December 21, 1992            HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS          Vol. XLI  No. 88


The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): Order, please!

Statements by Ministers

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I received today a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding reached between Canada and the European Community on Fisheries in the area regulated by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization.

Prior to this agreement being reached, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador on several occasions expressed to the federal government our strong concerns about some issues being negotiated, as well as our objections to certain arrangements that were being proposed for an agreement.

More specifically, Mr. Speaker, this government had, and still has, concerns about the lack of enforcement and surveillance measures that would guarantee that the European Community would comply with obligations committed to in the Agreement. The Memorandum of Understanding announced today by the federal government does not address these concerns. We, therefore, do not have any confidence that the European Community will implement any new effective surveillance and enforcement arrangements.

Furthermore, in discussions preceding the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, we repeatedly conveyed to the federal government the message that in the absence of full compliance with the NAFO conservation framework, European Community vessels will continue to frustrate rebuilding initiatives by NAFO and Canada.

The federal government's announcement today states that the European Community has agreed to comply with all NAFO decisions, including quotas. If this is in fact what the agreement means, then that is good. However, we have a concern that the agreement in Part 1(j) says that the Community shall exercise measures "to ensure that their catches do not exceed quotas." This reference does not appear to be specific to NAFO quotas. It could therefore have the effect of allowing the Community to set its own quotas, in excess of NAFO quotas, as it has done in the past. It could then exceed these quotas and claim it is complying with the agreement. It should be made clear by Canada at the outset that if the European Community exceeds NAFO quotas, that this will be sufficient reason for Canada to regard the European Community as having abrogated the agreement.

We have other concerns as well, Mr. Speaker, but they all add up to one thing: The long-term interests of Newfoundland and Labrador will not be served well by the agreement announced today by Mr. Crosbie.

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

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

I just want to have a few words to respond to the minister's statement.

It is my understanding that the Province has been briefed on two or three occasions in the last couple of weeks. I see the minister shaking his head, no. Well on the 7th, 8th and 9th of December, I believe, officials of the government, and I do not know if there were any ministers or not, but I understand there was a briefing here in the Province and there was another briefing in Ottawa, I understand the Premier himself on occasion had a chance to talk to Ambassador Gherson, I believe, I do not if that was a prearranged meeting or not -

AN HON. MEMBER: Just a courtesy call.

MR. MATTHEWS: - whatever, but the Province was briefed on this situation prior to the agreement being announced and leading up to today's announcement, I believe it is on three occasions. I am sure the Minister of Fisheries is very much aware of that, that the Province was not debriefed. Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I guess my reaction to it, having listened to the news media this morning while driving the highway, a press conference held by Mr. Crosbie and some reaction to it, and then only within the last thirty minutes or so having received the press kit with a memorandum of understanding in it, I guess my first reaction is that it is a significant improvement. I would have to say that, that this memorandum of understanding will lead to an improvement of the situation. It probably does not go far enough and I am sure that will be the prevalent criticism of it, that it does not go far enough. But anytime you have an agreement whereby the European community is going to abide by NAFA quotas and it has always been our harsh criticism that they did not, then certainly that has to be an improvement, I say to members opposite and of course what you have to remember is for the first time they are going to recognize the moratorium. They are now going to recognize the moratorium. They will not get any northern cod while the moratorium applies which of course is very, very logical and sensible and once the moratorium - hopefully it will not be too long before the moratorium is eliminated and our boats can fish northern cod again. That they then will -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: I am sorry?

AN HON. MEMBER: Where do you suppose the fish will come from?

MR. MATTHEWS: I suppose the fish will come when the stocks regenerate, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. members time is up.

MR. MATTHEWS: When the stocks regenerate, I suppose that is where the fish are going to come from. At least that is what I hope, I do not know what the hon. member hopes, unless he hopes there will never be any more fish. It is not my wish.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East asking for leave of the House to respond.

Does the hon. member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to address this statement in the absence of reading and having available a copy of the agreement itself. I believe it confirms that the concerns raised on Friday by the interchurch coalition have been well-founded, Mr. Speaker, that the agreement that is reached does not go far enough to protect the fish stocks. The major concern of course is that while we are going ahead and suffering the losses of fish quotas and losses of catch to our people, that the international community is not required to abide by that, and even though they may have acknowledged acceptance of quotas, they have not agreed sufficiently yet to provide adequate surveillance by Canadian enforcement procedures, and until that happens we will not have any confidence that whatever quotas are in existence are being abided by.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform this hon. House of Assembly that Newfoundland and Labrador has started exporting significant quantities of lumber this year for the first time since the early 1920s. These exports are not from one operation, but represent three separate initiatives.

These initiatives, Mr. Speaker, are as follows:

Forest Products Limited of Harbour Grace which has made two small shipments of specialty lumber products to Great Britain. It has met with very favourable acceptance in terms of its quality.

Glenwood Forest Products has shipped over two million board feet of lumber to markets in mainland Canada and the United States. Again, this has received good response.

The Canada Bay Lumber Company in Roddickton reopened under new ownership this past summer. Its first shipment was loaded for Europe last week, and I understand now is enroute. This shipment of approximately 600,000 board feet of high quality lumber is destined for Rotterdam enroute to Austria. Obviously other shipments will follow.

It is indeed good to see forest products from this Province commanding premium prices and acceptance of quality in the world market place. The better prices and more diverse markets can only enhance the viability of our sawmill industry.

Mr. Speaker, lumber exports from Newfoundland peaked between 1900 and 1910, but after the harvest of the pine forests, the exports dwindled to minimal quantity by 1920 and then closed in the early 1920s. Since then, with the exception of some dunnage for exporting newsprint, no regular export of lumber took place. I am therefore very pleased that Newfoundland sawmillers are again venturing to export the higher quality lumber.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to the owners and operators of these mills for their entrepreneurial initiative and encourage other businesses to follow this example.

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

MR. HEWLETT: Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for an advance copy of his statement. We, too, on the Opposition side are pleased to see some reactivation of life in the lumber export business. I guess, to anyone not really familiar with our Province and having wondered about the line of the 'pine-clad hills' in the Ode to Newfoundland know where the pine-clad hills ended up. But this is good news, Mr. Speaker. I have a particular secondary forest products mill in my district, Superior Wood Products, and I am disappointed they are not among the list of exporters because they are into a type of stuff that could be exported, especially to Europe.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who is the operator?

MR. HEWLETT: It is Max Goudie.

Mr. Speaker, it is rather ironic, I guess, having cut out all our pine trees at the turn of this century that we see pine trees from Nova Scotia entering the Province of late, as Christmas trees. There is a lot that can be done with regard to the forest products in this Province, especially creating new jobs and new export markets. We are pleased with this, as it has come so far, and we do hope it continues well into the future.

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, we, in the NDP, are also delighted to -

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

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port de Grave, on a point of order.

MR. EFFORD: Mr. Speaker, I thought it was understood that the hon. the Member for St. John's East would have to ask leave. I already said no leave the first time and the hon. Speaker did not hear me.

MR. SPEAKER: Is the hon. member withdrawing leave?

MR. EFFORD: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Oral Questions

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I have some questions for the Premier. We have before us in third reading, a bill which is going to reduce benefits to disabled workers, "An Act To Amend The Workers' Compensation Act," Bill 48. I want to ask the Premier, Is he aware that the Workers' Compensation Commission has already written disabled workers in this Province, telling them that as soon as this legislation is passed, Workers' Compensation will deduct the full amount of dependants' benefits - not benefits that the workers, themselves will receive, but benefits that the dependants' of disabled workers will receive from Canada Pension? Is he aware of that?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, to deal first with the initial comment. This is not a bill to reduce compensation to workers, this is a bill to save the workers' compensation fund and to provide security for future compensation. Because if this isn't done, nobody will get anything three years from now when the fund goes bankrupt. So this kind of step has to be taken to protect the future of the fund.

Secondly, I'm not aware that the Workers' Compensation Commission has sent out any such letters. I did have a telephone call over the weekend, at my home, from a person who is in receipt of workers' compensation, and he had a particular concern about having received advice. I have started a process to cause an inquiry. I don't know whether the individual has called back again to my office this morning or not, but I asked him to do that and told him whom to call.

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

MR. SIMMS: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

I can tell the Premier that, as well, we had several calls, including the same one he got, no doubt, to our office this morning. So I presume the allegation is accurate, that the letters have gone out.

Now, Mr. Speaker, it is important to put this in perspective, to make sure the Premier understands it. It is one thing to take away disability pensions that injured workers receive from Canada Pension, but it is quite another to rob the disabled workers' children of the benefits they are going to receive from Canada Pension. That is the difference here. I want to ask the Premier: Is he aware that that is occurring and about to occur? If so, how can his government justify robbing children of their own benefits, not the workers?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of what the Workers' Compensation Commission has done in that respect but, as I told the hon. member, the process is started to determine what has been done and whether or not it is appropriate to do it. Once that has been completed, then I will advise the House further.

In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, just to make sure that nobody accepts the characterization made by the Leader of the Opposition - this is not taking away benefits from workers, this is salvaging the right of workers to receive it in the future. Because the former government was so grossly irresponsible that they allowed the fund to go into a situation where, in three years, it will be bankrupt unless this matter is dealt with.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Premier can try to play politics with it all he wants. The fact of the matter is that this is an action by his government. I want to ask him again: Isn't he aware that Canada Pension pays the dependant benefits directly to children who are over eighteen years of age? As an example of one call we received - I think it was from the Premier's district - one injured worker has two children attending university. Each one of those individuals personally receives a separate cheque each month from Canada Pension for $154 a month for educational purposes. Now, the act that his minister and his government are bringing in is now requiring the Workers' Compensation Commission to deduct that amount of money, $308.00, from the father's compensation cheque. Now, wouldn't the Premier agree that this is an infringement of rights? How can the Premier possibly justify it? The money doesn't even go to the injured worker, it goes to the worker's dependants.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I am not playing politics with it, I am responding to the political comments of the Leader of the Opposition. I must do that to set the record straight.

Now, Mr. Speaker, let me say again: I do not know at this moment what the Workers' Compensation Commission has done. Let me repeat, in case he didn't hear: I do not know at this moment what the Workers' Compensation Commission has done.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: But I have started a process in an effort to determine what has happened and, if it is inappropriate, steps will be taken. If it isn't inappropriate we will allow the Workers' Compensation Commission - we won't interfer with it - to carry on its normal activity, if its actions are appropriate. But if the actions are inappropriate we will do whatever is necessary to ensure that the Workers' Compensation Commission does not carry on any inappropriate activities.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, this is so surprising. It has me taken aback. This is exactly what we have been telling the people of the Province for the last week in this House, that the government is ramming things through this House and the Premier doesn't even know what is in half the legislation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: Now, I want to ask him this. I don't know if the Premier is aware of this. We have checked with Health and Welfare Canada and they tell us that the money paid to dependants is not considered part of the disabled worker's income. It is not considered part of the income of the disabled worker, but it is exclusively to support dependent children for educational purposes.

Now, I want to ask the Premier: In view of what he said - he is not aware of it, he is going to check into it, etc., etc., etc. - will he at least give a commitment to this House that he will check into this and that he will hold further debate on this legislation? If my allegations are accurate, would he be prepared to remove the offensive provisions in that legislation in order to correct this outrageous problem?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: No, Mr. Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition has it all bottom up, as usual.

Mr. Speaker, what I said I did not know, was what the Workers' Compensation Commission has done. The minister will attempt to find out forthwith, and the House will be advised as to what they have done or what action they have taken.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I have no reason to have any concern with any aspect of the legislation that has been brought forward. The legislation is proper legislation, absolutely essential, to salvage the future of those dependent on workers' compensation in this Province, because the former government allowed a situation to develop where the fund will be bankrupt in three years unless action is taken.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we intend to carry on with the approach that has been taken in that legislation, to protect the future of injured workers in this Province, not to destroy it. Now, no matter how much political grandstanding the Opposition does, they cannot possibly alter that course or they cannot possibly cover up the fact that, that course is necessary because of their grossly incompetent handling in the past.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, this is outright thievery on the part of the government led by the Premier of this Province, that's what is happening here with this legislation, outright thievery, and the Premier doesn't have the guts to stand up and face the people of the Province and tell then that. He has to somehow, blame everything on the previous administration or, blame it on the Federal Government or blame it on the media for misquoting them -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SIMMS: - or blame it on somebody else. Why does he not say here in the House today, that he will check into this; if the allegations are accurate, that his legislation is taking away this money from dependants, that he will make sure the legislation does not pass without the provision being brought in?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: No, Mr. Speaker. I will not say any such thing for good reason. Our responsibility is to protect the interest of injured workers for the long-term future. We are not going to be railroaded into doing something that will bankrupt the fund in the future, as the former members did, because they don't care what happens, as long as they look after their immediate political future. Well, Mr. Speaker, we have a greater sense of responsibility to the people and to the future of this Province and we will act in a manner that will ensure fair and balanced treatment for everybody, the students, the children of injured workers and others.

Now, Mr. Speaker, what is or is not compensation for purposes of the Workers' Compensation Act, is not for the federal Ministry of Health and Welfare to determine. It is for this Province to determine, because we set the standards and we require industry and others to contribute the premiums to pay for this and we do not want to either bankrupt the fund or drive businesses out of the Province and so destroy the opportunity for work because of the way in which the former government, Mr. Speaker, abused the workers' compensation fund and failed to responsibly provide for it.

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

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

I have a question for the Minister of Fisheries.

The minister today gave a statement pertaining to the Memorandum of Understanding entered into between the European community and the Government of Canada, particularly on the issue of foreign overfishing. At that time, the minister said that the provincial government had concerns about lack of enforcement and surveillance measures and compliance with NAFL conservation framework, EC vessels and so on.

The minister went on to say as well, that there were other concerns that the Province had. I am wondering if the minister could inform the House and the people of the Province, what other concerns the Province has about this Memorandum of Understanding and what concerns have they notified the Federal Government that they had? What notice did they give to the Federal Government of the concerns they had? Could he outline that for the House, please?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I should answer the last part of the hon. member's question first, in that, since October 30, I believe it is, we have written the Federal Government - yes, October 30th; the Premier has written the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and others in Ottawa, four letters; two and three-page letters each, outlining the Province's objections to some of the things that we knew were being proposed in the Memorandum of Understanding.

Now, with respect to the statement I made in the House today, I made reference to the fact that the business of surveillance, of any enforcement, for example, that, in the Province's view, is far from satisfactory, in that we are told surveillance will be conducted on those vessels by nationals from the country of origin of the vessel, and that they will be reporting back to their respective countries. Now, Mr. Speaker, that is something like giving Dracula the keys to the blood bank.

Mr. Speaker, the entire agreement has very few obligations in it except those that oblige Canada, for example, to provide European Community vessels with access to Canadian ports, and to provide EC vessels with surplus fish allocations from Canadian waters.

The objection procedure is far from satisfactory. In fact, in terms of the objection procedure, nothing has really changed. There is nothing here to indicate - nothing in the agreement, at least - that the EC will accept and abide by quotas set by NAFO. Mr. Crosbie is giving the impression that that is so, but there is nothing in the agreement that we are aware of that would indicate that the European Community would be bound by NAFO quotas, which means, of course, that they can exercise their objection procedure as has been the case now for years, and if they deem it necessary, set their own quotas.

So the agreement - while we commend the minister and his officials for having tried, and I suppose there must be some good points in it - but certainly, the net result to the Province of Newfoundland will do very little to help us rebuild our fish stocks; plus the fact, Mr. Speaker, at a time when we have a moratorium in place, when we have twenty-odd thousand fishermen and fish plant workers lying idle because of the scarcity of fish, now we are telling the people who are, by-and-large, responsible for what happened, that they can start to use our ports while our vessels are tied up, not allowed to go fishing. So it is totally objectionable.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind hon. ministers that in addition to the questions being brief the answers should be brief. I realise that sometimes the questions can be lengthy.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the minister for the information that the Premier or the government wrote four letters. That is very enlightening. I want to ask the minister: was the minister not briefed on this situation? Were none of his officials briefed on this impending Memorandum of Understanding? Is that what the minister is telling me? Could the minister answer that? Because I understood that the Province was -

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I am almost embarrassed to admit the extent to which we were briefed. The Premier, I understand, was given a copy of the proposed agreement by the ambassador, Mr. Gherson, but on the understanding that it would be kept confidential.

PREMIER WELLS: Nothing would be said about it.

MR. CARTER: Nothing would be said about it.

PREMIER WELLS: And I have respected that.

MR. CARTER: Obviously, there was a very good reason for that. I attended a meeting in Halifax on Friday, Mr. Speaker, with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and ministers from the other Atlantic Provinces. Before the meeting concluded, I asked the minister - I made reference to some press reports that I had been reading, to the effect that this agreement was pending. I asked the minister would he confirm or deny. He waffled around and didn't say yes or no, but I assumed from what he said that, in fact, the agreement would be released sometime soon.

I asked the minister, Mr. Speaker, in fact, I pleaded with the minister, to delay any signing until at least he had a chance to discuss it with the Atlantic Provinces fisheries ministers. You know, we are consulted on other things. When the minister needs some moral support to initiate quota cuts or things of that nature he will consult with the provincial ministers. In this case, of an action that will have far-reaching impact on the future of this Province, the minister did not see fit to refer the matter to the Atlantic Provinces' Fisheries Ministers Council, and so stated at that meeting. Consequently, none of the ministers that I am aware of even saw the agreement prior to its release this morning.

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There seems to be a lot of confusion over there. The minister admitted that the Premier wrote letters. Why would he write letters on something he knew nothing about? Also, the Premier just admitted across the House that he has discussed the situation with Mr. Crosbie on a number of occasions. As well, it is my understanding that Ambassador Gherson and some other officials briefed officials of the minister's department and Intergovernmental Affairs officials, and then an official of Intergovernmental Affairs went to Ottawa on another occasion, around December 8 or 9.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is on a supplementary.

MR. MATTHEWS: On and on it goes. So there seems to be a whole lot of confusion as to how much the Province was consulted. It is one thing to stand up here and say you weren't consulted when now we find out there was considerable correspondence of consultation that took place, both written and verbal.

I want to ask the minister another supplementary on another question. Last week the federal Minister of Fisheries announced the Atlantic Provinces Groundfish Management Plan. I know the minister had some input into that and I know, listening to him on the news a couple of nights ago, that he basically supported the measures announced by Mr. Crosbie. I am wondering: Could the minister outline for the House what he sees as the implications of that new management plan for the Province's fishing industry? What is going to be the fallout and so on for the industry? Could he outline that for the House, please?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the member has raised a number of questions in his preliminary comments.

Yes, the Province was told it was being done. We heard a rumour that it was being done, so we wrote - I wrote - the letter to Mr. Crosbie and Ms. McDougall and gave them our general views on it. We heard further information as to what was being done, and we wrote again and gave them further positions on it. None of this - no consultations - all of this was under way without any consultation whatsoever with the Province.

Then we discovered, or we heard, that a tentative agreement had been reached, and when we raised questions about it they agreed to brief us on it. So they came down - after it was all done and negotiated. For the first time, they consulted with the Province after the fact, after the agreement was reached.

Now, I am not prepared to stand in this House and hear hon. members opposite act as a stalking horse for Mr. Crosbie to present the idea that somehow the Province was totally informed from the beginning and approved of all of this. Just the very opposite is true, Mr. Speaker.

I met Mr. Gherson by accident on a plane, and he talked to me about it and told me about it. He showed me the agreement, and I told him what I thought was wrong with the agreement. Now, he sees it through rather rosier coloured glasses than I wear. I tend to look at it through very clear glasses, and the agreement does not, in my opinion, specifically state that the European Community will abide by NAFO quotas. If it says that - if that, in fact, is what it says, then I have told Mr. Crosbie that I would be far more supportive of the agreement and would endorse his actions and what he has done; but it does not say that.

Now, if Mr. Crosbie's position is this: that if the European Community does not abide by the NAFO quotas, they will terminate the agreement for cause; if that is his position - and I have asked him if he would write a letter to the European Community to say just that - I told him, with great respect, it is not in the agreement. The right to terminate is there, but what is not in the agreement is the clear, unequivocal statement that they will abide by NAFO quotas. That is not there. It specifically says that they will support the NAFO conservation and management decisions, in accordance with their rights under the NAFO convention. What rights? The right to object and set their own quotas.

That is what concerns us, Mr. Speaker, and that is why we have raised this question of caution. So I do not want these kinds of questions and commentaries by the Opposition House Leader to give the implication that the Province was consulted and knew all about this and supported it. We did not, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A final supplementary.

The problem is this: Really, the Premier only pays lip service to the Province's fishing industry - lip service on opportune occasions when he can get up and rant and roar in front of the people of the Province. That is the problem.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. MATTHEWS: That is why - yes, he ran into Ambassador Gherson by accident.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier did not answer the supplementary. I want to ask the Minister of Fisheries a supplementary again, with respect to the Atlantic Groundfish Management Plan.

I wonder if the minister could inform the House what the newest management plan will mean for the fishing industry of Newfoundland and Labrador? What are the implications? What will be the fallout? Will the industry be further downsized? Will there be more fishermen and fish plant workers unemployed as a result of the new plan?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, talking about people giving lip service to the fishery, let me remind the hon. gentleman, this is the first line of questioning that has come from his side, by the way, I think in about three weeks. You have not seen fit to ask a question on the fishery. So that is an indication of just how interested the Opposition is.

Mr. Speaker, getting back to the 1993 management plan, yes, it will impact on Newfoundland. It will have, in some cases, a rather serious impact on the Province. For example, in the 3Ps area on the South Coast, the allowable catch will be reduced there by some 12,000 metric tons, from 32,000 down to 20,000 in an area where last year I am told the fishermen found it impossible to even harvest the quota, which indicates that the fish just are not there. Quite possibly that is an exaggeration of what is there.

With respect to the Newfoundland side of the Gulf, the west coast, the total allowable catch was reduced there by a mere 4000 tons. Last year the allowable catch was 35,000 and this year they agreed to reduce it to 31,000. Again, Mr. Speaker, last year, notwithstanding extra increased effort the fishermen in that area only caught about 27,000 tons, which means that the TAC was established in excess of what the actual stocks could bear. That is going to have, I believe, repercussions in that no compensation has been offered to date. The minister did announce certain things with which we agreed. He is going to take firmer measures with respect to putting a stop to high grading fish, dumping small fish, catching more than their quotas will allow, overfishing, and several other things, and we support him in that.

But, I would have preferred, Mr. Speaker, given the circumstances had the minister announced a moratorium on the west coast of the Province to give the fish stocks a chance to build properly. The way he is doing it now is a hit or miss type of arrangement and I heard the same story with respect to the northern cod a couple of years prior to when the moratorium was imposed.

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

MR. WARREN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a question for the Premier. Some ten months ago there was a public meeting held in Davis Inlet where officials from Intergovernmental Affairs, officials from the Federal Government, and other interested groups attended concerning the Innu of Davis Inlet who asked to be relocated some eight or ten miles from their present location. I understand the government has received the consultant's report and the report recommends that the community be relocated. I ask the Premier if his government endorses the report and will it press for a federal/provincial agreement to move the community to the new site as soon as possible?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I am not sure the hon. gentleman's understanding is totally correct. He is quite correct that out of that meeting arose an agreement to have a full study done of the proposal to move the community. Some two weeks or so ago I got an executive summary of the report. The final report itself was provided, I think on Wednesday or Thursday of last week. The report is now under assessment by officials in Intergovernmental Affairs and by federal governmental officials. The government has not yet had an opportunity to consider the recommendations of the report. From my preliminary assessment, from my own preliminary observations of it, I am not sure that the hon. gentleman is correct when he says the report recommends moving the community. What the report does is analyses what happens and what the cost would be if the community were to remain in Davis Inlet where it is now and what the cost would be of providing adequate service as compared with the cost of developing a new community in Sango Bay and abandoning the existing community. My recollection is, at least from the executive summary, which I saw a week or ten days ago, it does not specifically recommend moving the community.

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

MR. WARREN: Thank you, very much, Mr. Speaker.

The report does say that to keep the present site it would cost $50 million less over the next fifty years. However, Mr. Speaker, the Premier earlier in a question from the Leader of the Opposition complained about the former government with the Workers' Compensation Board. Knowing that he was part of a government in 1966, in the Cabinet at the time, which made a decision to move Davis Inlet from its old location on the mainland to the lsland portion where it is now, would the Premier now try to correct the mistake he was part of twenty-five years ago?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the hon. gentleman is right again. I think the location of Davis Inlet was done long before I ever went into the Cabinet in September. I do not know when in 1966.

MR. ROBERTS: The decisions were taken long before then.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I became a member of the Cabinet in September 1966. So, Mr. Speaker, if it was made in February or March or April or June, I would know nothing about it. If it was made sometime later, presumably I may have been at the Cabinet meeting and would have been involved in the discussions about it, I do not know, but what it has to do with this question, I have not the foggiest notion and I doubt very much that the hon. member has any notion about what it has to do with it.

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

MR. WARREN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I know for one thing, Mr. Speaker, the people of Davis Inlet do and that is one thing, Mr. Speaker, that I am here to represent the people of Davis Inlet and I would say to the Premier -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is on a supplementary not a debate.

MR. WARREN: I would ask the Premier, Mr. Speaker, would he not now move to correct the injustice that he was part of in the Smallwood Cabinet of 1966-67.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: If it were not so pathetic, Mr. Speaker, it might just be funny.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask a question to the Minister of Education. In the March Budget under Provincial Tax Sources Other, $8.25 million was budgeted and the Minister of Finance indicated a certain portion of this was school tax arrears and he also indicated in the House that in the revised Budget, in the mini-Budget there is an extra $10 million windfall coming into school tax. Would the Minister of Education give the amount of the $8.25 million that was in the Budget for school tax arrears and how much of this recent $10 million is in this current tax year?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, these are detailed questions which I will have to take under advisement between the Department of Education and the Department of Finance. I would hope that we can get the answers for the hon. member as soon as we possibly can. I should point out though to members of the House, that as a result of the abolition of school tax the Province directly put $35 million into the school system of the Province. Now, Mr. Speaker, when the Province did that we essentially, as I said many times before, bought the ledger and said: if we realize $25 million we are out $10 million, if we realize $40 million we are in $5 million, that is progressing, Mr. Speaker, and I understand that tax arrears which have not been collected for years, did come in as a result of the offer which we made in June, whereby you could get a break if you paid by a certain date.

MR. SPEAKER: Question period has expired.

Presenting Reports by

Standing and Special Committees

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

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I believe this is the appropriate time to do what I am proposing to do on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of Finance. I would like to table some pre-commitments. First, a pre-commitment in order to enable certain highway projects to proceed next year under the Canada/Newfoundland Trans-Canada Highway Agreement and the Canada/Newfoundland Regional Trunk Roads Agreement, for the former $30 million and for the latter $20 million. Also, Mr. Speaker, a pre-commitment for $1.5 million to allow the Department of Tourism to commit to tourism advertising contracts for the 1993 tourist season.

Mr. Speaker, normally these pre-commitments are tabled three days after the decision has been made. We were a bit late doing it, but I hope you will understand.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, as is required by Statute, I want to table the 19th. Annual Report and Financial Statements for the Newfoundland Crop Insurance Agency for the years ending March, 1991 and March, 1992. Mr. Speaker, while I am on my feet, I would also like to table the Annual Report of the Livestock Owners Compensation Board ending again, I think, in March, 1992.

Petitions

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to present a petition on behalf of 7,626 people of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker, who have petitioned the government on the Workers' Compensation legislation currently before the House, which was most recently debated last week, sometime in the middle of the night.

The petition says, Mr. Speaker, that the undersigned do verily believe that cuts in benefits to injured workers will cause undue economic hardship to workers and their families; and further believe that cuts to injured workers in an attempt to blame the victims for their injuries; and, therefore, demand that the provincial government immediately reject all recommendations by the Workers' Compensation Statutory Review Committee for cuts in benefits to injured workers.

Mr. Speaker, we have seen a number of debates in this House on the issue of workers' compensation benefits, and we have seen various types of excuses being given by the government for the reduction in benefits to the recommended 75 per cent of the pre-existing income of workers which is going to result in severe economic hardship to individuals on workers' compensation.

Mr. Speaker, the difficulties in terms of the costs of benefits being paid out by Workers' Compensation were outlined in the 1991 Workers' Compensation Statutory Review Majority Report as involving a number of difficulties at Workers' Compensation, including the duration of claims, health care delivery costs, delays in obtaining assistance, increases in the cost of rehabilitation and claims delay within the commission, as well as the indexing of benefits. What the government has done in response to that, Mr. Speaker, is cut the level of benefits.

Now, we were given a pretty feeble excuse the other night, in the middle of the night, by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations in which he said that there was some evidence to suggest, from other jurisdictions, that if you cut the amount of benefits that it will cause some workers to go back to work earlier. Now, Mr. Speaker, that to me is an admission that what the government is doing is punishing all injured workers in order to get a number of them to go back to work earlier than they ordinarily would. I think, Mr. Speaker, that that confirms the petitioners claim here that what is happening with this government is the blaming of the victim for their injuries and blaming the victim for the problem.

Mr. Speaker, the problem is the costs of workers' compensation. The reasons for those costs have been outlined by the Compensation Review Commission. The government has a responsibility to look after the flaws in the system before it starts clawing back workers' benefits.

We heard today, Mr. Speaker, during Question Period, another example of the government's clawing back of benefits by taking from the parent, Mr. Speaker, monies that are given to the students by a third party, by the Canada Pension Plan scheme. Payments which are regarded by Revenue Canada as income for the students are being treated by this government as income to an injured worker and clawed back for their claim.

This is another example of this government's attempt to claw back to a level that they think is sufficient for individuals in this Province who are receiving benefits from other governments and other sources. It's unfair, it's unconscionable, and it certainly ought not to form any part of a responsible and reasonable workers' compensation system.

Once again, the petitioners call on the government and demand that the government immediately reject all recommendations by the Workers' Compensation statutory review committee for cuts in benefits to injured workers. That is a very simple request and it's one that we would like to see this government act on immediately. There is still time, Mr. Speaker. The Bill has not yet passed through the House.

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

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to speak in support of the petition put forth by the Member for St. John's East on behalf of, I think he said, some 7,800 injured people in this Province who are petitioning this government to take care of the injured workers in this Province instead of imposing hardship upon them as this minister intends to do with the proposed changes to the workers' compensation legislation.

