety standards were able to be met. They have not been able to reach that conclusion.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Province's offshore regulator, the C-NLOPB, has been plagued with bad publicity regarding its communication practices. Last month the agency was criticized for not reporting a major drilling fluid spill in a timely fashion. This month, Captain Mark Turner in his report on offshore oil spill prevention and response practices calls for the board to demonstrate more transparency.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Premier: Does government share Captain Turner's concern and, if so, what is it doing to address the inadequate communication protocols at the C-NLOPB?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated before in this House of Assembly, the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board is an independent regulator. They operate separately from government. They have a mandate that has been given by the federal and provincial government but they are separate from us in terms of their operations. We do communicate with them from time to time. We do receive information from them. We do present information to them but they determine their own policies and practices. They operate independently, and Captain Turner indicated in his report that they were world-class and as good as any other safety regulatory agency in the world in terms of the safety regime that we have.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Well, the least I would expect the minister to do then is to inform the C-NLOPB in a formal way that he supports the recommendations of Captain Turner and that they should do something about the communication protocols. Then let them figure out what to do, but let them know how he feels.

Mr. Speaker, an environmental assessment of deepwater drilling released in 2006 included observations by qualified critics who said there was very little data about the environment 2.6 kilometres under the ocean surface. In fact, it is referred to as a data gap. Mr. Speaker, Captain Turner, in his report, indicates there is no plan to deal with a catastrophic event, such as a blowout, during deepwater exploratory drilling.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Premier: How can government approve exploratory drilling in an environment they know little about and for which there are insufficient blowout plans?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I indicated yesterday in this House that there are plans in place, and I want to be clear with the people of the Province that there are plans in place. Captain Turner understands that there are plans in place for spills, for spill prevention, spill containment, spill clean up, et cetera. Those plans are put in place by the companies, approved by the C-NLOPB, and governmental agencies also have the capability to respond to those. So, there are plans in place, and it is important that people of the Province understand that.

Captain Turner also referenced in his report that he would like to see more done in terms of catastrophic blowouts, which he calls infrequent occurrences. That will be something that will be undertaken by this government, and I am sure as well by the C-NLOPB, to try and address the concerns that Captain Turner raised.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time allotted for questions and answers has expired.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

Notices of Motion.

Answers to Questions for Which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

Petitions

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

MR. DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is a privilege to be able to stand again this afternoon and present a petition in the House of Assembly. I will read the petition into the record.

To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned residents humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS the shrimp industry is in crisis for both harvesters and processors; and

WHEREAS previously there was protection for Gulf shrimp plants and plant workers through a regional processing restriction mechanism ("the cap") which prevented landed shrimp from being trucked for processing beyond the region where it was landed;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House of Assembly to urge government to reinstate the regional processing restriction ("the cap") in order to preserve the principle of adjacency for shrimp processing and to ensure that employment opportunities are protected for plant workers and the overall viability of communities in the region.

And as in duty bound your petitioners will ever humbly pray.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased this afternoon to be able to stand and present this petition on behalf of the people of the Northern Peninsula, particularly those who fish from the Gulf shrimp part of that region. Mr. Speaker, as we know, in the past week there have been protests that have taken place. There have been interruptions of traffic movement along the Viking Trail. We know there are others planned, not that we are advocating that, but in frustration it is their only means of really expressing their concern and so on.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the minister talked about the shrimp that is shipped on to the Northern Peninsula. I would suggest the tally would be far more coming off than what is going on. My concern is not as much about where it is going but my concern is about the plants that are there and the workers who depend on this fishery. There is nowhere else for them to look.

Mr. Speaker, if we do not have a viable fishery in the coastal communities of Newfoundland and Labrador, then certainly the challenge will be tremendous. I use the example of Black Duck Cove, whose annual production of shrimp has gone from 16 million, to 12 million, and to 8 million last year. Mr. Speaker, we all know that in a business at some point or another, it just is not viable to open your doors anymore. I am sure if you have lost production by upwards of 50 per cent over a two-year period, at some point or another you must be reaching that line.

Mr. Speaker, that is the only reason that I stand today, is because it is a very pressing issue and it is one that people have collected signatures from along the Northern Peninsula. Mr. Speaker, I would urge this government today to do whatever is within its power to see that this crisis is somehow settled, that there is a resolution, and in this particular case, as the petition is asking for, that this government reinstate the cap that was there. It is a cap that worked for a number of years. It is one that was removed by this government for whatever reason, it does not really matter, but it is one that protected the product that was being landed in a particular region of this Province. Mr. Speaker, I would ask today that government reinstate the same as requested by those on the petition.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand today to present a petition on behalf of the people in Labrador with regard to the Trans-Labrador Highway. It says:

WHEREAS the Trans-Labrador Highway is a vital transportation lifeline for the Labrador communities, providing access, generating economic activity, and allowing residents to obtain health care and other public services; and

WHEREAS Route 510 and connecting branch roads of the Trans-Labrador Highway are unpaved, in deplorable condition, and are no longer suitable and safe for the traffic volumes that travel this route; and

WHEREAS Labrador cannot afford to wait years or decades for upgrading and paving of their essential transportation route;

WHEREUPON the petitioners call upon the House of Assembly to call upon the government to provide additional funding for much-needed improvements to Route 510 and connecting branch roads of the Trans-Labrador Highway.

Mr. Speaker, people have been petitioning the House of Assembly since we reopened for the spring session in Labrador. Petitions have come from Lake Melville area, from Western Labrador, from the coast of Labrador, from the Labrador Straits. Mr. Speaker, people are concerned because they have no other choice only to drive over a gravel road that is in deplorable condition.

I say that, Mr. Speaker, because the roads have not been maintained properly. There has been no crushed stone put on the roads on a regular basis, sections of the road right now are ten and eleven years old and they need to have that kind of an investment in order to maintain any standard there. In addition to that, what we have seen is that traffic volumes have not only doubled and tripled, but have absolutely quadrupled on most sections of this road. That is the amount of traffic that has to use the road on a regular basis.

We are not only seeing individuals with their own vehicles, but we are seeing a lot of tractor trailers, we are seeing a lot of industrial equipment being taken over that road and it is having an impact. In fact, Mr. Speaker, if you go on Facebook today there is a Web site that was designed by a trucker from Corner Brook who uses that road on a regular basis. You can see a lot of the footage that he has put there, the conditions of the road that he is driving over to deliver goods in and out of Labrador and what his trucking company is doing. I have talked to trucking companies in my own district and every single time they send a tractor trailer over that road, they come back and they have extensive damages that are costing them thousands of dollars.

I have heard from hundreds of people, Mr. Speaker, who are using the road. Not just from Labrador but from the Island and not just from the Island but from other parts of Canada who are using that road. They have been calling and e-mailing. There is no end to the messages that I have received. You can go on YouTube today and all you can find are videos of that section of road in Labrador and the conditions of that particular road.

I think it is unrealistic to expect that people are supposed to tolerate this, they are supposed to accept it, they are supposed to be quiet and everything is supposed to be good; it does not work that way. I think what they are asking is that government work with them; work with them to show some interest in that section of the highway in the Province; work with them to lobby and fight, Mr. Speaker, the federal government to secure money for paving of those sections of the road which right now are not even on the government's radar in the Province.

They want you to, in the meantime, do some basic work, to put crush stone on the road, to grade it. I have talked to grader operators who work on the road, who have had to go off for medical reasons because they are shook up; they have physical ailments because of operating equipment on that particular road. The road is just so bad.

I will keep bringing the petitions to the House of Assembly. This has been going on since the House of Assembly opened and I think it is time that government responded favourably to the people in that area so they have a decent road to drive over.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to enter a petition on behalf of the residents of Cape Ray in the District of Burgeo & La Poile who are very disturbed and upset about the way the Department of Transportation and Works has been treating them with respect to the roads in their community and as well as the road that adjoins J.T. Cheeseman Park which is used by none other, very often, than officials and service vehicles of the Department of Transportation and Works. They do not even maintain their own road that they have consistently used.

Mr. Speaker, the petition says:

WHEREAS the Department of Transportation and Works of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is responsible for the funding and maintenance of roads in the community of Cape Ray, in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador; and

WHEREAS the roads at Cape Ray are in a deplorable condition, including the road leading from the community of Cape Ray to J.T. Cheeseman Provincial Park; and

WHEREAS the citizens of Cape Ray demand that the roads be upgraded;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your Petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House of Assembly to urge government to provide sufficient funding to complete the necessary repairs to the roads at Cape Ray.

Mr. Speaker, we talk about deplorable conditions that might exist on some roadways. I do not know if I am exaggerating by saying there have been a few people missing over the years because this road has been so deplorable and so poorly maintained. I mean actually there is some wonder about what happens here.

This is a case where the provincial government, who through one department, the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, encourages people to come to this Province; encourages people who reside in this Province to travel around this Province and experience what it has to offer. They operate a provincial park, the J.T. Cheeseman Provincial Park, next door to this community. Yet, they invite you off the TCH to come into the park, there is another road which takes you out to the beach and on to Cape Ray which is the intention, according to Tourism, Culture to experience the place and yet you cannot get over the road. Who uses this road quite often? The very operators and trucks of the Department of Transportation and Works and they are not even properly maintaining their own road that they use themselves. It is not just for the residents.

Yet, if we had a little cooperation, if this community had a little cooperation from this minister and his department so we could get some roadwork done. No disrespect to the people who live on the Avalon, but it is not all about the Outer Ring Roads of the world, it is not all about the TCH down in this end of the world; it is about looking after everybody in this Province fairly. I do not care what political stripe you are, whether you are red, you are blue, or you are orange. It is time that this government started to be fair, when it comes to the roads in this Province.

There is no reason whatsoever that the people in Cape Ray should have to put up with a road that is less than somewhere else in this Province. Absolutely unacceptable. I encourage the government, I encourage the minister here to get on with what is fair to the residents here in this Province, and in this case in particular, get something done with the road in Cape Ray so the people have an opportunity to drive on something that is decent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand today to present a petition on behalf of the people in the District of The Isles of Notre Dame, and it is regarding the Notre Dame Memorial Hospital Health Centre. It says:

WHEREAS there were fifteen acute care beds in the Notre Dame Bay Memorial Hospital Health Centre; and

WHEREAS five of the acute care beds closed last summer and did not reopen in the fall; and

WHEREAS the availability of acute care beds is critical to the people of Twillingate-New World Island; and

WHEREAS the shortage of acute care beds is resulting in people being denied admittance to the Notre Dame Bay Memorial Hospital Health Centre; and

WHEREAS the people of Twillingate-New World Island do not want to see their health care services cut;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House of Assembly to urge government to reinstate the five acute care beds in the Notre Dame Bay Memorial Hospital Health Centre.

Mr. Speaker, the people in this area are upset because government closed down five of the acute care beds for the summer season, which is not unusual. It happened last year in this particular region. Normally what happens is the beds are reopened in the fall. They close them down in the summer because it is an opportunity for them when they have people going on holidays and vacationing and so on, and they have staff shortages. So, they keep it down to a minimum because they are not taking in as many patients, they are not doing as many procedures. However, in the fall, Mr. Speaker, the five beds did not reopen.

In fact, there was an advisory, a media advisory went out in March, and that media advisory said there was going to be an official opening of a restorative care pilot program in Twillingate. You would have thought that the people there would have been very happy about that. In fact, they were happy that they were getting a restorative care program. What they were not aware of, Mr. Speaker, is that when their MHA and the minister came out to make the announcement, that indeed what they were doing was taking five acute care beds out of the hospital setting altogether, out of the system, and they were actually converting them to restorative care. That was the pilot project that they were announcing for the people of the area.

In a letter, Mr. Speaker, that I wrote to the CEO of Central Health, she wrote back basically saying to me that we have consulted with the people in the area; however, people who I talked to felt they were not consulted. In fact, I have a folder full of petitions that are still coming in to me from people out in this particular area. Mr. Speaker, they feel that they were not consulted; they had no input into the decision that was being made. They recognize that there was a need for restorative care beds; however, they felt that they should not have to compromise their acute care health care system in the Twillingate-New World Island area in that entire district in order to accomplish that.

They figured that government and their MHA should have recognized that there was a need. In recognizing that need, they should have provided for the services appropriately and not taken beds out of the system, beds that were being used by other patients, beds that were being used by people who live in these particular areas. They are asking the government to restore those beds to the acute care services that they were used for.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

Orders of the Day.

Orders of the Day

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

MS BURKE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We will continue the debate on the Budget that we have commenced. With that, I call Motion 1.

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I am very pleased today to be able to stand for the first time and speak to the Budget and the amendment to the Budget - the Budget that was brought down in April. I am glad to have the opportunity to bring my thoughts to that Budget and the impact that Budget is going to have on people, both in the present and in the future.

We had to wait a while for the Budget, longer than usual, but it finally came. Now, we have the chance to have a number of opportunities to say what we think and to point out to government how we think they could have done it better, things that needed to be done that they did not do, and to maybe give some ideas to the Minister of Finance who did talk about the great difficulty that he had with regard to trying to meet everybody's needs. There were so many people coming to him with their different concerns, which is quite understandable. It is hard to balance how you are going to meet those needs, how you are going to meet those concerns, and I can appreciate that. Sometimes people have different priorities, people have different ways of looking at things, people have different values, and maybe there are things that I would have done about the Budget that would be different than the way in which the minister went about it.

I am happy to stand here today and to speak to some of those issues. I know that the minister would like me – maybe a lot of the members of government, all of them – to stand today and rhyme off all of the things that I like in the Budget. I will have to say there are many things in the Budget that are good, things that are necessary, that are meeting people's needs, things that we must have, and people must have for good health, things that they must have in order to have a sense of well-being as individuals and as families and as communities.

The role of government is to use the resources of the Province, to use those resources for the good of the people. We should not pat ourselves on the back when we do what should be done. We should all say together we are very pleased that we have the resources in the Province right now to be able to take care of many needs that perhaps we were not able to take care of in the past. I think that it is good for the government to recognize and good for the government to say that.

I do not have to stand and rhyme off all the things that the minister rhymed off when he stood. People know that they are there. It is good now that we have seniors who are going to be able to have dental work done without having to pay for it. I think that is absolutely something that is needed. There are all kinds of things that we see in the Budget that are good, but, as I have said, these are things that are necessities for people, they are not luxuries.

