March 25, 1997             HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS              Vol. XLIII  No. 8


The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of things that maybe I can address before we move to Ministerial Statements, by leave.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. TULK: Yesterday there was some discussion on the floor of the House as to whether we would open the House at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday as opposed to 2:00 p.m., so that we could enable people who have to travel some distance to be home for Good Friday if, indeed, the place should close on Thursday at or before 12:00 p.m.

I think there is a general concurrence in the House that we would do that. In other words, Thursday would become Friday for this week and this week only so that some people could get home early, and maybe on Thursday afternoon some people might want to go down and buy a few flippers for Friday dinner.

The other thing is that I just want to tell the Leader of the Opposition that the Premier is caught in some traffic and will be here for the last part of Question Period, so if you want to do something else with the order of your questions...

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: Ground traffic today.

One other point is that there is a motion on the Order Paper from the Member for Burgeo and LaPoile for Private Members' Day tomorrow. We have called that and given notice of it. With leave of the House he has to attend a function, something in his district that he cannot avoid. It has something to do, I believe, with the law courts. I don't know whether he is being prosecuted or persecuted, or is a witness. I would just ask the indulgence of the House to have the Member for Topsail introduce the resolution and close debate on it.

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

MR. H. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, after consultation with the Government House Leader we, on this side, have no objections to declaring, as Smallwood would say, that this House has the right to do anything; so for this week only Thursday will be Friday and we will meet at 9:00 a.m. We agree with that to facilitate the members who wish to travel to their districts and get them home with their families by Friday.

Also, we agree that the Member for Topsail can introduce the motion put forward by his colleague, the Member for Burgeo and LaPoile, in the Private Members' Day tomorrow.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just add one correction to the statement of the Opposition House Leader. The House can do anything with unanimous consent. I, for one, having had discussions with the Opposition House Leader about this point, have no difficulty with allowing Thursday to operate on Friday's hours. And I have no problem with the private member's resolution being introduced by someone other than the Member for Burgeo and LaPoile, although I must say I am disappointed in not being able to hear the Member for LaPoile in his stentorian tones speak on this very important issue.

MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the hon. the Member for Fortune Bay - Cape la Hune.

MR. LANGDON: Yes, on a point of order.

Mr. Speaker, if I may, it is my pleasure today, with House consent, to congratulate the Sunny Cottage Corporation of Harbour Breton in receiving the 1996 Manning Award for excellence in public preservation of historic places. The award is presented to the community significance category and will be awarded at Government House this afternoon. In addition to the award the corporation will receive a $500 gift in order to further develop the project. I wish to note that under Chairperson Douglas Wills, Mrs. Lackey, Mayor Eric Skinner, Bernice Eric and Catherine Blake who is here today and to thank them for their work and contribution to the Sunny Cottage Corporation. Such projects are integral to preserve Newfoundland and Labrador history and culture. Indeed the people of the district that I represent have received an additional award, the town of Belleoram receiving it for the John Cluett House Museum.

AN HON. MEMBER: Are they in the gallery?

MR. LANGDON: Yes, they are in the gallery, in the front row.

Also there is considerable volunteer activity and dedication which makes these historic projects possible. Without volunteers Sunny Cottages and John Cluett House Museum, as well as other historic sites around the Province may not exist. Therefore, while the volunteers often remain unnamed, I wish to extend a thank you for their efforts and let them know their work does not go unnoticed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

We, on this side of the House, wish to join my colleague in extending congratulations to Sunny Cottage Corporation and join with him in recognizing the tremendous role that volunteers play in all of our communities. Today it is more than ever appropriate that we take a moment to say to the volunteers throughout Newfoundland and Labrador that they are indeed the heart of the community. With the members in the gallery today, we pay particular recognition to the people who have been associated with Sunny Cottage Corporation and we on this side, give them all encouragement to continue the fine work that they have begun.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to join with pleasure in the remarks of the Member for Cape la Hune in Fortune Bay in supporting the work of the Sunny Cottage Corporation and recognizing as well those who preserve the John Cluett House. These types of projects are excellent examples of what local communities can do, not only in preserving the architectural and cultural heritage of our Province but also in providing a reason for people who are travelling and visitors to come and see these places; and people go out of their way to a community which has such a restored building to have a look around the building, to see what there is to offer in the community and to enjoy Newfoundland's rural and cultural heritage. So I think the congratulations of the House are well-deserved by this group and deserves the recognition that they are getting.