This Bill has been before the House. The minister has been told many times of the undue hardships it's going to place on a number of individuals as a result. The minister refused to change any of the provisions in the Committee stage. This Bill has not received third reading, and the minister would be well advised to delay the implementation of this Bill until the workers in the Province can have a say and tell the minister what's wrong with workers' compensation.

MS. VERGE: Till the Premier figures out what's going (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, the Premier will never figure out what's going on with workers' compensation. He doesn't have time to figure out what goes on with the plight of the average worker in this Province.

This Bill is a direct attack on the injured workers of this Province. By reducing benefits to 75 per cent for the first thirty-nine weeks it's going to impose economic hardship on thousands of injured workers. That is not the problem with workers'. I've told the minister on numerous occasions that workers' compensation need not be attacked this way. There are other ways to do it. The minister has got to improve his health and safety. He's got to make employers and employees more accountable. He's doing it by attacking their pocketbooks. It's wrong.

I understand there were some questions in Question Period that came out of it today with respect to CPP benefits. I've told the minister privately, I've told him in the House of Assembly on numerous occasions, that this - Clause 19, I think it is - of this proposed legislation, that repeals Section 81(3) of the Act, is wrong. Because it is taking money from those who can less afford to have it taken from them. The minister has never come up with a satisfactory explanation as to why.

Clause 20, the top-up provision, the minister for the first time in the House last week acknowledged as to why this provision was there. It had nothing to do with workers' compensation. The minister said: we put Clause 20 in, the provision taking away top-up rights, because we want to speed up the process by which injured workers went back to work. Now if that's the only reason that that clause is there, it's wrong. Again, what the minister needs to do is to have a sound education program in place in this Province so workers will want to return to the workplace. Some of the problem comes now because this administration has made the economy so flat. They've laid off so many people in this Province I don't know if there's a job for them to go back to, as a result of the cuts that have taken place.

Mr. Speaker, I support the prayer of this petition, because it's a petition on behalf of thousands of people of this Province who fear what this administration is doing with a benefit that has been there since 1949, and more recently 1954, and even more recently some legislation that came in the mid- to late-eighties, that gave workers certain rights again, it says, has been the trademark of this administration, taking away the things from workers that they have previously negotiated and agreed to; collective bargaining disappeared and now, Mr. Speaker, another sacred right of the worker, the right to a fair amount of compensation for an injury, has been stripped by this administration, and I have no choice but to support the prayer of that petition.

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Just to respond briefly to some of the comments made in support of the petition. Certainly, I understand the thrust and the intent of the petition from the concerned workers, but I am not at all convinced that either one of the hon. members opposite, who spoke on behalf of those seriously concerned petitioners, left the politics out of it and just addressed the issue because their characterization of what has happened is totally, absolutely wrong.

They know that and they should be more concerned about the intent and the consideration that those serious petitioners put into that petition, rather than to stand up and get on with the diatribe that they got on with, which has no basis in fact, whatsoever.

Mr. Speaker, I would point out for example, that the petitioners were looking at rejecting the cuts to the benefits, and that is a concern for injured workers. We have taken that into consideration in the act, that long-term existing claimants who have already had a certain adaptation in their lifestyle will be preserved at their current levels and will not be cut back or slashed and so on as the members opposite would try to portray it. So the members are being very deceitful in terms of how they represent what is happening in this act.

Now, new injuries in the future will be treated differently for one very good reason that has been explained to everybody in the Province on every possible occasion, and that is, that if they are not treated differently, there will be no protection for any injured workers in Newfoundland and Labrador, and those petitioners do not want that to happen. They want protection and that is what they are going to get from the changes in this particular bill.

Just as an example, Mr. Speaker, because again, the petitioners had a serious complaint which we looked at in our deliberations, and tried to make sure the change and so on accommodated their concerns as much as possible. When I give honest answers in the House, they are misrepresented, as when the hon. the Member for St. John's East indicated that I talked about the reason for one of the changes being to try to get people to go back earlier. I did not talk anything about going back earlier; I said that the change and the literatures clearly show that people would not be tempted to stay on the system any longer than required. A change of words to give a completely different connotation to something that is very straightforward and acknowledged in all the literature and the research done in the area, that this is an effect of the change.

As well, Mr. Speaker, regrettably, in being so hasty to get on to the politics of this instead of being serious, as were the petitioners, both hon. members were saying that all we did was cut benefits. It has been explained and it is clear in the bill that there is a four-pronged approach in this bill, that we are looking at Occupational Health and Safety, improving it and have already made commitments in that respect with six new people already working in the area; long-term, lost-time actions already declining and have been for a year-and-a-half now. Organizational changes are currently ongoing and there is the entitlement issue, as to what is the definition of a compensable injury, that is being studied, and going to be altered over the next year or so.

Those three will have just as much impact, if not more, than the financial changes that are also in this bill. So the financial changes, Mr. Speaker, are just one small part of an overall change

to save the workers' compensation system.

Later today or tomorrow we will give the full details of the CPP offset, which by the way, if members are surprised by it, it has always been in, this is not something new and wonderful and different. If you check section 78 in the current act, it allowed and always did for offset of CPP benefits.

We are having it checked, as the Premier pointed out. If the board of the commission and the staff are making a different interpretation as to the earnings, in whose hands they are and to whom they belong, than are other agencies, we, after having that checked, will ask them to deal with that and we will report back to the House in due time. But the idea of offsetting Canada Pension benefits and disability from workers' compensation has always been the case; and it is just that the commission has been told, not to use it as a discretionary item but to definitely enforce the offset starting January 1, 1993, and to make sure that they use that provision of the act.

The petitioners were quite serious, Mr. Speaker, and had legitimate points to make. Unfortunately, in presenting the petition on their behalf, I think the hon. members let the petitioners down greatly by characterizing and using the opportunity for their own political benefit and gain, rather than dealing seriously with what the petitioners wanted to present to this Legislature.

Orders of the Day

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I shall be asking you to call third readings, in the hope that we shall get through them relatively quickly but that is, of course, up to the House.

Let me say - because there have been some questions from my colleagues here and I spoke to my friend, the Opposition House Leader this morning and told him this, but I will say it for the benefit of any members who have not heard - that I propose the House will adjourn at 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m., and when we come back at 7:00 p.m. we shall go into the discussion of the police bill, or the closure motion, which will, in due course, lead to the police bill.

MR. TOBIN: The muzzle act.

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, the muzzle act. My friend from Burin - Placentia West needs a muzzle. We are going to give him one.

AN HON. MEMBER: He was not here.

MR. ROBERTS: He was not here that night; but anyway, be that as it may, that is what we are going to do.

Obviously, the tone of the debate is going to be set, but if it is we will deal with it. My friend has a question.

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible) at 5:00 p.m. we would be defeating the motion to adjourn - so we automatically come back here at 7:00 p.m.?

MR. ROBERTS: There will not be a motion to adjourn at 5:00 p.m.

AN HON. MEMBER: Come back at 7:00 p.m., no motion.

MR. ROBERTS: The Speaker will just leave the Chair at 5:00 p.m., pursuant to the Standing Orders. There will be no need for a motion. It is only on Thursday, I say to my friend, the Leader of the Opposition, that we actually have a motion to adjourn before us; but if somebody -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Wednesday -

AN HON. MEMBER: It is automatic.

MR. ROBERTS: It is automatic because we do not come back; but should somebody make a motion we adjourn at 5:00 p.m. today, I predict it will be defeated.

MR. SIMMS: Yes, I understand.

MR. ROBERTS: Okay, so we will take the supper break from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

MR. SIMMS: The point I was trying to make is, you are not going to make a motion that we not adjourn at 5:00 p.m.?

MR. ROBERTS: That is right.

MR. SIMMS: You are not doing that?

MR. ROBERTS: That is correct. I have spoken to my friend, the Opposition House Leader, and I think we feel it would be in the interest of all concerned to take a break from 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. When we come back at 7:00 p.m. we will go into the police bill debate and that will carry on until 1:00 a.m., I believe. The Standing Orders actually say 2:00 a.m., but I understand - up until 1:00 a.m. - yes, when the House is ready for the question we shall do no further business this night, once we have dealt with that bill, however long that takes. It will not be longer than 1:00 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, let me say that when we have dealt with the third readings, I propose to ask you to call the one bill at second reading that remains to be dealt with, and that is Bill No. 73, the municipal utilities taxation bill. Again, I have told my friend that this will be called after that.

The House will obviously have to sit tomorrow, Sir. It remains to be seen, I guess, whether we sit Wednesday or Thursday - that is in the hands of members of the House, obviously, but we will decide that when we come. My colleagues and I have no desire to restrict debate in any way. Whatever the rules allow, we are obviously prepared to have a full and frank debate as always, Sir.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: With that said - well, I say to my friend from Burin - Placentia West, I hope there will be debate. I hope it is not just simply prolonged for the sake of prolongation, but that is up to members and far be it for me to interfere.

Mr. Speaker, that said, could we proceed with Order No. 1 and carry on through with the third readings?

MR. SPEAKER: What we are doing, for hon. members, is moving the bills under Orders No. 1 though 10, so we will just name the bills.

On motion, the following bills, read a third time, ordered passed and their titles be as on the Order Paper:

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act." (Bill No. 13).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Farm Products Corporation Act." (Bill No. 10).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Registered Nurses Act." (Bill No. 19).

A bill, "An Act Respecting An Avian Emblem Of The Province." (Bill No. 21).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Workers' Compensation Act." (Bill No. 48).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Waste Material Disposal Act." (Bill No. 20).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Municipal Grants Act." (Bill No. 30).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Welfare Institutions Act." (Bill No. 33).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Department of Health Act." (Bill No. 38).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Medical Act." (Bill No. 40).

MR. SPEAKER: The Government House Leader indicated that after this the House would be proceeding to Order. No. 43.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act Respecting The Taxation of Utilities and Cable Television Companies," (Bill No. 73).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the minister who is moving the bill, is just outside the door. I was told he was on his way into the Chamber. I wonder if we could have just a moment's grace. I apologize.

AN HON. MEMBER: Which bill is it?

MR. ROBERTS: It is Bill No. 73.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: It is not that bad, I say to my hon. friend.

I say to my friend, the minister, he is on.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I would advise the minister that all the action necessary has been taken but for his presentation of the second reading of Bill No. 73.

The hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

MR. HOGAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I apologize to the House for being -

AN HON. MEMBER: Late.

MR. HOGAN: - for being late and delayed. I was attending to a matter just out in the corridor and did not realize my hon. friends were going to be so co-operative in wanting me to come on stage. They wanted to hear my pleasant voice that is talked about during the Christmas holidays and what have you.

Mr. Speaker, Bill No. 73, "An Act Respecting The Taxation of Utilities and Cable Television Companies" is a long-anticipated and long-awaited bill and I will not spend too much time dwelling on the history of it. Suffice it to say that there are a number of provincial acts or provincial regulations that pertain to how the utility companies can be taxed by municipalities throughout the Province.

As far back as my association with municipalities is concerned - it goes back to 1969, and it goes back a long way, I guess, for some hon. friends across the way and on both sides of the House, in dealing with this particular subject. It was a very important matter on the agenda for both the Province and the Federation of Municipalities back as far as 1969.

At that time, the outgoing President, Mr. Hubert Harnett, considered it one of the most important regulations that had to be dealt with by the government, by the federation and, indeed, by the utility companies. Now, Mr. Speaker, as hon. members will probably reiterate during their speeches this afternoon addressing this particular tax bill, down through the years there has been many and varied opinions by each of the three participants and, indeed, by - the participants changed their opinions from year to year, depending on who the individual and speaking players were.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, there were some municipalities that were permitted through legislation, to have unusually high rates of taxation and there were municipalities that were permitted as low as 1 per cent at a ceiling. It was by agreement between the municipalities and by the utility companies and by the Province, that at some point in time, and at designated times, actually, over the years, that this would be levelled off. I believe the first rate that I ever heard of was a rate of 2 per cent. Today in this legislation we are asking for a ceiling of 2.5 per cent that could be set by the legislation on either the Newfoundland Tel, Newfoundland Hydro, Newfoundland Light and the various cable companies.

Mr. Speaker, the introduction of these rates will have an adverse financial effect on a great many municipalities. Not all that we may be led to believe by the so called furor that has been created in the press but by, I believe under the telephone company probably 60 out of 190 or something like that and about 50 per cent in the case of the telephone company, about 50 per cent to the communities in Newfoundland, the incorporated communities in Newfoundland would be adversely affected by this in various degrees of severity. This is, indeed, unfortunate but it is something that had to be faced sooner or later. I guess, this is a poor time with so much restraint and recession on the go, that we have to face it today; nevertheless, it is now being faced.

As a result of representations from members on both sides of the House, I might mention, my hon. critic from Fogo played a role in this, as did other members of the House of Assembly, in that probably the amendment which carries with this bill, to permit the decrease in the applied taxation, whether it be on property or on gross revenue, it will be brought in, in three phases; that is to say, for example, if a community were to lose in gross revenue $30,000 overall by the introduction of 2.5 per cent, then next year, in effect, instead of losing the $30,000 in 1993, it would lose $10,000 and another $10,000 at the beginning of 1994 and then another $10,000 at the beginning of 1995. So there is a three-period phase-in for loss of revenue. Now, this is an oversimplification, Mr. Speaker, as the way one would read the bill, but as the hon. the Member for Fogo and I have discussed, that is the nuts and bolts of it, in that the adverse effect on communities will be phased in and, in this way, we hope it will not be as bad for them as was originally thought.

On the other hand, the introduction to the 2.5 for 50 per cent of the communities addressed in the telephone company and the other 60-70 per cent that will be affecting Hydro and Newfoundland Light; that will be introduced, well, at the wisdom of the municipalities in it applying the 2.5 if that is what they so wish.

The bill will also, for the first time, Mr. Speaker, allow 2.5 per cent to be applied to Newfoundland Hydro. In this way, it is a gain to the communities and, indeed, to most of the far northern communities that are under the PDD system and other remote communities. It will be a windfall for these particular communities.

There is not much else to say about the bill, Mr. Speaker; these are the highlights of it. I look forward to the debate on this bill and look forward also to the eventual support and passing of the bill. We have tried to address the concerns of the various affected partners in it and we leave it to hon. members to bring forward any other points they wish to make. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the first thing that needs to be asked about this bill is: Why, in the eleventh hour, almost the twelfth hour for municipalities, would the minister bring this legislation forward? This bill didn't come to the House until December, at which time, municipalities had already started the act of preparation for budgets, only to find in December, that the revenues they thought would accrue to them from the utility and cable companies of this Province, just weren't there, Mr. Speaker. The bill, as the minister said, has been talked about for a long, long time. As the minister indicated, there have been discussions since back in 1969 to look at a uniform utility tax throughout the Province, but I think at that point in time, the focus of the debate was not for the communities who were charging the utility companies extra. That debate centered around the Rattling Brook agreement and a number of others that might have been in place, where municipalities were allowed under legislation to charge only 1 per cent. I think the towns of Grand Falls, Gander, Bishop's Falls, and a number of communities along the Trans-Canada Highway that used to serviced by the Rattling Brook power supply, that is where the problem started and that is why municipalities wanted to up the amount, because of that legislation. I think it was in 1957 or 1959. I am not sure of the year but the minister probably knows. That was the reason why a number of the municipalities in this Province wanted to have a tax rate or a uniform rate. It wasn't that somebody was charging 4 per cent instead of 2.5 per cent. They were not begging the minister to impose a uniform taxation across the board. It was not these groups. It was a number of municipalities who were only allowed, under legislation, to charge, particularly Newfoundland Light and Power, and then there was a old whole group of communities in the Province, some of which were in my district, that were not allowed to charge Newfoundland Hydro anything at all because of its being a Crown Corporation. That is the reason why this bill has been talked about so much.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) know what you are talking about.

MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows perfectly well that I know what I am talking about.

One of the other problems with this bill - the minister has tried to say he has talked to the Federation of Municipalities since June. I think the minister said in June they initiated discussions with them and they indicated at that point in time they had to have greater input from the membership, and rightly so, because of, as the minister said, the number of communities that would be adversely affected. The federation wanted more input from its membership before it agreed.

In the interim period, Mr. Speaker, the minister went ahead and struck a deal with Newfoundland Tel and Newfoundland Light and Power. I don't think Newfoundland Hydro had very much to do with it. I think this came as much of a surprise to most of the people at Newfoundland Hydro as it did to the municipalities of this Province. It was just as big a surprise because they are nowhere close to being able to tell the municipalities who are affected by Hydro what their 1992 billing is because they do not know. They do not know what their 1991 is either, Mr. Speaker, because that information is not readily available and will not be for quite some time.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who?

MR. WINSOR: Newfoundland Hydro does not have that kind of system. Their billing is done, they tell me, by an outside agency. They do not bill directly and it is going to take quite some time. They can only give a guess based on a monthly thing and their communities are all broken up, Mr. Speaker. Anyway those are problems they are going to have to deal with on a local basis. Taxing on Newfoundland Light and Power, for the most part on gross sales at 2.5 per cent, will not affect most municipalities too harshly. It is where Newfoundland Tel or Newfoundland Power own equipment, where they own infrastructure, generating stations, and so on. Mr. Speaker, that is where the problem originates, and this Bill in unusual in that it singles out a group of utility companies who are only going to be assessed on the actual shuck, the building as a structure, and not anything that goes inside.

Mr. Speaker, that's pretty unusual. That doesn't happen in many other places. Where you're only going to tax on the shuck that's there. For the most part, in small rural communities - in my community that I live in - Newfoundland Tel's got a piece of equipment, a telephone exchange, that measures probably thirty by twenty. They've got a microwave system that covers the entire northeast coast. They have $1 million worth of equipment, according to the assessment that was done. But now that property will be valued probably in the range of $20,000 or $25,000. That's what it'll be valued at. Probably in the range of $20,000 to $25,000.

That will devastate a number of communities. They already know they're going to be devastated by it. Now I see that the minister in Clause 10 - I assume that amendment he's talked about is going to come in Committee. You're proposing in Committee stage to have some amendments to Clause 10. Is that what the minister said?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: I can't hear the minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Yes, I'll believe the minister. In fact, I've worked with the minister closely on this one because of the number of communities that were concerned by it, Mr. Speaker. Because the way the present Bill reads it fails to take into account - and whoever drafted it didn't have a very good knowledge of the way Newfoundland Tel or the telephone companies were -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Well, Mr. Speaker, he gave them poor advice.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: He gave them poor advice, Mr. Speaker, because the real problem with doing what the minister proposes to do in Clause 10(a) and (b) is that he says that for those people who charge more than 2.5 per cent it's going to be a graduated phase-in of taxes.

I understand what he's going to do in the amendment is to also include any taxes that were paid, regardless of whether it was on gross sales. Is that the intent of the amendment? The intent of the amendment then, if the minister is going to do that, that's a pleasant change. It's a pleasant change - at least municipalities will have their amounts of money decreased by only a third for the first year and a third for the second year, until we get complete phase-in in January of 1995.

Another provision of this Bill allows for utility companies to be charged more than 2.5 per cent, and then the utility company will charge it back to the consumer. This has already been tried in Supreme Court, I think, in Newfoundland, in case my friend for Burin - Placentia West is, one of his municipalities. The town of Burin, I think, in CBS. Took the -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: - Newfoundland Power to court, Mr. Speaker, over their charging back to consumers. This tax is an unfair tax because it's a consumption tax. Certainly not uniform in its application. For example, somebody who can not afford to, because it flies in the face of everything that we say in property tax and everything else in municipalities, as the value of your property goes up then so do your taxes.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: No, Mr. Speaker. It's a different type of tax. Because in this case you could have some senior citizen who is having to constantly get medical intervention and that kind of thing, requiring frequent telephone calls, if you live in rural Newfoundland where I do. Calling doctors, this, that and the other thing for medical opinions. They're going to now have to pay tax if the town so decides. The towns will have to decide to do it because of two things. The restraint measures that have been imposed on MOGs, that they've reduced the amount from $47 million to $41 million. It's taken $6 million out of municipal operating grants in the last two years. Yet at the same time the cost of running the municipalities is steadily escalating.

The restraint measures that have been imposed and now the taking away of the municipality's right to impose taxation as it sees fit, without having to charge back, because this is just another way of municipalities saying to them: we're forcing you to raise your taxes.

That's the gist of this Bill, to force municipalities to raise their taxes in communities where they Mr. Speaker, the municipality will be forced now to raise its taxes or impose this consumption tax. One or the other, Mr. Speaker, if they are to at least break even.

Mr. Speaker, Clause 11 - and I wish the minister were there to address it - "A consumer who fails to comply with this Act commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction,"... who has to levy the charges? The way I understand this legislation now is that this is going to be: A municipality charges 4 per cent, the 2.5 per cent just comes out of the general revenues of the company, and the 1.5 per cent would be added on to the individual's light, phone or cable bill, or whatever they decide to do.

MR. ROBERTS: That is 2.5 per cent.

MR. WINSOR: No, it is 4 per cent. The 2.5 per cent is already built in.

MR. ROBERTS: They phased it down.

MR. WINSOR: You don't see the 2.5 per cent. That comes out of the revenues, just as it comes out now. If you charge 4 per cent -

MR. ROBERTS: It is built into the operating costs.

MR. WINSOR: Yes. If you charge 4 per cent, the extra 1.5 per cent will be tacked on to your light bill if St. John's imposes the 4 per cent.

Now, if a consumer - because that is going to be there, a surcharge - fails to pay, you go to the telephone company and say: I am not paying that 1.5 per cent. Does the municipality have to take the consumer to court for conviction or will the utility company? Who does it, Mr. Speaker? I don't see it in the -

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) Summary Proceedings Act.

MR. WINSOR: Who does it, still? Who is responsible?

MR. TOBIN: The council does it.

MR. WINSOR: The council has to, Mr. Speaker. What is that?

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) where the individual shop owner is the agent of the Crown to collect the RST. If an individual does not pay the RST, assuming the shop owner is not at fault in some way, then the Crown takes the prosecution if there is one. That is if. The shop owner doesn't have to take the prosecution. The Summary Proceedings Act deals with all these things.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is not the point Sam was making. The point Sam was making is: Will it be the council or the utilities depot through the council.

MR. ROBERTS: The 2.5 is collected -

MR. WINSOR: No, no! Not the 2.5 per cent.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, no! The consumer tax.

MR. WINSOR: Anyone who fails to pay. So, the minister is saying council will have to initiate a court action. Is that what the minister is saying? The utility company at some point in time - because this is going to be a very cumbersome thing now - will have to send to council: John Smith refused to pay his extra 1.5 per cent and you will have to initiate action.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if that is going to be the case with our record, for municipalities going to court and recovering money in this Province, then I say it is a sad day for municipalities. Having been involved in one for four years, Mr. Speaker, the process of getting someone to court takes your town clerk or your town manager days. Then getting them there, the individual pleads not guilty and we have to go back to court on about four occasions. That is fine, if you happen to be in St. John's and it doesn't cost you anything. But if you live in Carmanville where I live and it is sixty miles to the nearest court and you make four trips and you are only recovering fifteen or twenty dollars, it does not become very cost effective.

MR. ROBERTS: The hon. member's comment is well taken. In a different sense, not in effect of this tax, we are addressing it in another (inaudible) on the Order Paper, The Ticket Act.

MR. WINSOR: Yes, The Ticket Act, the same type of thing.

MR. ROBERTS: The comment is well taken.

MR. WINSOR: If that is the case, and I can -

MR. ROBERTS: I doubt if there are going to be very many offenses under this. Let's wait and see.

MR. WINSOR: The minister doubts very much, Mr. Speaker. I doubt very much if the minister will not be proven to be wrong. I am pretty certain that he will, Mr. Speaker. If municipalities have to apply an additional tax.

MR. ROBERTS: We can also sue civilly which is far more effective.

MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice might be well versed in law, but unfortunately the number of municipalities out there that are small don't have access to legal staff, to legal expertise, without paying enormous sums of money. Mr. Speaker, they are not aware of some of the things -

MR. A. SNOW: This is supposed to assist the municipalities, not the legal profession.

MR. WINSOR: No, Mr. Speaker, this is never going to assist the municipalities of this Province.

I just want to have a few more remarks on this Bill. The Bill, which the minister might think was fine in intent, is going to deal a terrific blow to the municipalities of this Province. It was ill-conceived to come with it at the time when he did, especially when such a reduction was occurring in MOGs throughout this Province. It's only now the minister has had a chance to do a thorough analysis. Because initially they thought there wouldn't be many people affected adversely by this tax. Now they've discovered that a whole group of communities -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: No. The minister said sixty when he spoke. Sixty of the communities in this Province, sixty out of 190, I think he said. About one-third of them.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: One-third of the communities, Mr. Speaker, will be adversely affected because of the changing of the system to a 2.5 per cent of gross sales, as opposed to a tax levied on a value of a property.

This marks a difference now. It's the first time. A question. Are there other surprises coming for municipalities? That the Province is now going to start to legislate what kind of taxes different commercial groups can be assessed in this Province. You've done it for the first one, by saying utility taxes are to be assessed at 2.5 per cent. Are you going to do the same thing if it's an electronics repair centre, or a computer centre? If an individual, if somebody out in Gander or in Corner Brook, decides to set up a computer bank. A huge computer system.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, if he sets it up and supplies a service to the entire Province is the equipment going to be assessed in that building?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, it's the same thing. The telephone exchange equipment is exactly the same. For the first time you are making an exclusion for a company. You are saying that you're not going to be taxed for the real value of your building. Are you going to do it for other buildings in this Province, or other companies? Because municipalities will be keenly interested.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: You're going to do it for others as well.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: (Inaudible) could the minister tell us which other ones you're going to do it for?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: What did he say?

MR. A. SNOW: Can't hear you.

MR. HOGAN: It's in the plan as an incentive (Inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister to take into consideration - because this is only in second reading - he's got lots of time. To take the advice of the Federation of Municipalities and ask the minister to take a bit more time to try to resolve the matter in a fair, balanced and equitable manner which will make a difference to the overall impact of the utility companies and the government of the Province. A reasonable delay would give the government and this Federation an opportunity to review the legislation in a consultative manner, which didn't occur. It would allow municipalities adequate time to develop methodologies for budgeting and financial planning which are now sadly lacking should a similar proposal be the end result of this work.

So if the minister - and as he's said he's going to do - is going to in Committee stage allow for the phase-in in a manner that is somewhat different than we have here, that's a start. That's a positive change to this piece of legislation. I'm glad the minister took my advice and went to some of his colleagues and drafters, and will have an amendment that will allow municipalities that charge on the real value of the property to be subjected to this transitional, or the phase-in or phase-out - and in this case it's not phase-in, it's the phase-out of grants.

I think it's wrong. I think this is a cute way of imposing more taxes on a municipality, of forcing them to increase their taxes, whether they want to or not, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, a number of municipalities - I told the minister - of them want, since 1966, how come I'm not hearing them crying out for it and saying (Inaudible)? I've heard one, maybe two, municipalities welcome this. Two. But none of them have welcomed the Province's interfering in the right of the municipality to impose taxes in December, with the fiscal year just about complete and budgetary preparations ongoing for the next year.

That's what wrong with this. There was no consultation between themunicipalities. The Chairman of Newfoundland Light and Power, might have taken some Cabinet minister out to dinner one time and said: let us change this and the legislation was changed. Mr. Speaker, it was as simple as that, there was no planning, there was no thought and we can see how flawed it was because of the number of municipalities that are going to lose thousands and thousands of dollars as a result, I ask the minister to delay implementation until another year.

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

MR. TOBIN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to have a few words on this piece of legislation as well. When I saw this piece of legislation come before the House, I must say to the minister that I was not very encouraged by it to say the very least. I thought it was a very negative piece of legislation where government were interfering into an area, where, in my opinion they have no business -

MS. VERGE: When did you first see it, last Monday (inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Yes. As a matter of fact, I am delighted that the minister consulted and listened to my colleague, the Member for Fogo, because I spent the better part of Friday morning in meetings with members of council from my district and with people from the Federation of Municipalities -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: No, Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, I would say to the Member for Carbonear that I was certainly meeting with people who are putting more into the Federation of Municipalities than he ever put into it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Now - do you want me to repeat it for you?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I was meeting with people from the Federation of Municipalities. I had conversations with the town manager in Marystown, I met with the town manager in Burin, the matter was referred for legal advice as it relates to this piece of legislation, and I was in constant contact with my colleague, the Member for Fogo, and so were other people involved. I would say to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, that we, on this side of the House, had every intention of making the appropriate amendment - as a matter of fact, we had every intention of bringing in the appropriate amendment to the action of which my colleague for Fogo suggested to the minister and I am glad to see that the minister has indeed acted upon it. Because what was happening here, if one were to look at Bill 73, is that only those councils who were charging a tax on gross revenues were entitled to receive this two-third, one-third break; and that councils that have properties such as Burin, such as Marystown in my district will be penalized under this piece of legislation because they were not allowed to charge, would not get credit for that two-third, one-third on the property, and if you have properties, you are not allowed to charge the business tax, so here they were in a situation that was no win, so after consultations and meetings with people from the Federation, spoke with the President of the Federation of Municipalities several times on Friday, met with the town managers, it was referred to the lawyers for the councils on the Burin Peninsula and no one could believe what was happening, so as a result of that, the appropriate resolution was going to be put to the floor today to cover them. I contacted I think it was my colleague for Fogo, my colleague for Fogo, if I could get his attention for a minute - I think it was on three occasions we spoke with you on Friday morning from the council office in my district and asked them to try to bring some sanity, asked my colleague for Fogo, the critic, to try to bring some sanity to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, to try to get it straightened up, so I am delighted that as a result of the meetings that we had on the Burin Peninsula, and as a result of consultations between the Member for Fogo and the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, who is one of the very few, I would say -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, all I can say to the Member for Carbonear is that here is government's piece of legislation that was brought before this House, here is the piece of legislation that was introduced for second reading in this House, at the first reading last week it did not include property taxes, I say to the Member for Carbonear. But thanks to the minister, in consultation with the Member for Fogo, the minister listened and the appropriate action was taken in that regard; but all that does is postpone the inevitable - postpone the inevitable as it relates to the tax kick the people of this Province are going to get in many towns and communities throughout the Province.

People in the minister's district will receive a lot less money. The town of Lawn will lose something in the area of $90,000. The town of Burin will lose $72,000 under this piece of legislation.

AN HON. MEMBER: What kind of taxes were you charging to lose that much money?

MR. TOBIN: I say to the Member for Carbonear that the Burin town council are charging respectable taxation to the properties, the utilities in Burin, in line with all other businesses.