This is the thing that I would like to say here today, Mr. Speaker, sometimes when government is making decisions and bringing forth its Budget, it almost implies to the people of the Province that we are giving this to you, it is really special, we are giving it to you as a gift, and people almost think that they have to say: Oh, this is a real luxury that I am getting. These are not luxuries. Having the tax taken off home heat, being able to have your teeth taken care of when you are a senior citizen, being able to have drugs that one needs when you cannot afford it, these are things that are not luxuries. Being able to have a home care program, these are not luxuries, these are human needs.

Government has a responsibility to try to find the way to make sure that the needs of people are taken care of, not the wants. Just like in a family, just like parents with children, parents have to judge between the wants of children and the needs of children. Well, government has the same responsibility with the population and with the Province itself. Government has to look at what the needs are and recognize those needs. When people are going to government, when people are going talking about things like affordable housing, talking about things like home care, and talking about things like affordable drugs, when people are presenting those needs to government, they are not presenting wants or things that would be nice to have; they are presenting what are needs.

So, that is my attitude. That is my attitude that I present to the minister. We do not expect people to be going around grateful because the Budget is meeting their needs. I am grateful that we have enough resources in the Province now that we can start meeting more of people's needs. Government has a responsibility to do that. So, I am not going to thank government for its Budget. It should be what it is, and it should be more.

When I look at the things that are listed, one of the things that bother me is that in so many areas the government does not have a plan. It does not have a long-term plan. For example, we are still waiting for the long-term care and home care plan. Now, today we were in a meeting with the Minister of Health and his bureaucrats. We did have our Estimates meeting with the Department of Health and Community Services. I understand from that - shortly we were told - hopefully not too long into the near future, we are finally going to see a strategy around long-term care and home care that we have been waiting for now for two years, a strategy that is essential for us to move into the future, and a strategy that I hope will then be worked out over the next two or three Budgets, Mr. Speaker.

Nothing in this Budget presented me with that kind of a plan. This is what is going to happen this year, this is what is going to happen next year, and this is what is going to happen the year after. We do not have that kind of a plan with child care. What did we get? We got a two-year pilot project, Mr. Speaker – a two-year pilot project. Now, we are being told again that inside of Child, Youth and Family Services they are working on a plan. Once again, we keep getting promises, Mr. Speaker.

Here we are at the end of a four-year term of this government. We will be coming to an end. When we close this spring, it will be the last day in the Legislature for the four years that we have been elected, and we are still waiting for plans from this government. They know how to talk the talk but they do not come up with concrete plans, Mr. Speaker, and this is what really bothers me.

When we do get a plan sometimes, like back in 2007, we had been waiting for four years then for an Energy Plan, and right on the eve almost of the calling of the election in 2007, we got a so-called Energy Plan; which was nothing but a document with all kinds of nice ideas but no timelines, no plan, nothing that you could say down the road, they did not do this or they did not do that, or they did do this and they did do that.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things I hear from many, many people whenever this government presents its Budget, whenever it stands up with announcements, I hear people say: But where is the plan? What is their plan? What is their vision and what is their plan? What is their plan for the fishery? What is the plan for affordable housing? What is the plan for standardizing health care all around this Province? What is the plan? What are the actions that they want to do, what is the timeline on those actions? That is what is missing, Mr. Speaker, and that is what was missing once again in the Budget that we are dealing with here in this House now.

One of the things I would like to talk to, which was one of the things in the Budget, and which I absolutely am delighted was in the Budget, was the fact that the provincial part of HST was taken off home heating. Mr. Speaker, I also, I have to say, have to recognize that I finally got through to the Minister of Finance. I have spent two years talking to the Minister of Finance from the floor of this House and presenting to him the ideas around the provincial part of HST coming off home heating. I have had him say the opposite of everything I said. Well, Mr. Speaker, on Budget Day, I have to tell you, I felt pretty proud when the minister stood and spoke and used my language, said everything I had been saying for two years. He said every single thing that I had been saying.

Mr. Speaker, not only did he announce taking the tax off the HST, he also did the thing that he said he would never do, and that was to also maintain the low-income rebate. Now, Mr. Speaker, it was wonderful, and everybody in the Province knew it. I do not mind government doing it, that is what its job is. That is why I stand in the House and talk about issues.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER (T. Osborne): Order, please!

MS MICHAEL: That is why I stand and talk in this House, so that the ideas which I know are the things that people want, will be taken by this government and say: Yes, we will do it. People also remember where the idea came from. People also remember who pushed the issue, and people remember how the Minister of Finance stood –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS MICHAEL: - every single time I questioned him, and pooh-poohed the idea. I congratulate him that he finally learned, he finally understood.

Mr. Speaker, what really surprised me was to hear the minister on the radio yesterday, I think it was, saying the light bulb went off when a man spoke to him in a parking lot after the Budget and said that not only did you take the provincial part of the HST off, the person was upset because the person thought it is not going to make a difference. The minister said, but I pointed out that the low-income rebate is also staying in and that person was happy. My telling him time after time after time in the House that that was the way to do it, it did not matter to him. It took this one individual.

Well, Mr. Speaker, when I stand here in the House and speak to something –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Now maybe I will not have to shout.

When I stand here in the House, Mr. Speaker, and bring these issues, it would be good for this minister and for other ministers to know that I am reflecting things that people have brought to me. I am not just standing here because of myself. I am reflecting other people. I am reflecting the needs of people. I am doing it because people are asking for it, and I am glad the government finally recognized that. I am glad the minister recognized it and recognized that this was really going to mean something to the people in this Province, removing the provincial part of the HST on home heating. Yes, I am delighted that it is there, but there is so much else that this government needed to do. Mr. Speaker, there are gaps, there are issues, there are concerns.

MR. DENINE: Are you going to vote for the Budget?

MS MICHAEL: I say to my colleague through you, Mr. Speaker, that he can wait until the moment we come to vote on this Budget to see what I am going to do. I would like him to just be patient and wait and let me speak to the Budget here in this House without him shouting at me the whole time I am on my feet.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we need to be concerned about in this Budget is where our resources are coming from. We all know in this Province, and the government knows too, that we are heavily dependent on the income from oil and gas. It is important that we benefit from that at the moment. It is important that while those resources are there we benefit from them. We also have to build another whole infrastructure so that when that money is no longer there we also have important resources coming in; we have an important base of money coming in.

Mr. Speaker, one of the concerns in the Budget, and this is a serious concern, is the decrease in income or the decrease in revenues that is happening in various areas. It is something that I want to point out because it is extremely serious. For example, Mr. Speaker, the revenues from personal income tax is decreasing by 3 per cent in this Budget. This is something that needs to concern us.

I absolutely believe that we have to control the rate of income tax for low income and low middle-income people. There is absolutely no doubt about that, Mr. Speaker. What we have been doing is giving income tax cuts to people who do not need income tax cuts. We have been giving them to the people who do need them but we have also been giving it to people who do not need them.

Mr. Speaker, income tax is one of the most progressive ways of taxing that one can use. It is a form of revenue that is extremely important, but we have to make sure that people, who are at the highest earning end of the scale, give a greater proportion of their money than people who are on the middle of that scale. While I absolutely agree, and would do myself, with having income tax reductions for people in middle income, low income, I do believe that we have to be taxing people at the high end at a higher rate, Mr. Speaker.

We have to deal with the fact that our revenues from income tax are going down at a time when we are having more wealth being generated in the Province. The gap is growing between those at the lower end and those at the upper end in this Province. It is happening in Canada too, but it is also happening here in this Province. We have to make sure we are getting a cut of that pie of the people with income at the higher end, Mr. Speaker. That is one thing this Budget is weak in.

Another thing, Mr. Speaker, is that corporate taxes are also declining by 6 per cent. Mr. Speaker, again, I have no problem with tax breaks and tax concerns for small business. For small businesses, yes, absolutely, but we have to make sure that this government does not follow the direction of the Conservative government in Ottawa which is continuing to bring down the corporate taxation for large corporations.

Mr. Speaker, it is something that you cannot do. You cannot take care of people's needs and bring down your income at the same time. The income from large corporate taxes is extremely important. Important in this Province, Mr. Speaker –

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. MARSHALL: I do not want to take away from the time of the Leader of the NDP or anything, or interrupt her train of thought, but I believe she mentioned that we had lowered corporate taxes. If that is what she said, that is not correct. We have not lowered corporate taxes in this Province since we have been in office. As a matter of fact, corporate income tax revenues were much higher this particular year and added additional revenue in the year 2010-2011, which enabled us to have large profit.

So, we have not lowered corporate tax. We have lowered the small business tax, but not corporate income tax.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

MS MICHAEL: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

I recognize the hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I did not hear you.

To set the record straight, I did not say the rate was going down. I said the income from corporate taxes was declining.

Mr. Speaker, another thing that is declining is the payroll taxes, mainly probably because of the raising of the ceiling for those who have to pay those payroll taxes. I am pointing out these issues, Mr. Speaker, as a concern that we are losing money in the whole area of taxation.

Now, it is interesting, though, we are not losing money with regard to consumer taxes because the income from consumption taxes is increasing by 3 per cent to 4 per cent. A big part of that - and it is going to be even more - is because of the consumer tax on gas. We have multiple taxes on gas, as we know. There are three taxes. Everybody sees those taxes when they fill up their vehicles. We all see it, the three taxes.

Mr. Speaker, I do not have a definitive answer to what we do with regard to the rising cost of gas. I would like to put out to the Minister of Finance that there are models that could be looked at. Maybe he has looked at them, I do not know. When he speaks again to the Budget, he can tell us whether or not he has. There are ways in which you could have a tax on gas. I think it would be the provincial tax on the gas that you could do it with, you would not do it with the HST. You could have a provincial tax on the gas where the amount of taxation actually can change according to the price of the gas.

There are ways to do that, there are jurisdictions that do that, and it would be interesting, I think, for the minister to look at those possibilities. It is fine for government to be making more money because of the consumer tax on gas, but with the rate at which gas is going up – and it is going to get worse. Everybody who knows this industry is telling us that. For the ordinary person, this is a high rate of taxation. There is a lot of money coming out of their pockets. I understand, perhaps, a $70 tank of gas may be $60, about $10 of that is taxation. So, how can the minister deal with issue and help? The ordinary consumer in this Province, in particular, has to use private vehicles. We do not have enough population to have adequate public transportation in this Province; at least we say we do not. People are forced, not here in St. John's but in most places are forced to use their own private vehicles. Yet, we are making more and more money off consumer taxation and less money off corporate taxation. There is something wrong with all of this, Mr. Speaker. This is something that the minister does have to look at.

I look forward to being able to speak again as we continue the Budget debate, Mr. Speaker, and I will continue with some of these ideas.

Thank you very much.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is my pleasure today to stand and have a few comments about this year's Budget. I just sat, in some amazement, as I listened to the Leader of the NDP get up and speak to the Budget this year. Because she started her comments - and this is something really ironic because for those of us who listened to the commentary that was made in the public domain after the Budget came down, we would remember that the Leader of the NDP talked about this Budget not being sustainable, our spending levels not being sustainable. She did not agree with the amount of money we are investing in this year's Budget and we needed to be more cautious.

She starts today by saying that everything in the Budget should be there, no one should be talking about it and be thankful for it. Everybody should be happy that it is there, but it should all be there and no one should be congratulating government. In fact, there should be more. How do you get everything is in the Budget this year to stay there, how do you then spend more money and balance that with a statement that the current level of spending is not sustainable? What a contradiction, Mr. Speaker.

I have to say that laughed to myself actually as the member stood and talked about the lack of planning that has taken place by this government and there are no strategies, there are no plans. One of the things she mentioned, one of the examples she used: Where is their plan for the fishery? This is how many weeks, five, six weeks we have been in this House, I say to the Minister of Fisheries. This is about five or six weeks we have been in this House in this session and not once has she stood on her feet, not once has she stood in her place in this House and asked the Minister of Fisheries one single question about the fishery. She has not had any interest in the fishery at all. She does not understand the fishery. She has no interest in it. She herself has written off rural Newfoundland and Labrador. She has written off the fishery. She has not asked one single question because she genuinely has no interest in the fishery of Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker.

Today, she stands in the House and criticizes our government because we do not have a plan for the fishery. Quickly, Mr. Speaker, people forget. People forget very quickly, I say. When she talks about the fishery and us not having a plan, but she does not have enough interest, she does not care enough and has no interest in the fishery and she never stands in the House of Assembly and asks one single question about the fishery, Mr. Speaker - not one single question.

I challenge anyone in this House, anyone in the Province to check Hansard and see where in this session she has stood in the House and asked one single question.

AN HON. MEMBER: Or the last.

MR. WISEMAN: Or the last session. Just check the last two sessions, Mr. Speaker. Not one single question because she has written off the fishery. She does not care about it. She has no interest in it because she has written off rural Newfoundland and Labrador, because she is a single-seat party with a seat in St. John's, and that is the reason why. She does not have an interest in rural Newfoundland at all, not at all, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, when we start talking about the Budget, and this is one of the things where it is important for people to understand, the Budget process is one where my colleague, the Minister of Finance, got up and delivered a Budget. He made a motion that this Assembly pass that Budget that he just delivered. What we are debating today, Mr. Speaker, the people in the Opposition do not support this Budget. They are not interested in what is in that Budget. They do not support the Budget. So, they stood opposite and made an amendment, normally called a non-confidence motion. They want this Assembly to defeat the Budget - they want this Assembly to defeat the Budget.

If you defeat this Budget, if we were to stand and listen to the Leader of the NDP, listen to the Liberal Party and listen to the NDP, we would stand in this House and we would defeat the Budget motion presented by my colleague. What does that mean, Mr. Speaker? If we defeat this Budget, what are we actually saying? The Leader of the NDP, the Leader of the Liberal Party, here is what they have said: We do not support giving the volunteer fire department a tax relief. The two parties opposite do not support giving volunteer fire departments any tax relief, Mr. Speaker. They stood in this House and they said we do not agree with this Budget. We do not agree with it. We want this Assembly to defeat it. If we defeat it, here is what we are doing. Let's examine, let's go down through the long list of things that both the NDP and the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador have said that we do not want you to do and we do not support. In fact, we will stand in this House and we will vote against what you are proposing. These are some of the things that they are going to vote against, I will just mention.