MR. SPEAKER: Before we get into the routine business perhaps I should go back to the two points that the hon. the Government House Leader raised. One was with the issue of Thursday becoming Friday and the other was the hon. Member for Topsail will introduce the motion tomorrow on the government side Private Members resolution. It is agreed then that we have unanimous consent on that, just for the record?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, okay.

 

Statements by Ministers

 

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Two years ago, government announced an incentive package for the recruitment and retention of rural doctors. Part of that incentive package included bonuses for salaried general practitioners who committed to a minimum of two years service in a designated rural area of the Province.

Mr. Speaker, effective April 1, 1997, government will fulfil its commitment and pay out $700,000 in bonuses to fifty-five eligible doctors.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: There are a further eight physicians who will be eligible to receive the bonus in this fiscal year and another thirteen will be eligible in fiscal year 1998-99.

I would also like to inform hon. members that government will extend the bonus system to include specialists also working in designated rural areas of Newfoundland and Labrador. Over the next two years, government will provide bonuses to twenty-two specialists working in rural areas of the Province. In total, more than $1 million in bonuses will be paid to our rural doctors by the end of fiscal year 1998-99.

Mr. Speaker, recruitment and retention of physicians to rural parts of the Province is one of government's highest priorities. On Thursday, government announced a $2.6 million increase for salaried physicians in rural Newfoundland. This salaried increase, in conjunction with the bonus system will allow us to be more competitive with other jurisdictions in Canada.

Government is committed to preserving and protecting access to medical services in rural Newfoundland by using the resources allocated for payment of physicians in a more efficient manner, and by addressing all of the other issues and concerns of rural doctors.

Government, together with the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association and the Newfoundland and Labrador Health Care Association, will now work toward a comprehensive plan for the recruitment and the retention of rural physicians.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

How desperate is the minister for news. Over two years ago, the announcement was made. March 14 in The Evening Telegram there was a story listing all these specifics the minister referred to. What it amounts to, in certain communities, $5,000 a year - and all the communities are listed here. That will be after taxable income of $2,000 a year to a physician in this Province who is making on the average - a salaried physician - close to $80,000, while in other provinces it is $130,000.

Now, do you think $2,000 or $3,000 a year is going to keep doctors in rural Newfoundland? I mean, the minister has to get with it. Two point six million dollars, he is telling us, a whole new pile of funds, $2.6 million, to put into increasing salaries. If you divided that by the eighty-four unfilled positions, we could pay each doctor to come in here $30,000 a year to staff the unfilled positions. Then the minister wants to put some of that to increase the base salary. We might attract doctors here at $15,000 a year by the logic and the figures that are used there.

You need over $10 million to address the problem in any reasonable manner for the shortage of doctors.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. SULLIVAN: It is a two year old announcement, it has been in the media several times in the last two years, and he is trying to stand up today and get a little bit of -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: - media attention out of something. It is like the announcement yesterday.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the Minister of Health's time is up.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Slightly over twenty-five years ago the Province started a medical school, the idea of which was that we would solve the recruitment of doctors' problem and provide a chance for the people of this Province to go to medical school. Hundreds of millions of dollars and twenty-five years later, the government is still trying to solve the problem of rural doctors.

Now, this $2.5 million band-aid does not appear to solve the problem. The people of this Province want real solutions that are going to last. I ask the minister to look into this matter, come back to this House, and report as to how the medical school can be used to ensure that we are going to have doctors in rural Newfoundland.