The problem is, and I will explain it because I am surprised that the Member for Carbonear, a former mayor, does not understand it. I am surprised he does not understand it. The problem is that Light and Power has their facility in Burin - has their headquarters in Burin. Now what is happening is that under this piece of legislation they will only be allowed to tax the shell. They will not be allowed to tax the equipment within it.

Yet, I say to the Member for Carbonear, that if someone has a bakery in this Province today and are supplying baked goods throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, the town where it is, they are allowed to charge a tax on the equipment within that structure - the bakery. Well why should this government be protecting the interest of Newfoundland Light and Power and Newfoundland Telephone when they are not prepared to do the rest of it?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: The same people buy the bread, I say to -

AN HON. MEMBER: Why should every town in Newfoundland not have a chance to (inaudible)?

MR. TOBIN: Well why shouldn't every - what about the bakery, I say to my friend from Carbonear?

AN HON. MEMBER: Bull.

MR. TOBIN: It is not bull. It is facts. That is what it is. What about the malls? What about the shopping malls? What about the Avalon Mall? The name itself describes what it is. It is for the Avalon Peninsula, and people from all over the Avalon Peninsula shop there. Yet the City of St. John's can charge them what taxes they like. That is what will happen.

There is one reason and one reason alone why this piece of legislation is before the House dealing with utility companies, because of the association of certain utility companies with certain people. That is why it is before the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: Be more specific.

MR. TOBIN: Be more specific - because the Premier is the former chairman of Newfoundland Power, if you want me to be more specific, and they were looking for it back then. When we were in government they were looking for it.

How can you turn around to Burin, that has the right to charge taxes? How can you turn around to Marystown, that has the right to charge Newfoundland Telephone taxes on their property? And the courts have upheld that decision, I say to members opposite. The courts have upheld that position. Just recently the court ruled in favour of Marystown on that very same issue.

Now you have government going to legalize - bring in an act, part of this - the right; they are going to bring in a direct consumption act whereby Newfoundland Light and Power will have the right to tax the people in a certain community, or every community, over and above the 2. 5 per cent that the towns or councils would charge the utility companies.

Why does everyone else not have that right, I say to the minister? Is he going to give that right to Fishery Products International? Is he going to give the right to every other company? Is he going to give it to Bowaters? Is he going to give it to the Marystown mall? Is he going to give it to the bakeries?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: That is not incorrect. The other thing that he has done is made the utility companies now responsible, under this, to the municipalities with which they deal.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: The minister will have lots of opportunity.

I ask the minister: If the councils now have to collect taxes, or the utility companies are going to collect the taxes from the people, over and above that consumption tax, say every month that

I owe ten dollars consumption tax and I refuse to pay it. I ask the minister who will be responsible now for collecting that ten dollars that I refuse to pay, will it be the utility companies or will it be the councils?

AN HON. MEMBER: The utility company.

MR. TOBIN: Under this legislation?

MR. GRIMES: The utility company has to collect it and give it back to the council.

MR. TOBIN: If council refuses to collect it, under this Act here, I would say to my colleague, under this Act here the utility companies become agents of the councils for that purpose and why would they become agents to the councils for that purpose if it is not for the collecting of taxes. That is exactly what it is. I have gone through it and the agents and the councils will have to collect the taxes when the utility companies do not fulfil it.

Mr. Speaker, another issue: I asked the Minister of Municipal Affairs if he would provide me with a copy of all those councils that will gain or lose as a result of this piece of legislation. Will the minister provide the House with that information?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, you have it, you obviously have it, you are sending out now information to councils to the effect -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I can tell him whoever is advising him, and I am telling this House, that the advice that I am going to give to my constituents is the advice that I request from this legislature and I want information from that minister before I vote on it and the information that I would like to have is a list, Mr. Speaker, of all those councils that are going to be negatively affected and a list of all those councils that will gain from this piece of legislation.

There are other issues that I would like to have answered from the minister when he speaks to close this debate, when he gets up to speak on this debate and that very simply, Mr. Speaker, is what does he purpose to do for these councils in Newfoundland and Labrador that will not be able to financially operate, I can think of several. What is he going to do for the people of - I believe down in Little Catalina and Port Union and these communities that are going to be negatively affected, what is the minister going to do for them? What are you going to do for them I ask you, what are you going to do for them?

I think, Mr. Speaker, my questions are legitimate, I say to the minister, and if the minister ignores them well there is not much I can do about it but, Mr. Speaker, they are the concerns which I have. I have raised them and I hope that the minister will address them because I can tell him that they are important to me whether he chooses to listen or not to listen, I can tell the minister that my concerns are important to me, they are important to the people of Burin, they are important to Marystown, they are important to people of Lawn and to all other communities that are going to lose a fortune because they can not charge a property.

I say to the minister, I am not talking right now strictly on the business tax, I am talking about the right for this minister to restrict councils the right to charge property tax, to charge taxes on equipment and I think that is wrong, I say to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. I think that is wrong for him to do that. How can you say that you cannot charge - and my colleague for Menihek pointed that out to me as a matter of fact - how can you not say the same thing to everyone? How can you say it to the town of Burin or the town of Marystown or any town in Newfoundland and Labrador that you cannot charge taxes on the property. You cannot charge taxes on equipment that is owned by hydro companies. How can you not -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: The Member for Windsor - Buchans mightn't take it seriously. But I can tell the Member for Windsor - Buchans that the people in this Province who have to pick up a tab for $100,000 a year take it pretty serious, is what I'm saying. You can smirk and grin and make jokes all you like, I say to the Minister of Forestry, but the men and women in this Province today who've been brought to their knees because of the economic curse that this government has been on this Province cannot afford to laugh and smirk and grin at the fact that they have to pick up another $100,000 in tax losses throughout the Province.

I ask the minister: how can he say to Newfoundland Light or to Newfoundland Telephone that you are going to be exempt? I will make you exempt from the taxes on property and equipment within your structure. But yet the bakeries that supply baked goods right throughout this Province.... There could be a bakery, for example in Burin, that could be supplying every grocery, every person in this Province, they could be supplying baked goods to them. The town of Burin would have the right to apply tax on the ovens, to apply tax on all the equipment within that bakery, but yet they have not got the right to apply a tax to Newfoundland Hydro and to Newfoundland Telephone.

Why is it that, for example, as I understand it, the chairs in a theatre are taxable, as part of the equipment. But yet, a piece of equipment in a building that has a sign, 'Newfoundland Telephone,' or 'Newfoundland Light,' is not taxable. I ask the minister why that is the case, and does he consider that to be fair? Is that the type of fairness and balance that this government ascribes to?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I think it's very serious.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Are you saying that the rest of them don't?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Well, why should it be different, I ask him. Why should the minister be making chalk of one and cheese of the other? That's the question. Why can you charge - why should Newfoundland Power be exempt?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I'd say to the minister that that is wrong. That was wrong. That I think that Windsor - Grand Falls and Gander and all the rest of them should have the right to charge Newfoundland Light or Newfoundland Power the same as they have a right to charge Bowaters or charge the minister on his properties, or charge any other business that's there. They (Inaudible) restriction, in my opinion. I don't know how it came there, I really don't know. I heard the Member for Fogo giving an explanation of it this evening. I don't know why it's there. But I think it's right.

I think what the government should have done, I say to the Minister of Forestry, is lift that restriction. They should have lifted that restriction, and they should have given every municipality in this Province the right to level taxes. Whether that tax be against Newfoundland Hydro, or whether it be against Bowaters, the Marystown Shipyard, Fishery Products, National Sea, or any group, there should be none of them.

How can this government continue to interfere in the operations of councils? For example, when I sat down the other day, I say to my friend the Minister of Municipal Affairs, when I sat down the other day with Burin, and under this Bill here they will lose $72,000. But do you know what else, Mr. Speaker? They're going to lose an additional $22,000 this year under the road components, the MOG. So the town of Burin, the residents of Burin, are going to be asked to look for $94,000. The same as the residents of Port Union and the residents of Little Catalina, under this piece of legislation. I hope that the member will have the courage to stand in the House and to address the concerns of these people.

That's why I'd like to have the minister give me a copy of the information as it relates to every town in this Province, as to who will gain and who will lose. I'd say to the minister I think that's a fair request.

AN HON. MEMBER: Sixty-one towns (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: Sixty-one towns.

MR. TOBIN: Sixty-one towns will lose.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: There's -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: No, what I'm saying is that if the Member for Carbonear, Mr. Speaker, has that information, and he should have it, as the Member for Burin - Placentia West, I should have the information too, I'd say to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

MR. HOGAN: I just gave it to you.

MR. TOBIN: No, you did not just give it to me. You have it there on your desk. Can I have a look at it as well? It is tabled, is it?

MR. HOGAN: It is in Hansard.

MR. TOBIN: No, it is not in Hansard. You have the list there on your desk. The Member for Carbonear just went though it. I watched him, and I want the opportunity to go through it as well.

MR. HOGAN: So you should.

MR. TOBIN: So I should is right. The minister is now sitting there with that information and I am asking what I consider to be a reasonable request, not just for me but for every member of the House. Will the minister table for this House the towns that are going to lose, how much they are going to lose, and the councils that are going to gain, and how much they are going to gain? Be fair to them all. Let us all see it. It is pretty difficult to stand to speak on something that the minister is showing only to members of his own party. I ask the minister if he would make that available? Does the minister want to tell me if he is going to make that available?

MR. HOGAN: (Inaudible)

MR. TOBIN: I will certainly give you leave out of my time. Will you provide us with the information I just requested?

MR. HOGAN: (Inaudible)

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, that is not the same response he gave the Member for Carbonear. He just read it off his desk as I watched him. Anyway, I guess my time is just about up on this issue, but I tell the minister that he has postponed the inevitable, that there are councils in this Province that will go bankrupt, there are towns that will not be able to afford to operate because of what this government is doing in terms of this protection for the boys at Newfoundland Power, for the Premier's buddies at Newfoundland Power and under the MOG which is another issue we will get into.

I say to the minister that I am delighted he took the advice of the Member for Fogo. I say that in all sincerity. I am delighted that the minister sat down. Most of them over there would not even do that. I am glad the minister sat down with the Member for Fogo and discussed it and they came up with what would be an equitable situation for all the towns. As a result of that some of the towns will at least get a reprieve for a year, a third of a reprieve, but at the end of the day I say to the minister it will be all gone. I say it is a bad piece of legislation, it is a regressive piece of legislation and it is a piece of legislation that is before this House for one reason and one reason only, and that is because the Premier was the former Chairman of Newfoundland Light and Power.

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

MR. HEWLETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to say a few words as well on this particular piece of legislation. Given the time of year and the frequency with which we see bad news coming in December for municipalities perhaps the minister might be best described as the Minister of Municipal Despair rather than Affairs. Any affairs, Mr. Speaker, are all mis-affairs. A couple of years ago we saw the government bring in a brand new grant system for the municipalities in this Province and anything that is brand new for municipalities in this Province from this particular administration tends to be brand new and bad, so as a result councils have been losing, over the last two or three years, in a phase-out of a more generous grant scheme to a less generous one. Now we have a new thing dropped into their laps again just before Christmas. That seems to be the favourite time of the year for action on the part of the Wells administration. Most of the actions are negative and most of their negative actions are usually saved for Christmas or just before, the annual lump of coal in the stocking for municipal councils. Even if they did not know this one was coming, they should have been aware that something had to be coming. For three years in a row again we have more despair for councils in this Province. Mr. Speaker, in my particular district I have a little town in Robert's Arm and 1000 or so men, women and children live within the confines of that town. They have a small building not much larger, I suppose, than a large chicken coop within their town that has $1 million worth of electronic equipment in it, and as a result of changes proposed by this particular bill the council there is going to lose $10,000 in the third year phase-in of their new grant system and a further $40,000 with regard to the taxes they got off this building full of electronic equipment belonging to the Telephone Company, I do believe.

Mr. Speaker, again it comes at Christmas, at a time when councils are supposed to be putting their budgets together. So you can imagine what the town fathers of Robert's Arm have to face when they're coming up again $50,000 short in an area where very few people are working. The ability to raise extra taxes is absolutely minuscule. Where jobs are at a premium. Most citizens are either on UI, welfare, and very few work year-round. Yet councils are expected to come up with relatively large sums of money given their size on very short notice and as usual, just before Christmas, just before budget time.

One wonders why all of a sudden this is coming to pass. Then again, we've seen other legislation in this House that has a tendency to favour the outlook of the company Newfoundland Power. I have nothing in particular against this particular company. It has a mandate to do as it does with regard to the generation and sale of electricity in this Province. For some reason, the Wells administration seems to smile very favourably on this particular company. It has done so in the past, with regard to regulations and procedures regarding the raising of electrical rates in this Province. A token effort was put in, in the way of a consumer advocate, to pretend that the government was trying to stem the tide of rising electrical rates, only to see this Christmas the consumer advocate get a lump of coal in his stocking and get the sack just before Christmas. It wasn't Santa's sack, believe me.

So we have a government that seems to have a very warm place in its heart for the power company. They claim it's not because the Premier was involved with the power company. They claim it's not because the Government House Leader was involved with the Fortis Trust company. But somehow good news always seems to be going the way of that particular company under the times of this particular government. Methinks there's a little bit too much cosiness there for coincidence. Hopefully the people of Newfoundland and Labrador will in due course pass judgement on this particular relationship which I would contend is one of a conflict of interest, to put it mildly.

This government has made life miserable for municipal councils ever since it came to office. The first thing it did was bring in this massive amalgamation scheme, which was nothing short of lunacy. In my district they were going to amalgamate three island communities, which made absolutely no sense whatsoever. It took them two years to finally admit that indeed that made no sense. Now they've brought in a new grants system. Every community - for instance, the community of King's Point in Green Bay, which voted heavily Liberal in the last general election, lost, one of the heaviest municipalities in this Province in terms of their size and the money they lost under the municipal operating grants scheme. Obviously no one is shown any mercy by this government, and I really fail to see how they're going to continue to have people with reasonable criteria for being municipal councillors actually put themselves forth for office in this Province in the next little while.

I've talked to many municipal councillors who indicate that given the cuts that they received in their grants system, given the changes that always seem to land in their lap, negative changes just before Christmas, budget time every year, it's getting to the point now where you're going to have difficulty getting quality people to offer themselves for municipal office.

My friend from the Burin Peninsula mentioned the fact that somehow the light and power company and the telephone company with their electronic devices don't seem to be taxed the way other buildings and businesses in a given community are taxed. Rather funny. I had a call from a gentleman who owns a woodworking business in a certain community in my district a few weeks ago. He was required under municipal law to go back a dozen or more years through his files and come up with invoices regarding the shipping and payment for woodworking equipment, a lot of which he no longer had on file. It was back well over a dozen years. They wanted all this data and information with regard to not only his shop but the contents of his shop. Here we have a situation where the size of the shop is basically irrelevant, because the contents of the shop are not being considered in municipal taxation.

If they want to make reforms, Mr. Speaker, I suggest they make reforms for the better and not for the worse. So far, in the area of municipal government in this Province, it's been a time of despair, ever since the Wells government took office and have landed problems and downloaded expenses onto municipal governments in this Province and I say, Mr. Speaker, it is not good enough and hopefully the people will support their municipal councils and in due course tell this government that indeed it is not good enough. Thank you, very much.

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

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, a few short comments on this particular piece of legislation. There is a theme, Mr. Speaker, running through this particular piece of legislation that ran through another piece of legislation that I saw here in the House this Fall and that is the one pertaining to the municipal operating grants. That is what I could never understand, why the big rush, why the big rush for this particular piece of legislation going through the House because the new MOG came in 1989 and we only passed that just a little short while ago, not passed yet really and that is a piece of - what I call a piece of retroactive legislation. So, what is the big tear, Mr. Speaker, what is the big rush, what is the big hullabaloo about legislation such as this, for instance?

I have seen on numerous occasions what I refer to as retroactive legislation passed here in the House, orders and regulations had been issued to municipalities around the Province. They have operated for the last three years under the new municipal operating grants system pertaining to municipalities in the Province and this is nothing new, absolutely. It is another example though, Mr. Speaker, of the Department of Municipal Affairs and this administration as a whole, downloading on municipalities in the Province, no question. The Municipalities Act is there, every municipality in the Province is governed by the Municipalities Act except for the City of Corner Brook operating under their own Act, the City of Mount Pearl operating under their own Act and the City of St. John's operating under their own Act. Everybody else in the Province, pretty well operates under the municipalities Act except for, and I suppose to a certain extent that is covered in here as well, unincorporated areas in the Province which you would call a local service district. But to say to municipalities you do this or you do that, yes I sort of agree to a certain extent, maybe not with the amount, with the way that it is done with regards to the uniform taxation in this Province, that is something, and I agree with the minister, that has been asked for and requested for some time. There had to be something, some kind of a uniform taxation to go in place pertaining to municipalities and pertaining to utilities, especially cable companies.

I said it before and I say it again here this evening, that cable companies in the Province, as far as I am concerned are taking everything out and putting absolutely nothing back into municipalities in this Province, absolutely nothing, cable companies, they have done it for years.

I witnessed small municipalities in this Province, Mr. Speaker, when they could charge up to 2 per cent, when they charged 2 per cent on gross revenues for Newfoundland Light and Newfoundland Tel and municipalities around the Province, when they were doing that for years. In some municipalities Newfoundland Tel and Newfoundland Light did not even pay it. They did not even pay it. If they felt right, if they felt good and if the gross revenues were not to high, then they paid it. But, cable companies: I witnessed a small municipality right down in the Premiers district, in the district of Bay of Islands, who for seven years they took him to court, they put him into a collection agency out here in St. John's, they never got a nickel, they got nothing. They just put him through hell and just go into court and just more or less laugh at him and now that that taxation is set at 2.5 per cent, I do not know if it is enough, to be honest with you pertaining to a cable company or Newfoundland Tel and Newfoundland Light. But the only thing about Newfoundland Light and Newfoundland Tel and I suppose the cable companies to a certain extent, there is not a municipality in the Province today that has the luxury to just go out and arbitrarily set a rate. They can do it, set a poll tax and they can put up property tax and so on but the consumer and the constituent in that particular municipality, Mr. Speaker, cannot pay any more. They just cannot pay any more.

You have municipalities in this Province under the municipal operating grant structure today who have been crucified under that particular structure. I had an example the other day of a municipality now, just this year, because of the rollback, the final rollback in the roads component, to even at $81.47 I think it is now, and the promise of that being revised, that going to $81.47, their total road component is wiped out, plus - I do not know if this is factual or not because I am waiting for a fax to come in on it, that now the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, through the municipal financing corporation are charging on any outstanding debt 11 per cent, 11 per cent on all outstanding debt.

Now, if that is true, it is better for the municipalities to go through the banks. I say to the minister, it would probably save him money and save his department money, to go through the banks and guarantee it. Guarantee the loans for municipalities, let them go through the banks, because more than likely they would probably get it at prime plus one, and prime today plus one is about 8 per cent, or 8.5 per cent or 9 per cent. That may not be factual, but if that is factual, that the municipal financial corporation is charging municipalities in the Province on outstanding debt 11 per cent, then to me there is something radically wrong with it.

Now, Mr. Speaker, one of the glaring I suppose, deficiencies in this particular piece of legislation is right on the back, it is referred to in Section 7 subsection (1) and it says: Subsection (1) shall not apply with respect to the consumption or use by a consumer of a utility service provided by the utility referred to in subparagraph 2(h)iii where that consumer is a corporation or organization listed in the Schedule to the Act.

Now if hon. members might refer to the schedule to the act, Mr. Speaker, the first one on it is Abitibi-Price located in Grand Falls and Stephenville. Abitibi-Price is a generation station, it is providing power to the mill in Grand Falls. Now I am not so sure if they are selling outside that, I am not sure about Abitibi-Price in Grand Falls, if they are selling outside the mill. Albright and Wilson, Corner Brook Pulp and Paper, Deer Lake Power Company Limited.

Now Deer Lake Power Company Limited, Mr. Speaker, pays grant in lieu to the Town of Deer Lake about, $40,000, $45,000 a year. A grant in lieu, they are generating power for Corner Brook Pulp and Paper in Corner Brook, to keep the mill going, but any excess power is automatically fed into the grids, fed into Newfoundland Hydro's grids, so that means that the Town of Deer Lake still cannot get their hands on a company such as Deer Lake Power, and that to me, has to be addressed.

Something has to be addressed and if it is not going to be addressed in this one, and obviously it will not, then it is going to have to be addressed somewhere down the road and I realize also in saying that, that some of those deals were made some years ago and especially with the sale of Bowaters to Corner Brook Pulp and Paper, so there are some cases like that but I think that is an issue that should be addressed especially when you have a utility like Deer Lake Power who are paying absolutely nothing compared to what they are taking in in that particular community.

I was told, I do not know whether it is true or not, that last year they generated something in the vicinity of $14.7 million; $14.7 million out of Deer Lake Power in Deer Lake alone, and that is a glaring deficiency that will have to be addressed, so that municipalities can get their hands on some of that particular funding. We have Abitibi-Price in Grand Falls, I think they are paying something like $300,000 or $400,000, grant in lieu, to the Town of Grand Falls. We have Corner Brook Pulp and Paper in Corner Brook paying $600,000 grant in lieu on property taxes and so on, everything is involved and here we have a company in Deer Lake, and just because the infrastructural part of it is small and the employee part of it is small they are paying a small grant of some $40,000 to $45,000 grant in lieu. Yet at the same time they are making millions and millions of dollars.

There's something similar going back to the charging of business tax in a small municipality. Some people might say: why do you charge - for instance, someone in - a salesperson there in a particular municipality who might have one person employed, but at the same time might generate $2 million worth of sales. Gross. You go out to a service station, a gas station. They've got the sale - the sale of gas alone tells you something. It tells you you could be selling millions of dollars worth of it. But at the same time it's on your gross sales. That's where the unfair thing was due in a lot of municipalities in the Province pertaining to business tax.

So, Mr. Speaker, this particular tax - and the consumption part of this tax, regardless of where it comes from, and getting back to my first concerns, under the MOG, the new municipal operating grant passed on to municipalities, what the communities don't get over the 2.5 per cent the councils can charge it back to the citizens of that particular municipality. Then it will be collected by the utility, and then put back into the council's coffers. So regardless now it gives the municipalities the right to tax - no matter what it is. Two point five is only to the utility. Any council now in Newfoundland and Labrador after this so-called consumption part of it goes in can levy their own tax on the consumer at the point of service. Whether you're using cable, whether you're using Newfoundland Light and Power, or whether you're using telephone.

But that particular company can collect the tax and - under the Act they have to reimburse the municipality for it. If not, the fine situation comes into place where they can be charged and taken to court. I venture to bet, right here this evening, that one of the biggest obstacles that you're going to have in the collection of that tax are the cable companies. The cable companies are going to present problems with this particular tax.

So the councils in the Province, now instead of the companies, or going to government blaming government, they don't blame government now. They'll do what they did before. They'll go up in a small community in Newfoundland and Labrador where the councillors pretty well know everybody in the municipality by name. They meet them every day in the post office, they meet them every day in the stores, they meet them on the road, they meet them in their community halls. That's where they can hit them. Under the new municipal operating grant councils had to increase taxes. They couldn't get at the government but they could get at the local councillors. Under the new utility rates, councils will have to increase taxes. They can't get at the government again. They get at the local councillors. You're used to it. I was used to it. We're in the firing line, you're up front. That's what's going to happen in municipalities.

At the same time, I still say and go back to what I said before, that those kinds of changes with regard to the MOG system, the repayment on capital debt, and now the businesses tax pertaining to utilities in communities around the Province, is going to put an extra burden on all councillors in the Province. As far as I'm concerned, it's going to discourage them from being the good type of volunteers they are in this Province. They're doing a significant job. They are replacing government. They are the governing body of that particular municipality and they're providing an excellent service for the municipalities in which they serve.

So I say to the minister that one of the biggest problems he's going to have is with the cable companies - no question - in the collection. If he doesn't have them - no, he won't have them, except in an unincorporated area. That's where government may have the problem. Now it also doesn't say in here, and it's not stated, what government would charge in an unincorporated area. It says what a municipality can charge a utility, 2.5 per cent. It doesn't say what government can charge in an unincorporated area. Will they stick to 2.5 per cent? Will they go to 3 per cent? Will they go to 4 per cent? It's going to be very tempting to go over the 2.5 per cent, because all this money is going to go back into the consolidated revenue fund. It's going to be very tempting.

MR. WINSOR: And charge them back if they don't pay municipal taxes (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: And charge them back if they don't pay municipal taxes.

It is going to be very, very tempting, Mr. Speaker. I find it rather ironic and a little devious. I suspect when it comes to this, that the ink will not be dry from the Lieutenant-Governor. He is going to sit down and say: what a chance to sock it to the local service districts in the Province. We do not have to go 2.5 per cent now because it is not in the bill. We can charge 3 or 4 per cent, whatever we like, because every cent that comes in under this particular section of the act goes straight into Mr. Baker's fund, the consolidated revenue fund. I suppose if it were left to the minister himself he would probably charge 2.5 per cent but when it is left to his Cabinet colleagues, some of whom I know fairly well when it comes to dealing with councils, I can assure you I have a funny feeling that it is going to be a lot bigger than 2.5 per cent. So, just a few short comments on that particular piece of legislation, and I suppose when we get to the committee stage I will make a few more.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MS. VERGE: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry for the hesitation but several of us over here are anxious to speak on this Bill.

This Bill is quite problematic for some of the reasons that have already been outlined, plus other reasons. Once again we see the government bringing before the House of Assembly very late in the going an ill-considered, ill-researched proposal, a proposal which has not been sufficiently vetted by municipalities, a measure that is going to result in significant changes in municipal taxation, but also will result in new provincial taxation and a windfall for the federal government. The losers under this proposal are the consumers, the ordinary citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador whom this government has already overburdened with direct tax increases, indirect measures, and I would call some of the provisions of this Bill double devious down-loading. This represents a new low in this government's approach to taxation. There are some legitimate problems relating to municipal taxation of utilities but this Bill is not a fair or adequate response to those problems. We have a handful of municipalities in central Newfoundland which are unreasonably restricted from taxing utilities. That is one problem which deserves a targeted solution. Then we have a handful of municipalities scattered around the Province which in my personal opinion have been charging excessive rates to utilities and the utilities in effect have to recover those excessive municipal taxation costs by increasing rates to rate payers right across the Province. It is only a handful of municipalities who are in my opinion charging excessively, so to address that problem we do not need this Bill, we do not need this measure that affects all municipalities and which sets up the government to charge new taxes.

Then, Mr. Speaker, as mentioned by my friend for Humber Valley, there have been particular problems of municipalities trying to collect from cable television companies. Now, to the best of my knowledge not all of the cable television companies have been irresponsible, but one in particular, one cable television firm has steadfastly resisted paying municipal taxes, despite the efforts of municipalities in placing the uncollected accounts in the hands of collection agencies or in referring the bad debts to lawyers for collection. The cable TV firm has managed to evade municipal taxes.

We have some problems which do need solutions, but this Bill 73, An Act Respecting The Taxation Of Utilities and Cable Television Companies, is not an adequate solution and it creates new problems.

Mr. Speaker, one of the problems, of course, is that it is being foisted on people so late in the going. The government announced its intention to bring in a new law respecting municipal taxation of utilities a month or so ago, but since then has backtracked and did not produce this Bill until one week ago. On Monday, December 14, 1992, the government printed this Bill, and its final clause says that it comes into force on January 1, 1993.

Now it so happens that the municipal budget year starts on January 1, 1993. By now councillors are supposed to be finalizing their budgets. They are supposed to be in a position to send out tax bills to their residents during January, but they are not going to be able to because they still do not know exactly what the law is going to be.

If they assume that because of the government's majority and their arrogant approach to ignoring the wishes of people and pushing through their own ideas; if they assume that this Bill will become law, they still cannot finalize their calculations because they cannot get the data needed to figure out the result of this legislation. They cannot get figures from all the utilities and cable television companies to do the calculations of what would result from this Bill.

Compounding the situation is the fact that the provincial Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs has not finalized the new municipal property assessment rolls for some municipalities. There are municipalities in the district I represent, the Town of Pasadena and the City of Corner Brook being two, which are still waiting on the minister's department for the latest municipal property assessment figures.

Mr. Speaker, as some of my colleagues have said in their speeches, the Wells' administration, in their three-and-a-half, going on four, years in office, have made an absolute shambles of municipal affairs.

First there was the amalgamation fiasco, and while some of the ill-advised proposals have been called off, such as the one to combine three island municipalities in the district of Green Bay, others are still unresolved. There are three major amalgamation proposals which are left from the hit list of July, 1989, in western Newfoundland: The proposals to combine Deer Lake, Reidville and Spillway; the proposal to combine Corner Brook, Massey Drive and Mount Moriah; and the proposal to combine Stephenville and Kippens. Those three western Newfoundland merger proposals still have not been resolved. The government still has not given those municipalities, or the residents of those communities, a straight answer about whether they are going to force those amalgamations or whether they are going to leave well enough alone.

I cannot speak with very much knowledge about any proposals other than the ones in Humber East district, but in the case of Corner Brook/Massey Drive/Mount Moriah, it has been clearly demonstrated most recently by the firm of Doane Raymond, in a study paid for by the provincial government, that that merger will result in higher net overall municipal operating costs. In fact, Doane Raymond say that the amalgamation may result in a general municipal tax rate increase of 1.4 mils. That means 13.4 mils for everyone - Corner Brook, Massey Drive, Mount Moriah - plus the $150 water and sewer fee, absolutely ridiculous, Mr. Speaker. Those three municipalities are not in conflict, they are in harmony, they are already sharing major services on a user pay basis.

There are no economies of scale which could conceivably result when you look at the overall situation, because the two smaller municipalities have extensive volunteer service whereas the City of Corner Brook being relatively much larger, has fully paid and unionized staff, there would be a significant overall operating cost increase. That is perfectly obvious to anyone who looks at the situation casually, but this government did not look at it, did not look at it even casually before they launched their misguided amalgamation initiative. But the municipal operating grants, the government, Christmastime two years ago, announced a new scheme, talked a good line and delivered the opposite, cut right across the board, not only cut in the first year, but cut part way through the year and only now is bringing in legislation to try to paper over those cracks.