They are going to vote against a non-refundable tax credit for volunteer fire departments in this Province. Some 5,000 volunteer firefighters are out there risking their lives and donating their time and energy to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador and the NDP of Newfoundland and Labrador do not support that initiative, Mr. Speaker. That is shameful – that is shameful, Mr. Speaker.

Let us examine what else. When we started talking about rural Newfoundland and Labrador, my colleague, the Minister of Finance, as a piece of this year's Budget, is asking this Assembly to approve an investment of $5 million of new money going to a Regional/Sectoral Diversification Fund to help rural Newfoundland and Labrador communities diversify their economies. We want to invest in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. We want to make money available to organizations throughout rural Newfoundland and Labrador to diversify their local regional economies.

The Leader of the NDP is going to stand in this House, the Leader of the Liberal Party is going to stand in this House, and they are not going to support that. They want us to reject that because they do not support our initiatives to diversify the economy in rural Newfoundland and Labrador.

Look what else they are going to turn down, Mr. Speaker. The Liberal Party and the NDP do not want us to invest $9 million to improve wharf infrastructure in Pool's Cove, Hermitage, Belleoram, or Harbour Breton. Let the leaders of those two parties go to the Coast of Bays area and let them tell the people. When they go out campaigning in October, let them go to the doors in those communities and tell the people that they do not support building wharf infrastructure in their communities, Mr. Speaker.

They will not do it then, but they will stand in this House of Assembly here in St. John's, they will not support it, and ask us to withdraw. They will not go out on the campaign trail and at the doors and tell the people they do not support their communities, Mr. Speaker. They will not have the face to do that, I say, Mr. Speaker. What they will do then is they will promise them the sky and they will promise them the world, knowing that they will never be able to deliver. They will come back here in St. John's and they will vote against initiatives like putting wharves in Belleoram, Pool's Cove and Hermitage.

Let us look at what else, Mr. Speaker. Let us examine some of the other things that they do not want us to do. Again, the fishery is the very thing the Leader of the NDP said we do not have a strategy and the very thing that the NDP Leader never asks questions about. She now wants us to discontinue the funding of some $6.5 million over the next three years for the Fisheries Technology and New Opportunities Program, Mr. Speaker. We are investing in the future of the fishery, Mr. Speaker. We see tremendous potential, tremendous opportunity. We need to invest in new technologies and new ways of doing business. That is our commitment, Mr. Speaker, one piece – one small piece of our commitment to the fishing industry.

The members opposite are telling us in this House of Assembly: we do not support that, we do not want you to do it, we are going to vote against your Budget. In fact, we feel so strongly about it, we are going to stand and make another motion to amend your Budget, to defeat your Budget. What we are speaking to today, Mr. Speaker, is really not the main motion at all. We are speaking to an amendment. The Opposition parties stood up and proposed an amendment to reject this Budget because they do not like the things that we are spending our money on.

Let us look at some of the other things that they do not like our spending money on, Mr. Speaker. They do not want us to be spending money in revamping the campuses of the College of the North Atlantic. We are proposing to put $3.2 million into funding the campuses of the College of the North Atlantic for repairs and maintenance in the next three years, Mr. Speaker. We are also proposing to put some $7 million into redeveloping our laboratories and our shops.

That is our future, Mr. Speaker, our education system – that is our future. If we do not spend money in investing in infrastructure in our college system around Newfoundland and Labrador, it is going to collapse, Mr. Speaker. The members in the Opposition, both the Liberal Party and the NDP do not support us putting this kind of money into our colleges. Look at where those campuses are, Mr. Speaker. Look at the network of college campuses throughout Newfoundland and Labrador; they are in many rural parts of this Province, Mr. Speaker. Members opposite are asking us to take this out of our Budget, they do not support it, they do not want it in the Budget, they are not going to vote for it, they are rejecting it, Mr. Speaker, because they do not support it.

One other thing, Mr. Speaker, that they do not support – the members opposite do not support us putting some $15 million into our apprenticeship program providing opportunities for employers to get the benefit of the rich, young talent of these young apprentices going into their respective trades, Mr. Speaker. We want to support them as they pursue their careers. We want to support the potential employers as they bring those people into their organizations and we want to put some money into that, Mr. Speaker. We are asking this Assembly to approve some I think it is $15.4 million for that initiative this year, Mr. Speaker, but members opposite are saying: no, no, we do not want you to do that, we do not support that, we do not think it is a good idea; we think we should be spending the money on something else.

So I say, Mr. Speaker, I would ask them, when they stand and speak to the Budget, tell us what they would spend their money on. When they take this $15 million from the apprenticeships program in this Province, where would they spend it? How would they spend it, Mr. Speaker? Good question.

Some of the other things we talked about, Mr. Speaker, in this Budget. Embedded in this Budget are some great initiatives, wonderful initiatives through many parts of Newfoundland and Labrador. Let us just speak to one more.

Members opposite stand in this House repeatedly and ask my colleague, the Minister of Health and Community Services, questions about the health system, and they are constantly criticizing us for the lack of investment, the kinds of things we do not do, the kinds of things that they think we should be doing differently. Yet, this year, Mr. Speaker, they stand in this House and they do not support us putting enhanced dialysis services in Burin, and in Stephenville, and in St. Anthony, and in Lab City, and in Harbour Breton. So, how do you actually square that hole, Mr. Speaker?

Now, when October comes around, I bet you, Mr. Speaker, I will guarantee you, in fact, I will guarantee you that not one single Liberal candidate, not one single NDP candidate will go into Burin, or Stephenville, or St. Anthony, or Lab City, or Harbour Breton and say: you know something, we did not support dialysis being here. We did not support dialysis. In fact, we voted against the Budget that was going to put dialysis in your community. They are not going to tell people that. They are not telling people that, but they will stand in the House of Assembly here in St. John's, though, and they will vote against the budget that does just that. Three and a half million dollars, Mr. Speaker, going into dialysis services that they do not want, they do not support, and they will vote against, and they are asking us to do the same thing – turn our backs on rural Newfoundland and Labrador. That is what they are asking us to do, Mr. Speaker. We are not prepared to do that. That is not our style. That is not our way of doing business. We have never done it, and we are never going to do it, Mr. Speaker.

Just look at some of the other things that they do not support. They do not support mental health services, Mr. Speaker. Enhancing mental health services in rural Newfoundland and Labrador – they do not support it. The Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador and the NDP of Newfoundland and Labrador do not support enhancing mental health services in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Or at least, their respective leaders are standing in this House of Assembly and saying we are rejecting the Budget that you are putting money into those services in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Mr. Speaker, can you actually believe that those two parties would stand in this House and make those bold statements? Can you imagine?

Let us look at some of the other things that are happening. The Leader of the NDP stands day after day, after day in this House and talks about home support services, Mr. Speaker, needing to put new money into home support services, needing to enhance home support services. We have been doing that year over year for the last five or six years. Again, this year, in one small area of home support we are planning to put in some $2.6 million to increase the hourly subsidy paid to home support workers. Now, what did the NDP do this time? We do not support it. We do not want you to do it. We are rejecting your Budget. We are not going to support that investment. What are they saying?

They get up one day in Question Period saying, what are you doing on home support services and we think you should be doing more. Then the Minister of Finance comes into the House and reads out a list of things that our government is planning to do with home support and investing all kinds of new money and then the next day stand in the House saying: yes, we heard what you said but we do not support it, we do not agree with it, and we are voting against your Budget. How do you reconcile that, Mr. Speaker?

Let's look at what we are doing with making our communities safe. We are trying this year, Mr. Speaker, to create new initiatives to enhance the investments we have made in providing safer homes, safer families. We are increasing the funding that we are providing to transition houses. We are increasing the capacity of our ten regional co-ordinating committees for violence prevention throughout the Province. We are looking at making some new investments in the Status of Women Council. We are looking at making new investments in the sexual assault and crisis prevention line.

All those new investments, all those investments in ensuring that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are safer than they are today, Mr. Speaker, and what happens? We propose it in a Budget, the Minister of Finance comes in and reads it into a Budget, says our government is committing to do this, committing to make new investments, committing to make the people of Newfoundland and Labrador safer in their homes, safer in their communities, and what happens? The NDP gets up and the Liberal Party gets up and says: no, no, no, we do not agree with that. We are going to reject it. We are going to vote against your Budget. We do not want you to spend the money in those areas because we think there are other priorities.

A moment ago, the Leader of the NDP, the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi gets up and talks about her concern about the revenue stream that we now enjoy is coming from non-renewable resources. We understand that. We understand that we need to take the revenues we are generating today from the non-renewable resources and make strategic investments in our people, in our communities, in our necessary infrastructure, strategic investments, Mr. Speaker, while at the same time making very strategic investments in trying to renew our economy, to move it from a economy based on non-renewable resources to one of a renewable resource base.

Yet, at the same time, when we come in this House day after day after day and we listen to the media reports day after day after day, we find the Opposition Party criticizing the development of Muskrat Falls; a major potential, Mr. Speaker. The development of Muskrat Falls provides a tremendous opportunity for Newfoundland and Labrador but at the same time members of the two Opposition parties day after day are critical of government's consideration of the development of Muskrat Falls which clearly will help address the very point that the Leader of the NDP raises, and that is a challenge of changing our economy, building an economy based on renewable resource development, Mr. Speaker. So, it is a bit of a contradiction. One day you should not be developing Muskrat Falls, the next day you should be trying to diversify the economy and moving us from a non-renewable resource economy to one where we will have renewable resource development.

Some of the other things members opposite do not support, they do not support municipalities. We are prepared to work with municipalities and making major improvements in their operating grants; major improvements in their operating grants. What happens? We come in here and we say to communities that have less than 1,000 people, and there are many communities in Newfoundland and Labrador with less than 1,000 people living in them, we want to give you a 50 per cent increase in your operating grants.

Our government wants to give every community out there that has less than 1,000 people; we want to increase your operating grant by 50 per cent. What happens, Mr. Speaker? The NDP and the Liberal Party come in this House of Assembly and say: no, no, we do not want to do that. We do not support that. In fact, if you put it in your Budget we are going to defeat it. We are going to vote against it. We do not want you to do it. What would they have us do, Mr. Speaker?

We have municipalities out there crying for financial support. They are crying for a different financial arrangement with the provincial government. In fact, they have hired an economist to help them do a piece of work, to help work with government to advance that particular agenda. We are trying to support municipalities in Newfoundland and Labrador and providing the greatest level of support and enhancing it more than some of the other communities, looking at the smaller communities, ones that maybe have the most challenge in trying to generate additional revenues on their own. We want to increase their operating grants more than some of the other larger communities, but we do not have the support, Mr. Speaker. We just do not have the support of the two Opposition parties in this Assembly to help us enhance the role that municipalities play, to support the role that they play in their regions and the support diversifying those local economies.

Mr. Speaker, I know my time is getting near an end here, but I say, Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of contradiction taking place in this House of Assembly. We have leaders of both parties, the Liberal Party and the NDP getting up daily in this House criticizing government for what they are not doing; not acknowledging the great work that is done, and that is fine. If they want to play politics, that is great. That is not a real problem, but when we come to this House of Assembly and we deliver a Budget that lists off some of the things that – and these are just some of them, Mr. Speaker. I just touched the surface here; I have just scratched the surface.

I have identified a list of items that are in this year's Budget critical to the successful development of many parts of Newfoundland and Labrador. We feel these are things that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have said to us that they genuinely need, it is important for them. That is why we have built it into the Budget, we have responded to their desire to enhance their communities. We cannot convince, Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador or the NDP of Newfoundland and Labrador to support this year's Budget because they want to reject all of the things, plus more, that I have just identified in this House today.

I say there are a lot of contradictions, and as much as I have really appreciated the time to have these few comments, I am still bewildered by the notion that those two parties do not support these five initiatives –

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WISEMAN: - that will enhance the quality of life for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am pleased to stand today to speak to the Budget. I am fortunate, Mr. Speaker, to get up behind the Member for Trinity North because I have never heard such tripe in all my life as I have just heard come out of the member.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, to stand in his place today and to say that the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador or the NDP of Newfoundland and Labrador does not support things like tax breaks for volunteer firefighters or do not support mental health services, or do not support child care services. Mr. Speaker, the member knows, all members in this House knows, and Hansard will show that many of us on many days stood in this House and held the government's feet to the fire to lobby for those very initiatives –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: - to be able to represent the people who sent us here, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Mr. Speaker, day after day after day the member knows that we have stood in our place and advocated for those particular services for people in Newfoundland and Labrador, those benefits, those tax breaks.

Mr. Speaker, when the member was talking he liked to say: well, let's see if they will show up at the doors and say this and show up at the doors and say something else. Well, I will let the hon. member know that we will not show up at the doors like your government did in the last two elections promising people on the doorstep that they were going to bring in legislation around things like whistle-blower that never, ever materialized, Mr. Speaker. Showing up and saying that we are going to be an open and accountable government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: We are going to be open and accountable.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: We are going to make sure that people in Newfoundland and Labrador have full transparency once we become the government. In fact, Mr. Speaker, do you know what they did? They have become the most tight-lipped government in history. They have nailed shut the doors, Mr. Speaker, on the people of the public in Newfoundland and Labrador. They set up a corporation called Nalcor and they nailed the doors shut at Nalcor. They are taking money out of people's pockets today in Newfoundland and Labrador and they are sending it down the Parkway, Prince Philip Drive, into Nalcor where it is being locked away and no one ever knows where that money is being spent. That is what this government is doing with the hard-earned tax dollars of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

That is the reason, Mr. Speaker, we are voting against this Budget. We are voting against this Budget because you –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: – are putting more money into Nalcor as a corporation than you are actually putting into people of the Province, in programs like the child care program, programs like the break on home heating costs, programs like the tax break for firefighters, and programs like housing. You add them all together, roadwork and ferries, you add it all together and it is still less money being spent on people in the Province, added together, than is being transferred down the Parkway to Nalcor, where the people have no say, where there is no accountability, and where there is no transparency.

Mr. Speaker, we will not support the secrecy of government. We will not vote to support the secrecy of government because we believe that people have a right to know. We believe that people have a right to full transparency in where their money is going.