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

MR. DICKS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today, on behalf of the Minister of Justice, to advise my colleagues in the House of Assembly and the public of the Province that the government, in recognition of the considerable contribution provided by the many volunteers and volunteer organizations within the Province, will be providing, free of charge, Conduct Certificates from both Police Forces and Provincial Court to individuals requiring these certificates as volunteers to non-profit and volunteer organizations. These organizations include, for example, Big Brothers - Big Sisters, Community Service Organizations, and the many volunteer sports groups throughout the Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I trust this is the first of many budgetary retractions that this government will be forced to make as it learns the perils of consulting with people after making decisions. We hope to hear other announcements in the coming days, announcements whereby this government will listen to people, but unfortunately it is too little, too late. A few areas on which we hope to hear from this government are other fees as they apply to individuals, the effects upon municipalities, and parks - these are just few, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

 

Oral Questions

 

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions today are for the Minister of Health. Since the Department of Health has frozen its Budget for three years, the crunch is being felt in hospitals and nursing homes. In fact, the operating Budget for long-term care facilities this year is reduced by $11 million. The Health Care Corporation of St. John's has projected an operating deficit over the next three years, and the CEO has predicted that services would begin to suffer if an influx of money was not found. The Western Health Care Corporation is currently experiencing an operating deficit. I ask the minister if he is now permitting hospital boards to borrow and run up a deficit on their operating Budget?

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To the latter part of the hon. member's question, hospital boards are only permitted at any given time to run a deficit, or to incur borrowing, subject to the authorization and approval of the minister. That is nothing new. In instances where it is appropriate to do it on a short-term basis we do it, but in the normal course of events, hospital boards are expected, are mandated and are required, to operate on a balanced budget, and there is no change in that.

In terms of how much money we are putting into the health care system, I think it is probably time that we take a minute and reflect on some of the information that is factual but that would not readily come from the members of the Opposition in terms of the way they proposition things. The fact is that in 1991-1992 we put $838 million into the operation of the health care system, and today we have put $913 million into the operation of the health care system in the Province.

The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that we have more doctors today than we had ten years ago, and more than we had five years ago. The fact of the matter is -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to conclude his answer quickly, please.

MR. MATTHEWS: The fact of the matter is that we have 3 per cent more nurses in the system today than we did three years ago, and I could go on and on and point out to the hon. member how things have improved, notwithstanding some of the restructuring that has taken place.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition, a supplementary.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mandated to operate on a balanced budget, and then allowed to borrow; that doesn't make sense to me, Mr. Speaker. I cannot see how you can have both.

The Health Care Corporation of St. John's intends to borrow $100 million to finance the relation of the Janeway and to make improvements at St. Clare's. Now, a recent announcement by the Health Care Corporation on $2.5 million will be expended to reduce waiting lists for cardiac surgery.

I ask the minister: Will the minister confirm that no new money is being provided to accommodate cardiac patients, and in fact the money will be borrowed by the Health Care Corporation and repaid from its current operating grant, which will result in reduced services in other areas?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member refers to two different things in his question. He talks about the redevelopment, which is going to cost about $100 million in terms of capital. Then he talks about money being made available for the cardiac program.

I would tell the hon. member that last year we put $1.5 million new money -

MR. SULLIVAN: That is not the question.

MR. MATTHEWS: If that is not the question, tell me what the question is.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask the minister: Will the Minister confirm that no new money is being provided to accommodate cardiac patients and, in fact, the money will be borrowed by the Health Care Corporation and repaid from current operating grant, which will result in reduced services in other areas?

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The government made a provision last year in our health budget to provide an additional - over and above the monies that would normally go to the Health Care Corporation - $1.5 million to help them address the cardiac program waiting list that we have at the Health Sciences.

We have not been fully been able, through the Corporation, to solve the cardiac waiting list over at the Health Sciences simply because: Number one, we have not yet been able to redevelop OR studio space to give more time over there, nor have we been able to redevelop the I.C.U. to give us more I.C.U. and intermediary care beds over there. That part of the redevelopment is part of the larger redevelopment that is taking place over at the Health Sciences and at St. Clare's as a result of the $100 million expansion that we are doing for the new capital improvements.