One of the bills we were talking about in the middle of the night here, Thursday night/Friday morning, gives the Cabinet authority to, from time to time, change the municipal operating grants formula, to juggle around the figures to fit within the cap that they set from time to time, the cap that keeps getting smaller and smaller. So the Province in a whole variety of ways has been most unfair to municipalities, not only by cutting, but by failing to consult, by changing rules on the eve of budget deadlines, and finally the provincial government has been downloading responsibilities. The provincial government has turned over to municipalities the responsibility for maintaining roads. The provincial government turned over to St. John's, the responsibility for the Aquarena, now the government is setting about downloading arts and culture centres, so municipalities are being ill-treated and squeezed financially.

Now the government, under the guise of addressing legitimate problems, is basically setting up the municipalities to make up the revenue they are losing because of the cuts in provincial funding by getting into a new field of taxation, namely consumption taxation. The provincial government is putting the municipalities in a position of having little choice but to resort to this new type of taxation and that will involve municipalities, once exceeding the 2.5 per cent uniform utility rate, going on to charge more to utilities, but then having the utilities bill back the difference from the local rate payers. In that instance, the local rate payers will be paying not only the extra utility tax but also GST, so under this Bill, the federal government will get a windfall and our Newfoundland and Labrador citizens will be paying extra federal taxes on top of extra municipal taxes, on top of extra utility rates, on top of extra provincial taxes, so people are getting cut left, right and centre.

Now I call this, double-devious downloading. The Province is responsible. The municipalities are being forced to shove the taxing on to the utilities and the extra provincial tax will show up in the consumers household on the light bill or the phone bill or the cable television bill, so presumably, the public relations squad, Edsel Bonnell and the people down in the tunnel in the link, figure that with this double-devious downloading, consumers will not blame Clyde Wells and the members opposite because the trail is to twisting and turning. But people are a lot smarter than some of the members opposite have them figured for, Mr. Speaker.

Then this Bill sets up the provincial government to charge utility taxes for all the unincorporated areas of the Province. Now, Mr. Speaker, many of our citizens live in unincorporated areas and right now those people do not pay municipal taxes, they simply pay local service district fees if they pay anything at all, the most fees to cover whatever meagre service they get from their local service district committees. But this Bill will authorize the provincial government to charge up to 2.5 per cent utility tax to people in the unincorporated areas. Again, it will be devious downloading because the utilities will have to do the dirty work. But make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, this Bill is another Well's government tax grab. In this case the grab will be made either through municipalities and utilities or through utilities for people in unincorporated areas.

Mr. Speaker, in principle I have no problem with the government imposing uniform utility taxes, as long as that is done in consultation with the municipalities which will be hurt, as long as there is an adequate arrangement for the municipalities recouping their loss and as long as there is phasing in. But I take great exception to the provisions of this Bill which empower the government to charge a new tax to people in unincorporated areas, and which set up municipalities that the government has hurt so badly and will continue to hurt by continuing to cut operating grants. To turn around and get into consumption taxation and have the utilities send out the bills. There is no need for that approach. If more taxes are needed let them be levied in an honest straightforward way. Let it be obvious who is imposing the taxes, let the provincial government impose the taxes. This way accountability is clouded, plus GST has to be charged on top of the extra utility rate. Why is this government giving the federal government the GST windfall? Is it because the Premier all along has agreed with the GST and they are just hoping to get re-elected so they can harmonize and charge the retail sales tax on services as well as goods? Could be, could be! So, it is obvious that the consumers are losing in this bid and piece. Who is winning? Maybe the provincial government will gain a little bit, if they succeed in their devious plan to deflect blame for their additional taxing either to municipalities or utilities. Will the utilities gain, is it possible that the Premier's friends at Newfoundland Light and Power will gain? Well it looks very much that way.

Mr. Speaker, the minister in his opening speech said that the problem of varying rates of municipal taxation to utilities has been around for a long time. He referred to the Whelen Royal Commission Report and in the process praised one of the commissioners, Hubert Harnett. As an aside I would ask the minister if he has such high regard for Mr. Harnett's opinion, why has he ignored it, in the case of the Corner Brook/ Massey Drive/ Mount Moriah Proposal? Mr. Harnett was the only independent commissioner who did a feasibility study and and he said that a case had not been made for amalgamation benefiting the whole. Now, the Premier's criteria for amalgamation is that it was to benefit the whole. In the case of Massey Drive, Mount Moriah and Corner Brook, the whole will lose through amalgamation, the whole will be subjected to higher overall operating costs and everyone in the whole will have to pay more taxes and they, personally, will be further in the hole - h-o-l-e.

That is what the government is doing through this bill, as well. They, themselves will be charging utility taxes, flushing it through the utilities, having the utilities do their dirty work to people in unincorporated areas, but for the majority who are in incorporated areas, after having cut, squeezed, and jerked around the councils, now they are going to force the councils to try to make up some of the loss by charging consumption taxes and have the utilities do the billing.

Mr. Speaker, the minister spoke very, very briefly in introducing this bill and did not provide much illumination. I would like to ask the minister, and I will yield to him for an answer: How much revenue would the Province raise if it carries out the authority which is proposed in Clause 6 to charge 2.5 per cent of gross revenue of the utilities for unincorporated areas of the Province? How much revenue would that bring into the Province?

Mr. Speaker, I was just waiting for the minister to answer my question.

MR. SPEAKER: I don't know if the minister agrees to answer the question. Generally, the minister takes his questions at the end. He leaves them to the end.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I had reason to think from what the minister was muttering across the House that he was going to provide an answer to that question.

MR. R. AYLWARD: They are trying to shove this one through the same as the rest of them.

MS. VERGE: Oh, I know they are trying to shove it through. They have us here a couple of days before Christmas debating a bill which they only printed a week ago. This bill was cranked out of the government printing presses on Monday, December 14. One week, we have had this bill. Municipalities, for the most part, still haven't seen it. A couple of weeks before the bill materialized, the minister made an announcement, but there have been changes since then.

Now, is that fair? The Premier keeps using the words, fairness and balance. I said to him the other day that by now those words have been thoroughly corrupted. It is hard for any of us to have any respect or trust anymore when we hear the Premier apply the nouns fairness and balance in anything he is setting about doing. 'Fairness and balance' should arouse suspicion, because the Premier's fairness and balance is a twisted, perverted form of fairness and balance and this is a twisted bill.

This twisted bill gives the Provincial Government twisted authority to twist more taxes from people in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, to have the utilities do their billing for them, to require GST to be put on top of it, to extract money from people in unincorporated areas, and it is twisting the incorporated areas, the town councils and the city councils, who have been cut so severely and who have been handed additional responsibilities, roads, the Aquarena, and maybe Arts and Culture Centres, to resort to consumption taxation. Many of the councillors may find that prospect somewhat attractive because they may think they will escape blame if the utilities are sending out the bills.

It seems to me that the government and their PR advisors are counting heavily on public ignorance. They are hoping that if people don't read what they get from the utilities, if they don't pay any attention to the news, they will assume that the higher light bill or the higher phone bill is because of the phone company or Newfoundland Power - maybe they won't cotton on to the fact that it is really a Clyde Wells taxing measure. That is why we can't let the government sneak this through here on Christmas Eve. We have to make sure that not only Santa Claus knows that they have been bad boys, but that the voters of the Province know that they have been naughty. That is why we have a responsibility to expose them.

MR. MURPHY: That's sexist!

MS. VERGE: No, it isn't sexist, I say to the Member for St. John's South. Just look around. Look around.

How much time do I have left, Elizabeth?

MS. MURPHY: Six minutes.

MS. VERGE: Okay, I have six minutes left.

Mr. Speaker, forcing municipalities to get into consumption tax, and having the utilities send out their bills, is a radical departure in provincial taxation. Now, we have seen some new approaches to provincial taxing. We have seen creative taxing from this government before.

In their first year or so, they cut out the $30 million a year subsidy to Hydro. They started charging a $10 million a year loan guarantee fee to Hydro - effectively, a $40 million a year cut to Hydro. Hydro, in turn, has had to recoup that from passing on the cost to Power, who, in turn, have had to jack up rates to the rate payers. That was an instance of creative taxation.

We know that they are poised and ready to spread the retail sales tax onto services. I would say they are a bit nervous about that one, though, so they may not be brazen and bold enough to try to sneak that one through before Christmas this year, but if they get a chance, watch out on Christmas Eve next year.

Ever since they have been in office, they tend to do some of their heavy-duty nasties during Christmas. Last year, they fired the Cox's Cove Town Council. Between Christmas and New Year's, last year, that was their municipal affairs initiative. They got rid of a whole town council. They fired a group of volunteers in the Bay of Islands because the Premier didn't like what they were doing; because the mayor - something like the Member for Eagle River - wouldn't kowtow to the Premier. So the Member for Eagle River had better beware. Of course, he is here because the people in Eagle River elected him, but if the Premier gets a chance, he may be gone. The mayor and councillors in Cox's Cove got the flick.

MR. EFFORD: You don't have much to say today.

MS. VERGE: The Member for Port de Grave has a smile on his face. Why doesn't he get up and contribute to this debate? He looks like he has some evidence which would be relevant to the theme that I am developing.

The Member for Port de Grave, I think, perhaps knows a lot more than I do about the high-handed, arrogant, tactics of the Premier. The Member for Port de Grave knows all about the dictatorship that we have here in Newfoundland and Labrador today, and one of these days, he will tell his story. He is keeping us all in suspense. We are anxious to know what he has seen and heard but, in the meantime, we will have to point to other evidence - evidence from other sources about what is wrong with this government and how they have made a total mess of municipal affairs, a total mess.

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to believe that in three-and-a-half years a government could impose so much misery and hardship on so many municipalities. It is hard to believe, but they have done it. Amalgamation bungled, municipal operating grants bungled, now utilities taxation bungled.

Yes, there were problems, but instead of setting about addressing the problems and correcting them, the government has fired way wide of the mark - way wide of the mark - and has created a whole new set of problems. In some cases, their solutions were totally inappropriate, and in other cases, the implementation was botched. We seen several instances of failure to give reasonable notice.

The Premier likes to use all kinds of nice-sounding fancy words, like 'fairness and balance' and 'reason'. Why is it that he hasn't implemented those principles in practice? Why is it that he has been so unfair and unbalanced in making municipal policy and setting municipal funding regulations? Why is it that he has been so unreasonable to the municipalities, realizing that the vast majority of our municipalities are operated by volunteers? They are not composed of politicians who are well paid, the way members of this House are. They are made up of volunteers who serve on councils after working all day, fishing or processing or teaching or working for the Provincial Government. These people have an extremely difficult and stressful job when they can't even plan the budget for next year without having all the necessary information until part-way through the year and without being able to count on the Provincial Government guidelines lasting for the whole year, since this government consistently has changed the rules in mid-stream.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member' time has elapsed.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to speak for a few moments on this bill, to put on the record my opposition to this legislation. Mr. Speaker, there is a number of reasons why this legislation should be opposed. First of all, it is another of a series of pieces of legislation that is being imposed by the government without proper and adequate consultation with the people who are involved in the process.

Mr. Speaker, I have here a letter from the Federation of Municipalities, dated 15 December. At that time, they complained about the fact that they had yet to see any legislation, but yet they had been told that the new legislation on the utility and cable television taxes was going to become effective on the 1 January 1, without, Mr. Speaker, an adequate opportunity for the members of the Federation of Municipalities to have an opportunity to review it, to have any proper consultation, to have any proper input into it. Even today, Mr. Speaker, we're given amendments to the Bill. Not amendments that come from a consultation with the Federation of Municipalities. Not amendments that come after committee hearings have been held and people have made representations to the committee. Not recommendations that come out of a committee that had this legislation sent to it for proper and full consultation with the public. Not recommendations, not amendments, that come from this side of the House, having been thought through after careful consideration by the Opposition.

Because none of those groups have had an opportunity to consider the legislation. That's the first problem. This is one of a series of pieces of legislation that have come before this House in the last couple of weeks that require the heavy hand and the hard boot of the government to implement and force through this House on the eve of Christmas. Now it's not quite the eve of Christmas but I'm told that we're very likely to be here on the very eve of Christmas in order to get this legislation through.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Now there's 'Baby Doc,' 'Dr. No' junior over there, saying: who told you that. 'Dr. No' told us that this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, that's the first problem with this Bill. The first problem with this Bill is that it's one of a series of pieces of legislation that this government is trying to force through this House on Christmas Eve.

The second thing wrong with this legislation is that it imposes a solution on municipalities that is based on the provincial government itself forcing a special regime for public utility companies and cable television companies. Now why is that? Why do we have a special tax regime for cable companies and utilities? We do because this government has determined that there must be a separate regime for them. Two kinds of company, a special regime for them. Are we going to have one next week for some other companies that might be favoured by this administration? Should this Bill not be called the Fortis Bill No. 2? We had the Fortis Bill No, 1, it had a different name, it was called the Financial Institutions Capital Tax Act, that is what it was called, but it was really Fortis Bill No. 1. Now we have a piece of legislation which is called An Act Respecting The Taxation of Utilities And Cable Television Companies, should this not be named the Fortis Bill No. 2, because this is a special tax regime that is set up specially for utility companies and cable companies. What is there about these types of companies that entitles them to a separate and special regime?

AN HON. MEMBER: Make no wonder you are winding down.

MR. HARRIS: Now, if there are some problems with the taxation powers that municipalities have, why not deal with them in the Municipalities Act as a special amendment to the Municipalities Act and talk about the kind of regimes in general. Why not solve the problems that municipalities have in raising money instead of undercutting them, cutting them off at the knees at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day, when they are trying to put together their budgets which they have to put together, a balanced budget by January 1st, 1993? Why are we now faced with that, Mr. Speaker, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day when the municipalities are trying to put together and balance their budget by January 1st, which they are required to do?

Why are they not looking after the municipalities instead of finding ways of creating problems for our municipalities? Why did they not wait until next year, have some consultation, have a discussion, and not impose solutions on the municipalities? This is what you are doing. Why do we not have the information that the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs has said that he has and apparently has shared with the backbenchers on the Liberal side but not with this side of the House, Mr. Speaker, if there is a problem?

The Federation of Municipalities is saying in this letter dated only a week ago, that they have not been provided with any information to indicate the severity of the problem and they are drawing the conclusion, Mr. Speaker, they are concluding that there are only a few individual municipalities that have that problem in the absence of any information being provided by the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, we can also agree with the same conclusion that is reached by the Federation of Municipalities, that there has not been proper consultation. There has not been proper information sharing, and there has not been a serious attempt to solve the problems of the municipalities - not the problems of the power companies; not the problems of Fortis Inc.; not the problems of the cable company - but the problems of the municipalities. These are the people; these are the groups who need to have their problems solved by this government - not the problems of Newfoundland Light and Power. Newfoundland Light and Power is looking after itself. Fortis Inc. seems to be looking after itself, with a little help from this government.

The legislation that currently protects Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, by restricting them to 1 per cent, that legislation should be changed. Why do we have the Premier coming in here and saying: We have a problem because certain municipalities are restricted to 1 per cent and some of these other communities are going way higher? Why cut the knees out from all of them? Why not remove that restriction on those municipalities that are being hard done by, if that is the problem?

It is very simple, my opposition to this legislation, Mr. Speaker. It does not address the problem that municipalities have with raising funds, but it may address some of the problems that Newfoundland Light and Power, and perhaps the cable company - I do not even know if they even have a problem - it may address some of the problems that Newfoundland Power has with some municipalities - potentially, some municipalities overtaxing - and if there is a problem there that problem ought to be addressed. The problem of the municipalities ought to be addressed, not the problems of the utility companies, and this government clearly favours the big corporate interests over the interests of the municipalities and their citizens, and that is why I oppose it, Mr. Speaker, and I wanted to put that on the record.

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

MR. HEARN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Seeing that it is approaching 5:00 p.m., I will adjourn the debate.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member adjourns the debate?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) call it 5:00 p.m.?

MR. SPEAKER: Do we agree to call it 5:00 p.m.?

The business of the House not complete, we will come back at 7:00 p.m.


 

December 21, 1992        HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS           Vol. XLI  No. 88A


The House resumed at 7:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): If the minister speaks now he will close the debate.

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

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, the debate was adjourned this afternoon by the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes.

MR. SPEAKER: I don't see him. He cannot speak if he is not here.

MR. HARRIS: Maybe somebody else could speak in his stead.

MS. VERGE: We were going to be debating the police bill the closure motion.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, would you be good enough, please, to call motion No. 2.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader calls motion number 2, which is the motion invoking closure. First of all, we have to vote on the motion, it is motion No. 2, to move that pursuant to Standing Order No. 50, the debate on Bill 56 shall not be further adjourned and that further consideration of any resolution or resolution clause or clauses, so on and so forth, or whatever else might be related to Bill 56, shall be the first business of the House, when next called by the House and shall not be further postponed.

All those in favour of the -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: When we have a motion to the floor, we cannot call in a vote. Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: We cannot call until the -

All those in favour of the motion, please say 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: Those against the motion, 'nay'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I want to take a few minutes to speak to this bill.

MR. SPEAKER: This motion is not debatable. First of all, I have to have a motion now to move into Committee, then the hon. member may speak, but the motion is not debatable.

AN HON. MEMBER: The motion is carried, I think.

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, the motion is carried.

MR. ROBERTS: I move that we rise the House and go into Committee of the Whole, please, Sir.

On motion, that the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN (Barrett): Order, please!

Bill 56.

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I guess the government - well, we are in Committee, as opposed to second reading, but the bottom line is, the principle, I say to the Premier, is still the same. His administration has once again seen fit to put the gag order on the Opposition as they express their concerns on behalf of the people of this Province. The Premier has decided, Mr. Chairman, together with his Cabinet and his House Leader, to put the hobnailed boots to debate in this legislature, regarding a piece of legislation that the public of this Province have deemed to be unsatisfactory. That is the principle; whether it be in second reading or whether it be in Committee of the Whole is not important. What is important here, and what is despicable, I say to the Premier, is the fact that his government once again - I am not sure how many times, probably a dozen times in three years - have invoked closure. They have invoked the gag order. And the people of this Province, through the Opposition, have been expressing their concerns and frustrations about this piece of legislation. Every group associated with it, the Police Association, the Human Rights Association and every other group, have asked government to delay it for a month to give us a chance, to give us an opportunity to have more input, to let the public have input in this piece of legislation. But what have the government done? The government have decided that they have had enough input, that what the people of this Province have to say is not important, that they are not concerned about what the police force want to say. They are not concerned about what the Human Rights Commission and other groups representing the public of this Province want to say. The only thing they are concerned about is getting the House closed and getting home for Christmas. Well, Mr. Chairman, that is not about to happen because we have a responsibility to the people of this Province. We have a responsibility to make sure - because I can say to the member opposite that this is only one piece of legislation that is bad. This is only one piece of legislation that will have a negative effect upon the people of this Province.

We have the uniform taxation bill to protect the boys in Newfoundland Power. We have that piece of legislation that we are going to debate, I can say to the members opposite, and particularly to the minister. We have that piece of legislation that is going to strip thousands and tens of thousands of dollars away from municipalities in this Province, the burden being passed on to other people. So I say to the members opposite that there is lots of legislation to debate between here and the end of January.

This piece of legislation, when there were questions asked, the Government House Leader decided to keep the debate going all night, bringing in legislation on other orders at 3:30 and 4:30 and 5:00 in the morning.

I must say, Mr. Chairman, that I was happy enough where I was. I happened to be at home in Marystown, and when I turned on the radio at 7:00 a.m. and heard the news, the House was still open. Then I had a call from my friend from Grand Bank.

MR. MATTHEWS: No, you called me.

MR. TOBIN: Oh, I called you. We had a great chat about it all, Mr. Chairman, and I asked: 'What is going on in there, anyway?' He said: 'Boy, government is trying to muzzle us - trying to force through legislation,' he said.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Well no, he didn't say 'government'.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: He didn't say 'government', he said, 'Ed Roberts'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: But, in any case, what we are faced with here this evening, and why we are back tonight, is because government has decided to put the hobnailed boots to the people of this Province. Government have decided that no longer can the Opposition delay a piece of legislation that is not good - a piece of legislation that is bad, of which everyone affected by it has said: 'No, we do not want it as it is. We want more time to debate it.'

Now, the Premier, and the former Government House Leader, who, I suspect, is happy enough tonight as well, brought in a piece of legislation, and the Police Association of Newfoundland, the Human Rights Association of this Province, have decided that that piece of legislation warrants further consultation between the groups and the government. They did not ask the government to delay it for a year, they did not ask them to delay it for six months - they asked to delay it for a month or so. They have asked the Minister of Justice, the Government House Leader, 'if we can have a few weeks to meet with you, and the Legislation Review Committee that this government have put in place, if we can meet with you people and have some input,' and the government have decided, 'No, you cannot have any further input.'

Now, I do not know why this government wants the record of invoking closure more often in four years than was invoked with three previous administrations in this Province for twenty-five or twenty-eight years. Why would this government want that record? Why would they want to have invoked closure, put the muzzle, invoked the gag order on the Opposition more often, as a matter of fact, three times as often in three or four years, as three previous administrations, the Smallwood, the Moores, and the Peckford when they decided to stifle debate.

What is wrong with being heard? what is wrong with having the opportunity to debate? Wasn't this Legislature founded upon debate? Is it not founded on the principle that you will debate the issues? Is it not founded on the principle of democracy? Well, where is democracy this evening? Where is it, I ask members opposite, when this government decides to launch an attack upon the people of this Province by stifling debate, by closing off debate? I say to the minister, I think that is unfortunate, I think it is regrettable. I ask members opposite and my colleagues in the House - from where I stand, anyway, and they can all speak for themselves - what sense is there in our continuing this debate? Where is it going to get us? This government have decided to issue the gag order forcing closure, that debate and democracy, the principles on which this building was founded, no longer exist.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: You go back and table hockey sticks.

MR. MATTHEWS: Old Ramsay won't table hockey sticks.

Okay now, finish up.

MR. TOBIN: I ask members opposite and all my colleagues on this side, What is the sense of debating a bill that brings an end to democracy, that refuses to let us continue to debate this very important, vital piece of legislation, to let us continue to express the concerns of the people of this Province through the Legislature?

AN HON. MEMBER: Did you hear what he said about you?

MR. TOBIN: What was that?

Mr. Chairman, it is a sad day for democracy.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Well, we will hear the Member for Port de Grave up speaking on this, I am sure.

MR. MATTHEWS: He is not allowed. Did you hear what he said? - 'I am not allowed.' That sums it up, 'I am not allowed. Now, that tells you what is going on in this House.

MR. TOBIN: He is not allowed. Mr. Chairman, I believed it for a long time but I never thought the Member for Port de Grave would admit it, that he is not allowed to speak. But now the record shows that the Member for Port de Grave has been muzzled as well, even without a muzzle order.

Mr. Chairman, I say, very seriously. that I believe it is a sad day for democracy when the Premier and the government have decided to bring in a piece of legislation that denies the right of people in this Province to speak through their Legislatures, namely, the Opposition, in this case.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Once again, I will try to bring some reason to this government on The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Act, I think it is called.

I had a brief occasion the other night to make a few comments on this legislation. And I guess the government wasn't listening. The Premier wasn't here for most of the night. Maybe now we will have some - I didn't expect the Government House Leader to listen at the time, because his mind is made up, but he listened some. He was here most of the night. I give him credit for that. He was listening but he did not heed what we were saying. I mentioned the other night, and I mentioned before, that when government established Legislation Review Committees in this Province, I congratulated the Premier on the establishment of these committees. It was good reform and it is unfortunate that we didn't use it more when we were in government. That is too bad, Mr. Chairman. When the Premier did bring it in I was very supportive of it. I was very supportive when we were in government of the Estimates Committee system. I thought that was a good system. It certainly was good for me when I was in the back bench because I had an opportunity to question the ministers in a committee setting where it is much better for extracting information than it is in the House of Assembly. I was very supportive of committees such as the committee which studied the Corporations Act on which I served at the time as Chairman. The Vice-Chairman of the committee was the present Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: That is a long time ago.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Yes, that is going back.

The Premier keeps telling us, when we were in government there was no use for legislation review committees. The Premier stands in this House and tries to make up reasons for not giving the legislation to committees, saying that when we were in government there was no such thing as legislation review committees. Well, Mr. Chairman, that is not quite correct, but I do admit that we didn't use them enough. They were not used nearly enough when we were in government but they were used. I was on another all-party committee to deal with the provincial flag, the first committee I was ever on. I was only in the House of Assembly for one year or less when I was put on that rather controversial committee at the time. I was delighted to be on that committee and that is where I got my first training in committees when I joined the Legislature back in 1980.

Since that time, I have served on many committees. In the Committee on the Corporations Act, that I mentioned, we dealt with two pieces of legislation, one, the Corporations Act, and the Optometrist, I believe, was the other legislation we were dealing with at the time.

When the present government took over, and the former House Leader, the Member for Gander, got up and presented his bill on the Legislation Review Committees that this government was going to establish, I congratulated him because it was a good step forward. It was the right thing to do and it was good, progressive legislative reform.

Now, I still feel that way. I still agree with that. I have served on several committees while I have been in Opposition. I served on a committee with the Member for St. John's South when he was Chairman of a committee and we worked on some very substantive labour legislation which was very important to this Province. It went through this House of Assembly without nearly as much trouble as have some of the bills over the last week. Mr. Chairman, that was a good move. On occasion, there would be minority reports with these committees and I did submit one myself on one of our committees. It gave me an opportunity to get a feeling from the general public about the legislation. After all, that legislation was going to affect their daily lives from then on, particularly the labour legislation we were dealing with at the time.

This legislation here, Mr. Chairman, is being put in place, I would expect, for the general populace of this Province to use it, to understand it and know it. I don't understand why we cannot take this legislation, which is brand new legislation for our Province, and put it before one of the Legislation Review Committees.

We got this legislation rather late in our session. It is new legislation, difficult to understand for someone like myself who has not had legal training. It is not easy to understand when you are trying to compare it with legislation in other provinces. We have to try to do that in this House of Assembly, and it was very helpful in so doing, for members on both sides of the House, to have public meetings in which committees reviewed the legislation before it got to the House. When the committees reviewed it and made their recommendations for changes, if any, or for no changes, quite possibly, when we came into this House of Assembly we would make our arguments for what we heard in our committee hearings. If the government didn't make those changes, well, sobeit. That is the way our system should work. The government is there to govern, no doubt.

What happened with this piece of legislation, which is very important to the Province - not a great many people are going to ever use it in their lifetime. I wouldn't say a great many people will be complaining about the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. I've never had a complaint about them in my life. I have had many speeding tickets and many traffic violations. I haven't had anything too - nothing criminal, but I was guilty every time, so I guess one can't complain. If I got a speeding ticket I deserved a speeding ticket. I found the Constabulary, the people who gave me the ticket, to be courteous and just doing their job, so there was no reason I could find to complain about them.

I don't expect there will be a lot of people using this legislation because of the Constabulary treating them badly, but there will be some people who wish to use the legislation. Bulldozing it through this Legislature, rushing it through before people get a chance to understand it, means they will not understand how to use it. The least thing the committees could have done would have been to provide a small bit of publicity and get explanations on the legislation so that people who would want to use it could understand it.

Right now, nobody in the Province knows what procedure they will have to go through to make a complaint. If there were people coming before our committee explaining what they will have to do, offering suggestions for improvements, at least the media would be able to take those suggestions and publicize them. Those people who would be interested could follow it and get a better understanding of it, and maybe ask for copies of the legislation for further study.

Because this legislation wasn't brought before the Legislation Review Committee in time for proper hearings - I believe it was dropped on our desks on a Monday morning. We started to debate it that day or the day following - I'm not sure of the exact day we got it and when it was debated. But the very first day in debate, we asked the government to forward this legislation to the Legislation Review Committee.

The Government House Leader said there is no need for it. He has heard all the complaints, he knows all the problems involved in this legislation, he knows its shortfalls and has compared it to other legislation around the country, and he thinks this is the best legislation for Newfoundland. Well, Mr. Chairman, I might be inclined to agree with him on that, I could very well be inclined to agree with him. I listened to the Premier when he debated on this legislation and his arguments were very sensible, very rational and you could follow them very clearly, but the only two people whom I have heard in this Province, who have commented on this legislation, who agree with it are the Premier and the Government House Leader. They are singularly the two people in this Province who said this is good legislation.

Other people who would have an interest in this type of legislation - and I admit, not many people would have an interest in the detail of it - but every single or person who had an interest asked for more time to study it. They did not all say it was bad, that it was not good legislation for this Province; they made a very simple request, not an unreasonable one, and that is part of the reason why I stayed here all night, one night last week, not because I wanted to obstruct, not because I wanted to unnecessarily delay this legislation. I know members on that side won't agree with that, but the reason I wanted to prolong this debate as long as possible, was, that maybe, if we kept it going long enough - if we had caved in at the very beginning when this came before this House of Assembly, we wouldn't have had even one hearing of the Social Legislation Review Committee, even though it was only one day's notice. If we had just said, okay, they are not going to do it, and had forgotten it, there would never have been any hearing. So I figured that by debating this as long as possible, maybe the government would come to their senses and maybe we could come back here - and I would not mind coming back here on January 10th or January 15th.

AN HON. MEMBER: We might be here until then.

MR. R. AYLWARD: We might very well be here until then because of this type of action. It is not impossible that we will not be here because, Mr. Chairman, I am more determined today than I was last week, to have this legislation and others debated as long as possible, and if I can get one other person in this House of Assembly to stay with me, we might sit more than one twelve-hour or twenty-hour shift in this Legislature, because I will stay here until I drop; I don't mind staying here, I am being well-paid in my job.

MS. VERGE: How is the forecast for the next couple of weeks?

MR. R. AYLWARD: Not even from now on depending on the weather forecast, like it might have the other night, that it was going to rain the day after and I did not mind staying all night. Even beside that, this time, I do not mind staying here; I will stay here as long as it takes to make this government see reason.

Mr. Chairman, as I was saying, the Premier made his presentation in this debate, and it was a good one, but everyone else who had a concern or an interest in this legislation, took a diametrically opposed view to what the Premier is saying. They say this is not the correct legislation. Everyone who appeared before the Member for Harbour Grace's committee, even on this short notice - we had six different people or groups appear on one day's notice, so we know there are six groups, at least, interested in this. I would say there are many others who might have an interest in it, the Law Society could very well have an interest, I don't know. The Law Society should have some opinion on this type of legislation.

MS. VERGE: The people of Corner Brook and Labrador West - they are policed by the Constabulary.

MR. R. AYLWARD: People in other areas of the Province who are policed by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary did not even notice legislation was on the books. If you said to them, this is an act to revise the law respecting the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, they still would not relate that as a police commission, I would not if I heard that title. It would not relate to me any way that this is going to be our police commission. I would expect that this will be administrative changes for our constabulary, to make it run more efficiently.