They get out of bed every day. People in this Province get out of bed every day, Mr. Speaker, at the crack of dawn. They dress and they drive, some of them, many kilometres to get to their jobs. They get there and they work an honest day. They work eight, ten, or twelve hours a day. Sometimes, Mr. Speaker, they are working shift work.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, then they leave, they drive home at the end of that day, and they have to dig deep into their pockets and give part of that hard-earned income to the government members opposite to spend.

Is it right, Mr. Speaker, that money is being spent into a corporation that they have created? Is it right that money is being spent with no one having a say and no one being aware of where it is going?

You cannot get a document out of Nalcor on where they are spending money if your life depended upon it, because it is shrouded in secrecy. The doors are nailed shut. Every man and woman in this Province who are going to work every day, earning hard-earned money, punching a hard day's work, trying to keep up with the growing expenses of the cost of living in our society, the price of gas going up, the price of electricity going up, the price of child care going up, while they are doing all of that, they are also sending a cheque every day to the government opposite.

That government, let's look at what they have been doing with it. Well, they spent over $100,000 of it trying to plan a party that they did not have. They spent over $100,000 of that money planning a party that no one ever got to go to, no one ever was invited to, because it never happened. It never happened, Mr. Speaker. Is that legitimate spending of the taxpayers' money?

Let's talk about the money that went into Parsons Pond to drill two holes in the ground. They built roads, Mr. Speaker, inside of the community where today the barricades are up. The barricades are up today and no one can even drive in the road – to what? drill two holes in the ground. Because Nalcor decided to buy equity once again in another oil company; $25 million of taxpayers' money was spent. Is that fiscal responsibility? Mr. Speaker, are those the kind of requests that they have been hearing in their Budget consultations from people around the Province? That we want you to go out and spend money on trying to have parties that you are not going to have, we want you to go out and spend money on drilling holes in the ground for private companies that are going to materialize into nothing?

I read a lot of Budget consultations briefings because a lot of them come to my office. Even when I am not at the consultations, people send them into us, as an Opposition. I have read a lot of them, and I can tell you that there was nothing in any of the ones that I read that was calling on the government to do that.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, I never read in not one Budget consultation document ever submitted to the government in the time they have been going around holding those hearings that said: We want our government to invest hundreds of millions of dollars every year into Nalcor. I have never seen it. I have never seen it, Mr. Speaker. That is what the government themselves decided, on their own whim, to transfer all of that money on behalf of the taxpayers in the Province.

Mr. Speaker, like every Budget, in all the years I have been here, I have never seen a Budget that did not have some good things in it. Realistically, Mr. Speaker, -

MR. CORNECT: Are you going to support it?

MS JONES: I say to the Member for Port au Port, I will not be supporting the Budget. I will tell you the reasons why I will not be supporting the Budget, but I doubt it if the Member for Port au Port will stand in his place and say anything about this Budget, because he has not stood in his place to speak on anything pertaining to his constituents since I have been in the House of Assembly.

Mr. Speaker, let me go on before I was rudely interrupted. What I am saying is that the people in the Province should have a say and they should have full transparency in where their money is being spent and where it is going to go. Like all Budgets I have ever seen presented in the House of Assembly, there are good things in Budgets. How can you not go out and spend over $7 billion in a Budget in a Province like Newfoundland and Labrador and not see some benefits to the people? Come on, of course you are going to see benefits. Mr. Speaker, when we were bringing in Budgets in this House of Assembly that were only $3 billion on an annual basis, there were benefits for the people of the Province. That is the way Budgets are designed, but it is all about fiscal priorities. It is all about priorities of spending and it is all about where government decides the money should go, as opposed to where the people say it should go, two very different scenarios.

Mr. Speaker, while the Member for Trinity North likes to stand up and say we are against this, this, this and this and something else in the Budget, that is truly false. It is truly false and there are a lot of things in this Budget that we have advocated for, we have fought for, we have come to the House of Assembly and held government's feet to the fire on, we have held government accountable in the public for, and we will continue to do that. When they do those kinds of initiatives and make those investments, we have always been very complimentary to them as well. Does it mean we are going to support this Budget in its entirety? Of course it is not, but it certainly does not mean that we are against some of those very fundamental initiatives that will help benefit some people in the Province.

Mr. Speaker, I guess it is thanks to the oil revenues in the offshore and the mining deals in this Province that we are enjoying the wealth that we have today. We know, Mr. Speaker, that it is those two industries, in particular, that have allowed for the strongest growth in Newfoundland and Labrador over the last number of years. We also know that these revenues come from deals that were done by previous governments.

I know the members opposite do not like to hear those stories, but it is true. It comes from oil deals that they inherited, oil deals that were negotiated long before most of them ever had a seat in the House of Assembly. It was like winning the lottery when they came into power because they came into power at a time when the oil started to be produced in this Province. All of the oilfields went into production, they were pumping every day and therefore they were pumping money into the provincial Treasury.

Mr. Speaker, it was like winning the lottery for the Conservative government when they came in, in 2003 and 2004. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, we have seen mining revenues continue to soar. Mostly because of one particular mining operation in this Province and that is the Voisey's Bay Nickel operation. A deal, again, that was done by previous Liberal governments.

The mine went into production, Mr. Speaker, shortly after the government came into power. Not only did we see the spinoffs of hundreds of jobs being created in the Province directly and a lot more indirectly, but we also saw hundreds of millions of dollars going into the provincial Treasury in mining revenues. Those revenues have continued to climb. They have continued to climb, Mr. Speaker, for a couple of reasons; because we have seen other mining expansions; we have seen a lot more mining exploration being done especially in Labrador; and we have seen new mines that are being developed and coming on stream. I will talk about that a little later on as we get into my comments.

Mr. Speaker, as a government instead of using the windfall revenues of the past seven years to diversify the economy –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: – and to reinvest in the fishery and other renewable industries to make it sustainable, the government has gone on a spending binge, and everyone out there is recognizing that. They went on a spending binge, Mr. Speaker, to prop themselves up in the polls and there is no doubt about that. Who would not love someone coming bearing gifts every day? That is the reality of what this government has been doing. In doing so, they have neglected the debt, they have not provided for a sustainable future and forecast for the Province.

Mr. Speaker, even the Auditor General has termed the level of spending inside of the government opposite over the last number of years as being unsustainable. Mr. Speaker, this has to be a serious concern. People will say you are talking about sustainable spending but every day you are asking for something. That is what the Minister of Finance said on Budget Day about me as the Leader of the Opposition.

Well, Mr. Speaker, it is about spending priorities, and we are not just talking about one budget – this year's Budget – we are talking about Newfoundlanders and Labradorians at a time when we have reached ‘have' status as a Province; at a time when we are at the peak of our oil revenues flowing, and our mining revenues coming into the Province; at a time when we know, Mr. Speaker – we do not need a crystal ball – we can all look out and see that the barrels of oil that we are pumping in the Province today are going to continue to drop off over the next ten, twelve, and fifteen years. We know, Mr. Speaker, what that means to the revenues that come into the provincial treasury.

So, based on all of that, we need to be very wise and very prudent in what we are doing. We cannot be spending money unnecessarily, and we have seen this government choosing priorities and spending monies in areas that have been unnecessary; fundamentally unnecessary, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: That is the concern that has been expressed. Not just by myself, Mr. Speaker, not just by myself. I am not a right-wing activist, as the Minister of Finance knows; I might be a little centre-right on days, and a little centre-left on days, but I am not a right-wing activist. I am not a Progressive Conservative-Reform activist. So, I am not coming from that perspective. I am coming from the perspective that is shared by a lot of people in this Province, and that is a very legitimate concern. The concern is, how do we plan for the future? How do we get our debt under control? How do we put money away for future generations? How do we ensure that we protect ourselves, protect our people, protect our communities when the royalties on oil begin to drop off, and there is not a plan B to replace it?

When you look at the fact that 30 per cent of our revenues today, on a $7 billion budget, or a little over $7 billion, is coming from one industry, the oil industry, that is the reason for concern. That is the reason you have groups like the Board of Trade out there today, that is why you have groups like the small business corporation –

AN HON. MEMBER: Federation of Independent Business.

MS JONES: – Federation of Independent Business, and all of these groups that are expressing concerns. Not only that, it is legitimate. So is the Auditor General of this Province. He is supposed to be our financial conscience for all government, not just for the government opposite. When we were the government, it was the same thing. The next government that comes in, it will be the same thing. The Auditor General shows no favouritism. The Auditor General is the financial watchdog and the financial conscience for the Province in terms of where we put our money, what we spend it on, and where it needs to go.

So, Mr. Speaker, these are very legitimate concerns and very legitimate questions that people have to ask. I think we have to ask them because we have not seen this government expanding our other industry sectors, especially when you look at forestry and fishery.

I am going to get into that a little bit more because what we have seen in Newfoundland and Labrador since the government opposite took office – and by the way, you have to remember that they came into power – you talk about saying stuff when you are out knocking on the doors, I say to the Member for Trinity North. It was your government who was out knocking on doors in the middle of an election saying to people: no, mills will not close on our watch; if we are the government, there will be no pulp and paper mills close in Newfoundland and Labrador. Well, Mr. Speaker, no falser words could have ever been espoused at the door of any person in Newfoundland and Labrador because it was the very government themselves within a couple of years who closed up two pulp and paper mills in this Province.

Guess what? AbitibiBowater is still operating as a company. It is not operating in Newfoundland and Labrador, but it is still operating. It is still producing. It is still employing hundreds of people. It is still a corporation, Mr. Speaker. No, no, the government opposite did not have the fortitude to see where this was going and to be able to work with the company to be able to maintain those jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador – maintain those mills in Newfoundland and Labrador and maintain those jobs.

At the time, Mr. Speaker, they had the gloves on and they were in the boxing ring with Abitibi, like we have seen with this government over the years. Sometimes, Mr. Speaker, their adversarial position has paid off but in other cases it has not. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, the collapse of the pulp and paper mills under their Administration and without any leadership from them is the perfect example, Mr. Speaker, of where they have failed the people of the Province.

So, Mr. Speaker, the mills are still operating and they are still producing a profit. They are just not doing it in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, we went through a whole piece of this with the government. In addition to this, they went out and they seized the assets. I remember very clearly, Mr. Speaker, sitting in the Premier's boardroom and being told by the current Premier, who was the Minister of Natural Resources at the time, the former Premier, and the CEO of Nalcor, Mr. Ed Martin, that we have to expropriate these assets. We need your support. We have to go in, we have to do it immediately because if the company goes bankrupt we are going to lose everything.

One of the questions was: What is going to be the liabilities to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador? Zero. We have had the best lawyers in the world; we have had the best lawyers in the country. They have looked at all of this. There is going to be zero liabilities, meaning the people of Newfoundland and Labrador will never have to pay a cent for this. They will never have to pay a cent. Everything will be looked after, but we need to go in and expropriate those assets.

So far, Mr. Speaker, we have seen something like $70 million being paid out to the power companies whose assets they expropriated; something like $70 million or more of taxpayers' money that was just signed off to those companies for that asset. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, they expropriated a pulp and paper mill. Who would have ever believed that Ed Martin, the head of Nalcor, and the Premier, who sat in the boardroom and said there would be zero liabilities and we are not taking the mill, would have expropriated a mill? They did not know they did it, and waited nine months before they told the people of the Province that they had actually expropriated this particular mill. It was unbelievable, Mr. Speaker. It is a story for the history books because it will be unbelievable.

If you talk about the Upper Churchill and the fiasco that that was, wait until you read in the days and years to come the saga of the pulp and paper industry in Newfoundland and Labrador and what the true cost has been to the taxpayers of this Province because the government opposite failed to show leadership in protecting that industry. Instead, they had to use the people's hard-earned money that they get up and go to work for every single day in this Province, hard-earned money to pay for what they did and the mistakes that they have made.

They expropriated the pulp and paper mill. It is not that small, Mr. Speaker. You would think you would have known that you had expropriated it, but they did not. They waited nine months to tell the people of the Province, and now we are on the hook for those liabilities as well. That is the saga. What has been done to expand the forest industry? What has been done to rebuild the forestry sector in this Province?

We have seen the government pass out $10 million or $12 million to a private company on the Northern Peninsula. I understand they are starting to do some production and starting to expand their facility, so we will have to see where that goes. We know they have done calls for proposals, Mr. Speaker, in Labrador that never materialized into anything. I understand the proposals that were submitted were not accepted. I understand that right now it is practically dead in the water and nothing has been happening there.

We have heard a couple of stories out of Grand Falls-Windsor. Even at one point we heard the story about this German company that was actually going to come in and reopen the mill. Then we found out that the company had all kinds of corporation issues, financial problems, bankruptcy records and everything else. So that was a no-starter, Mr. Speaker, and that disappeared very quickly.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we understand there is another interest. Government is not saying too much about it yet, so we will have to see where that is. We have heard a few stories, Mr. Speaker. We have gotten a few clues, a little bit of insight into what is going on there. We will see where that ends up.

Mr. Speaker, where is the plan for all of the people who were displaced in that industry? We are still hearing from people, Mr. Speaker, especially people who worked in the logging industry and people who worked in the woods industry. What has been done to diversify the industry for them and to help lift them up? They have not seen it and it has not happened.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, we are continuing now to prop up the Corner Brook Pulp and Paper mill, the one that is owned by Kruger. Now, I have not read the reports that were produced by the university, I will be the first to admit, and I may not get a chance to read them for another week or two. Mr. Speaker, I understand that according to the reports that were done and the study that was done into it, they are basically saying we are supporting and investing money into the Corner Brook Pulp and Paper facility with very little return for the people of the Province. I am just saying what I am hearing in the media about the report. They are saying that there needs to be a longer-term solution for that particular industry.

I think the government needs to get serious about that. We know they put $10 million, $20 million in the last couple years into Corner Brook Pulp and Paper. We know, Mr. Speaker, they bought out all of the logging rights, whether we needed them or not. Maybe it was a good thing to do just to give the company the extra cash it required to keep going, but you just cannot keep going with ad hoc measures. You have to be able to forecast in the long run and see, Mr. Speaker, what is going to happen with this operation to ensure that it has stability, to ensure that there is stability; stability for the workers, stability for the local economy.