We are not borrowing money to develop or ameliorate the waiting list on heart surgery. We are borrowing money, we are borrowing, either the government directly in lending or the Health Care Corporation on the signature of the government, one or the other, we will borrow about $100 million to do a major capital expansion that has nothing to do with the clinical program that deals with cardiac waiting lists.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the minister should have a chat with the Health Care Corporation more often and ask it where it is getting its money, I will say to the minister.

There are numerous people in hospitals this very day waiting for cardiac surgery. A few weeks ago I spoke with a person who was waiting in hospital fifty-five days. Yesterday I spoke with a person who was waiting over six weeks. That man was prepared for surgery on five separate occasions, I say to the minister, and each one was cancelled. The latest cancellation was yesterday -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: - due to a shortage of I.C.U. beds.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: I ask the minister, what are you going to do when you close the Grace Hospital and put other demands on operating room and I.C.U. space? Are we going to see a further reduction in services then?

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member is absolutely correct to this extent that he indicates there is a long waiting list for cardiac procedures at the Health Sciences. As a matter of fact, yesterday afternoon at 5:00 I met with the C.E.O., the chairman of the Health Care Corporation board, I met with Dr. Eric Stone and Dr. Eric Parsons, and others who are involved in that program, to have a further discussion as to how we can ameliorate some of the stress that is being put on patients and put on the system to deal with the problem.

The facts are, clearly, that we have over 200 today on that waiting list. I'm familiar with - I think I am - the case that he brought forward, a man who was cancelled five times. I spoke to his wife yesterday. I spoke to her last night at my home; she called me at 10:30 p.m. I spoke to her again this morning. Literally we are doing everything humanly possible within the system that we have for doing cardiac procedures to address that waiting list. I am asking the Health Care Corporation after the meeting I had with them last night to further investigate additional ways that they might be able to help alleviate that waiting list. If it is sending people out of the Province, I'm prepared to undertake to have that done. If it is moving services to another site -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to conclude his answer.

MR. MATTHEWS: - to allow for more things to be done at the Health Sciences, I'm prepared to have that done. But we are not asleep at the switch. We are on top of the issues that are pertinent to health care today -

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

MR. MATTHEWS: - and we will do due diligence to the concerns.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, the minister is not asleep at the switch, I will admit. It is hard to be asleep at the switch when you aren't even at the switch, I say to the minister.

Does the minister realize it is costing up to $800 a day to keep cardiac patients in hospital waiting for surgery? A fifty-five day wait for surgery is costing taxpayers $44,000, and there are dozens of people in that position today. I ask the minister: Why doesn't the Province provide the money now to clear up the backlog and start operating our health care system in a more cost-efficient manner?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can only repeat what has been said before. I can only reiterate what Dr. Stone and Dr. Parsons said publicly on TV. the other day. The issue of the waiting list for cardiac procedure has nothing to do with money. It has to do with physical capacity at the Health Sciences and or the St. Clare's Hospital to get more procedures put through the system. Now if the hon. -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, I'm frankly -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. MATTHEWS: I'm having competition, Mr. Speaker, and I don't like competition. If the hon. member is criticizing the health care system and government for keeping critically ill people in hospital at any cost while we are endeavouring to deliver services to them, then that is a criticism that he will have to wear and bear and live with. We are not as administrators and as managers of the health care system, Mr. Speaker, prepared to send critically ill people home just because they cost $800 a day in a hospital. We will keep them in hospital and we will look after them in hospital; we will maintain them until we are able to deliver the services that they need -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

MR. MATTHEWS: - and if the hon. member suggests that we send people home who are feeling sick because we can't perform an operation then he will have to deal with his own conscience.

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

I ask the hon. member to take his seat.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition, a supplementary.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There is a solution to that problem but it is not the one the minister is talking about. It is due to surgeries.