Now, Mr. Chairman, if I heard this title - people in Labrador West, I do not know that they had - I am sure they did not have the opportunity to make any presentations on this. I am still not sure that they know this legislation is our police commission. People in the Corner Brook area, who are policed by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, I am not sure that there are many people out there who realize that this act to revise the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Act, is the police commission. I am not sure that there is anyone in Corner Brook who would not have an interest. There was a person who came from as far away as Harbour Grace, I believe, to have a hearing and I am sure he was proud of his member at the time when he came to that hearing, for at least having that one hearing.

But, Mr. Chairman, there must be many, many more people around this Province in areas that are policed by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, who would like to - and, Mr. Chairman, if we had another ten or another twenty, they might all come and say that this is the best legislation for our Province. I do not know what they would say. I do not know if anyone else would come. Maybe the Premier and the Government House Leader would have more support for the legislation if they presented this legislation to the Legislation Review Committee.

Mr. Chairman, we see what happens in this House of Assembly only today, when governments make bad decisions. When governments do not take the time to make proper decisions. We have a decision today that was only announced publicly today, that the community of Davis Inlet should be moved from where it is, at quite a substantial cost. At that time, our government of the day, in the 1960's, which probably had our Premier as a cabinet minister but I cannot say that for sure, I do not know the dates, I do not know what committee meetings are, but that is a prime example of what we should not be doing, in this day. If we learned anything from history, if the Premier in particular, who helped make the decision or helped enforce the decision, if he did not make it, that Davis Inlet be put on an island in the middle of nowhere, with no water, with no sewer systems, with no way off it except by water, Mr. Chairman, if we learned anything through our history, we should learn to proceed with important decisions, such as this one, with caution.

Now, there is nobody here asking for the Premier to delay this legislation more than one month. I would suggest that anyone in this House of Assembly would agree that if this legislation was given an extra month from the day it was tabled in this House, which is a week or two ago now at least, so we have another couple of weeks to the middle of January, maybe to -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: But if we had, from the day we started debating this legislation, if we had to have a month from then, a month from last week to the middle of January, that is all people - and we could come back here for one afternoon, make our presentations and give it up and go away thinking at least, that we did the best possible - that we did everything in our power to make this legislation as good as it can be.

Mr. Chairman, we have to remember in this Province that we have had our ombudsman abolished. Now, the government of that day who abolished it, the present government, did not see any need for it. I am really surprised that the biggest supporter of abolishing the ombudsman is the Minister of Health because I expect that he would take the opposite view of ombudsman. If the person was not the proper one to do the job then I could see the person being replaced, the ombudsman, himself and if the legislation was not strong enough for the person to be able to do the job I can see the legislation being revised, but, Mr. Chairman, I cannot see this Province, Newfoundland, in 1992 abolishing the ombudsman's office and have a supporter like the Member for St. John's Centre who I would expect take the opposite view because he usually takes the opposite view. He would take the view usually of the common person, the person who would need some place to go and complain. That would be his ordinary position on things. When he was a professor at the university I even went over to one of his classes at one time. I remember being at one of his classes, Jim Morgan, Beaton Tulk and I.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. R. AYLWARD: Yes, three beauts. I guess that is what he said after we left. It was interesting. I enjoyed it. I was a backbencher at the time, I believe. I enjoyed being there that night. The minister's attack on the ombudsman's office took me by surprise. I did not expect that of him. I could expect it of the Premier because the Premier hates to be criticized. He cannot take one bit of criticism with any kind of class. He has attacked the ombudsman and he is gone. The consumer representative on the Public Utilities Board, who was doing a good job -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. R. AYLWARD: Well, the legal ramifications might have been a problem.

AN HON. MEMBER: It might have cost the people of the Province $1 million or it might have saved them $2 million from rate increases that your buddies would have gotten through Newfoundland Power if he had not been there. Your memories are very short. Before he went on the Public Utilities Board there was quite a bit of controversy in this Province about rate increases. A matter of form, go to the Public Utilities Board, make your presentation and sign a cheque, a blank cheque every time the utilities went to the Public Utilities Board, yes, whatever you want. Now and then they might jiggle around with it for a little bit and delay it for three or four months but they still got it, until Andy Wells went on that board. Now, Mr. Chairman, legally that could not have been and some one tells me the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on it some time or other. If that is the case then what we did was the second best, we appointed a consumer advocate for this Province. Now, the consumer advocate was hamstrung from the day he was appointed. He was hampered in his operations because he was paid by the government. He was a direct employee of the government which was ridiculous in my mind. He stayed for a while and tried to put up a bit of a fight during one of the rate hearings only last year and now he is gone, so we are going to go back to the same system.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. members time is up.

MR. R. AYLWARD: By leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, for the benefit of someone who at some future date may be reading Hansard I should say that the previous speaker was talking about Bill 56 which is, I suppose, the police commission. You have to question the relevance of the hon. member as he roamed all over God's creation so in case someone should read it in the future this is about Bill 56. The purpose of the Bill, Mr. Chairman, is to revise and consolidate the law respecting the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, and to establish a public complaints commission to deal with police officer misconduct, I guess, to the general public.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: No, Motion 2 was passed.

MR. DECKER: That was passed.

Mr. Chairman, I think the future will say that this is one of the best pieces of legislation that has gone through this House in recent years.

This puts in place a process where people who have real problems or perceived problems with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, that there is a process that they can have their complaints heard and that they can have their complaints dealt with.

Now if we were living in an ideal world there would be no need for a complaints commission such as this. If all the members of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary were the calibre of my friend from Placentia, who used to be a policeman, or my friend from St. John's East Extern, there would be no need for a police commission.

I am sure, for a vast number of members of the police force, there is no need for a police commission; but in view of the fact, no matter what group we look at, there is a very small minority which might just step out of line, and this commission will put in place a process to deal with legitimate complaints.

Mr. Chairman, this Bill was by no means thrust upon the population by surprise. This Bill was talked about for the past three-and-a-half years, ever since we have been in power, and we finally got around to presenting it. On November 24, I understand, almost a month ago, this Bill was actually printed and circulated to all the members of the House of Assembly and anyone else who wanted it.

Nevertheless, when this Bill was called, about a week or so ago, the opposition kicked up the usual ruckus that they kick up, to try to delay and try to interfere, and they complained because this particular Bill, being so important, had not gone to the Legislation Review Committee.

Mr. Chairman, Legislation Review Committees were only introduced to this House in this administration. For seventeen years, when this House used to only open on the odd day here and there, there was no such thing as a Legislation Review Committee. We introduced that. I remember months and months and months waiting for the House to open, but when they were in government they were frightened to death to open the House, let alone put in place a Legislation Review Committee.

Anyway, last week when the Bill was introduced for the first reading, the opposition got up and complained and said that it should go to the Legislation Review Committee. Government, being a government which listens - we have proven that over the years - the Minister of Justice, being a minister who listens, said: Alright, if you want it to go before the Legislation Review Committee, we will withdraw the (inaudible) of the bill, and we will take it to the Legislation Review Committee - a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It was done, and I understand that there were four groups who appeared before the committee, plus one individual. They made their presentations, and their presentations were listened to, Mr. Chairman.

Now, in that committee, when the committee met, it met for five hours and the Opposition engaged in the same kind of political posturing in the committee that they have been engaging in in this House for the past three-and-a-half years. Five hours, Mr. Chairman, and do you know what they discussed in five hours? They discussed the title, Mr. Chairman, Clause 1 and Clause 2. Now, you talk about a waste of valuable taxpayers money, you talk about a waste of valuable time, five hours on the title and on Clause 1 and 2. Okay, Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Justice realized that all the questions had been asked and it had become repetitive to the point that it was boring, so he brought the Bill back into the House.

Of course, we all know what happened last Thursday. Last Thursday, the members opposite were so obstructionist that they kept this House open all night, all night, Mr. Chairman. I was away on Her Majesty's business out in central Newfoundland, I came back the next morning and the whip called me to let me know the House was in session. I came in here expecting that after all night discussing this Bill, I expected that they would probably be down to the second last or the last clause in the Bill, but no, Mr. Chairman, they spent the whole night discussing the title. They made such fools of themselves that it is a reflection on the whole House. That is what they did. So it became obvious that they were engaged in nothing more than a political game. A political game trying to posture and make some points but the posturing backfired. I was in my district on the weekend and I am sure more hon. members were and I can tell the Opposition that they did not make one political point, not one political point. They lost and they lost badly, Mr. Chairman.

While I was out in central Newfoundland I had occasion to look at the most recent poll. The poll which was done right in the midst of probably our darkest hour, which is now going to be referred to as our finest hour when we were coming to grips with the mess that the previous administration left us. I looked at the poll and I saw that in the midst of all that, we had only dropped back three points, three or four points. The reality is that anytime any poll can err three or four points, nineteen times out of twenty. So, I would not say we lost very much. But I would tell hon. members opposite, Mr. Chairman, if there was a poll called after last Thursday, when every man, woman and child in this Province knows what foolishness the Opposition is going on with, I can tell you that the poll would be a lot different than it is. We got the message pretty loud and clear that the Opposition has nothing on their minds only to try to make a few cheap political points.

Now, thank goodness, Mr. Chairman, in a democracy, in the end, the will of the majority will prevail. So there is, in the rules of our House, a system where we can invoke closure when we have an unruly Opposition. An Opposition which wants to posture no matter what, to hold up the work of Her Majesty's government and tries to interfere, there is a procedure put in place called closure, Mr. Chairman. We do not want to use closure. We are like a sheriff, we do not want to use our six-shooter every time we get some opposition but when you get an Opposition who is determined to stop the will of the people, the will of the majority of the people who are crying out for a police commission, when you get an Opposition which is trying to stop the will of the people than sadly, regrettably, Mr. Chairman, we have no choice but to use closure because we cannot allow an unruly Opposition who just want to make political points. We cannot allow them to stand in the way and if there is any doubt in anyone's mind that they did not do this just to play some kind of a game, I would remind you once again that they spent all of Thursday night discussing the title - all of Thursday night discussing the title. Let the whole world know that.

Mr. Chairman, as a result of our open-minded listening to everything, we found that it is necessary to present some amendments to this Bill - again to show that we are not a hard and fast government. We do not ride over people. We listen, and as a result of the committee, as a result of presentations which were made, the Minister of Justice has agreed that we are going to make some changes. Now some of those are technical and some of those are substantive. I will just read out two or three here. A copy is available. I understand members opposite have it. If not, there will be -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DECKER: - amendments to the Bill. Okay?

In Clause 22 of the Bill, it is amended by adding, immediately after Subclause (4), the following: Notwithstanding Subsection (4), or the three month time limit referred to in that subsection, the three month time limit shall not begin to run against a complainant until he or she knows or, considering all circumstances in the matter, ought to know that he or she has a right of complaint concerning the conduct of a police officer, and the burden of proving a postponement of the running of the time under this subsection.

The hon. members have all of those. I can read them all out if you wish. If not, I can table them, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: Move them.

MR. DECKER: I move those amendments, Mr. Chairman, seconded by the Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendments, as presented, are in order.

The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Chairperson.

This Bill is important. It addresses serious concerns of many people in our Province, and the way the government is proceeding with it is a real shame. It shows no consideration whatsoever on the part of the Wells' administration for the public good. It indicates that this is a group obsessed with power and saving face.

Chairperson, the Minister of Education purported to give a chronology of what has gone on. I would like to give the correct version.

On May 31, 1991, the Hughes Royal Commission gave its final report to the government. One of the commission recommendations was for the establishment of a police complaints commission. A year-and-a-half later, at the end of November, 1992, the government finally presented a Bill - this Bill, Bill 56 - to this House of Assembly. That was less than a month ago - about three weeks ago. The mini-Budget intervened.

On December 8th. the minister responsible, the Government House Leader, called the Bill for debate on second reading. That debate took place over the eighth and the tenth. On the tenth I spoke, and I made a motion calling for the referral of the Bill to the Social Legislation Review Committee of the House. The minister, and all the members opposite - all the members for the government - voted against the motion, so the motion was defeated.

The next day, Friday, the eleventh, the minister was caught by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Association. He told CBC Radio that nobody had asked for a public hearing. The constabulary association had requested such a hearing. When they contacted the department to press their point, the minister had to back down, and he activated the committee which then and there hastily planned a meeting which was held on the evening of Monday, December 14.

Chairperson, despite the lack of notice to the public there was a large turnout, other members have referred to it. There were six presentations. Two major organizations with a stake in this which had done prior research appeared - the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Association and the Newfoundland-Labrador Human Rights Association. Now those organizations view the government's Bill, the proposal to establish a public complaints commission for the Constabulary, from very different perspectives. Nevertheless, each of them called for a delay for further consultation. They asked for more time to do research themselves. Now even though they had been working on this issue for some months they both claimed to need more time for analyzing the Bill and looking at models elsewhere.

Apart from commenting on the process those organizations offered preliminary objections to several of the provisions of the Bill. I was struck by the amount of overlap of their positions. The other presenters, some of whom had only heard about the committee meeting earlier that same day, similarly asked for a delay. They wanted time to read the Bill, for a start, and seemed eager to come back to offer constructive criticism.

The vast majority of people in the Province didn't even know about the Committee meeting. Probably hadn't even heard about the proposed legislation. We have to remember that the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary police not only the St. John's area, not only the northeast Avalon, but they also police Corner Brook, Labrador City and Wabush. People in the Corner Brook area and in Labrador West have had absolutely no opportunity to be involved in the discussion about this proposed legislation.

After the Committee meeting the House of Assembly did sit on Thursday night but the government didn't call this Bill. The Government House Leader called the police Bill Friday morning at 4:56. Bright and early Friday morning, after the House of Assembly had been sitting for fourteen hours, almost fifteen hours straight, the Government House Leader called this Bill, An Act To Revise The Law Respecting The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary - 4:56 a.m. Friday past.

The Opposition members participating in the debate spent the next two or three hours on Clause 1, and that's because according to the rules and traditions of this House of Assembly, when we are dealing with a bill in Committee of the Whole, under the heading of Clause 1, the first clause of any bill, which sets out its short title, members are permitted wide latitude to talk about any and all provisions of the bill. That's what we were doing. The reason that we persisted was to try to pressure the government to refer the Bill back to the Review Committee to comply with the wishes of the organizations and individuals who asked for more time, to provide for more consultation, we asked for the Committee to be given the month of January to do more careful analysis, to hear from more people and to prepare a report for the full House.

We suggested that whenever the government, whenever the Premier and the Government House Leader wanted to reconvene the House, whether that was the end of January or early February, they would be quite within their rights to call this right away, hear from the Committee and then proceed to pass the legislation and set up the police complaints commission.

That way, Chairperson, I believe people would have greater respect for the police commission when it is established and I feel confident that the legislation would be improved. The government way is to ram it through, ignore the public, shut out people who've asked for more time, claim that the government knows it all. The minister responsible, the Minister of Justice, has said that he's heard all the arguments, he knows all that. At the Committee the other night he said that he didn't learn anything new. He claimed last week that he knows everyone's concerns and he's addressed them in his proposed amendments.

There's no way the minister knows all the concerns, because he's made absolutely no attempt to consult anybody. The few who did discover the Committee meeting, and made presentations then, voiced criticisms which are definitely not addressed in the minister's proposed amendments. So there's no way the minister knows people's concerns, because he didn't give them a chance, and he hasn't addressed the concerns that he did hear.

The difference in the two approaches has to do with respect for the people, consideration for their desire to be involved and contribute to the formulation of a police complaints commission, and public respect and confidence in a very important innovation in the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. The Opposition way would involve one month's delay, but it would lead to better legislation and a very much better start for the Constabulary public complaints commission.

Considering the length of time the government waited from receiving the Hughes Commission final report, one extra month is neither here nor there. It may not even amount to a month, because the government may not have this Constabulary public complaints commission in place early in the new year. If they procrastinate in setting up the police commission the way they've delayed everything else we may not see that police public complaints commission until partway through the year.

I have severely faulted the government's handling of this matter, the process they've used, or misused, more accurately. I have serious concerns about the contents of the Bill as well. I propose to address my concerns through a series of amendments. I wish to move amendments to the first several clauses of Part III, the part dealing with the establishment of the police public complaints commission. My colleague, the Member for St. John's East, is going to propose amendments of which I approve for the final clauses of Part III.

Chairperson, I do not claim that these amendments will lead to the police public complaints commission that the public deserve. I have not had adequate time to look at this Bill or analyze it or consult or get information about alternatives. I have used the limited time available, the three-and-a-half weeks since the government distributed the Bill as best I could, but given the fact that the government has now invoked closure and I have but twenty minutes to speak at this stage, and within which I must make any motions for amendments, I will do so now.

Chairperson, first of all, I believe that the police public complaints commission must be at arm's length from the Cabinet and the minister. The police public complaints commission must be seen to be independent from the criminal justice system of which the constabulary is a part. The current Bill provides that the commissioner be appointed by the Cabinet and remunerated at rates set by the Cabinet, as well, the Bill says that the commissioner is to work with staff provided by the minister.

Chairperson, on the subject of independence, the minister claims that he is going to address that fully simply by providing that the commissioner report to the House of Assembly instead of to the minister, but that goes nowhere near addressing the concern that there is not an appropriate relationship between the commissioner and the police force and minister, therefore, Chairperson, I have proposals to amend clause 18 (1) to delete Lieutenant-Governor in Council and substitute House of Assembly, for clause 18 (5) to delete Lieutenant-Governor in Council and substitute House of Assembly, and, an amendment to clause 21 to delete minister and substitute House of Assembly. Further, an amendment to clause 22 to delete Lieutenant-Governor in Council and House of Assembly.

Chairperson, I feel that the scope of a commissioner is much too narrow. This Bill relegates the commissioner to a passive role; it sets up a commissioner who has to sit and wait for members of the public to bring complaints to him or her. I propose that the role of the commissioner be strengthened by allowing the commissioner to be active and specifically empowering the commissioner to initiate complaints, therefore I propose an amendment to clause 19 (1) to add after (a), (b) Initiate a complaint, and then to reletter (b) to (c) and (c) to (d).

Chairperson, the reason why many people in the Province are interested in this legislation and concerned about it, is because of what they learned about the miscarriage of justice in this Province in the mid-1970s, when complaints were made about abuse of children at Mount Cashel. People discovered to their horror, from February of 1989, when I as Minister of Justice re-activated the police investigation, that the original police investigation had been thwarted. We all learned that senior police officers stifled the junior officers who had begun an investigation and improperly charges were not laid at that time.

This Bill does not address the Mount Cashel situation because it does not allow the police commissioner to take complaints from members of the police force. Chairperson, I propose to improve the Bill by moving an amendment to Clause 22(1) deleting the whole of the subclause and substituting the following: A person including a police officer may file with the commissioner a complaint concerning the conduct of a police officer or officers, or of Constabulary procedures or practices.

That amendment not only addresses the need to open up the complaints process to members of the force themselves who may, as in the mid-nineteen-seventies situation, in the Mount Cashel investigation, be improperly interfered with by their senior officers or other officers; but it also addresses the concern that I have that the scope of complaints is much too narrow. This, number one, relegates the commissioner to a passive role. It allows complaints only from members of the public - people outside the Constabulary - and then says that complaints have to be about particular police officers. I believe that to be meaningful people have to be allowed to complain not only about individual incidents but about patterns of behaviour, about practices and procedures.

A very serious concern that's been raised by a number of advocates for victims of crime - one of whom was represented at the hearing, the provincial Association Against Family Violence - is that the time limit is ridiculous. Now the minister is purporting to address the concerns in his amendment but he does no such thing. He's still saying three months, except he's going on to say: legally that means three months from when the complainant has full possession of the facts, or in the case of a child it doesn't go on until the child becomes an adult. It's still a ridiculous time limit. As the representative of the committee against family violence and a social worker who's done a tremendous amount of work with sexual abuse survivors said at the meeting: haven't we learned anything over the last few years in this Province, after listening to all the revelations about sexual abuse?

It takes victims of sexual abuse much longer than three months to come to terms with their experience and to muster the courage to disclose, even to a confidant, a close relative or friend, much less a public authority, an intimidating public figure such as a police public complaints commissioner. I therefore propose amendments, Chairperson, to Clause 22 (4) to say a complaint made under Subsection 1 concerning the conduct of a police officer or officers shall be made within six months of the complainants being informed of the conduct complained about, or in the case of a continuing misconduct, within six months after the last incidence of the alleged misconduct. Then to go on and add Clause 22 (5) notwithstanding Subsection 4: if the conduct complained about involves sexual misconduct or domestic violence there shall be no time limit for making a complaint. Chairperson why would we want to stifle complaints about serious allegations of misconduct? There will be allegations of misconduct on the part of the investigating officers, improprieties on a part of the police in relating to and dealing with complainants -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MS. VERGE: I only have two more brief amendments, Chairperson.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Does the hon. member have leave?

MS. VERGE: Yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: By leave.

MS. VERGE: Amendments to Clause 22 to delete Subclause 5 and to delete Clause 24 and 25. These are only some of the changes which I think are necessary to make this legislation appropriate, to have the commissioner in an appropriate relationship to the Cabinet, the minister and the police force which is to be the subject of review, and to provide the commissioner with sufficient power and scope to deal effectively with concerns which arise from time to time about policing.

Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendments presented by the hon. member are in order.

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have just a few comments to make on this, and there are a couple of comments I want to make about the hon. member's amendments, too. I was intrigued by the question raised by the hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West. Why would the government want the record of more closures than all prior governments put together since Confederation? The answer to that is fairly simple and it depends on whether you are looking at it from a point of view of the Opposition, that particular Opposition, or your an independent objective observer looking down. If you were an independent objective observer looking down and seeing it what you would see, Mr. Chairman, is that the necessity for closure was only created essentially with this Opposition. This is where the need for it came because they seem to be forgetting that there was an election in April 1989 and they lost. They're resisting everything that the government does. No longer are they Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, they are 'Her Majesty's Disloyal Obstructionist.' Their objective is now to obstruct Her Majesty's Loyal Government in the conduct of the business of the Province. Now there's the reason for it.

If you look at it, closure has been necessary because this Opposition has persisted in stopping the conduct of government business. All one has to do is look at the hours that the House has been open in this session, compared with what the situation was before. We're now already gone well over 1,100 hours in the mere three and a half years that this government has been in power and leading the House. Eleven hundred direct House hours plus another 170 hours of legislative committees. Nearly thirteen hundred hours. In the entire term of the last House of Assembly, when they were the government, they had a total of 864 hours.

Now they want the people of this Province to believe that somehow we're using the hobnailed boots. We're riding roughshod over them. This particular piece of legislation I believe has been on the Table of the House since November 25. Since November 25. They're talking as though it was suddenly sprung on them yesterday.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: Sprung!

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Chairman, I'm happy to answer his question. This Opposition has set about to deliberately filibuster and prevent the orderly conduct of the House. Now in answer to the question raised by the hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West, his question was: why would the government want the record of more closures than all other prior governments? The answer is we don't want the record. We wish we had a loyal and responsible Opposition, then this wouldn't be necessary. Now that's the simple explanation of it. He raised the question, I thought I should answer it. Bear in mind we started this fall session, when? Early November, or late October?

MR. ROBERTS: Second of November, wasn't it?

PREMIER WELLS: Second of November. We're now seven weeks.

MS. VERGE: You weren't ready for it when you (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: We're now seven weeks, Mr. Chairman, and this House hasn't adjourned for one moment because the government wasn't ready for business. For seven weeks the Opposition has held up the orderly conduct of business. All of a sudden they're of the view that the government is walking over them with hobnailed boots, issuing the gag order, putting the gag on the Opposition. Government has no intention of doing any such thing. We've provided more opportunity for debate on public issues than the former government did.

I remember the way they used to put things through. I remember what they did with the Meech Lake proposal. Helter-skelter. Five minutes here, fifteen minutes somewhere else, over a four- or five-month period. Never any intelligent debate on the issue. As a matter of fact, here's a Hansard excerpt from a closure motion. The motion is closure on the Budget. To move closure on the Budget debate. Now the date wasn't after May, 1989. The date was June 29, 1988. I was sitting in the House as Opposition Leader at the time. Closure on the Budget.

MR. ROBERTS: Who moved it?

PREMIER WELLS: Who moved it? The present Leader of the Opposition.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

PREMIER WELLS: Moved closure on the Budget debate and the opposition were incensed and raised the question: moving closure on the Budget. Here is the explanation, now listen. Give the Leader of the Opposition, who was then the Minister of Finance, a fair hearing on this now to hear what I have to say. Here is his explanation.

He moved closure, he is President of Treasury Board, the hon. member is right, he is the President of Treasury Board, Government House Leader. He moved closure and here is his explanation: just in case, speaking to the opposition, if you want to hold up the people of the Province to ransom, we may be forced to use it. Move the 'just in case', there was not even any effort to stop the orderly conduct of government business, but they moved it just in case, June 29, 1988, Volume XL, No. 65, page R 3682.

MR. ROBERTS: Anticipatory closure.

AN HON. MEMBER: What a fundamental (inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: Just in case, and here is what the Opposition said at the time. The poor Opposition was devastated by this; here is what the Opposition House Leader said at the time. Just listen to what the Opposition House Leader said at the time: It is interesting to note that the hon. gentleman has now given notice of closure, and I say to him that what he is doing is something out of the ordinary, is not at all ordinary. The Budget was not called until yesterday. The Budget was brought in in April, not called for debate until the day before, and the second day of debate on the budget he moves closure. Now -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No.

PREMIER WELLS: - and then, Mr. Chairman, on June 30th, they invoked closure. Now, Mr. Chairman, that is what they did, just in case there would be some debate on the Budget, move closure, and now the Member for Burin - Placentia West, talks about hobnailed boots and the like -

MR. ROBERTS: How quickly they forget.

PREMIER WELLS: - It is a little bit difficult to give it any credibility. It is really a little bit difficult for me to stand here and even talk about it. It is so without merit, I think I should probably sit down right this minute because it just is too much, Mr. Chairman, but before I do sit down I just want to have a word or two on the merits of the proposal.

Mr. Chairman, I do not suggest to the Committee for one minute that this is the perfect solution, I understand that. Now bear in mind where we are coming from; we are coming from a situation where there is nothing; the only thing that exists is somebody has a complaint, that person goes to the chief of police and makes a complaint and the chief investigates it. Other than that, they go to the minister, that's it, okay? Now, Mr. Chairman, that is the situation that exists at the moment -

AN HON. MEMBER: There is something wrong in what your saying.

PREMIER WELLS: Never mind something wrong -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: No, there is not. Get on with it, (inaudible) of the estimates.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) something wrong.

PREMIER WELLS: No, there is not. That is on the committees, remember? It includes the committees -

AN HON. MEMBER: No, (inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: Just dig it out and have a look at it and I think you will find that it is there, I think you will find it. I am just quoting from Hansard, Mr. Chairman, I am just quoting from Hansard and I think you will find it is quite accurate. I think you will find it is quite accurate.

Now, Mr. Chairman, just let me finish for a few brief moments on the merits of this. If hon. members will just withhold for a few minutes, I would like to say a few words on the merits of this issue. Remember that we are going from nothing at the moment - there has never been any procedure there in the past - and now we are putting in place a complaints' procedure. Bear in mind, I say to members of the committee, they should bear in mind that this Province does not have the ability to put in place the kind of structure that the Member for Humber East would want us to put in place, a full blown committee that is going to be initiating complaints on its own and so on. Where are we going to get the financial resources to maintain the trappings of an elephant when we have only the back of a mouse to support it? We cannot possibly do that.

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: I do not know, there might be forty a day for all I know.

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: No, I do not, there is no reason to do that. I do not want to create somebody to create a job for himself. I do not want to create a position and appoint somebody who will then continue to make a job for himself or herself in order to maintain the position. Do what is necessary, don't do what is unnecessary, don't create a problem where none exists. I do not see any rational thought behind that at all. Bare in mind, Mr. Chairman, that there is nothing there now.

Now what we are putting in place is a proposal whereby any person who has a complaint against the police can go to the police chief and if there is not total satisfaction there, has every right to go directly to the Commissioner. Now that has never existed before and if the Commissioner feels there is any merit in the complaint, the Commissioner, whoever it is, has the right to initiate a full scale investigation to provide for an adjudication process to determine whether or not there is any validity to the complaint.

Now, Mr. Chairman, that is reasonably within the financial ability of this Province and appears to me to be a remedy that is commensurate with the ill that we are trying to deal with. We do not have to create a Supreme Court of Canada to deal with this issue. We just need an orderly process to make sure that a complaint can be taken beyond the chief of police and ensure that there will be independent adjudication of it.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the Member for Humber East had a number of suggestions. I do not know the effect of the last three amendments but a couple of the first ones that she had an opportunity to explain, struck me as being worthy of some comment. The first one is to move that it be appointed by the House, not by the government, you have to have such a person appointed by the House, not by the government. Mr. Chairman, name the legislation brought in by the former government where the appointment was by the House and not the government. Name the legislation creating any entity or body where the former government felt that the appointment should be made by the House and not the government, name one.

Mr. Chairman, I go back to the comment I made at the beginning, they have forgotten and overlooked totally the results of the April 20th vote. They are no longer the government, the people sitting on this side of the House are the government, but they cannot give it up. They want to maintain control of the power of the government and if they cannot have it themselves, at least they want the government to be the entire House of Assembly. Well, that, Mr. Chairman, is not how the parliamentary system works. It is a proper function for the government to do this. The government has brought forward legislation that would require the Commissioner to report to the House of Assembly.

Mr. Chairman, no government before this one has brought in the kind of measures to ensure independence that this government has in a variety of things that we have done, in terms of the Auditor General's Act, in terms of the Election Act and so on.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about the ombudsman?

PREMIER WELLS: Talk about the ombudsman, the great ombudsman was in place when Mount Cashel was having its difficulties. Where was this great ombudsman who was going to solve all the problems, when they needed somebody to complain to? Where was he? What good did he do?

Mr. Chairman, I have already addressed the proposal to have the Commissioner initiate complaints, it is utterly unnecessary. Just in case there is not enough to keep somebody occupied full-time, they want a Commissioner there to be initiating complaints. It is utter nonsense.

I am also a little surprised at the hon. member's suggestion that somehow what she has done brought the whole police role in the Mount Cashel affair to the fore. I remind hon. members that such was not the case. The proposal for a Royal Commission into the Mount Cashel affair brought forward by the former government had no inquiry whatsoever in the role of the police or the Justice Department - none at all. It was an inquiry only into - and we stopped it dead in its tracks.