We certainly do not want to see, Mr. Speaker, the mill in Corner Brook go the way of the mill in Grand Falls and the way of the mill in Stephenville. I am really worried about this because this government has a horrible track record when it comes to trying to salvage the pulp and paper industry in Newfoundland and Labrador. They probably have the most deplorable record of salvaging the forest industry of any province in the country in terms of trying to make this work. I am very concerned about what is happening in Corner Brook. I am not saying, Mr. Speaker, that we should not be putting some money in but what I am saying to the Minister of Finance today and I am saying to his government is this, you cannot treat it like a make-work project. You cannot respond ‘ad hocly'. You cannot just write a check and send it out every time something goes wrong, but rather you have to find stability. You have to find long-term stability for these workers. They cannot go every six months and every year wondering what is going to happen in their mill. I think if there is going to be a partnership with government to salvage this operation for the people of that area, then it needs to be a longer-term plan and I think it should be a public plan. There is nothing wrong with that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Mr. Speaker, I would encourage the government to do that and not just treat it ‘ad hocly'.

Mr. Speaker, that was just a few comments on the forest sector but let's talk about the fishing sector, because this is another renewable sector in our economy where the government has not focused much energy. First of all, on cod recovery and rebuilding of the cod stocks, they have not done a thing, not one thing. Not one thing since they came into power in 2003. Not one thing. Nearly nine years, Mr. Speaker. We know this was one of the primary focuses of their campaign. You talk about knocking on doors, saying the right things and telling people what they want to hear. Well rebuilding of the cod stocks, joint control over the fisheries was one of their key planks through two election campaigns, Mr. Speaker, and then it was dropped. After the forum on the fishery, the big summit that they had, all the issues were dropped. Because they walked away from that summit with no solutions, no ideas, and no ability, Mr. Speaker, to give leadership to the industry and they have left it ever since.

Mr. Speaker, for the past seven or eight years the harvesters, the plant workers, and the processors in this Province has been looking to the government for leadership, but the leadership never came. The leadership never came, Mr. Speaker. For the past three years the government did the cruellest thing of all, the cruellest thing I have ever seen. It strung along the entire fishing industry with the talk of an MOU. They spent $800,000, they spent eighteen months, and they strung along the plant workers, the harvesters, the processors, the entire industry in this Province, into believing that they were developing a strategy and a plan to take the industry forward. They made people believe that they were going to give leadership to it, and it did not happen. Mr. Speaker, now, the government has decided that they are going to let the industry restructure itself. They got cold feet, they walked away, they have been accountable to no one on this issue, and now they are saying we are going to leave the industry to restructure itself.

This is not only an historic industry, it is not only one of the industries that have sustained us as a Province for many years prior to oil and gas, and prior to mining, but it is also an industry with the potential to sustain us, for many years to come, as a Province as well. We cannot allow the industry to continue to drift from crisis to crisis. That is what we have been seeing in Newfoundland and Labrador. It just goes from crisis to crisis, and that is what we are seeing again now. If it is not crab, it is shrimp; if it is not shrimp, it is lobster; if it is not lobster, it is groundfish; if it is not groundfish, it is processors; if it is not processors, it is plants; if it is not plants, it is fisherpeople; if it is not fisherpeople, it is vessels and boats and gear and quotas and all the rest of it. It is a continuous cycle of one crisis to the other crisis.

I think, Mr. Speaker, it is time for the government to look seriously at this, because it is not just about the 20,000 people in the Province who are in the fishing industry - a sizeable sum I might add - but it is also about rural communities in this Province. While the fishery is a big industry in St. John's - and I will be the first to admit that, you go down to the wharf in St. John's and there are fishing boats lining the wharf everywhere. A lot of fish is landed here; a lot of trade is done here. Mr. Speaker, outside of the Avalon Peninsula, or I should say outside of the St. John's region, the fishery is a very important industry in rural communities all around the Province. When you go down into areas like the Northeast Coast of Newfoundland, when you go down to places like Fogo, and Twillingate, and Change Islands, and all of those communities, when you go down the Baie Verte Peninsula – actually, Mr. Speaker, the Baie Verte Peninsula is one of the most entrepreneurial areas of the Province that I found in the fishing industry, in terms of processors and in terms of harvesters really making a go of it, building big enterprises, landing record catches and contributing a lot to the economy of the region. I have to say I was very impressed with what I saw down there.

Places like the Baie Verte Peninsula, places like La Scie and those communities, have a complete dependency upon the fishery. The same thing on the Bonavista Peninsula, you go into any of the communities down there. Look at what the people in Port Union are trying to deal with now. They came to the House of Assembly a few weeks ago, came here pleading with the government because their plant is now closed because of damages due to the hurricane. They do not know where to turn.

Not only, Mr. Speaker, are they out of a job, many of them had their homes that were damaged and had to move out of their houses. Government has turned them down for funding to repair their homes. I had a number of their cases that came across my desk, of where people had damages to their home in the hurricane, applied to the government and were rejected. Not only is their house damaged, in most cases they have moved out of their house and now they have their job gone.

These are the people who live in our Province. These are the people who pay in their hard-earned money to the government every day, that you are using to plan parties and that you are using to drill holes in the ground for oil, that you are using to buy shares in oil companies, and that you are using for all of these things. That is their money, and today a lot of them down in the Port Union and Bonavista area are out of a job, have damages to their homes, and are not getting any help from the government. Mr. Speaker, you can understand why people would be frustrated. There is a complete dependency as well in that area around the fishery.

The Burin Peninsula, the same thing; the shipyard and everything in Marystown is one of the hugest contributors to the economy up there, but so is the fishery. What would they do in Fortune and Burin, Grand Bank and all those communities, if they did not have fishing boats landing at the wharf? Tourism is great and it is a developing industry in this Province, one of the ones I am proud to say that government is putting some money into and we are seeing some results. It is not going to be enough; you still have to do more to protect the fishing industry.

Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of regions. If you look at the Northern Peninsula today and what is happening up there, you have a whole shrimp fleet who has just seen a 40 per cent cut in their quota. You have trucks leaving the Northern Peninsula loaded down with raw material, destined for somewhere else, while their plant doors are staying open. You have people up in places like New Ferolle who the government turned around and gave their fish plant to a private merchant - gave it to a private merchant for $1. Not only gave them the plant, but gave him the licence for $1. So, now he has a crab processing licence, a plant he does not want to open, and he is holding the people hostage. That is what is going on. The people in New Ferolle are out every day wondering if they are going to get a day's work this year or not.

Is that good management on behalf of the people, that you give a merchant a fish plant and a crab licence for $1? If he never opens the door, all you are going to do is give him a call and have a talk to him. Come on, people expect more. People expect leadership in this industry and they are not getting it. They are not getting any leadership, and that is unfortunate because the fishery and rural Newfoundland and Labrador are one and the same.

Look in Harbour Breton, Mr. Speaker. Where would Harbour Breton be today? When the government opposite voted to close FPI, they voted to close down the plant in Harbour Breton. I remember the day, Mr. Speaker, that vote took place and the people in Harbour Breton were here in the gallery. I remember we had to close the galleries. They had to take people out of the House because they were so upset with the government opposite, with our MHA, because I do not recall her ever standing up in the House to speak to save the plant in Harbour Breton.

Where would the people in Harbour Breton be today if Cooke Aquaculture did not go into the community? Where would they be today if government did not invest in the aquaculture industry? Mr. Speaker, the aquaculture industry is important. We all know that one of the few areas in the Province that boasts the greatest potential for aquaculture is in that particular region and we should be investing in it. There is no doubt about that. Where would they be if government did not invest? Where would they be today?

I will tell you where they would be. They would be like the people of Englee who, when their plant closed down, the government did not respond. They would be like the people of Jackson's Arm are today, down in Jackson's Arm, a beautiful community, all of the communities around it, in Hampden and all of that area, Pollard's Point, all of the communities in the Jackson's Arm area where people got up every day, Mr. Speaker, and went to work in their shrimp plant. They got up everyday, went to work in their shrimp plant, did a hard day's work, earned a good season, brought home a good paycheque at the end of the summer, and what happened? Their plant closed down.

There has been no leadership from government in terms of restructuring the industry and in providing for the rural areas that totally depend upon the fishery. There are areas out there – Jackson's Arm is only one of them, Englee is only two of them, Harbour Breton is only three of them, and La Scie, Mr. Speaker. There are areas out there where there is such a dependency today on this industry and they are seeing no leadership from the government, and that is not acceptable.

In seven years, we have seen nothing only lip service. We have seen the wool pulled over people's eyes. We have seen people, Mr. Speaker, led to believe that there was going to be a plan, that there was going to be something forthcoming, and it did not materialize. So, Mr. Speaker, this is what the people expect, but it is not what they are getting. It is really unfortunate because more needs to be done.

If you think, Mr. Speaker, for one minute that there is not a place for rural Newfoundland and rural Labrador in the fibre and the future of this Province, well, you keep going down the road you are going. You keep going down the road that you are going as a government because in neglecting to deal with these fundamental issues, you are neglecting the future of these communities. That is what is happening.

If you do not believe that rural communities in this Province should survive, if you think it is perfectly acceptable to throw 200 or 300 people out of work in Jackson's Arm, Englee, and places like that, and turn your back, walk away and not deal with it, well then that is fine. What you are saying is you do not believe in rural communities either, you do not believe in the potential they boast, you do not believe in the opportunity they provide, and you do not believe in the future role that they can play in contributing to our Province.

That is what we have been seeing from the government opposite. The government will stand, and I am sure some members will stand in the next little while, especially the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment, and talk about the projects that they put out there in these communities. That is fine and dandy, Mr. Speaker, so the government should. At a time when there is an employment crisis in the Province and the ability fiscally is there for the government to respond, so they should, but is it enough? It is a short-term measure; it is a knee-jerk reaction to a crisis that just happened. It is not long term, it is not sustainable, it is not visionary and it is not leadership. That is what I say to you, Mr. Speaker; that is what I say to you. The people do expect a great deal more but they are not seeing a great deal more, Mr. Speaker.

Let's talk a little bit about the Muskrat Falls Project. Not that I do not talk about it enough, Mr. Speaker, but I am going to talk about it a little bit more. I know there are members here who like to close their ears; they do not want to hear it. That is fine, Mr. Speaker, because some of them have not been listening for a long time, but that is fine. Mr. Speaker, we need to talk about Muskrat Falls and we need to talk about it for a couple of reasons.

We need to talk about it first of all, Mr. Speaker, because we are a Province with a history when it comes to big energy development. We are a Province that seen a deal developed on the Upper Churchill many years ago. It came to this House of Assembly, and at the time there was not one question asked about it; not one question ever asked and recorded in Hansard with regard to the Upper Churchill deal. Government was never held accountable, and Opposition, Mr. Speaker, flocked to the deal and that was the end of it. Nobody ever asked a question, nobody ever asked about the text of the deal or what it meant to Quebec, what it meant to Newfoundland and Labrador. Well, nobody talked about escalating clauses because from what I understand from historians there was no such thing at the time. That is a relatively newer concept that came after the deal and maybe if it had come a little earlier we would not have been in the situation that we were in. Having said that, Mr. Speaker, there was never a mechanism that provided for the long-term return and profit to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to make that mistake. I will not make that mistake. As long as I am in this House of Assembly and my job is to be the critic of government and to scrutinize the business of government, I will continue to ask the questions and that includes Muskrat Falls as well. People will never be able to say there were no questions asked, there were no comments made, and there was no information given. People will not be able to say they had no knowledge of what was going on like they did with the Upper Churchill.

Now, as irritating as that may be, like the Member for Mount Pearl South, I think it was, said earlier; as irritating as that may be, it is going to continue. It is going to continue to happen. As irritated as the Premier gets every day and starts hashing insults across the House, personal insults to me, it does not matter, Mr. Speaker. That does not matter. I am a big girl, I can handle that, no problem at all, but she does it because she does not want to answer the questions, but she has a responsibility on behalf of the people of this Province to answer the questions, to provide the answer, and if it is the same question every day, so be it. I will keep asking until I get the information. I do not make any apologies to any member in this House for that. I get a paycheque every day to do what I do, and I will continue to do it. I will continue to do that.

Muskrat Falls, Mr. Speaker, while it fell far short of what our expectations of a deal on the Lower Churchill would be, because you realize that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians expected a deal on the Lower Churchill that would include Gull Island and Muskrat Falls. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians always envisioned a deal that would give them a tremendous reward at the end of the day; that would bring money into the Province; that would bring royalties and benefits into the Province; that would bring money into their pocket.

This is where Muskrat Falls falls short, Mr. Speaker. For one, government did not focus on Gull Island and doing the Gull Island deal, simply because they know, whether they admit it or not, they know in order to do Gull Island and to do a good feasible deal that brings a great return to the people of the Province, they are going to have to have access, a corridor that takes the transmission through Quebec to be able to distribute it either in Canada, the US, or wherever they go with it. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, in addition to having a Canadian transmission corridor for our power, they also know they have to have a market. They have been on the record of saying that the reason they did not look at Gull Island is because they wanted to have 100 per cent of the power available and secured for the market before they developed the project. They want to be sure of their money. They want to have the money in the bank. They want to be sure of the revenue.

This is where the fundamental difference is with Muskrat Falls. With Muskrat Falls, Mr. Speaker, the government is only assured of 40 per cent of the power being sold, and I could definitely argue whether that is the case. What they are doing is developing a project, they are developing 100 per cent of the power, they are selling 40 per cent of it to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and they expect us to pay for the full deal. They expect us to pay for 100 per cent of the cost of developing Muskrat Falls. This is where I have the concern. This is where I have the problem.

It is not about being against developing Muskrat Falls. I am not against developing the river. I am not against, Mr. Speaker, developing clean energy. I am not against development in Labrador. I have always been very much for all of those things. Always been for those things, and will continue to be for those things. You cannot be for something if you do not see how it is going to benefit the people of the Province first. This is where we fundamentally disagree with the government on Muskrat Falls.

Now, I do not think the Premier has figured it out yet. I do not think she has actually figured it out at all yet, but, Mr. Speaker, the one area where we fundamentally disagree on Muskrat Falls is on the rate of return to the people of the Province. She thinks it is perfectly acceptable, the government opposite thinks it is perfectly acceptable to make the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, who will be 40 per cent users of the project, pay for 100 per cent of the cost. That is wrong. That is wrong, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely wrong.