AN HON. MEMBER: You restricted it.

PREMIER WELLS: It was restricted. We stopped it dead in its tracks.

In case anybody has any doubts, let me tell this committee, Mr. Chairman, what that hon. member said when an enquiry was put to her about why she would refuse the setting up of an independent inquiry to delve into the administration of justice in the Mount Cashel affair. Here was her answer, and they refer to the Marshall case in Nova Scotia: Well that was Nova Scotia, and I am not sure how it was structured exactly. What I do not agree with in an inquiry is an inquiry probing into the past. I think it is a misdirection of effort and resources. I do believe very strongly that the public has to be given an explanation for what happened. What I do not favour is a public inquiry into the past, of a witch hunt nature.

Now that was not this government. That was the former government. As a matter of fact, it was the hon. Member for Humber East in her role as Minister of Justice. So she was avoiding this inquiry into the police. Now, all of a sudden, the government cannot even appoint a Commissioner. It has to be done by the House of Assembly. What utter nonsense. And you have to have an inquiry that will now initiate complaints into the police procedure. You cannot any longer have a Commissioner to whom persons concerned can complain. You have to have one who will now initiate complaints.

There is one great difference between those two standards, Mr. Chairman - a massive difference between those two standards.

Mr. Chairman, I suggest clearly the need for closure is clear. The Opposition are simply filibustering on something that they think is somehow a good cause, and which they can make a point and try and achieve some political success.

Mr. Chairman, with great respect to the hon. members, I suggest to them that there is no real merit in their position. Let's put this commission in place, as is proposed, and if it is found to be deficient in the future, and if we can improve upon it in the future, as no doubt maybe we will be able to, I do not suggest for a moment that it is perfect. Let's put it in place. It is within our means. It is within our financial means. We cannot afford a massive structure that we have to pay a vast sum for, but I believe we can put in place a process whereby we can be assured of an independent Commissioner to whom anybody who has cause for complaint can complain if they do not get satisfaction from the police department.

So I ask hon. members to agree to put it into place as it is proposed and if, in the future, it turns out to be deficient or inadequate to meet the needs, then let's address that problem if, as, and when it arises but let us not create a monstrous organization that in all probability would be unnecessary to any reasonable developments that are likely to occur in the future. I would ask hon. members to support the Bill as it is with the amendments you just suggested.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: I wish to participate in this debate because I think it is an important debate for a number of reasons. First of all I would like to address a couple of remarks to the Premier and the Minister of Health's comments about the approach government has taken on this, particularly the remarks about the Opposition allegedly filibustering this legislation and trying to delay it. Well, Mr. Chairman, I only need remind the Premier and other members opposite that this legislation was called for debate by the Government House Leader at 4:37 in the morning after members had been in their places, some of them, since 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon without a supper break, and without a break of any kind being given to hon. members.

This was an obvious attempt by government to seek an Opposition that was prepared to roll over, play dead and not perform its public function and duty as an Opposition to debate legislation. That was what happened here on Thursday night and Friday morning. There was orderly debate, there were twelve or thirteen pieces of legislation before the House most of which was passed, but 4:37 a.m. I say to the Premier, was not a proper conscionable, responsible approach of this government to attempt to have a reasoned debate on amendments in the dead of night with only one reporter who managed to stay awake. I do not know how awake he was but he did a very commendable job trying to keep himself awake listening to hon. members speak.

So, Mr. Chairman, to suggest that the legislation was being held up by the Opposition is really to suggest that we were not prepared, those of us who managed to stay on our feet and stay speaking, were not prepared to surrender unconditionally to the steamroller offered by the government and the Government House Leader because the public of this Province demanded to be heard on this issue. They are still demanding to be heard on this issue but they have not yet been heard on this issue. One of the government's critics on this is the former member of the constitution committee appointed by the Premier himself who had views on the Bill. Whether or not the Government House Leader agrees with those views or not surely he must agree with the views expressed by Dr. Peter Boswell in last weekend's Telegram as he is a very well informed individual, Mr. Speaker. He in fact had read the legislation, unlike most of the members opposite, and he had some criticism of it. He was unaware that a committee of this House was considering this legislation on Monday night last because there was no publicity given to it, Mr. Chairman. There was no advanced warning. There was a little news item that appeared in the Evening Telegram and if you missed that one little item, two or three lines, one would not have known that a legislative committee was meeting to listen to this.

There was some public debate about it but it was not public debate attended by members opposite, it was public debate that was attended by members of the Human Rights Association and other members of the public who attended a public meeting held at the Newfoundland Hotel on Tuesday night of last week. We have before us legislation which is considered by many to be of great importance because it allows members of the public to bring forth complaints that they may have about the police force. We have given police officers under our system a considerable amount of discretionary power to act at all hours of the day and night in a manner that can permit them to remove a person's freedom. To lock that person up, to use force against an individual under law, considerable force.

There must be a way for citizens to have a public, impartial, fair and accessible method of dealing with complaints that they have, so that they as individuals can be satisfied that the police are acting properly and fairly, and so that the rest of us, who are not complainants, can be satisfied that the police are doing their jobs and using the powers that we have given them properly, with restraint, and not in a manner so as to provide reasons for complaint that they're abusing the power that we give them. It serves the public interest to have a responsible, fair, impartial, accessible, public and open complaints procedure. Because we can also rest assured that those who do have complaints have a means to bring them without fair or favour, and without having to be concerned that there's not going to be repercussions for them.

I want to approach this by saying that the government has not done its job in listening to the people in this matter. I want to bring up some of the issues and deal with them from the point of view of a complainant or a potential complainant out there. The Premier has made reference to the Hughes Commission. Unfortunately, the police complaints commission, or public complaints commission, that the minister has proposed and the government supports would not do anything to alleviate the problem that was found by the Hughes Commission because under the proposals offered by the government the only people who can't make complaints are police officers themselves.

We found out through the Hughes Commission of Inquiry that therein layed the flaw of public investigation of the activities at Mount Cashel in the mid-seventies. The flaw arose because an order that was given to stop a complaint failed to go forward and act on complaints that had been made to the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. The one person - or perhaps there were more within the police department - who could have done something about it by making a complaint are barred by this legislation from making complaints. No role for police officers to make complaints under this. I'm glad that the Member for Humber East has made an amendment which would permit that to happen.

We're not looking at a huge number of complaints here. The experience in other provinces - and we've been given some information about that - is that initially there may be many complaints. There may be many complaints initially. Almost all of them will not be found to have merit. That's thought to be a good thing, because that will immediately increase public confidence in our police force. Knowing that while complaints may be brought forward, investigated impartially and properly, and be dismissed, we can have confidence - and we expect fully to have confidence - that our police force is doing a good job, that's number one. We don't expect to have lots of complaints because we have a force that has respect in this Province but we want to make sure that respect is continued to be deserved. So we have that issue that has to be resolved. I think the Member for Humber East has dealt with it.

Will a complainant be able to complain? There are two problems in that. Number one is the issue of time limits. I believe the government has attempted halfheartedly to deal with that but they still haven't dealt with the problem that three months is not a long enough time. Those who are active in the field, particularly of counselling, particularly in the area of sexual trauma and assault trauma, will tell you that despite the fact of being made aware of their right to complain, it may well take a period of time. A period of time, up to a year perhaps, where a complainant will have to go through a process of deciding that they have sufficient strength, internal strength, power or support within their own family, friends or in the community, to be able to pursue psychologically a complaint in this manner. So that has not been addressed adequately, again the Member for Humber East has brought forth an amendment which will address that point.

The second issue, Mr. Chairman, is money. Can a member of the public, knowing that the adjudicator or that the Commissioner and the adjudicator in particular, has been given the power in Section 33 to order an individual complainant, if the complaint is unfounded, to pay compensation? Can an individual member of the public have confidence that they will be able to have access to the complaints procedure without having to dip into their pockets and lash out who knows how much money, who knows, because a member of the public would not have any real idea of how often such a ruling may be made or how much money may be involved? Mr. Chairman, that is a serious problem. Anybody who thinks it is not does not understand how the ordinary person thinks about legal procedure and about how it works. If you read Section 33, sub-paragraph (8), you will see - Sub-class (7) actually - deals with the payment of money by a complainant, if the complaint is unfounded. We know from experience in other provinces that 98 per cent of the complaints are going to be unfounded.

So, Mr. Chairman, if you want to have an accessible complaints procedure, you must remove that and to be fair to the police officers you should remove the requirement that they might be made to pay as well. There are plenty of powers in the adjudication process to satisfy the needs of justice in resulting in a discipline procedure against a police officer. The possible demotion of a police officer, the prevention of a police officer from receiving a promotion in the three years following and various other disciplinary actions, including suspension or firing, all of these are powers that are given to the adjudicator. It is not necessary to make the police officer also pay the cost of the commission. So, to be fair to both, Mr. Chairman, that ought to be removed there and I have amendments to deal with those points. So, that is the second set of points, who has the right to complain has been dealt with and will the complainant be able to complain, the time limit on this issue has being dealt with by my friend on this side of the House, the Member for Humber East. The issue of the complainant being made to pay is a very, very serious one for potential complainants. It has been raised by individuals at a Human Rights Association forum held at the Newfoundland Hotel, it was raised before the committee here and it is a serious problem.

The third issue that I want to deal with is the question of who does the initial investigation? Now, Mr. Chairman, again before the committee, and it was a very hastily called together committee and those who made presentations including the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Association, made it clear that their comments were preliminary in nature only. As well as the Human Rights Association, who put together hastily, a brief which was fairly thorough but it was only, again, the initial reaction of the Human Rights Association. Strangely enough, and it is not often that this happens because of the whole issue of civil liberties and human rights, quite often authority groups, such as the police andthe Human Rights Association are at odds, but here is a situation, Mr. Chairman, where both of them agreed; both the police association representing and defending its members, which is their right and duty, and the Human Rights Association, the Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Association speaking out on behalf of the civil liberties of all of us, both agreed that it would be best for there to be an independent investigation, initially.

Now they said that they had no problem with the chief doing investigation, they had faith in the police chief and the higher echelons of the force and they had no problem with that type of investigation because they themselves believed they would be impartial, but they respected public opinion on this and they said that for the public to have confidence in it, which they thought the public needed, then they would agree that a better solution were to have an independent investigator. So I have proposed an amendment that will provide for just that. I have proposed an amendment that will provide for just that.

Now the last issue that I want to address specifically concerning the amendments to the Bill is the issue of the adjudication process, and once again we have a Commissioner who under my amendments would be the initial investigator, would have the same powers as the chief has in an initial investigation, and I have proposed amendment to delete the role of the chief in the investigation process and in the initial process and give those powers to the Commissioner, but then the Commissioner can still be appealed from, and that appeal would go to an adjudicator. But I have redefined adjudicator to mean adjudication panel composed of three people, one of whom shall be a lawyer, one of whom shall be appointed after consultation with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Association, and the third shall be appointed after consultation with the Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Association and the Federation of Municipalities.

MR. REID: (Inaudible) Lynn Verge to take that (inaudible).

MS. VERGE: You would not get (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Chairman, the Member for Carbonear does not realize that the Bill we are debating has the requirement to appoint six lawyers, six lawyers. Now, Mr. Chairman, I am suggesting that we should appoint one lawyer as the chair of the adjudication panel, and two others, it is very similar to the Labour Relations Board. We would probably have one-twenty-fifth of the number of hearings as the Labour Relations Board has, but it is very similar.

The Labour Relations Board had a chairman and a deputy chairman and usually they are lawyers, they do not have to be, but usually they are. Then there is a panel that is representative of employers, a panel representative of employees, and that is considered to be a fair and reasonable body, and sitting on any one case is the chair or deputy chair and a representative of each panel. My guess is that these adjudication panels would probably sit for half-a-dozen days a year, not nearly as often as many of the other panels and boards that the commission has because it is not going to be a big cost because you are not going to have a lot of hearings, most of these will be resolved at the Commissioner's stage and most of these, because the investigation is being done initially by an independent person, the Commissioner not the chief of police, the public will more readily accept, a complainant will more readily accept a negative finding by a Commissioner than they would accept a negative finding by a chief of police. It is as simple as that.

If I as a member of the public is complaining about the behaviour of a police officer and I go to the police chief and he says: well, no, I am standing behind the police officer. I will turn around and say: Well what do you expect? I have to go to the next stage - to the commissioner.

If I, as a member of the public, go to the independent police commissioner, or public complaints commissioner, who investigates and finds against me, I will say: Well, I have had my complaint looked at by an independent person. If that independent person says 'no', I am more inclined to accept it, and I am very likely to accept it.

If members opposite are concerned about the vast cost of having a three person adjudication panel, they are mistaken in expecting that it is going to cost very much money.

The Member for Port de Grave has suggested to me that there is something about a dog show here - the Bowwow Dog Show - from The Globe and Mail. I suppose I give the hon. member credit for his historical - and he has referred to myself and the Member for Humber East. I do not know which one is 'bow' and which one is 'wow', but the hon. member may be familiar with a cartoon that appeared in the British illustrated newspapers back in 1832 or 1834 or 1835, which called this Parliament the 'Bowwow Parliament' - and I do not think it was a compliment, Mr. Chairman. I do not think it was a compliment, and I do not think that the hon. Member for Port de Grave's intention is to compliment the Member for Humber East and myself on our contribution to this debate.

Unfortunately, the Member for Port de Grave has not been listening carefully enough, because occasionally he is a reasonable man and occasionally could be persuaded by good sense. I saw the Premier chatting with him briefly a little earlier tonight, and I am sure the Premier was trying to talk some sense into the Member for Port de Grave. I hope it worked.

AN HON. MEMBER: He gave you a Christmas card.

MR. HARRIS: The Member for Port de Grave sent me a Christmas card. I have no complaint about the Member for Port de Grave.

AN HON. MEMBER: Prove it.

MR. HARRIS: He may not realize he sent me a Christmas card, but he did.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: The Member for Port de Grave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Hon. members are asking for proof, and that I should table it. They do not believe it.

On a serious note, Mr. Chairman, I have offered my comments on the legislation. I think that this is a very serious matter. If it was not a serious matter we would not have spent the time debating it that it required. Unfortunately, because of the closure motion having been introduced by the government on this, there is not really sufficient time to debate it. I only had time to make these five or six points, and I hereby table amendments. They are being copied right now, but I do not have them to read them out.

If I can have my amendments back so I can move them, before my twenty minutes is expired, I know hon. members will give unanimous consent to allow me to put them all before the House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. HARRIS: I have a number of amendments, Mr. Chairman, to be put before the House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Does the hon. member have leave to present his amendments?

MR. HARRIS: Just to table the amendments, Mr. Chairman. There are nine amendments. I will not read them out, with the consent of the House, and have them tabled.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just a second now. We have to check on the amendments.

Okay. The amendments are in order.

The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm just going to take a few moments to address the Bill, but even perhaps more importantly to address what we're doing here tonight. I'm surprised that the Premier has missed totally the reason why we're here this evening. I think he has absolutely no comprehension of why this House is sitting this evening. He seems to think that the Opposition is here for no good purpose, no useful reason, simply trying to delay the business of the House. We're not objecting to closure it's just that there's not enough time available for us to speak to this particular piece of legislation. It is not that complicated that members on this side would need a great amount of time to address the various points in it.

The simple matter is that there are very basic principles that Opposition members disagree with and they are very basic principles of not having enough time for public input from those people who are concerned to look at the Bill. The reason that we have, I guess, caused the government to be in a position where they have decided to invoke closure is not simply to delay the proceedings of the House, but to try to get the message to government that this legislation should not be before this House at all at this particular point in time, that there should have been proper time given for study of the Bill. It should have been sent to the appropriate legislative committee and there should have been proper opportunity for public input into the Bill.

The Premier seems to think that this is simply a filibuster, in which case obviously he misses the whole point. I can assure the Premier if we wanted to filibuster we can filibuster. There's nobody wants to be here three days before Christmas. We don't want to be here any more than hon. gentlemen opposite do. But we have an obligation as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. I take exception to the Premier's suggestion that maybe this Opposition is not a loyal Opposition. We are a heck of a lot more loyal to the people of this Province than that government is. The fact of the matter is, as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition we have a responsibility - not only a right but a responsibility - to provide good, sound, logical opposition to the government. To provide an alternative, to point out when they're going astray. We're the last hope of protecting the people against legislation which is inappropriate and unjust. That's our role here.

So I don't want to apologize to the Premier or to anyone else in this Province for the fact that we are here at great inconvenience to ourselves at this particular time of year dealing with these very important matters. If they weren't important we wouldn't mind. But we see how important they are to the government that this Bill was introduced at 4:37 in the morning. Tried to sneak it through in the depths of the night.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Where were you?

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Chairman, that's hardly an appropriate way for a government to act to a piece of legislation as important as this. The Premier says: we've held up the business of the House for seven weeks. We were here for five and half of those weeks with nothing on the order paper worth debating. Nothing worth debating.

AN HON. MEMBER: The puffin.

MR. WINDSOR: Yes. Whether we're going to have a puffin for an avian emblem of the Province. Important in some areas, Mr. Chairman, but hardly worth taking up a great deal of the time of this House of Assembly. Why didn't we have this legislation seven weeks ago? Why didn't we have it to deal with then?

AN HON. MEMBER: It appeared November 25 (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: November 25.

MS. VERGE: That was four weeks after the House opened.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. WINDSOR: Closure, Mr. Chairman. This government in the first - not even its first year - in the first half session invoked closure more than every other government combined in the history of this Province. They're going to be known as the closure government.

MS. VERGE: The arrogant government.

MR. WINDSOR: It's incredible. Gone from a dictatorship to a closure government in no time at all.

Now the Premier made mention of the fact - you know, the Premier is a master of half-truths - I am going to go so far as to say that I have never heard the Premier tell a lie, but I have never heard him tell the whole truth either, and he has done it again tonight. He said that the government of June of 1988 - June 29, 1988 he told me - in response to my question, that the Opposition Leader, who was then President of Treasury Board and Government House Leader, introduced a motion of closure on the Budget. Why would we do that? Why would we invoke closure? Is it because we did not want to stay here all night? Is it because there was not time to deal with it? The Budget came down in March, and on June 29th. - June 30th. is the last day of the month. There are thirty days in June. Is that right?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. WINDSOR: And on the first of July there are poll days. There are social assistance recipients who need cheques. If notice of closure was given, in case we need it tomorrow, was because the opposition of the day was deliberately holding the government and the people of this Province up for ransom by refusing to pass the Budget so that people on social assistance could be paid; people in hospitals, teachers, and everybody else could be paid. Now there is the whole truth, Mr. Chairman.

PREMIER WELLS: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Chairman, the Premier knows as well as every member of this House, that there are seventy-five hours allocated for Budget debate.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nonsense.

MR. WINDSOR: That is not nonsense. Go read your rule book. It has changed since 1964. There are seventy-five hours allocated to the Budget, and all except nine hours are taken up in committee. These are committees of the House of Assembly who did their work for those weeks - not like the committees that the Premier stuck his chest out and said: We are going to have legislation review committees. What a farce! Why is this legislation not before the legislation review committees? It made a mockery of it, just like every other hollow promise this Premier has made since he first ran for election as leader of that party.

So, Mr. Chairman, there were nine hours left and they were being taken up in debating the two or three sections, Executive Council, the House of Assembly, I think, funds, these sorts of things, at finance itself, that are debated in the House.

Then you go to the final stages, and the Government House Leader today said: We have to have this passed. It was being made clear by hon. gentlemen opposite - some of whom were here then and are here now - made clear that this will not pass - holding the people up for ransom.

Mr. Chairman, I suggest that is good and valid reason to invoke closure - not simply because the Premier wants to get off somewhere skiing for his Christmas vacation. That is not a good cause for invoking closure.

There is a big difference in exercising responsibilities of government and simply trying to ram something through in the dark of the night, 4:37 a.m., a few days before Christmas - something that has been talked about since back in December, 1990 the ombudsman was abolished, and in May of 1991 the Hughes Commission recommended a police commission.

I point out to the Premier, who likes to take barbs at my friend from Humber East, that it was she who set up the Hughes Commission in the first place.

PREMIER WELLS: Only to examine (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Only to examine. She initiated the whole thing.

This government has been in office now since the Hughes Commission reported in November of 1992, and he is still only now taking action, a few days before Christmas. Now all of a sudden it is urgent, we have to jam it through. We have to jam it through, Mr. Chairman, in the last few days. I cannot believe the arrogance of the Premier, yes, I can believe it because I have become so used to it. Trying to suggest that this Opposition is somehow derelict and using a miscarriage of justice in trying to delay this government from passing a piece of legislation which so many people object to and so many people want to have some meaningful input into before it passes. Mr. Chairman, to suggest that this is simply a filibuster is certainly not a truth.

MR. GRIMES: Have you read the bill?

MR. WINDSOR: I read the bill. I assure the Member for Exploits, Mr. Chairman, that I do not stand on my feet here and debate any Bill that I have not read. Not like some ministers who introduce them here and they have not even read them.

Now, Mr. Chairman, there are a number of points that could be made, they have been made and I do not want to belay them, it serves no purpose, it means simply repeating what has been said many, many times. It is clear this government is going to ram this legislation through and so they may as well go ahead and ram it through. There is nothing to be accomplished. Let the message go out loud and clear that strong opposition was brought forward by this Opposition on behalf of those people who want to have input but that the government used closure a few days before Christmas, introduced it 4:37 in the morning and jammed this Bill through. That will not change the fact, Mr. Chairman, that what is being established here is a Commissioner, this is going to be known as a commission of government, if they are not going to be known as the closure government, they will be known as the commission government. Everything they do they want to appoint a commissioner to deal with it, appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, paid by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, it is a far cry from the ombudsman who was a servant to this House and did not answer to the Premier. The Premier likes to think that everybody is going to answer to the Premier. Every House committee and Public Accounts Committee he is trying to play games with, the auditor general he is trying to play games with. He fired the ombudsman because he did not like him, now he wants to appoint a commissioner. Which one of his buddies is he going to appoint now? I wonder who he has in line? Do we have a name already?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: The consumer advocate, he fired him. The fire commissioner is in jeopardy I would say. Anybody who might have anything negative to say about the government, they either get flicked out of office or they get driven to the back benches over there, anybody who dares to criticize. Where is the Member for Eagle River tonight? Where is the Member for St. John's South? They were not even allowed to come to the House of Assembly today I am told. Where are they now? They dare to speak up on behalf of their constituents in accordance with their conscience, so they get driven away, go home for Christmas boys, go home for Christmas.

So, now we are going to have a Commissioner appointed by the Premier, Lieutenant-Governor in council in this case, with this particular government that means the Premier. Now we have a little dictator next to him, two dictators, they are not sure which is which now anymore.

Mr. Chairman, here is a Commissioner now appointed by government. We have a system here whereby police initiated complaints primarily go to the police chief and the police chief or the deputy chief will review it. They will decide if any further action needs to be taken. Maybe down the road the Commissioner will be asked to deal with it. Now the public can go directly to the Commissioner, but where do the police go? Who do the police complain to, Mr. Chairman? If a police officer has a complaint, who does he or she complain to?

PREMIER WELLS: (Inaudible) complain to the police chief or to the Commissioner.

MR. WINDSOR: He can complain to the Commissioner. The Act doesn't say that.

MS. VERGE: No, the Act -

PREMIER WELLS: He or she is a person.

MR. WINDSOR: The Act says clearly: a member of the public may approach the Commissioner.

PREMIER WELLS: Is the policeman not a member of the public?

MR. WINDSOR: Section 22(1): "A person other than a police officer -"

PREMIER WELLS: A person other than a police officer.

MR. WINDSOR: Other than a police officer. Clearly excludes the police officer. Alright? "...[M]ay file a complaint concerning the conduct of a police officer in writing at a constabulary office or with the commissioner." How about a police officer who has a complain? How about the police officer who wanted to expose the Mount Cashel affair and was silenced? Who does he go to complain to?

MS. VERGE: Nobody.

MR. WINDSOR: Nobody.

AN HON. MEMBER: The Minister of Justice.

MR. WINDSOR: He goes to the Minister of Justice. Under threat of being fired, as the previous case was. Under threat of being fired. Finally had the courage to come out and deal with it. Who does a police officer complain to when this commissioner comes through?

AN HON. MEMBER: The complaints commission (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: There is nothing in here dealing with it.

MS. VERGE: The Premier didn't even know about it.

MR. WINDSOR: The police officer is specifically excluded.

PREMIER WELLS: (Inaudible) and there's a reason for (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Beg your pardon?

PREMIER WELLS: There's a reason.

MR. WINDSOR: I'd like to hear it.

PREMIER WELLS: (Inaudible) police, what would happen to the discipline in the police force? (Inaudible) police officer could (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: Maybe we wouldn't have had the Mount Cashel coverup.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. WINDSOR: The Premier wants to run the police force the same way as he runs his Cabinet. Don't complain about the police chief, you'll be fired; don't complain about the Premier or you'll be fired. We've seen that. There are a few more about to be fired I'm told, too. Won't be long now.

Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to delay this. I could go on for an hour talking about this Bill. I only have a couple of minutes left anyway. I won't even bother to use those. The point I simply wanted to make is that closure was not necessary. The point that this Opposition is trying to make is to ensure that the people of the Province who wanted to have an input into this legislation were given that opportunity. This government is sending a loud Christmas message to these people: we are not prepared to listen to you, it is our way or no way, we will move ahead using closure, in the dark of the night, and shove through any legislation that we wish.

Forty or fifty pieces of legislation in the last week or so, this government is going to inflict on the people of this Province. Not to mention tax bills. The Premier even admitted that late last week when two finance bills were circulated here at 9:00 in the morning and were debated at 10:00 a.m. I didn't even know they were here till the minister got up and introduced them. We had a good exchange on it. They were not major bills. But the principle of circulating a finance bill at 9:00 in the morning and then debating it at 10:00 a.m. is certainly contrary to all principles of running any democratic parliament.

MS. VERGE: The utility tax Bill was only printed last week, (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: The utility tax Bill, only printed last Thursday. Major piece of legislation. A lot of opposition to it. This government now is going to want to shove that through tomorrow, I suppose.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not tomorrow (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Well, we'll see if they get it through tomorrow. Mr. Chairman, I think that spells out very clearly where we are; why this government is bringing in closure; the whole attitude of this government towards the democratic system, and towards the people of this Province. Thank you very much.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, I shall be brief. I thank my hon. friend and appreciate his wholehearted support. I shall be very brief on this. There are two or three points that I'd like to make so that there's no misunderstanding where the government stands with respect to them.

First of all, let me just talk about closure.

I was not in the House in June 1988 when the closure motion was moved by, or notice of it was given by my friend who is now Leader of the Opposition, the hon. gentleman for Grand Falls, but what happened is obvious. The government brought in the Budget late in March, never did call the Budget for debate and there is no time limit on the Budget debate; there is a time limit on the estimates and Standing Order 119, I think, somewhere near the end of our Standing Orders. The Budget debate is limited only by virtue of the fact that there could only be one amendment and one subamendment.

The Budget debate is on the motion that the Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolves itself into a Committee of Ways and Means, but the government for whatever reason did not call the Budget. I could imagine why, they were in disarray, they did not call the Budget and in due course they found themselves in a position where the three-month interim supply they had taken from the House for April, May and June ran out or was about to run out. That is all that happened. That is all that happened.

MR. WINDSOR: (Inaudible) will not run out (inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Now just let us follow this same government, and the Member for Mount Pearl was a proud ornament in the government, he was one of the guiding geniuses. The lady for Humber East was another proud ornament and so was the gentleman for St. Mary's - The Capes, the gentleman for Grand Bank, the gentleman for Burin - Placentia West, the gentleman for Kilbride, they were all ornaments in the government. This is the government that, after the House adjourned in July never met the House again, never, went for nearly a year, nearly to the point where a mandamus application could have been sought under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to compel them to meet the House. They were three months into the fiscal year and had not even met the House in the 1989-1990 year, they never did bring the Sprung Bill before the House, neither the bill in the sense of legislation nor the bill in the sense of the damage to the credit of the Treasury of the Province.

I say they should hang their heads in shame. They are now coming forward and prating, prating about their conduct. Let them look in the mirror and let he among you who is without sin or she among you who is without sin be the first to cast the stone, is what I say to them.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: The hon. gentleman for St. John's East was not here, I agree with that, and he will not be here after the next election either.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: I agree with that.

MR. ROBERTS: Now, Mr. Chairman, let me deal with some of the substance. I rise to ask the Committee to adopt the amendments and to pass the Bill through the Committee stage, that is where we are now. I want to make one or two points. First of all, I say to the lady for Humber East if she cares to listen, and whether she cares to listen or not I am going to say it to the House and to the Province, that until after 9:00 on Friday morning, the 11th of December, I had had no word from any person outside this House that he, she or they wished to be heard with respect to this Bill. I had an interview at CBC on the Morning Show, I made a statement there within - the House met at nine o'clock, about 9:30 I got a note from one of my senior officials saying that word had come from the RNC Association, they wished to be heard. I immediately spoke with my friend for Harbour Grace, who is Chair of the relevant committee and suggested to him -

MS. VERGE: Where is the note?

MR. ROBERTS: I have the note and the hon. lady does not have the note and I know what is in it and I know what it says. It is not what she says it says.

Now, Mr.Chairman, let me carry on. I want to go through the amendments very briefly -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, the hon. gentleman may have seen it. Three blind mice, See how they run / They all ran after the butcher's wife, She cut off their tails with a carving knife / Three blind mice see how they run - one, two, three!

Now, Mr. Chairman, let me deal with the amendments to this Bill. Let us come to the substance of the amendments. A number of the amendments are procedural and some are substantive. First of all we want to give the Commissioner, in case there is any doubt that he or she may make recommendations respecting matters of concern or interest to the public relating to police services and can send their recommendations with supporting documents to the chief with a copy to the minister. We are going to make certain that any who have any doubt about the three month limitation period, and there have been concerns expressed, Ms Hebert came in here last week to the review committee and raised this point. Now as a matter of law in my judgement her concern was not well founded, but to ensure that there is no room for doubt we propose to move an amendment that says: notwithstanding Subsection 4 the three month time limit referred to in that subsection shall not begin to run against the complainant until he or she knows, or considering all circumstances of the matter, ought to know, that he or she has a right of complaint concerning the conduct of a police officer and the burden of proving a postponement of the running of the time under the subsection is a primary complainant claiming the benefit of that postponement. Now that addresses the matter fairly and squarely and resolves it. That is it.