In doing so, what they are allowing to happen is this: they are allowing 20 per cent of the power to be given to Emera Energy, a private corporation in Nova Scotia, for Emera Energy to use that power, Mr. Speaker, to do with it as they please. So they will take 20 per cent of the power, they will put it into the transmission line, the Maritime Link, and they will sell it, and they will make a profit of probably $4 or $5 billion on an investment of what, $1.2 billion. They are going to profit probably three times that over thirty-five years and you tell me that is not a giveaway? You tell me that is not giving something away on behalf of the people of the Province? I think it is great. I think it is great, Mr. Speaker. I am surprised that there was not a line up of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, business people, willing to put in $1.2 billion to build the Maritime Link, knowing that over thirty-five years they could make about $5 billion. I am surprised you did not have a lineup that stretched all the way down the Parkway to the Avalon Mall. I am absolutely shocked, but I do not think anybody was invited, Mr. Speaker. I think it was solely a deal for their friends Emera, the private corporation on energy in Nova Scotia.

They got the sweetheart deal here. They got a sweetheart of a deal. They got a deal, Mr. Speaker, where they are going to earn money, they are going to profit, they are going to put money in their pockets, and they are going to be able to sell cheaper power to the people in Nova Scotia than we are going to buy in Newfoundland and Labrador for ourselves. Now, that is ridiculous.

I would like to believe that this is a great deal. I would like to believe, Mr. Speaker, that this is the best deal since the slice of bread. Like everyone else in this Province, I would like to have great energy surplus. I, like everyone else, want to have jobs, want to have business, and want to have all of these things happening. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to have it at the expense of the people in this Province when I know that they cannot afford to pay out the rates they are going to be billed under this project.

We are asking government to do something about that, and they can do something about it. It is a matter of having the will to do it. Right now they see nothing wrong – they see absolutely nothing wrong – with having the people of this Province pay for 100 per cent of the cost of Muskrat Falls even though they are only going to use 40 per cent of the power. So in addition to the 20 per cent that is going to be given to Emera, the private corporation, to earn a profit on over the next thirty-five years and get their money back on their investment, they are going to look at selling the other 40 per cent of the power.

Now, they are all over the place on where that is going to be sold because we all know they have no agreement in place. They have no market for it yet, so they are all over the place on where it is going to be sold. It may be left in Labrador for industrial development. It may come to the Island. It may go to the New England States. It may go to the Maritimes.

The reality is they have no deal with anybody yet. They do not know where to go with it. They are shopping around, I am aware of that, and they are out there. They are trying to get someone to buy the power off them, but the problem is, Mr. Speaker, no one is going to pay the price it is going to cost to generate that power. So they have to settle for a lot less which means the other 40 per cent of the power – they are going to sell to the people in the Maritimes or in the New England States – is going to be sold at a much cheaper rate. In fact, it is going to be sold anywhere from about five-and-a-half cents to about nine-and-a-half cents a kilowatt hour. In some cases, Mr. Speaker, sold at half of what we are going to pay for it in Newfoundland and Labrador.

What is going to happen to the money they make off this 40 per cent? Even if they do sell it cheaper than they are going to sell it to the people in Burin, Mr. Speaker, or the people in Clarenville, or cheaper than they are going to sell it to the people in Gander, or Grand Falls, or in Baie Verte, or Gander Bay, cheaper than they are going to sell it to all of those people. If they are going to sell it to Nova Scotians, the Maritimes and the US cheaper than they are going to sell it to all of our own people in the Province, still what are they going to do with the money they make off that power?

Are they going to bring that home and say to the people in Mount Pearl, the people in Bay Roberts, the people, Mr. Speaker, right out in Heart's Content – are they going to bring it home and say to those people: instead of you paying twenty-one cents a kilowatt for your power or eighteen cents a kilowatt for your power, we are making money off this deal so we are going to invest it into the ratepayer in Newfoundland and Labrador. We are going to make sure that you are not paying those high energy costs. We are going to bring your rate down.

No, they are not saying that, Mr. Speaker, they are not saying that at all. This is what they are saying; they are saying first of all Emera Energy has to get a profit. They are saying Nalcor corporation, the corporation we were pumping all of your money today people in the Province, they have to get a profit. So the priority here is Emera Energy, Nalcor corporation and both of you have to get a profit.

Mr. Speaker, what is leftover? Well that is a matter of dispute right now because we know that you have watchers out there, royal watchers I call them, on this deal who are saying that there is not going to be anything leftover. You have others who say: well, maybe there might be but it is going to be at least twenty-five years out before there is any excess leftover. So you have all kinds of opinions on that, Mr. Speaker.

What happens to what is leftover? Is it going back, Mr. Speaker, to subsidize the ratepayer? The government has said no. The Premier has been on record in the House of Assembly and outside of the House of Assembly saying no. That will be a decision, she says, of the governments of the future. That will be a decision of Nalcor Energy. That will be a decision of whoever the players are at that particular time in our history, but it is not going to be a commitment as part of this deal. That is where we fundamentally, Mr. Speaker, disagree on Muskrat Falls.

We believe that the lowest cost energy should be provided to the people of the Province. We are not necessarily convinced that this is the lowest cost energy, first of all. Secondly, we feel that the people of the Province should be treated with more respect and dignity than having to pay for the full cost of the project while others in the Maritimes, others in the New England states and so on, have the ability to get their power much cheaper from our source. We have a fundamental problem with that.

We also have problems when it comes to Labrador, some huge problems, Mr. Speaker. I am going to get into that in just a few minutes, but before I do that I notice that my time is almost up and I want to move the following sub-amendment, first of all.

I move, seconded by the Member for Port de Grave, that the amendment be amended by changing the period at the end thereof to a comma, and by adding immediately thereafter the following words, "and that this House also condemns the government for its failure to present a budget that reflects the possibilities which exist in terms of addressing the needs of the people and dealing with problems such as a retirement package for fisherpersons and plantworkers, crisis in the fishery, the extension of 911 service, public service pensioners, the lack of economic development in rural Newfoundland and Labrador and a prudent and responsible approach to the development of hydroelectric power."

That is the sub-amendment that I am presenting at this time.

MR. SPEAKER: We will take a brief recess now to consider the sub-amendment.

Recess

MR. SPEAKER (Kelly): Order, please!

The Chair has taken the time to review the sub-amendment, and the sub-amendment has been deemed to be in order. When the Leader of the Opposition speaks now, she will be speaking to the sub-amendment.

The Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am pleased to stand to speak to the sub-amendment that I have just proposed to the Budget. When I left off, I was actually talking about the Muskrat Falls development and the project. I wanted to do that because I think it is important for people in the Province to understand what is happening with this particular deal.

In fact, I was really surprised just recently when Emera Energy held their annual meeting in March, just a month or so again. They put out their corporation document and their shares document. One of the big things that they highlight in here is their investment in Newfoundland and Labrador, how it is growing their company as Emera Energy in Nova Scotia, a private company, how they are going to get a deal on hydro power that is going to last for thirty-five years, and how beneficial that is for them as a corporation and to their shareholders.

I cannot tell you what I felt when I actually read that. Mr. Speaker, it upset me to a certain degree, not that I have any problem with public-private partnerships at all. In fact, I think we should be doing some of it in trying to get caught up on the ferry situation in the Province, but that is another topic and I will get there shortly. When it comes to this particular deal, it kind of upset me.

I think it is that I really do see the deal that this government has negotiated with Emera Energy as being a giveaway for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. I say that because while we are going to pay so much more for the cost of our hydro power from Muskrat Falls, Emera Energy is going to get 20 per cent of that full development that they are going to be able to put into the market, sell, and make a huge profit for themselves as a corporation, but sell it to their own customers in Nova Scotia for cheaper than we are going to pay. I see something fundamentally wrong with that. It is unfortunate that other members in the House do not see something fundamentally wrong with that. If they did, they would take some action to fix it. They would take some action to address that.

So, Mr. Speaker, I picked up the shareholder documents from Emera Energy and the first thing they are promoting is their deal with Newfoundland and Labrador. Mr. Speaker, free power for Emera Energy for thirty-five years and half the price of power for anyone else who wants to buy it in the Maritimes, while the people of Newfoundland and Labrador will pay double for their own electricity. That is wrong. We are pleading with the government every day in this House. We are pleading with the government every day to make sure that does not happen, to make sure that the people of this Province are not stuck with that bill, those high electricity rates; because we know they cannot afford them. We know that, Mr. Speaker. You only have to look at the sectors of our economy today and see what is happening.

Let's look at where the labour force is and the big story the other day coming out of the census on where the labour force is. Now, first of all, they are saying that the unemployment rates in Newfoundland and Labrador have dropped, and they did drop. Overall, they did drop. Having said that, Mr. Speaker, we still have the highest unemployment rate in the entire country - in the entire country. So while we might have dropped by 1 per cent or so, we still have the highest unemployment rate in the entire country.

Guess what our unemployment rate is in areas of the Province? It is great in St. John's, 5.9 per cent. It is great in St. John's. I talked to a young fellow the other day. He said: I just put out eighteen resumes for a job today - a kid out of high school. The next day I talked to him, he said: I just had a call for my first interview. He went in, he had an interview, and they hired him right away. Then he started getting more calls and more calls, and it seems that is the way it is in the St. John's area. There is some need for service sector workers, for people to work in the service areas like in the gas bars, in the restaurants, and in those particular areas.

Mr. Speaker, when you go outside of St. John's, just look at what the unemployment statistics are in this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, it is really loud here.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When you go outside of the St. John's area, you get a very different picture of what is happening in Newfoundland and Labrador. That is why I always say that while the government is a have, the people are not in this Province when you look at it right across the board. I say that with all sincerity because when you look at the Burin Peninsula and the South Coast of Newfoundland today, and the communities that I talked about earlier in Grand Bank, in Fortune, in Swift Current, out in Franηois, those communities going right on down to Harbour Breton and Hermitage, all of that particular area, they are looking at 23.1 per cent to be the unemployment rate – 23.1 per cent. You look at those people and you say to them that rural communities in our Province are a priority, the fishery is a priority, and the forestry is a priority? Those are the industries that these communities depend upon.

You say that we believe in rural communities, yet the unemployment rate in those communities is not going down. In fact, it is going up. If you look at the statistics, it is actually going up. If you look at April of last year, the unemployment rate on the Burin Peninsula and the South Coast of Newfoundland was at 21.4 per cent. This year, it is at 23.1 per cent. It has gone up 2 per cent. So, despite the fact that we are a have Province and despite the fact that the government is managing all of this money on behalf of the people, why is it that the Burin Peninsula, the Connaigre Peninsula, the South Coast of Newfoundland, all of these areas, are climbing in their unemployment rate? Why is it that they are up to 23 per cent, Mr. Speaker? This is unbelievable.

MS PERRY: That is not true.

MS JONES: The member for the Connaigre Peninsula is saying it is not true. Well, go on-line and get the statistics from the Economics and Statistics Branch of Newfoundland and Labrador in the Department of Finance. I think the minister is in your caucus, and you can find it on-line if he has not given it to you, and you can see the figures, Mr. Speaker. So, do not say that it is not true. Why say that it is not true when the statistics are there? They are right in your own government department, and a backbencher is sitting in the House saying it is not true. Well, Mr. Speaker, it is true. It is true.

Mr. Speaker, if you look at the unemployment rate on the West Coast of Newfoundland, and the Northern Peninsula, and Labrador, and of course this is including Western Labrador, and if it was not, you would see it even at a higher rate. Because of the increase in employment in Western Labrador and the demand for jobs in the industry sector, it brings the overall number for the West Coast of Newfoundland, the Northern Peninsula, and Labrador down. Even then, Mr. Speaker, it is still at 21 per cent – 21 per cent. Again, it is an increase. It was at 19.8 per cent a year ago, and it is going up. The statistics are going up, and not down. The unemployment rate outside of the St. John's area is going up. If there was a real commitment by the government in those communities around the Province, in those rural areas around the Province to invest, Mr. Speaker, to create jobs, to develop the industry sectors like fisheries and forestry and all of those sectors, we would see those unemployment rates going down and not going up.

Members might think it is nasty that I am up here reading off those numbers, but, Mr. Speaker, there is nothing nasty about it, it is the reality. Do you know something? Do you know what I really wish I had here besides the unemployment statistics? I wish that I would have brought with me the sheet that says what the average income is for families around this Province when you get outside the St. John's area because it is a very, very different picture.

When you look at Notre Dame, Central, and Bonavista Bay, Mr. Speaker, when you get down into the Twillingate and Fogo area, you get down into those particular areas, you are looking at an unemployment rate in those areas - in the Springdale and Baie Verte, all around those areas, Triton, Bay Roberts, Bay of Islands, Little Bay Islands and all of those places, you are looking at an unemployment rate of 19.5 per cent. It is very high, Mr. Speaker, very high. That takes in all of the Lewisporte area, Summerford area, Laurenceton, all of those communities out around there in that particular area. You are looking at an unemployment rate there of 19.5 per cent. Mr. Speaker, that is really high.

It is okay to brag that the unemployment rate is going down in St. John's, but while it has been going down in St. John's it is going up everywhere else in the Province. It is going up everywhere else in the Province because everywhere else in the Province they are not getting the direct benefit and spinoffs from the oil and gas industry. If they are not getting the direct benefits and spinoffs from the oil and gas industry and they are not getting the investments in the other sectors like in fishery, in forestry, in small scale manufacturing and all of those areas, and construction and all the rest of it, then, Mr. Speaker, they have no other choice but see their statistics going up, their unemployment rates going up, their level of poverty going up, their family income falling. At the same time the prices of everything around them is increasing.

When you talk about why I continue to raise Muskrat Falls and the price of power, this is the reason I continue to raise it, because I know what the unemployment rates are in this Province. I am looking at it from a realistic perspective, Mr. Speaker, a perspective of what people can afford. The other thing I am looking at, Mr. Speaker, is that one in every 4.25 people in this Province are moving into a seniors bracket, into an aging bracket in Newfoundland and Labrador. Because of that, Mr. Speaker, they are moving into fixed incomes. More and more of our population are going to be based on fixed incomes.

When you look at the fact, Mr. Speaker, that you talking about doubling up the price of electricity we are concerned, because we do not see how the ordinary person in this Province is going to be able to afford electricity. I had a pensioner say to me, and this is a person who has a public sector pension, but they said to me: my heat and light bill every month is $300 a month. If that doubles up to $600 a month in the next couple of years there is no way I can afford it because I am just making things come together now. I am just making ends meet, as we say, right now.

What is going to happen in all of these communities out there in the Province, where right now today if you ask any prudent family that is out shopping for groceries what do they think of the price of food? They will tell you it is outrageous. The price of food is going up. It is going to increase by another 8 per cent this year. The price of food is going up. The cost of transportation is going up. The cost of gasoline is going up. Your government is proposing to increase electricity rates, which means it is going up. We need to start being concerned about how families are going to pay for all of this; how the mothers and fathers who are out there working to keep their homes going and put food on their table are going to pay for all of these increases and expenditures. That is the piece they have not seen from the government, Mr. Speaker. That is the piece that has been glaringly omitted in all of this. That is the reason we keep raising these particular issues in the House of Assembly, and we are going to keep raising them because we think it is important.

Again, getting back to Muskrat Falls in terms of Labrador; I thought if there was one thing learned from history, if there was one thing ever learned from the deal that was done on the Upper Churchill, it was that any future deals on energy development in Labrador should provide something for the people of Labrador. We have been a big Province on adjacency. Historically, we have always said we should have more control over our fishery because we are adjacent to it. We have always had big issues on adjacency when it comes to federal government programs, services, and resources in terms of adjacency from that perspective. When it comes to practicing what we preach, it does not happen.

When you talk about development of the Muskrat Falls Project, what was in it for Labrador? What consideration was going to be given to the people of Labrador? It is a great deal for the Innu. The Innu are one small group. They are one small fraction in Labrador and they fought hard to get their deal. They got their deal. Whether they accept it or not, we will wait and see. Mr. Speaker, they got their deal. There is more to Labrador than one group of people. One group of people in Labrador do not control everything that happens.

What about what the needs are for people in Labrador, the needs of communities? What about the needs for the North Coast, who are paying the highest cost of energy, Mr. Speaker, and the South Coast, the highest cost of commercial diesel rates in the Province and the highest cost of power? What about those communities? Why wasn't there some consideration given to them? What about bringing transmission capacity to those communities and developing alternate energy? Why was there no vision around what their future energy needs are going to be and how that is going to be provided for? Oh, no, that was not taken into consideration. That has been no part of the platform, Mr. Speaker.

What about the industrial users in Labrador? If you look at where the mining operations are today, if you look at who is going to drive the economy of this Province, Mr. Speaker, from an industrial perspective outside of oil, it is going to be Labrador. It is going to be Labrador that drives the economy of this Province over the next decade, and probably the next two decades I would forecast, Mr. Speaker, depending on what happens with natural gas. I would say that the people there deserve more. They deserve something more. They deserve some recognition. They deserve to have some consideration given to where their deficiencies are and how that can be met.

Every day I come in this House of Assembly, I stand in my place, and I present the views of the people of Labrador when it comes to the roads up there. It is the saddest thing that people have ever seen in their lives, the absolutely saddest thing that people have ever seen in their lives. Here you have a government today that is taking hundreds of millions of dollars out of Labrador in mining revenues alone. You have a government today that wants to go in and develop a big river in Labrador, flood the lands, take out energy power, build transmission lines right down through over the roofs of people's heads all through Labrador, Mr. Speaker, and take all the power out and the people have to come here every day and fight to get gravel to go on their roads. How sad is that? How could a government be so out of touch with the people that they are in charge of representing? How could a government not consider how much these people are giving to the Province and look at giving something back?

In fact, Mr. Speaker, they asked the government: are you going to negotiate a new deal with the federal government to pave the rest of the section of the Trans-Labrador Highway? They said: oh, no we are not going to do anything with that until 2014. What kind of a response is that? No, no you sit back for three years and in three years we are going to get a proposal together and we are going to take it to the federal government and see what we can do. Well, Mr. Speaker, you know and I know how the system works. Without putting pen to paper for three years means that you will not put a shovel to the road, Mr. Speaker, for at least six or eight years. That is exactly what it means.

Is that acceptable for the people of Labrador? No it is not. No it is not, Mr. Speaker, and people here should be ashamed of themselves. They should absolutely be ashamed of themselves if they think that that is acceptable. That they think it is acceptable to leave people up there, Mr. Speaker, in a remote area like that with a highway that is not suitable, is not safe and is not fit for people to be doing their everyday commute and transferring goods and services.

Mr. Speaker, there are some major issues in Labrador that this government is not addressing; one is around the energy need; two is around the transportation need. When you look at the North Coast of Labrador, I mean they have been talking for the last seven or eight years about reconfiguring ships for Northern Labrador and we are still using, Mr. Speaker, an old vessel to bring people in and out of the North Coast of Labrador. Where has the vision been around building a ship that could handle the transportation capacity in that region? Even if you start the road, Mr. Speaker, to the North Coast in the next twelve months I know myself it took ten years to build the one through the South Coast of Labrador. So, Mr. Speaker, you are talking a number of years that people in the northern region of Labrador are going to have to depend upon Marine Services until they get a road network. Where is the vision around replacing the ferry service and giving them something suitable? It has not happened; has not happened.

What about the Island-Labrador link? This government, I have heard members opposite out complaining about Marine Atlantic, complaining about the Gulf ferries, complaining about delays, Mr. Speaker, complaining about the price, and complaining about the kind of ships. Well, it is time for you to take a look at what you are doing in your own Province. Why do you not look at the Island-Labrador link? Why do you not look at the fact that the last time you went to tender you could not get a ship for that service; you had to go out and bring back an older ship, which you all know is not going to be able to sustain the service for much longer. What are we doing to address it? The contract runs out again in another year or two. What is being done to address it? What is being done to build a proper ferry link between the Island and Labrador?

Where is the fixed link? I remember, Mr. Speaker, a former Premier in the Conservative government driving up the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland and looking across to Labrador and seeing all the lights in the great District of Cartwright L'Anse au Clair glowing up in the night, and saying: boy, we have to build a fixed link. We have to build a fixed link across the Strait of Belle Isle. What happened? They got in power, they put out a few hundred dollars, Mr. Speaker, they had a preliminary study done, they said: oh, no, we cannot touch that. Oh, no, we cannot touch that, Mr. Speaker. This is what they did. This was their commitment to the people.

Do not talk to me about telling people stuff at the doors and never materializing, because there are hundreds of examples. Mr. Speaker, that is not good enough. Why has this government not put their head around what the long-term transportation needs are going to be in Labrador, and invest in them? Why is that not happening? Why is there no commitment to do that – because it is not fair. It is not fair that people this year, in that area, had to put their vehicle on a freighter, and have it floating around out in the Labrador Straits, Mr. Speaker; ended up back at the dock and did not get anywhere. People had to get on a plane and fly over, and when they got there, the vehicles were not there. So, they had to get back on the plane and fly back home. This is the transportation system that they were left with. Put your vehicle on a freight boat, put yourself on a plane. Then there were days they sent their vehicles, Mr. Speaker, and the plane could not go, so their vehicles were over there and they were not there.

This is not acceptable. This is what you call investing in people in rural areas of this Province? This is what you call a commitment to people, Mr. Speaker? That is not a commitment to people. You know what is so galling about all of this? People out there that have to do this every day are listening to members opposite talk about how rosy things are. They are listening to members opposite talking about surplus budgets, talking about having all kinds of money to spend on parties. What are they doing, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. members not to engage in debate across the floor of the House when another hon. member has the floor.

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, the roads were so bad on the Coast of Labrador that two weeks ago I had a patient whose wife called me; the patient had just undergone back surgery at Western Memorial Hospital in Corner Brook, and they had been discharged to go home. That would have been fine, Mr. Speaker, if they could have gotten the ambulance and the ambulance took them to their house, but the ambulance could only take them to St. Barbe. When they got to St. Barbe the patient had to check into a hotel. The patient gets in the hotel and then they are stuck there until another ambulance can come and get them, take them on the ferry, drive them up the Coast of Labrador and take them home. Guess what, Mr. Speaker? The other ambulance could not come. The other ambulance could not come and the patient was not able to travel over the roads because the roads were so bad. The roads were just so bad that the patient could not travel. So, the patient ended up in St. Barbe, in a hotel room, being discharged from the hospital for several days until we could get a stretcher, we could get them on an airplane on a stretcher and get them brought to their home community.

Is that acceptable service for people in the Province this day and age? That is the reality of what people are dealing with out there. You may not want to see it but do you know how complicated that is for people? It is very difficult.

We talk about health care, Mr. Speaker. We talk about health care and we talk about having health care available to people in the Province, but in a lot of cases, Mr. Speaker, health care is not always affordable to people. That is why programs like the medical transportation program is so important. What does the medical transportation program do? It looks after a few and leaves out many. That is the problem with the program. It is like I expressed to the minister this morning in the Estimates Committee; you really have to get a handle on where the need is for this program and design it to meet what that need is. Right now, it is missing the mark, it is still missing the mark and that is the problem.

Mr. Speaker, I get calls from patients all the time who are being referred to hospitals in other parts of the Province. They are medevaced here in many cases, they undergo serious medical procedures or their children undergo serious medical procedures, and then they are discharged with no money to get home, with no financial ability to get them back home.

I cannot tell you, Mr. Speaker, how many fundraisers go on in communities right across this Province to help families who are sick and have sick loved ones and they need the financial resources to get to the hospital, to get tests done, to get home from hospitals. This is a serious issue. It is a serious issue especially in this Province because we have one of the highest rates of chronic disease of any other Province in the country. We have the fastest aging population, we have the most obese population, and our rate of chronic disease, especially such things as diabetes and heart disease, are the worst in the country.

Mr. Speaker, there is going to be more and more requirements for people to be able to access health care facilities. I had a call the other day from a mother who was at the Janeway. She was at the Janeway now for her third time this year with her sick child. Prior to being at the Janeway, she has been in another hospital in this Province three times with her child. Do you know what it cost her to be coming back and forth here, to have to stay here for sometimes up to forty, forty-five days at a time with her child? It has become very expensive. She called me because she is wondering how do I get home, how do I find the resources to get home.

I think that we really have to seriously look at the health of our people. We need a strategy to manage chronic disease in this Province. The government opposite has committed to do this since 2008, for the last three, four years, and we still do not have a chronic disease strategy in Newfoundland and Labrador. Yet, Mr. Speaker, what we have is we have people who require care, we have people who are developing all kinds of chronic diseases. We know that right now that chronic disease is the leading cause of death in our Province, especially diseases of the circulatory system, diseases like cancer and respiratory disease. All of these things account today for 75 per cent of the people who actually die in our Province. We have the highest rate of heart attack, the highest rate of bypass surgery, the highest rate of high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, obesity, and colorectal cancer than anywhere else in Canada.

We really need to start investing in the health of our people. Not only, Mr. Speaker, do we have to continue to invest in health awareness, wellness, community health, in those kinds of programs, and promoting it, but we have to invest so people have affordable access to health care in this Province. Right now, it is a growing concern with many people.

Mr. Speaker, in Opposition, you hear of a lot of cases. We get a lot of calls. We are not restricted to our districts. We get calls from all over the Province, from every district here, from families who are having challenges in the health care system. I can honestly tell you that in the time I have been in the position that I have been in the House of Assembly, I have never received more calls or more concerns on any other issue than I have which is related to health care.

Mr. Speaker, I know we just did a new agreement with our doctors. I know that government was dragged into that screaming and bawling. Mr. Speaker, their hand got forced. The public forced their hand because the public could not accept the fact that their medical system was going to be brutalized and in a point of crisis without having an adequate number of doctors in our system.

We are still falling short. We still have a lot of areas in this Province where people cannot get a family doctor. If we are going to really control and start trying to have an impact on the output of chronic disease in this Province, we need to ensure that people have availability to the services and they have the kind of care in all the regions that is acceptable.

Right now, for example, Mr. Speaker, we are being told that there are 325 vacancies of registered nurses in the Province – 325 nurses fewer in our system than is required to be able to deal with the health care needs of people in the Province. Mr. Speaker, those are high numbers. Those are very high numbers. Mr. Speaker, these are things that affect all the people in our Province. More and more people are being referred to St. John's because that is our main centre and our main hospital for many procedures, but financially it has become very difficult for them.

I met a lot of families this year who have used Daffodil Place, and most of them, of course, were cancer patients. Regardless of what people have said about Daffodil Place or have not said, whether they have been complimentary or not complimentary, one of the things I can say that I heard from every one of those patients who had the privilege and the opportunity to be able to get into that facility was that it was a perfect system of care for them who were there for a long-term basis. For a lot of people I talked to, they did not have that privilege because they could not get in. The wait-list was too long and they were not able to get the same services. For them, it was much more challenging because they end up in places like Hillview Terrace and other apartment buildings, which charge a lot more money because they are profitable businesses. They are in the business of making a profit so, obviously, they charge a lot more, and that was very difficult on some families. I remember one family, Mr. Speaker, who was here and I think they spent four or five months staying in one of those facilities.

I think what we need to start doing is we need to look at the system of health care that we have today, the fact that we are referring more and more people to certain areas for centralized care and we need to ensure that we are not doing it at tremendous financial stress to them. Right now, that is the feedback that I am getting and the stories that I am getting.

The other thing I get a lot in our health care system is about the wait-list, about the tremendous wait-list that is out there. People, Mr. Speaker, find that it is far too excessive. I think what the minister said in the Estimates, and I totally agree with him, is that once you get into the system the care is good, you do not get complaints the same way. It is getting into the system that has become the problem for many people in the Province. It is getting into that system. It is having to go on a wait-list. It is having to wait to get a procedure done, to get something done. That, Mr. Speaker, becomes very difficult for a lot of people.

Mr. Speaker, not only do we need to look at the fact that we are investing more money in health care per capita than any other region in the country, but we need to look at the fact that we have the worst outcomes. That should give the government a reason to sit up and be very, very concerned about where we are going. Money is not fixing a lot of the problems we have in health care. It takes leadership to do that – it takes extensive leadership to do that. This, again, is where the government is not acting.

When you continue to look at reports that measure us against the rest of the country, it says in Newfoundland and Labrador they are putting more money into health per person than any other province in Canada, but they have the worst outcome. We have the worst wait lists, we have the worst ratios of chronic disease, and we have the worst per capita number of deaths due to illness. We are dead last in every single other statistic, Mr. Speaker. That should cause somebody to wake up, Mr. Speaker, and to see what is going on.

Mr. Speaker, the Member for Mount Pearl North says: Oh, my God, you are so negative.

MR. KENT: No, I am North.