MS. VERGE: It does not.

MR. ROBERTS: The hon. lady says it does not. Well, that confirms what a number of us suspect about her knowledge of the law and of statutes. I hope the press carries this. I would be delighted to meet with any group anywhere in the Province to discuss it and I would be delighted to have it go public. We have also proposed an amendment to again make it clear that the chief cannot lollygag when a complaint is laid with him or her, that the investigation shall be completed as soon as practicable but no later than three months from the date the complaint is filed and received.

AN HON. MEMBER: Lollgag, that's a new word.

MR. ROBERTS: Lollygag is not a new word, it is a good word. It may be new to my hon. friend but it is still good. He can trust me on that one. We are proposing an amendment to make certain that a police officer who is condemned to disciplinary sanctions will be heard first. We are proposing an amendment to make it clear that the Commissioner, this is a change, that the Commissioner shall report directly to the House instead of coming through the minister who must then obligatorily report to the House. We are giving the Commissioner the right to submit a special report at any time, the same right enjoyed by the auditor general. The rest of the amendments are relatively technical and I will not go into them in detail because time is limited, but these amendments, Mr. Chairman, address the substantial concerns. There are some concerns that have been raised that are not addressed by amendments and I want to make a comment or two on these because I do not want people to believe, I do not even want hon. members opposite to believe that we have not dealt with these complaints on their merit with their substance. First of all the Commissioner has tenure. Those who say that the Commissioner is somehow subject to the whim or will of a minister in Cabinet have not read the legislation. The Bill says very clearly that the Commissioner has tenure during good behaviour, five years.

MR. MATTHEWS: Who decides that?

MR. ROBERTS: My hon. friend for Grand Bank asks who decides it. I will tell him that term is defined in law. We are not writing here some policy, we are writing a statue, we are writing the law of this Province. Good behaviour is defined by law as being exactly that. It is contrasted during pleasure, during pleasure, which is the way most public servants who hold office. It means that he or she can be flicked at any time. Good behaviour means good behaviour and if the Cabinet wanted to move against an officer who holds -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. ROBERTS: That is the tenure of judges. That is the tenure of a judge of the Supreme Court or a judge of the Provincial Court.

AN HON. MEMBER: Calm down.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, my hon. friend for St. John's East says: calm down. I am calm I say to him compared to the nonsense I have heard from him and the others. They have not even read the Bill.

Mr. Chairman, let me deal with the next point. Somehow we should have adjudication panels of three members each. Now just listen to this. We're going to have three members on the panel. One representing each of the parties and then a neutral Chair. What a stupid idea. The mere fact that Mr. Sher Singh from Toronto advocates it doesn't make it any less stupid. This is not an arbitration panel. This is an adjudication panel.

Let me go on. They want a separate investigating force. We've got two police forces now. They want a third. They might want a fourth, because somebody will want to write to complain about the commissioner.

MR. FUREY: Investigate the investigator.

MR. ROBERTS: Investigate the investigator, my friend for St. Barbe rightly says. The same as this nonsense, this pathetic nonsense - pathetic in that the people who make it believe it but can't possibly have done their homework - saying that we can extend this to the RCMP. We do not run the RCMP, Mr. Chairman. It's run by the Government of Canada under aegis of an act adopted by the Parliament of Canada. We contract for its services. We pay 70 per cent of the cost in a twenty year agreement. Seventy per cent of the cost of the defined elements, the defined cost, of running the RCMP in this Province. Of the number of RCMP police officers who work for us there are some here who are not called provincial contract officers.

We can no more impose a discipline system on them than we can impose a rank system or a pay system or a promotion system, or change their red serge uniforms to green serge uniforms. One is as possible as the other. It would be pathetic were it not being made by hon. members opposite, who really ought to know better.

We've also proposed a commission that's a public complaints commission. No question about that. No individual other than a member of the public - and it's defined in fact as being everybody other than a police officer - may make a complaint. Now that means out of the 570,000 people in this Province 569,650 are eligible to lay a complaint. In fact, you could probably make the point that a body corporate could lay a complaint. The police officers can't. They have other remedies available to them. They have a very effective grievance procedure. My friend for St. John's East knows about it, because the law firm with which he was formerly associated has represented the RNC on occasion.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: He's acted for them himself. He'll be the first to acknowledge, a very effective grievance procedure. I'll go further and say as I've said before, that what happened in Mount Cashel was a case of an order being given by a man or men who believed they had the authority and the right, the moral right, to give that order. I knew some of those men. I knew them well. They would not have given an order they believed to be improper. Indeed, they would not have given one unless they believed it to be proper. That order was accepted and followed through by the then chief, so it was found by Mr. Justice Hughes, and by a number of police officers. In 1976, Judge Hughes found, this was the normal prosecutorial discretion. That's what people understood in those days.

Mr. Justice Soper of the Supreme Court, an eminent jurist, as fair, decent, honourable and learned a man as ever sat on the bench in this Province, found out about this in 1979 during the inquiry into the leak of the police report on the fire in Elizabeth Towers. The one that Dr. Farrell was charged with. The case was dismissed at a preliminary inquiry stage, thanks in part to some inspired advocacy by Dr. Farrell's council.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who was that?

MR. ROBERTS: Who acted, no doubt, pro bono.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Justice Soper heard of the matter at that stage and in a passage that is quoted by Judge Hughes in his report said - found nothing wrong with it. This was in 1979. If all of this happened today in 1992 no police officer would give such an order and no police officer would accept it. I've said repeatedly, it is the policy of this government. I did not hear it said by my predecessors in office, including the hon. lady from Humber East, that no police officer in this Province needs permission from a superior to (inaudible) information as long as he or she is prepared to take the information in the form prescribed by statute. That is it. It is that simple. You do not need permission.

MR. R. AYLWARD: It always was that way.

MR. ROBERTS: Well my friend from Kilbride says: It always was that way. I will say to him simply that Judge Hughes, after a very lengthy series of hearings, found that it was not always that way.

Now let me tell you about the ombudsman. I was a member of the government that brought the original ombudsman bill into this House. John Nolan, who then sat for St. John's South, was the man who sponsored it - the idea - developed it. It came into the House as a government bill. In the late sixties it became law. Where it went astray was when the next Premier appointed somebody whose sole qualification was that he was unemployed. Why was he unemployed? Because he had been elected twice and thrown out twice. For that gentleman to get elected meant he would be defeated the next time he went to the polls.

The man was there. He did not have adequate powers. I have read his reports. He did not exercise the powers that he had. A decent man, have him in for a cup of tea anytime - a pleasure to chat with him - but as ineffective as an eunuch in a bordello. A man who had no knowledge of his role, and no knowledge of what he should have been doing, and he did not use his powers.

Now I do not know whether anybody went to him during the Mount Cashel thing, but if they did not, and I assume nobody did, because if somebody had gone to him he would no doubt have tried to do something about it. The man is honourable and decent - no quarrel with that - but nobody went to him because he was perceived as being an absolutely neutered office.

The one report they ever brought in here was once when they caught Jim Morgan disregarding a Public Service Commission complaint, and he would not accept the recommendation of the Public Service Commission. The report was brought into the House by the ombudsman - the only time, in my years in the House, he ever made a special report. And the government of the day, of which the lady from Humber East was a member, and the gentleman from Mount Pearl was a member - I do not think the gentleman from St. Mary's - The Capes had emerged at that stage, or the gentleman from Grand Bank or the gentleman from Kilbride. They were all on the hitch in the back benches, or were not in the House at that time, but certainly the gentleman from Mount Pearl was a prominent ornament, as was the lady from Humber East. They not only did not heed the ombudsman; they did nothing and just let it sit there.

There is the famous line which I will not quote, of Jennings Randolph, was it, in the American House of Representatives. I will not quote it, despite the urging of my friend from St. John's South.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, go ahead.

MR. ROBERTS: No, no.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, come on.

MR. ROBERTS: No, it was a very famous line.

AN HON. MEMBER: Come on, tell us.

MR. ROBERTS: No. Now don't tempt me. Another time. I will save it until another time.

Mr. Chairman, it ill behooves the lady and gentlemen opposite to pretend that they have come to grips with this legislation on its merits. We have amendments that are so well thought out, they are hand written.

The hon. lady whines that she has only had a month to do something about it. Now how much time does she need? How about the five or six years she was the minister? Well the only thing she accomplished was to redecorate her own office - the sum total of her accomplishments up there.

The good that ye do shall live on after - the good that men do - or even women - is oft interred with their bones, Shakespeare said. The hon. lady is not interred, nor should she be, but the good that she has done, it ill behooves her to stand in this House and criticize either the process - they had seventeen years and they talked about legislation committees. They did not even meet the Legislature, let alone committees.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are much better at nursery rhymes.

MR. ROBERTS: I am much better at nursery rhymes. The thing is, that is because the hon. Member for Grand Bank understands nursery rhymes.

Mr. Chairman, I say to my friend for Grand Bank, he shouldn't provoke me so mercilessly. My time must nearly be up. It's time the House moved to a question on this. It's time these matters were put to the proof. I would ask my friends on this side to vote in favour of the amendments moved by friend, the Minister of Education, and to reject the amendments moved by the lady for Humber East and those moved by the gentleman for St. John's East. Then when we've disposed of the amendments I would ask that the Bill itself, in the Committee stage, be put to the vote in the usual way. Thank you, Sir.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

There is quite a number of amendments. Is it the wish of the House that we do these in batches, or go through each one individually?

MS. VERGE: Go through each one individually to know what we're doing.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, it's up to the Chair and the House to decide. The hon. gentleman's amendments are so ill considered that he has those for Clause 33 before Clause 26 and so forth. The only rational way - the government have decided we're going to ask our friends in this House to reject all these amendments moved by both hon. members because none of them is worthy, in our view, of being accepted. The hon. gentleman can't even move his amendments in proper form.

MS. VERGE: Chairperson?

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

MS. VERGE: Chairperson, I would suggest that there's no way the members of the House will know what we're voting on unless we call the amendments one by one, clause and subclause by subclause.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Chairman.

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

MR. HARRIS: Yes, Mr. Chairman. As the Table would know, the amendments that are proposed by me, there's a key to them, and thethe Clerk has the key to them, indicating them in chronological order so they can be dealt with as we go through the various clauses. I suggest what we ought to do is go through the amendments, through the clauses, in the order that they appear in the Bill and then we can deal with each clause of the Bill going through the clauses, which is the normal way. The only reason we have these batches here is because the government has invoked closure in here and we are forced to put them that way to the House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall Clause 2 as amended by the Member for St. John's East, carry? Shall the amendment proposed by the Member for St. John's East to Clause 2, carry?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I declare the amendment defeated. Shall Clause 2 carry?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall Clause 3 carry?

Order, please!

The Chair would like order during this procedure. There are quite a number of amendments, so we have to follow it.

MR. TOBIN: Point of order, Mr. Chairman. I am sure it is an oversight on your part but I just want to point out to you that you called -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, Clause 2 - all those against - we want to hear the nay's do we?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: (Inaudible) was carried.

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

MR. HEARN: Mr. Chairman, your Honour is asking us to make a decision on amendments that we have not even seen. Could we have copies of the amendments as proposed to have them read? We do not have copies of the others. We are asked to vote on amendments that we have not even seen and you are ramming it through even though the members of the House, including your own, may be in favour of such amendments, that is dictatorship.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Chairman, now let us be reasonable about this. I could understand the hon. member's indignation if there was any merit to it but those amendments were proposed by members opposite. They were rushed out in hand writing tonight. If they had been made unavailable to the member for St. Mary's - The Capes, consult with the Member for Humber East and the Member for St. John's East, the government amendments have been on the table for days, typed out so everybody could read them. They have been there since Thursday night.

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

MS. VERGE: Chairperson, my friend for St. Mary's - The Capes is making a very sensible, reasonable point. Can we not pause for a few minutes and have the staff of the House make copies of all the amendments and distribute them to all the members so that members know what it is that they are being asked to vote on?

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Premier said that we had these amendments for days, there are seventeen or eighteen amendments that the government had itself. We had some of them and we have had additions, we had new ones today, so it is not fair to say that all of these amendments have been out for days.

This is a piece of legislation that the government presumably spent months and months at. If they've got seventeen amendments in a couple of days surely the House can see that all hon. members receive copies. We are in Committee, after all. Surely we can pass around copies of the amendments so that everybody could have a chance to see them. It's normal only to have a couple of copies of amendments. If the hon. members asked for a copy then perhaps we should make sure that hon. members do have a copy.

Because it's a complicated piece of legislation. We haven't gone through the normal legislative review process and all we are trying to do here (Inaudible) fifty-two people in one House. It's only sensible that hon. members be given an opportunity to see them, at least. Because of the nature of the closure amendment we only had twenty minutes to speak and move all our amendments. I didn't even have time to read my amendments so hon. members have not had a chance to hear them. Now they are not going to have a chance to see them. I think we should make sure, and adjourn for a few minutes, perhaps, and make sure that all hon. members get copies -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please! Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: - and let them decide for themselves (Inaudible) -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

If it's the wish of the House the Chair will read each amendment.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: To amend Clause 2(a) -

MS. VERGE: Chairperson, if I may?

MR. CHAIRMAN: - to delete the words "and adjudicator" and substitute the words "an adjudication panel."

MS. VERGE: Point of order. Instead of Your Honour trying to read through all of these it would be much more satisfactory if Your Honour would recess just for a few minutes and have the staff of the House run off photocopies and distribute them to the members. Because if Your Honour reads through all of this, by the time Your Honour finishes members aren't going to be able to remember the first several. So the only satisfactory way to do this - and it'll only take a few minutes. A few minutes. The time that we're now taking wrangling can be better spent having copies made and distributed so everyone will know what he or she is being asked to vote on.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Maybe I could ask the members of the House: how many members of the House would like to have copies of those amendments?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

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

MR. HARRIS: Perhaps the Chair has come up with a solution by reading the amendments, then hon. members have a chance to hear what they are. These are otherwise not on the record, having been read or seen by hon. members. But if the Chair would read the amendment, and then hon. members could vote on it, that may well be appropriate. Unless individual hon. members would like a copy of the amendments themselves.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair has decided that it will read the amendments.

MS. VERGE: Point of order, Chairperson.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Humber East on a point of order.

MS. VERGE: If Your Honour would read them one by one as we're voting then there may be a chance for members to realise what it is they are being asked to vote on. Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. We're on Clause 2. The amendment by the hon. Member for St. John's East. The amendment by the hon. the Member for St. John's East is the amendment we're going to vote on. It is to Clause 2. To amend Clause 2(a), to delete the words "an adjudicator" and substitute the words "an adjudication panel".

All those in favour of this amendment, say 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Those against, 'nay'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay!

MR. CHAIRMAN: I declare that the 'nays' have it. The amendment is defeated.

On motion, Clause 2 carried.

On motion, clauses 3 through 7, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Amendment to Clause 8 as circulated for the last number of days, all those in favour of the amendment to Clause 8?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Against?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, it was agreed that the other amendments were tabled. The other amendments were tabled and circulated to every member of the House.

The amendment to Clause 8, carried?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Against?

On motion, clause 8 with amendment, carried.

On motion, clauses 9 through 11, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendment to clause 12, shall the amendment as proposed by the Government House Leader, carry?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

On motion, clause 12 with amendment, carried.

On motion, clauses 13 and 14, carried.

On motion, clause 15 with amendments, carried.

On motion, clauses 16 and 17, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Clause 18?

MS. VERGE: Carried. It was amended.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

The amendments put forward by the hon. Member for Humber East.

On motion, amendments to Clause 18(1) and (5), defeated.

On motion, Clause 18, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Clause 19.

MS. VERGE: Amendment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendment to Clause 19(1) as proposed by the hon. -

MR. HARRIS: Has the Chair adopted -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The Chair hasn't recognised the hon. member.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Chairperson. I didn't hear the - has the Chair changed its procedure and is not calling for ayes and nays or those for and against?

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, it hasn't changed.

MR. HARRIS: Calling all at once or is there calling one side and then the other? Because I didn't hear the Chair ask for those opposed to the motions.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair has ruled on the last clause and right now is reading the amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Humber East.

On motion, amendment to Clause 19(1), defeated.

On motion, Clause 19 as amended, carried.

CLERK: Clause 20.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Clause 20 has an amendment from the Member for Humber East. Amendment to Clause 20(1).

On motion, amendment to Clause 20(1), defeated.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall Clause 20 carry?

MS. VERGE: There's an amendment to subclause (2).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Amendment to Clause 20(2).

On motion, amendment to Clause 20(2), defeated.

On motion, clauses 20 and 21, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Clause 22.

MR. ROBERTS: The lady for Humber East has an amendment to 22(1) (4).

On motion, amendments to Clause 22(1) and (4), defeated.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Amendment to Clause 22 as proposed by the hon. Member for Humber East. After Clause 22(4) add -

MS. VERGE: Twenty-two (5).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Twenty-two (5), add: Notwithstanding subsection(4), if the conduct complained about involves sexual misconduct or domestic violence there shall be no time limit for making a complaint.

On motion, amendment defeated.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Amendment to Clause 22 as proposed by the hon. Member for Humber East. Delete subclause (5).

On motion, amendment defeated.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, there are two amendments moved by my colleague the Education Minister to Clause 22, which perhaps we could turn to now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, shall the amendments proposed by the hon. the Minister of Education to Clause 22, carry?

On motion, amendment carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall Clause 22 as amended carry?

On motion, amendment carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Clause 23.

The hon. the Member for St. John's East has proposed the following amendment; to amend Clause 23 by deleting the words, 'the chief' or in line 4 and the words where the complainant relates to the chief in lines 4 and 5.

On motion, amendment defeated.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall Clause 23, shall the amendment proposed by the hon. the Minister of Education carry?

On motion, Clause 23 as amended carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Clause 24 - The hon. the Member for Humber East's amendment; delete Clause 24 and Clause 25. Shall the amendment carry?

On motion, amendment defeated.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for St. John's East proposes the following amendment; to delete all of Clause 24 and substitute the following, 24(1): where under sub-section 22, a complaint is filed with the Commissioner or is received at a constabulary office, such complaints shall be investigated by the Commissioner or a person appointed by the Commissioner, who shall not be a police officer. Where a complaint is received at a constabulary office, the complaints shall be forwarded forthwith to the Commissioner.

Shall the amendment as proposed by the Member for St. John's East, carry?

On motion, amendment defeated.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Amendment to Clause 24 as proposed by the hon. the Minister of Education, shall the amendment carry?

On motion, Clause 24 as amended carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Clause 25, the hon. the Member for St. John's East, an amendment to amend Clause 25 (1) to delete the words; 'chief' or 'deputy chief' and substitute the words; 'the Commissioner.'

On motion, amendment defeated.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendments proposed by the hon. the Minister of Education.

On motion, amendments carried.

On motion, Clause 25 as amended, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Clause 26.

The hon. the Member for St. John's East amendment on Clause 26.

On motion, amendment defeated.

On motion, Clause 27, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Clause 28.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: There's one from my colleague, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Minister of Education, amendments to Clause 28.

On motion, amendments carried.

On motion, Clause 28 as amended, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Clause 29(2). An amendment by the hon. the Member for St. John's East.

On motion, amendment defeated.

On motion, clauses 29 through 31, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Clause 32.

On motion, Clause 32 as amended, carried.

CLERK: Clause 33.

MR. ROBERTS: The only amendments left (Inaudible) are the ones from my friend for St. John's East. Does the committee agree to take all the government ones en masse after that?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendments proposed by the hon. the Member for St. John's East, number one, to amend Clause 33.(1)(a) by adding after the word 'confirmed' a comma and the words 'varied or vacated'.

Number two to amend Clause 33(1) by deleting the whole of paragraph 33(1)(d) and 33(1)(e) to amend Clause 33 by deleting the whole of subclause 33(7) and subclause 33(9) and renumbering subclause 33(8) to 33(7). Shall the amendments as proposed by the hon. the Member for St. John's East, carry?

On motion, amendments defeated.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Clause 33: the amendments proposed by the hon. the Minister of Education.

Order, please!

I remind hon. members that to be heard in this House you have first to be recognized by the Chair.

On a point of order, the hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I ask once again would the hon. Minister of Education explain that amendment to us?

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is no point of order.

On motion, Clause 33 as amended carried.

On motion, Clause 34 carried.

On motion, Clause 35 carried.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Do we have unanimous consent to do that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

On motion, Clause 36 as amended carried.

On motion, Clauses 39, 41, 57, 62, 62.1 as amended carried.

On motion, Clauses 37 through to 64, inclusive, as amended, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall the enacting clause carry?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: The House was calling a vote.

MR. HARRIS: (Inaudible) unanimous consent to it, I thought I heard a member say 'no'.

An Act To Revise The Law Respecting The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. (Bill No. 56).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the Bill with amendment, carried.

MR. R. AYLWARD: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Kilbride on a point of order.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Chairman, I made it quite clear when we were going through these amendments that we would do them individually. When I was asked by the Chairman: Do they have leave to do it all? I said 'no'.

Members as far away as the member to my far right could hear me, and members on that end could hear me, Mr. Chairman. I do not understand why the Chair did not hear what I said, and I did not give permission to do them all at the one time.

On motion, Clause 37 carried.

MR. R. AYLWARD: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Kilbride on a point of order.

MR. R. AYLWARD: I made a point of order, Mr. Chairman, and I do not think it was ruled on. I would appreciate a ruling on the point of order, whether I have - I did not get -

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. member can take his seat.

The Chair has decided to go back and call each one. If we do not have unanimous consent of the House, the Chair will go back. We are calling Clause 37 right now.

On motion, Clause 37 carried.

On motion, Clause 38 carried.

On motion, amendment carried.

On motion, Clause 39, as amended, carried.

On motion, Clause 40 carried.

On motion, amendment carried.

On motion, Clause 41, as amended, carried.

On motion, Clauses 42 through to 56 carried.

On motion, amendment carried.

On motion, Clause 57, as amended, carried.

On motion, Clauses 58 through to 61, inclusive, carried.

Clause 62.

A bill, "An Act To Revise The Law Respecting The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary." (Bill No. 56)

On motion, amendments carried.

On motion, clauses 62, 62.1, as amended, carried.

On motion, clauses 63 and 64, carried.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the Bill with amendments, carried.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

On motion, that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again, Mr. Speaker returned to the Chair.

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

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole has considered the matters to them referred and has directed me to report Bill No. 56 with amendments and ask leave to sit again.

On motion, report received and adopted, Committee ordered to sit again tomorrow.

MR. ROBERTS: I ask leave that you be good enough to call the Bill for third reading pursuant - we do not need leave, Sir, in my submission - pursuant to Standing Order 58.

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

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader on a point of order.

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, before I get into my point of order I would like to remind hon. members that the Government House Leader this afternoon made an undertaking to the House that once we got to the stage we are at tonight we would finish for the evening but I guess that is not the case again. You should not have undertaken to do that this afternoon I say to the Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: No, you did not. You certainly did not say that. Anyway, Mr. Speaker, we are on to the Government House Leader trying to get to third reading. Now if you look at the Order Paper today, Mr. Speaker, there is no provision here to do third reading of this Bill, you cannot move more than one stage on a bill in a day. Committee has always been considered a stage in this Legislature, first reading, second reading, Committee and third reading, so what we are seeing here again now is another tactic by the Government House Leader to try and get done things that legitimately you should not be able to do in this Legislature, and if you look at Beauchesne, sixth edition, Mr. Speaker on page 213, paragraph 730, it says: " Debate on the third reading to a bill begins after the Orders of the Day is called and the Member in charge of the bill moves: " That the Bill be now read a third time and do pass."

Now, Mr. Speaker, if you look at today's Order Paper, there is no way here we are in Committee of the Whole. Committee of the Whole on a bill, "An Act To Revise The Law Respecting The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary", (Bill No. 56), so I submit to Your Honour that what the Government House Leader is now trying to do cannot be permitted to happen in this Legislature. I do not know if it has ever happened before, but it is certainly standard procedure here that this not be permitted to occur, so I want to submit this to Your Honour for your consideration because I think that we should adjourn for the evening, really. Based upon this, Mr. Speaker, we should adjourn for the evening.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, let me first of all say that what I said here in the House today was that when we finished with the police bill, we would ask the House to adjourn and I stand by that.Secondly, I would say to my friend for Burin - Placentia West who said we had two speakers now we will have eighteen, I will only say that the commitments been given behind the Chair, his House Leader would honour them but his colleagues would not, and I stand by that.

Now, Mr. Speaker, let me deal with the point of order.Our Standing Order 58 says that: Every Bill shall receive three several readings on different days, previously to having been passed. On urgent or extraordinary occasions, a Bill may by leave of the House be read twice or thrice, or advanced two or more stages in one day.

I submit, Mr. Speaker, that Committee stage is not a stage in the meaning of the order, that bills regularly in this House receive consideration in the Committee on the Whole and third reading on the one day and, Mr. Speaker, with reference to the Beauchesne, all that says is that debate begins when Your Honour calls Orders of the Day, and the Member in charge of the Bill moves the Bill be now read a third time and do pass, and as soon as Your Honour calls the order of the day, I am prepared as the Member in charge of the Bill, to make that motion. I shall not speak to it, I shall simply make the motion if Your Honour rules it is in order and calls the order of the day.

The order of the day is not the printed order of the day, in fact the printed one is called the Orders of the Day. The order of the day is simply the routine laid down or the procedure laid down by Standing Orders -

AN HON. MEMBER: Your scratching now.

MR. ROBERTS: It's not scratching. If hon. ladies and gentlemen opposite knew one-tenth as much as they pretend they know about parliamentary procedures - I do not claim to be an expert but in the kingdom of the blind, I can claim to be at least half-sighted which is as much as they can. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that this House has ample precedent in moving from Committee stage to third reading in one day. The Standing Order -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: No, not by leave. - The Standing Order 58 is clear, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think Your Honour, a very careful reading of Standing Order 58 would make you come to the conclusion that the Committee stage and the reading of the Bill is in fact considered to be a stage of the proceedings. It says as follows, "Every Bill shall receive three several readings on different days, previously to being passed." Then it goes on, "On urgent or extraordinary occasions, a Bill may by leave of the House be read twice or thrice, or advanced two or more stages in one day." Now, why would the rules have to say, 'or advanced two or more stages in one day' if the Committee stage and the reporting from the Committee was not considered a stage of the bill? Otherwise it would have just gone on and said: on urgent or extraordinary occasions a bill may by leave of the House be read twice or thrice in once day. It would not have to say or advanced two or more stages in one day. That, Mr. Speaker, on a careful reading of Order 58 clearly indicates that the committee stage and the reporting to committee, if you look up at the top of Standing Orders 54-62, it says here the list of the separate readings, urgent cases, committal, report from committee, is a separate stage from third reading and it is very clear on consideration and careful reading that leave of the House is required, first of all, and secondly it must be an urgent or extraordinary occasion. Mr. Speaker, with respect this is neither urgent nor extraordinary. It may be extraordinary that the Government House Leader is trying to push this through this way but it is not an urgent bill. It is one that should have gone to a committee of this House in any event but, as I say, a careful reading quite clearly to say that two or more stages in one day in addition to being read twice or thrice clearly indicates that only one stage per day is permitted and that the report of the committee or the committee hearing is a stage. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. WINDSOR: This whole procedure is quite irregular let me submit to this House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WINDSOR: When they are finished their cackling, Mr. Speaker. I have all night.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WINDSOR: Under Standing Order 8, Mr. Speaker, it states that at 10 of the clock - it reads 11 but the hours have been changed - that at 10 of the clock p.m., unless the closure rule under Standing Order 50 be then in operation - clearly closure is finished with the vote a few moments ago on the particular bill, the proceedings of any business under consideration shall be interrupted and Mr. Speaker shall adjourn the House without the question being put. I submit, Your Honour, that Your Honour is not in a position to entertain any motion be it in order or not, and that the Standing Orders are very clear and Your Honour has no choice but to adjourn the House at this point in time. It is 10:15 Your Honour.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: If I may in response to that, Mr. Speaker. The motion before the House yesterday, of which I gave notice, and which was accepted by the House today, is that pursuant to Standing Order 50, which as my hon. friend rightly stated is the closure procedure, the debate on Bill 56, the one I asked Your Honour to call, shall not be further adjourned and that further consideration of any resolution or resolutions, clause or clauses, section or sections, preamble or preambles, title or titles, or whatever else might be related to Bill 56 shall be the first business of the House when next called by the House and shall not be further postponed. My submission in response to the hon. gentleman's point is very simply that the motion adopted by the House has not yet run its course. This was the motion of which I gave notice yesterday. It is in the form used by previous House Leaders so those who shout, 'bring back Baker' as I do on occasion, 'bring back Baker,' used by hon. gentlemen opposite, the closure motion has not yet run its course, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair has heard enough submissions right now and the Chair is going to recess briefly.

Recess

MR. SPEAKER: First of all, to address the point of orders to whether the Bill could be read at third stage this evening, I refer hon. members to the annotated notes of the House of Commons and it refers to Standing Order 71, which is our appropriate Standing Order 58 and it reads: 'every bill shall receive three several readings on different days, previously to being passed. On urgent or extraordinary occasions, a Bill may by leave of the House be read twice or thrice, or advanced two or more stages in one day.' This is what the annotated notes say about that standing order. A long standing parliamentary practice first established in the United Kingdom is reflected in this standing order, requiring that each bill receive three readings, each to occur on different days. This standing order also makes provision for urgent and extraordinary occasions, when the House so decides, a bill may receive two or more readings on the same day or be advanced two or more stages. The section refers only to reading stages, thus for example, consideration in the committee of the whole, report stage in third reading, may all take place on the same day. So there is no question that that is in order in terms of the reading stage because we have not had one reading stage today.

The other question refers to whether or not we are in closure and I refer hon. members to the motion again, which says; to move that pursuant to Standing Order 50, the debate on Bill 50 shall not be further adjourned, and that further consideration of any resolution or resolutions, clause or clauses, section or sections, preamble or preambles, title or titles, or whatever else might be related to Bill 56, shall be the first business of the House, when next called by the House and shall not be further postponed. It appears to me that that is a wide enough definition which includes going into third reading now, that the rule of closure does apply.

On a point of order, the hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, not to question Your Honour but the Standing Orders are very clear. Standing Order 50 very clearly states what can be included. The motion that was made by the hon. House Leader therefore, is not in order itself. The whole motion is not in order because it is not in keeping with Standing Order 50 which does not add, 'or anything else', this is obviously something the hon. gentleman has injected. I would point out to Your Honour that traditionally in this House we have had closure on both committee stage and third reading. What we are doing here is setting a precedent -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair is not going to entertain any points of order. The Chair has made its ruling. Hon. members may do what they want to do, there is a procedure for it but the Chair is not going to entertain any further points of order. The Chair has made the rule. The Chair is not accepting any points of rule on the ruling. The Chair has said that the ruling - now, if the hon. member says it has nothing to do with the rule, well then the Chair has dismissed with this, the ruling is over the ruling is final, hon. members can do what they have to do. If the hon. member is rising on a new point of order, well the Chair can only entertain to see what the point of order is.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I am not making a rise for a point of order on the ruling. Your Honour read out the motion that was made, and the motion itself is broad enough to cover what is being proposed by the Government House Leader; but the point of order is that the motion itself, while the motion is broad enough, what the government is proposing, Order 50, is not broad enough.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is questioning the -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair is not entertaining any points of order regarding the ruling put in under a guise. The Chair is moving to the item of business, which is the third reading. Hon. members, we have called third reading.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, the matter has been debated extensively. I do not propose to say anything more. The House has made its motion that this debate will continue until one o'clock at the latest, and the matter will then be disposed of.

At this stage I simply move that the Bill be now read a third time, Sir.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the bill be now read a third time.

AN HON. MEMBER: Mr. Speaker?

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

MR. WINDSOR: This is a debatable motion, Mr. Speaker, I assume?

MR. SPEAKER: Yes.

MR. WINDSOR: You can speak to the motion?

MR. SPEAKER: Yes.

MR. WINDSOR: Well we will do that, Mr. Speaker.

First of all, let me say that obviously this is a very highly irregular procedure we are into here.

I have no intention of questioning Your Honour. Your Honour has made a ruling. I would submit that we, on this side of the House, are not happy with the ruling, but Your Honour has made the ruling. As you have said, there is a procedure that we can follow if we choose to question it, but I do not think there is anything to be served by doing that.

Clearly what we are seeing here is that the government has just taken it on their backs. Not only have they invoked closure, which stifles debate on this motion; now they are stifling the rules of the House - the Standing Orders of the House. They have found somehow a technicality which Your Honour has ruled to be in order.

I will not challenge Your Honour, but let me tell you that your ruling is clearly contrary to the spirit and intent of our Standing Orders, and all tradition and Parliamentary procedures. It is totally wrong.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, we very well could challenge Your Honour, and probably we will look back on this and say: Maybe we should have challenged His Honour. Maybe we should have.

MR. TOBIN: I think we should.

MR. WINDSOR: Well, my colleagues can decide that. If they choose to challenge His Honour, they may do so. No doubt the government will vote with him this time. They will vote with him this time.

We found once before that when the Speaker ruled against the government, they challenged His Honour and ruled against him, and Your Honour, who is now in the Chair, as Deputy Chairman, was given a vote of non-confidence by the government, and we were most surprised that Your Honour did not, in fact, resign at that time, because it is a vote of non-confidence in the Speaker. I do not know that anywhere in the Parliamentary system, when the Speaker has been challenged and voted against by the government, that the Speaker had not resigned. That is how important challenging a Speaker is, Your Honour. That is how important it is. It is very clear, in our estimation, that there has been a miscarriage of justice here this evening - no question about it.

Now we are here, and we can debate this piece of legislation until 1:00 a.m. I do not know what that will prove. I, for one, do not particularly wish to stay here until 1:00 a.m. My colleagues may wish to, and if there are other points, my friend for Humber East has a lot that she wants to say or could say about this particular piece of legislation, she may well wish to exercise her prerogative and my friend for St. John's East who has had a great interest in the Bill had some amendments that he was not even given time to read in the Committee stage, he might like to make all of those points, Mr. Speaker, but the fact of the matter is that here we are now with an exercise that is highly irregular, highly irregular in our view, the closure motion ceased with the vote. The whole concept of closure is that we will now debate a particular matter until a vote be taken, and the vote has been taken and the government majority has carried the vote as everybody knew they would, and the closure motion therefore ended at that point in time and so should the debate, Mr. Speaker, and the Speaker should not even have entertained the Leader of the Opposition, should not even have entertained the Government House Leader.

AN HON. MEMBER: Get it right, Neil.

MR. WINDSOR: I will get it right but I am just so used to seeing the (inaudible) on the opposition side and it will not be long before we see it again -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I do not bother to change. It is like changing your watch from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time, I do not bother because you know it is going back again, very soon; by the time you get used to it, it switches back so it is exactly the same, we are calling hon. gentlemen opposite, 'opposition,' I am not going to get used to calling them government because they are going to be so short-lived.

Mr. Speaker, the point of the matter is, Your Honour or the Speaker who was in the Chair at the time, in our view, clearly should have simply adjourned the House the minute that the vote was taken and that the business of the closure motion had terminated and the House should, under Standing Order 8, should immediately have been adjourned without a question being put, clearly in our Standing Orders. Now the Government House Leader seems to think that he can move a motion to overrule the Standing Orders.

I do not know why we were here all night last Thursday. I do not know under what Standing Order the Government House Leader made that motion, and I was amazed when the thing went through and I have been researching and getting time to find out under what authority that motion was made, because the Government House Leader cannot make a motion that changes the Standing Orders, without unanimous consent of the House and that is what took place last Thursday.

A motion was made and it was allowed to go through, by leave in fact, because we on this side stood on our laurels and did not question it, I think we have to accept the guilt, because under Standing Order 8, the House should have adjourned at eleven o'clock; we should have adjourned at five o'clock and come back at seven. Standing Order 7 is very clear, the House adjourns at five, unless the motion to adjourn, the standard motion is either not put -

MR. MATTHEWS: We did that by agreement first until seven and then -

MR. WINDSOR: Ah, we did it by agreement to sit through -

MR. MATTHEWS: - and then the Government House Leader moved that we would not adjourn at five -

MR. WINDSOR: That is right.

MR. MATTHEWS: - and we would not adjourn at ten.

MR. WINDSOR: We did by agreement, we said we will sit on through until eight, we said -

MR. MATTHEWS: No, first it was seven -

MR. WINDSOR: Seven or eight -

MR. MATTHEWS: - and in order to get the three hours we said we would sit until 8.

MR. WINDSOR: - we said we will sit for the three hours at any rate or the maximum, but then the House Leader made another motion which was totally out of order and by not objecting, we in effect, agreed to it. The point I am making is that, there is no motion that the House Leader can make that will cause the House to sit pass eleven o'clock, except by unanimous consent -

MR. MATTHEWS: Not to adjourn at five, not to adjourn at ten was in order.

MR. WINDSOR: Well, I guess we did not object loud enough. I guess we did not question -

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, just like now (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Yes. Obviously we may have been ruled out of order then, I do not know. Alright, but I would like to have that clarified, Your Honour, I really would like to have that clarified, as to what authority - unless it was considered that it was being done by leave. It was not very clear me, I was here at the time but it was not clear to me under what authority that motion was made. The House Leader pulled one on us I guess, he made a motion and we did not vote against him, so it was agreed. That is the last time we will trust the Government House Leader, Mr. Speaker, because it is clear he cannot be taken at his word. It is clear that he will stop at nothing, Standing Orders notwithstanding. He will break them, he will vote against them. I would not doubt if Your Honour tonight had ruled in our favour, had ruled that the closure motion was not in order, I would not doubt but the government would have challenged Your Honour again and overruled it. It is clear what is happening. This government is taking not only the Province on their back but they are taking the House of Assembly on their back. They will stop at absolutely nothing to do what they believe is right. They will listen to no one, put nothing out for public scrutiny, will make a mockery of the rules of the House of Assembly, and a mockery of this Parliamentary procedure.

It is clear, Mr. Speaker, the way this government is acting, so I for one have no intention of sitting here all night. I simply want to make clear my objections to this whole procedure. I realize that without questioning Your Honour I have questioned Your Honour and everything you have ruled upon but I have not challenged Your Honour's ruling, but I have questioned it. I think it is wrong. I think the procedure we are into now is totally wrong and I simply wanted to make sure that that was on the record. Perhaps some of my colleagues would like to say a few words. Does anybody want to say a few words? Does anybody want to speak to this motion? I can go on for a long time. Does anybody wish to speak?

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, then I will sit.

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is not a matter of waking up, I guess.

AN HON. MEMBER: It is a matter of staying awake.

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, it is trying to stay awake, perhaps. I think the Member for Mount Pearl has summed it up very well, Mr. Speaker, what we have seen tonight is precedent setting here and we have seen a number of things like this this past week. I just want to mention that when Your Honour was in the Chair December 11, 1991, I say to members opposite, he said, 'Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole have considered the matters to them referred, have directed me to report Bill 32 carried without amendment and ask leave to sit again.' This was on a bill, An Act Respecting The Regulation of Lotteries And Amusement Devices In The Province. Now, I am sure my colleague for Humber East remembers that one because she spoke quite a bit about it. Then he went on to say, 'Report received and adopted, Bill No. 32 ordered read a third time presently by leave.' If members do not follow, what I am saying is, that we were in Committee of the Whole. The Committee of the Whole have considered matters to them referred, the same situation we are in here today, and then, by leave, we had third reading of the bill. That was only last December, a year ago. What we have seen here today is precedent setting. Like the member said we did not want to challenge the Speaker's ruling but I tell you one thing I thought hard about it because I think we have done wrong here.

AN HON. MEMBER: And we are still thinking.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, I am still thinking that we have done wrong here this evening. We did wrong last week when the Government House Leader moved that we not adjourn at 5:00 o'clock and not adjourn at 10:00 o'clock. The House should have closed at 10:00 o'clock. We should not have been here after 10:00 o'clock. Now, we all know what happens when you take the place on your back.

We saw a bit of it last Thursday night that carried on until 12:45 Friday afternoon. That's what happened. That's what happens when these kinds of things happen. When somebody decides they're going to take the place on their back and do things their way, without thinking about the consequences, that's what happens. That's what we've seen here in the last number of weeks in this House.

I certainly didn't want this to happen. I certainly didn't want us to get down here where we're back here now, on December 21, at this stuff. I thought for sure that when I left here Friday - I knew when I left Friday I'd be coming back. But I thought that by Friday at least I'd be going home to spend Christmas with my family, in the area of the Province that I live in. Due to circumstances I was prepared to come back, and I'm here.

AN HON. MEMBER: We are all in the same boat.

MR. MATTHEWS: No, we're not all in the same boat, I say to the minister. Because in five minutes he can leave here and be home. It takes me five hours when I leave here to go home. So I can't go home every day and come back, I say to the minister. I happen to keep my home in my district, and I'm not going to move it for anyone. That's where I desire to live and that's where I'm going to live, I say to the minister.

Now that's what we're into here. You know, if things had been done properly and decently we could have all been out of here by the end of last week. Now I have my doubts if we're going to be out of here the end of this week. Because there are certain things that get people's backs up, and that's what we have going here again now.

We're talking about this police commission Bill. We thought we were reasonable in our requests, Mr. Chairman. People who appeared before the one and only hearing of the Legislation Review Committee that in essence was forced upon government - that didn't come voluntarily, that hearing in front of that Committee. We all know what happened.

MS. VERGE: They voted against it when I made the motion.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes. You made the motion. We know what happened. There was enough pressure came to bear and really the minister was embarrassed.

MS. VERGE: That's right.

MR. MATTHEWS: The minister was embarrassed. He had to refer it to the Legislation Review Committee. Otherwise he wouldn't have had the hearing, and the special interest groups and the individuals who came forward were not satisfied with that one hearing. They had too many concerns about this Bill to say: yes, it pleases, it satisfies our concerns. The hearing didn't do that, and it still doesn't, I submit to Your Honour. It still doesn't please and satisfy those who have concerns about this Bill.

Here we are, 10:50 Monday night, still on this Bill. We can't go beyond 1:00 a.m. or I suppose we'll be here 10:50 tomorrow morning on it, I suppose. Now I suppose we're going to finish at 1:00 a.m.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No!

MR. MATTHEWS: I suppose we have to finish at 1:00 a.m., I'm told. But then I don't know. I don't know what'll happen now about 12:55 a.m. At 12:55 a.m. we might see something else happen. Some other motion or some other trickery or some other - calling Britain or Ottawa or Australia or New Zealand. Trying to find a precedent somewhere back in the annals of parliamentary history that somewhere some Speaker may have ruled that even with the closure motion on that the Legislature didn't have to adjourn at 1:00 a.m.

I wouldn't doubt that that's not what's going on right now, Mr. Speaker. That someone is out now making the phone calls overseas to see if they can't find something somewhere. So at 1:00 a.m., two minutes to 1:00 a.m., the Government House Leader will have another trick up his sleeve. He's already got things in motion so the ruling will come back. We're here 'til daylight. That won't surprise me. That wouldn't surprise me one bit.

But having said that, Mr. Speaker, I had no intention whatsoever of speaking here tonight. None whatsoever, as a matter of fact I thought I would be home before now, about an hour before now actually, but due to the consequences of what has happened here I felt compelled to have a few words. I can only say that I do not know how much longer this is going to go. How much longer we are going to be here before we recess for Christmas but we just have to develop, I guess, a better spirit of cooperation and understanding. When we make a deal, lets keep it. When we say something lets mean it, that is all I say. I think I am going to leave with that note. When we make a statement in the House lets stand on our feet and make it, that we mean what we say, that when we make deals we can keep them. Realizing of course that that is not all that easy when you have members who have rights and want to speak and do whatever they want but otherwise, I do not think there is any doubt we will be here Thursday, that is Christmas Eve. I do not suppose anybody would suggest that we will be here Friday, Christmas Day?

AN HON. MEMBER: Why not?

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, why not? That is true. It may be a bit difficult for me. I mean my turkey and gravy will be pretty cold by the time they get it from Fortune to here, I would say to the Member for Pleasantville. The gravy will be kind of thick on top by the time it gets from Fortune to here on Christmas Day.

MR. NOEL: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes. I am going to say to the Member for Pleasantville about putting democracy first - I know what I am going to put first within the next day or so and it is not the House of Assembly, I say to the member. It is not the House of Assembly, it is going to be my family down in Fortune, that is where I am going in the next day or so and I say that very sincerely.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: The Opposition can go home and then they clear the order paper, bring in new bills, pass it all within an hour or so and talk about democracy. But anyway, that is all I have to say. I think there has been a fair bit to say on this piece of legislation. It is obvious the government is dug in, we have seen closure, they are using whatever means they have at their disposal to try and get this done. Whatever is so magical about getting it done before Christmas? I cannot understand that.

MS. VERGE: They are trying to save face, that is all.

AN HON. MEMBER: We're calling an election.

MR. MATTHEWS: I do not care if he calls one tonight, I told the Premier that last week. He is the only one who can do that and I am sure the Lieutenant-Governor will receive him at Government House, issue a writ, he is the only one who can do it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: I could not care less where he is now and if he is there sobeit, but all I am saying is I do not know what is so magical about Christmas, about getting this piece of legislation through here by Christmas. We have been talking about this piece of legislation for at least the last two years.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Oh, that has to do with the Bill but at least two years we have been talking about this piece of legislation. Now, what is so magical - yes I know there is a big fire down there, there is another two or three days - but why can't we put it off until the middle of January and let some other people have some things to say about it? Entertain making some changes that they may want made. Why is that unreasonable? Why is that so unreasonable? It is not only us. It is interest groups, people who have far more interest in this piece of legislation than I do, I say very sincerely. People who have a real interest in it, who are members of the law profession, or members of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, Human Rights, on and on and on it goes. They have far more interest in this piece of legislation than I have and I do not say that to say that I do not have any interest in it but because they are more keenly interested in it I guess. So what is so magical about it, I say to the minister? He still can change his mind, I say to him before I sit down, he still can change his mind and refer this to further review, further discussion, further input from the public.

So having said that, Mr. Speaker, I conclude my remarks.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. People sitting in the gallery here tonight must wonder: how is the public interest being served by the tactics of this government? How are people in the Province being helped by the government rushing through the legislation to set up a police public complaints commission in three weeks? Printing and distributing the Bill at the end of November and then using all the means at their disposal and inventing some new ones to have it passed before Christmas.

Here it is the winter solstice, December 21, almost 11:00 at night, and the government is persisting. They're not satisfied to wait even one more day. They waited until 5:00 in the morning Friday past to call the Bill for detailed, clause by clause analysis in Committee of the Whole. This is scandalous.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to draw to Your Honour's attention some major inconsistencies between the ruling made by the Speaker earlier this evening and what we are doing now. The Speaker in ruling on the point of order made by my colleague, the Member for Mount Pearl, said that Standing Order 8 doesn't apply to this situation -

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Tourism and Culture on a point of order.

MR. WALSH: Mr. Speaker, if the Speaker decided earlier he would not entertain any conversation or debate with respect to his ruling. I don't believe simply because the individual in the Chair has changed that the Speaker's ruling would change.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

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

The hon. the Member for Humber East on the point of order.

MS. VERGE: Mr. Speaker, I wasn't on a point of order. Now I understand the Member for Mount Scio - Bell Island made a point of order saying that the previous Speaker, the Speaker who made the ruling, decreed that he wouldn't entertain any points of order other than a challenge. Mr. Speaker, as Your Honour will know, since Your Honour, unlike the member opposite, was paying attention to my remarks, I wasn't making a point of order. I was simply beginning to call to Your Honour's attention an inconsistency between the Speaker's ruling and what we are doing now. What we are doing now with the Government House Leader, the Minister of Justice, having spoken, with the Member for Mount Pearl having spoken, and with me now participating in this debate. But I'll sit now, Your Honour, for Your Honour to make a ruling on the point of order which I say is not a point of order at all.

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

There's no point of order.

The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll now proceed to elaborate on the discrepancy between the ruling and what we are doing now. The Speaker made a ruling on a point of order made by the Member for Mount Pearl, which is that Standing Order 8 should apply and should cut off this sitting at 10:00 p.m. Standing Order 8 says: At 10 of the clock p.m., unless the closure rule be then in operation, the proceedings of any business under consideration shall be interrupted, and Mr. Speaker shall adjourn the House without question put -

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. MURPHY: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Member for Humber East can camouflage all she wants. What she is trying to do now in essence, is exactly what the Speaker said to her twenty minutes ago, that he would not entertain a point of order or discussion on the decision, but still the member gets up and questions the ruling; she brings a point of order to the floor when the Speaker said he would not entertain any more points of order or discussions on his ruling. Now what the member is doing is exactly criticizing or questioning the authority of His Honour and defying him, and it is time the hon. member got on with the third reading and stop questioning the Chair.

MR. SPEAKER: To the point of order raised by the hon. Member for St. John's South. The Chair again would like to again inform hon. members that on the point raised earlier by the hon. Minister of Tourism, the Chair had not ruled that the point was not in order because he had not heard what the hon. Member for Humber East was saying, she was just beginning her debate. I want to remind the hon. member that if she wants to raise a point of order or question His Honour's ruling, then there is a procedure for that.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What I am trying to do is draw to Your Honour's attention an inconsistency between what we are doing in the House now and the Speaker's ruling. I am not now challenging the Speaker's ruling, I am not now redebating the points raised earlier on which the Speaker has already ruled -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is debating the third reading of a bill and I would like the hon. member to confine her remarks to that bill.

MS. VERGE: Your Honour, to the point of order, under what authority am I debating third reading of the Bill?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS. VERGE: The Speaker made a ruling -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

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

The hon. the Minister of Culture and Tourism, on a point of order.

MR. WALSH: Mr. Speaker, to that point of order, the Chair has ruled and as I stated in my previous point of order, the Chair made a decision. The individual in the Chair may change, the rule does not change nor does the ruling change, and I think the Member for Humber East has to realize that you cannot again debate a decision or a ruling of the Chair. The Chair has spoken, regardless of who is sitting in the Chair.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Humber East, to that point of order.

MS. VERGE: Mr. Speaker, as I said to Your Honour a few minutes ago, I am asking Your Honour, under what authority am I now and are my colleagues debating on third reading the Bill? I heard the Speaker's ruling earlier, I realize that Your Honour is bound by the same ruling and I would like Your Honour to explain under what authority we are now debating the Bill, what stage are we at, now -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

To the point of order that the hon. Minister of Culture and Tourism raised, again the Chair has to say that there is a process in place for the hon. member if she wishes to challenge the Chair. The Chair has made a decision. The Speaker has brought in the decision on a point of order raised earlier and he has indicated that there is to be no debate on that. If the members wish to challenge the Chair then they should follow the process.

MS. VERGE: Your Honour, I don't believe Your Honour is understanding what I'm saying.

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

MS. VERGE: Your Honour, I'm not now challenging the Speaker's ruling -

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

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

The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Your Honour, if you would hear me out. I'm not challenging now the Speaker's ruling -

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

MS. VERGE: - I'm not debating, I'm simply asking for clarification -

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

Is the hon. Member speaking on a point of order or is she debating the third reading?

MS. VERGE: Your Honour, I'm on a point of order, which is to ask Your Honour to explain to me and other members under what authority we are now speaking. Under what authority am I now recognised by Your Honour? How does that conform with the ruling made by the Speaker earlier this evening?.... the ruling which said that the Member for Mount Pearl did not have a point of order because the closure motion was all encompassing.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair would recess for one minute on this question.

Recess

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

To the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Humber East, again, the Chair was not quite clear on what point of order she was raising. After some consideration, the Chair realises now that the Standing Order 50, closure motion, is still in place. The hon. members who had spoken previously are not permitted to speak a second time. The Chair was unaware that the hon. Member for Mount Pearl, who was speaking when the Chair took the Chair, had already spoken.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

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

The Standing Order 50 is still in affect and hon. members can only speak once.

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

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Opposition House Leader on a point of order.

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, the Speaker's ruled, and I've just listened to what you had to say, Your Honour.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) third reading he wasn't allowed to speak (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes. That's true. He did go off. So really we should have been out of here.

MR. WINSOR: Yes. Because he couldn't introduce third reading.

MR. MATTHEWS: Really what you've said, what Your Honour has said, is that we should have been out of here.

MS. VERGE: That's right.

MR. MATTHEWS: Once -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, you spoke twice.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, I only spoke once.

MR. MATTHEWS: You spoke twice! So therefore I submit - but before I get to my final submission, Mr. Speaker, what I'd really.... I say to members, I think it's very important that we realise what's happening here. What we're saying here tonight is that if perchance the closure motion was introduced on second reading - second reading - that a member can only speak once thereafter.

MS. VERGE: That's right.

MR. MATTHEWS: You can't speak in Committee, you can't speak on third reading. That's what the ruling has been here tonight. I'm telling you something, whether people realise it or not, but that is certainly improper.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: It is correct! Because the closure motion was given in Committee, Mr. Speaker. The closure motion was given in Committee of the Whole. What has happened? We weren't allowed to speak again! We were only allowed to speak once after the minister gave the notice, when we were in Committee.

MR. WINSOR: Your not allowed to speak in third.

MS. VERGE: The Minister of Justice spoke in second reading.

MR. WINSOR: So you can't speak in third. No debate in third reading.

MR. MATTHEWS: The other point is, with the ruling that the Chair has just made, that the minister - we should have been out of here.

MR. WINSOR: The minister couldn't introduce.

MR. MATTHEWS: The minister could not - that's right. The minister could not give third reading.

MR. WINDSOR: Which proves that the rule couldn't be interpreted that way (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Precisely. So if you go back and look at what's occurred here tonight, I'm telling you it has serious ramifications for the operations of this House in the future. We'd better not all be too big or too proud to admit that there's been a mistake. We'd better not! Because we're setting precedents here tonight that were never set before. If we've been wrong let's admit we're wrong and let's be men, and ladies, and gentlemen, and acknowledge that, and let's correct what we've done here tonight. Because it needs to be corrected. Because we've flown right in the face of our own Standing Orders.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: We have. I'm serious. People can laugh about it, but I'm concerned about what's going to happen in the future. We always thought that we were going to be the government of the day too, Mr. Speaker, but we weren't. I say to members opposite, they will not always be the government of the day either. You don't only do things here for when you're here, you do it for when people come after you. I don't want to be too strong, I don't, but I think we've carried it a bit too far tonight. We've done things here tonight that in my humble opinion are incorrect.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes. Humble opinion. Incorrect. For what it's worth. We'd better have a second look at this. I submit to Your Honour, finally, that really on what you've just ruled, is that we should adjourn this House until tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. Because the minister couldn't speak.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader to the point of order.

MR. ROBERTS: If I may, to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I second what the hon. gentleman for Grand Bank has said about the importance of precedents and the fact that those who now sit to Your Honour's left may some day sit to Your Honour's right, and vice versa. I know that better than most. I think I'm the only person in the House now, other than my friend for Twillingate, who has sat first - no, I'm sorry, my friend for Twillingate didn't sit as a minister before going into Opposition. Well, he sat as a minister in another administration, who has sat to Your Honour's left and then to Your Honour's right and is now back to Your Honour's left. I know better than most how transitory political power is and how transitory it should be in a democracy.

Your Honour's rulings, I suggest, are consistent with our rules and with our precedents. The ruling first of all was that the moving from Committee stage to third reading can be done in one day without any leave. The same as moving from second reading to Committee stage can be done in one day without leave. But one cannot go from first reading to second reading, or from second reading to third reading in one day without leave. That's quite consistent. Your Honour read I believe from a House of Commons ruling on a rule that is almost word for word the same as our Standing Order 58.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) by leave.

MR. ROBERTS: There's no "by leave" in any of them.

AN HON. MEMBER: According to the Standing Orders?

MR. ROBERTS: No, our Standing Order says only move from two readings in one day by leave.

Secondly, Your Honour then ruled that the motion of which I gave notice yesterday and which was called today at the proper time, under Standing Order 50, was moved and was carried. Your Honour said: the motion says what it says. Your Honour said the motion as carried by the House was broad enough to take us through to where we are. The Standing Order 50 procedure does say that no member may speak twice. I was recognized by Your Honour and nobody challenged that. In turn I challenged nobody else. I will make no challenge to any member who wishes to speak on the third reading and I have not. When the gentleman for Mount Pearl rose I made no challenge to him. When the hon. lady for Humber East rose I made no challenge to that. When the gentleman for Grand Bank rose I made no challenge on that. The only challenge I heard from hon. friends over here, unless I missed something when I went out to see the spectacular fire that is destroying a large area of downtown St. John's, was the fact that hon. members in speaking were challenging Your Honour's ruling without challenging it. What has been done tonight, Sir, is consistent in my judgement with the rules and precedence of this House, and furthermore is fully consistent with democracy which says at the end of the day the House has a right to vote and to decide.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Since the Chair was here at the beginning it happens quite frequently that hon. members will attempt to speak the second time. The Chair does not have a record of who is speaking although the Chair obviously heard. The Chair was not aware of anybody who spoke for the second time. Generally the Chair is alerted by the table but the Chair was not alerted by the table and when members made no contest obviously the Chair was under the assumption that everything was in order. Quite obviously there is no point of order but by leave of the House if hon. members want people to speak for the second time and people have spoken there is nothing we can do about that. It has happened before when the Chair was not aware of it, and if hon. members wish to speak a second time, then by leave of the House they may, but by the strict rules they may not.

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

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, this is a different point of order. Your Honour is quite correct if someone has already spoken, well they have spoken, but we are at the third reading stage of debate not because someone spoke twice but because the Government House Leader rose, speaking twice, when it was not permitted for him to do so and made a motion that we are now debating. He moved third reading of the Bill. Now, that is what puts us in this third reading stage. That motion and that speaking by the minister was out of order. Whether the minister spoke twice or not the fact that nobody pointed it out at that time does not put the House in order right now. This whole debate is out of order because the motion that was made to the House for third reading was out of order because the minister was not permitted to speak and make such a motion. I say that your point of order in terms of the speaking of the Member for Humber East is quite correct, you cannot take back the words that someone said but you can certainly make a ruling that the current debate having been commenced by an illegal motion, by a member who did not have the right to make the speech, is itself out of order and ought not to be permitted to continue.

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

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

I do not want to say too much more on this, just to follow up on the points made by the Member for St. John's East, that he is correct. Of course the Deputy Speaker, just a few minutes before, ruled that the Member for Humber East was out of order and that other members who spoke before were out of order, which means that the Government House Leader was out of order when he moved third reading of the Bill. So it is my point, as made to the Deputy Speaker at the time who was in the Chair, that we really should not be here now - that we should have been adjourned and coming back tomorrow at two o'clock.

I think that is basically where we still are, and I leave that for Your Honour's consideration.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Very briefly to that point of order, Mr. Speaker, I was recognized by the Chair. Your Honour identified me not by name but by the position, which is practice in this House. Nobody objected. I spoke -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I beg your pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, it is not for me to enforce the rules. If hon. members feel - this is just a sophistry by members opposite. If they believe -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I do not ask for leave, Mr. Speaker. Your Honour recognized me. I am in the same position as any other hon. member. Nobody objected. If somebody had objected, and Your Honour had ruled that I did not have the floor, I would have sat down. I venture to think one of my colleagues would have come to the floor, and that is that.

Mr. Speaker, this is nothing but a sophistry, and hon. gentlemen opposite and the hon. lady opposite either do not know the rules of this House or are deliberately ignoring them - and I am not sure, Sir, which is the more serious - but I submit that the hon. gentleman from St. John's East has not made a valid point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: I am just going to recess the House for a moment so we can reflect upon what has been said.

RECESS

MR. SPEAKER: To the point of order raised by hon. members, which substantially was that the Government House Leader could not make the point of order because he was speaking a second time, I just refer hon. members to Beauchesne, Page 111, Clause 373, which says: The motion to proceed to another government order may be moved only by the Government House Leader.

That is what the Government House Leader was doing, moving that we move to a third reading. He made no debate. He spoke after, and hon. members - one assumes that if one is speaking, either he or she is doing it legally or is doing it by leave of the House. If one says nothing - nobody objects - then one assumes they have the leave of the House.

When a person makes a point of order, it should be done on a timely basis because an hour after or two hours after it is too late. Then we have to undo things, and quite obviously that would not make any sense in the Parliamentary sense.

So the House Leader was permitted to make the point of order, but if he were not, to come back to a point of order right now, after an hour into the debate, would not make a lot of sense. It would not be in accordance with Parliamentary procedure.

I do not know who was speaking or where we are.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nobody was speaking.

MR. SPEAKER: Nobody speaking?

AN HON. MEMBER: Nobody speaking. Question.

MR. SPEAKER: Question?

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Revise The Law Respecting The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary," read a third time, ordered passed and its title be as on the Order Paper. (Bill No. 56).

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