MS JONES: Oh, you are South, the Member for Mount Pearl South.

Mr. Speaker, what he should stop and realize is what I am saying to you is what other people are saying to me.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: It is concerns –

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member to address the Chair.

MS JONES: It is concerns, Mr. Speaker, that are being espoused to me by people in the Province.

Now, if the Member for Mount Pearl South thinks there is no issue out there with people who have to go to hospital in this Province to get medical care – it is probably convenient for the people who are in the Avalon or in the St. John's region, but when you start bringing people in from every single part of this Province there is a lot of financial stress, I say to the member. If there is no realization of that by the Member for Mount Pearl South, then there is probably no realization of that by a lot of members in this House. I guess that is the reason why the government is not addressing the problem. It is affecting people and it is affecting a lot of people. It is more and more every day.

So, Mr. Speaker, it may sound negative to the member opposite, but there is nothing really happy when I get a call from a woman who has her son in the Janeway for the third time this year and has no money to get home, either. There is nothing really happy and smiley about that either, I say to the member. I experience lots of cases like that.

Fortunately, you always work through a system. You work through charitable groups and organizations, you work through people who, Mr. Speaker, have some kind hearts out there, and sometimes you are able to help those people. That is not always the case, and it should not have to be the case, because we should be providing financial accessibility.

Moreover, Mr. Speaker, the government needs to realize that there are some fundamental problems in our health care system, and they need to take a leadership role in addressing them. That means, Mr. Speaker, doing a review of our system, not our structure. Not reviewing just our structure, but reviewing exactly where we are going with all of our programs and services; with where we are investing money and why we are not getting better outcomes; where we could be improving services for people; where we could be extending better services for people; where we could be making it more financially affordable to them. So, Mr. Speaker, I think there is an obligation by the government to look at some of these things.

Mr. Speaker, I talked about the cost of living that families are experiencing in the Province, and I talked about the fact that the price of food is going up about 8 per cent again this year. You talk to any families out there – and I do, I have actually stopped and talked to people in the supermarkets, especially when I see them with some little kids towing behind them – and they will tell you, Mr. Speaker, because these people are prudent shoppers, and they are watching what they pay for food, and they are telling me that the prices are continuing to climb and it is affecting them. Just like I said, it is affecting them because of the proposal that you are bringing in to charge them double the price for their electricity in this Province. Yet, you are going to sell the power elsewhere for cheaper prices.

These things are affecting people, they are affecting their bottom line. Most of these people are working hard, and they are working hard and still bringing home a low income by most standards. So it has been very difficult. Then, you can combine that with where the price of gas is. Where the price of gas is today. I think this has become a huge consumer issue in the Province, the growing increase in the price of gasoline, and the fact that the government is collecting something like $125 million annually – and the Minister of Finance can confirm that or give me the specific number, but just from memory, I think it is around $125 million a year. I think it is what they are collecting. Probably somewhere in the same range of what we are collecting on tobacco taxes.

Mr. Speaker, we are taking in that amount of money out of the pockets of taxpayers at a time when they are going to pay more money for their electricity, when they are going to pay more money for their food, when they are going to pay more money for every other basic service that they are getting out there in the Province. The government opposite does not see anything wrong with that. They do not see anything wrong with taking that money out of people's pockets and giving it to things like the Nalcor corporation, which we are going to give $345 million, or $346 million, or $348 million to this year. They do not see anything wrong with that, but there is something wrong with it and people are saying that to the government, but the government is not listening. They are not listening on any of these accounts.

I cannot imagine what the minister heard when he did his budget consultations because, outside of a couple of pieces which we raised in the House of Assembly and people brought forward in budget consultations like the child care piece and the break on the HST on the home heating fuel and some tax breaks for volunteer firefighters and others; what about all of these other issues that people have been bringing forward to the government asking that you address on their behalf? Those things did not happen and the tax on gas prices was one of them. That affects every man, woman and child in this Province. Any time there is a tax that has to be paid out of their pocket to the government it is $1 less they have to spend in their homes, $1 less that they have to spend on their families, it is $1 less that they have to provide for a higher standard of living for themselves.

All of this, Mr. Speaker, is being done in a province where we are seeing the unemployment rate anywhere from 19.5 per cent to 23.5 per cent in almost every area outside of the Avalon region. That would give you an idea of the tremendous burden that people are feeling right across the Province. They are feeling this at a time, Mr. Speaker, when they should be a ‘have' Province, when they should feel ‘have', when they should feel like they are really gaining something because of the ‘bustering' economy that we have, because of the surplus budgets that the minister and the members talk about. This is a time when people should be feeling a lot more wealth than they are in their communities, in their homes, Mr. Speaker, and it is not necessarily happening.

One of the things the government did do in this Budget that I thought, Mr. Speaker, was very clever by half was the increase in the Municipal Operating Grants. If you look at municipalities today and where their operating grants have gone in the last few years, the increase they got this year basically brings most of them back to their historic levels in terms of what their MOGs were. It brings them back to where their historic levels were.

The government says, Mr. Speaker, we are going to do this for municipalities.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: Do not get me wrong, Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of municipalities out there –

MR. DENINE: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair recognizes the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Member for Mount Pearl South, he cannot contain himself again. I only have less than fifteen minutes left, and then I invite the member to stand up and certainly say his part, Mr. Speaker.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, what I was saying is with regard to the Municipal Operating Grants. That is that this money will no doubt go a long way to help many municipalities in the Province. Why is it that government is doing it on a one-year basis? We are into an election year. It is an election year. In October you are going to go to the polls.

Mr. Speaker, how nice to go into municipalities and say we are going to increase your Municipal Operating Grant because we know your operating cost as a municipality is going up. First of all, we are going to double your electricity costs as a municipality, because we are going to bring in double the hydro rates. You are going to end up paying more in the next few years to run your towns, to pump your water, to pump your sewer, to keep your street lights on, to do all of those things. You are going to pay a lot more money. This year we are going to increase your operating grant, but we are only going to do it for this year. We cannot make a commitment beyond this year because we need to look at it. We need to study it, we need to review it, because we are going to review it and study it and do all that. So, we are only going to make a commitment for one year. Mr. Speaker, where is the long-term commitment to municipalities there? Where is the long-term vision for those communities out there that are every day encountering growing costs of being able to service their municipality?

Mr. Speaker, just in your own district, you have a number of small municipalities in your own district. Just in a number of them, Mr. Speaker, you know yourself that they need long-term stable financing. One year is just not enough. One year to say to those municipalities, especially in a place like Jackson's Arm, where they have lost their fish plant, where they have lost the big tax base in their community, where their personal tax has gone down because people are out of a job. You know that community right in your own district and where that community is, and to say to them: we are going to increase your MOG but we are only going to do it for this year because we want to look at it, we want to review it, and we want to study it. I do not think that shows real commitment to municipalities. I do not think it shows real leadership and I do not think it shows a real reflection of where these communities are today and the position that they are left in, Mr. Speaker.

MR. DENINE: (Inaudible).

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, the Member for Mount Pearl South keeps talking over there. I realize he is in a different position. He is in a different position than the Member for Springdale is, who has communities like Springdale, La Scie, Baie Verte, and all of those small communities, Mr. Speaker, who do not have the same kind of budgets that the Mount Pearl council might have. They do not collect the same kind of business tax that the Mount Pearl council collects, but, Mr. Speaker, they have expenses. They have hardworking people in their community who they are taxing today to get enough money out in those communities to pay for their road upgrades, and to pay for their water and sewer, and to pay for their street lights, and to pay for their garbage. That is a whole different speech, the waste management piece. In reality, Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that some members in the House of Assembly do not understand those challenges and those complications that people have. It is quite obvious that it is not reflected in a real commitment that is being made to a lot of these municipalities.

Mr. Speaker, we have to look at the fact that while the government is not investing in industries like the fishery, not investing in industries like forestry, not investing in rural communities around the Province, look at the fact that unemployment rates are going up, look at the fact that municipalities are having a harder time trying to keep all their services intact, look at the fact that industry is closing up, like they did under their watch. They closed down two big pulp and paper mills. We saw a number of fish processing facilities close down. Then they walk in here, they talk about have provinces, they talk about surplus budgets, Mr. Speaker, but what does it really mean in the back pocket of the fellow who is walking up and down the road in your district today in the community of Hampden? You tell me what it really means, and I will tell you want it really means. They are not feeling it. They are not feeling it, Mr. Speaker, and the reason they are not feeling it is because it is not there. The real vision is not there. The real leadership has not been shown, the real investments have not been made, and they have not been given the same priorities as some big corporation, as some big deals in the Province where the government has chosen to invest their money, where the government has chosen to funnel their money. That has been what the priority of the government has been.

Mr. Speaker, I only talk about what people talk to me about. I am sure that members hear it out in their own districts. They were all out knocking on doors a while ago with all of the federal candidates, asking the people in their districts to come and support the federal candidates in the federal election. They were out there, Mr. Speaker, tapping doors all throughout the Province, right across the Island. I am sure when they were tapping those doors, asking people to come out and support John Ottenheimer, or Fabian Manning, or Loyal Sullivan, or the fellow out in Central Newfoundland – I cannot remember what his name was – and all of those people, when they were knocking on doors they must have heard some of these issues. They had to have heard those issues.

When you were knocking on doors, I am sure, down in Torbay, and Middle Cove, and Logy Bay, for Jerry Byrne, Mr. Speaker, I am sure the member down there would have heard some of these issues. I am sure the members on the Burin Peninsula, when they were out campaigning for John Ottenheimer and knocking on doors up and down the Peninsula, they must have ran into some of those 23 per cent of the people in the area who are unemployed. Surely, Mr. Speaker, they would have heard –

MR. KING: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

Order, please!

MS JONES: I am not against any dialysis equipment going in the Burin Peninsula. That is the spin that the Member for Grand Bank is trying to throw across the House right now, Mr. Speaker. We stood in this House, and he can go back and check Hansard, asking for dialysis equipment in a lot of these communities across the Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: While we support the dialysis equipment going into communities, Mr. Speaker, and into places like Harbour Breton and Grand Bank and all of these places, what we do not support is a government who is not responding –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: – to the fiscal responsibilities of all the people in the Province. That is what we do not support, Mr. Speaker, and that is the reason we cannot support the Budget.

We see that this government has not upheld its commitment to balancing the wealth for all the people in the Province. That has not happened. It has not happened. They have had a number of years to do it. They had this year again to get it right. They had this year again to get it right with a huge Budget and a huge surplus, but instead they chose to funnel the money into Nalcor Corporation, the big corporation, as opposed to funnelling it into the people of the Province, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, that is the difference in where the priorities are. That is where the government sees their priorities today. We can talk about it, we can advocate for people, we can stand up and point it out. They may not like it, they may not listen to it, they may not act on it, but at the end of the day, they cannot change the fact that they were the people accountable and they were the people who were responsible.

That is the reason that we are bringing forward some of these issues that I have in the last two hours, because they are issues that we are hearing from ordinary people in Newfoundland and Labrador, people who are working hard every day in this Province to try to provide for their families, people who are out there trying to find jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: - people who are calling on the government to respond to what some of their needs are.

So, Mr. Speaker, they might not like the fact that we are bringing those issues up. They might not want to hear about the people in their districts who are having a hard time trying to access medical care in the Province. They might not want to hear about that. They might not want to hear about municipalities in their districts that are having trouble trying to keep all the expenditures going in the town. They may not want to hear about that. They may not want to hear about the unemployment rates.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair is having difficulty in hearing the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I ask hon. members to my left for their co-operation.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I was having trouble hearing myself. I was going to put my headphone in, actually, just to make sure I did not miss anything.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, in my concluding comments, which is what I was trying to make, I was actually talking about issues and concerns that have been raised by people right across the Province. I know that a lot of members might not want to accept the fact that some municipalities are having a hard time and that hard time is going to exist beyond one year, but the commitment that you have given to them ends within a twelve-month period. That is the fundamental difference between what they need and what they expect and what you are prepared to give.

Mr. Speaker, we cannot ignore the fact that the cost of living for families in this Province is going up. The cost of living for seniors in this Province is going up. At the same time, their income levels are not climbing at the same rate. Now, you can deny it all you want, and you can say I do not want to listen to it, but it is the reality. You can pick any community in this Province and walk into it – almost every community, there may be a couple of exceptions, but almost any community in this Province you can walk into and you can ask people are they seeing a difference in terms of what they have to pay out every single month, what they have to pay out every single day compared to what they are bringing in. It is a big difference, and you cannot put your head in the clouds and pretend that it is not happening because it is happening. It is happening in a lot of districts, I can tell you that right now, and it is happening to a lot of people.

A lot of our government programs and services are designed to exclude middle income families in this Province. Middle income families are probably the people who are having the toughest time. Although they are excluded from many of the programs and supports that we provide as a Province to the people who are out there – and they are one big group who has been almost practically left out when you look across the board.

So, Mr. Speaker, these are serious issues, serious concerns, and when they hear about the fact that government wants to develop Muskrat Falls – and we have no problem with developing Muskrat Falls.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: We have no problem with developing energy projects in the Province. We have no problem with development, period. At the same time, we are going to make sure that the deals that are done are not going to be done to gouge the ratepayer in Newfoundland and Labrador, and they are not going to be giveaways to corporations like Emera Energy. We are asking government to pull back. We are asking you to pull back and to do it right, and you can do it right. You can do it right so that it is the people of the Province who get the reward at the end of the day, and not the people of Maritime Canada, not the Emera corporations of the world, and not the people of the New England states.

So, that is a matter of priorities. That is the difference in where their government's priorities are and where our priorities are in representing the people of the Province. Mr. Speaker, I think they need to start putting their head around where they are going and they need to start backtracking on some of the decisions that they are making around that particular deal. If they do not, their legacy will be that they were the first government in forty years to give away the resources of this Province, and to give away the benefits to other provinces, while they gouged –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: – the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. That will be the legacy that they will be leaving behind for the people of the Province. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, while people are digging in their pockets and still trying to find enough loose change to pay their bills, the crowd here will be all moved on with big pensionable incomes, so it will be an irrelevant factor. That is a sad commentary, but that will be the legacy of the government opposite.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

With that, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Natural Resources, that the House do now adjourn.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that this House do now adjourn.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

This House now stands adjourned until 2:00 o'clock tomorrow, being Private Members' Day.

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