Last year, slightly less than nine surgeries were done per week when the expectation was over ten and up to twelve. It is not getting done, Minister, there are no beds available after surgery and you know it. Now the family -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to get to his question; he is on a supplementary.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The family I spoke with yesterday was very perturbed and if you can imagine the stress of lying in a hospital bed for six weeks, hoping and expecting every day to have cardiac surgery, it puts tremendous strain on the family and on the individual.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: I ask the minister: Will he consider the human elements and act immediately to correct this problem?

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, let me again reiterate. Let me again –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. MATTHEWS: Let me again reiterate, Mr. Speaker -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Health.

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, I shared with the hon. member just a few minutes ago the critical need we have to get through the system people who need cardiac surgery. I confirm for the House and for the hon. member that there is a waiting list of over 200 people. I shared with the hon. member the fact that, even last night, I sat in my boardroom with the CEO and the Chair of the Board of the Health Care Corporation and the people who run our cardiac program over there, to discuss ways and means of moving more people through the system.

The facts of the matter are these: We cannot physically put more procedures through the facilities that we have in their current state. We are moving as quickly as we can to do the re-development at the Health Sciences Centre and St. Clare's so that we can get more procedures put through, but in the meantime, we are prepared to discuss and to entertain any and all alternatives including if we have to send people out of the Province to ensure that they have available to them heart surgery.

The one thing we will not do is what the hon. member is suggesting, the one thing we will not do is abandon the people of the Province and send them home just because they are costing us money to keep them in hospital. We will undertake to do due diligence to their needs as we have always done and we will continue to do.

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

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

My questions are for the Minister of Social Services.

In the past several days I have had complaints from recipients of home care services to the effect that a local business, Newfoundland Domestic Home Care Services has been contacting potential clients using information that allegedly has been supplied directly or indirectly by the Department of Social Services personnel.

Can the minister assure all those who use home care services - paid for by the government - that confidential information about clients, addresses, their names, home care needs has been and is now safely guarded by her department?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

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

The confidential information about people is held within the Department of Social Services and is used for the benefits that we have to provide the care that is required. In as much as we have a system of over 1,100 persons whom I do support and know they do excellent work in very challenging times, I would have to say that this information is confidential. If the member is alluding that this information has been released in an inappropriate way, I ask that he make that known to me and I would follow-up in an appropriate manner as in an employer-employee relationship.

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

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

Newfoundland Domestic Home Care Services has told some of the people they have contacted that their information sources are within the Department of Social Services. Obviously they have information that breaches confidentiality guidelines. If the information did not originate within the Department of Social Services what other possible source of information base is there that could have access to this type of information which has been shared with the Newfoundland Domestic Home Care Services?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

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

I would say to my colleague, if you are aware that this information has been released, if confidential information has been released, I would ask that you make me aware of the source of that information.

In response to the second part of your question, I would say again that with over 1,100 employees, I can say that that information did not come with the approval of me or my department. If it did come I would like to know from the source to which you have received that information. The only alternative that I could suggest is that anyone is free at any time to disclose information about their own personal needs. I would not be able to rule out the fact that people do share information with people who are offering services. That is my choice to make as an individual or your choice or any other individual but in terms of being sanctioned from my department, I would not be releasing personal, confidential information about an individual without their knowledge. They certainly would have the right to do that if they wanted to avail of other services, as they do now. In many cases, people who are availing of home support services are acting and are the employers. They are able to give information about their needs so people can say to them what they are able to provide and that is a totally different relationship than the one you described.

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

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

I agree, madam minister, that clients can share information however, that is not what has happened here. Newfoundland Domestic Home Care Services have called clients and have told them information that they should not have access to. Given the fact, madam minister, that a little over a year ago confidential information from the department was indeed being forwarded in error, by fax, to a construction company in Labrador, given the fact that recently an employee was severed from the department for accessing or sharing confidential information, why should those who use the services of the department have confidence that you and your officials control access to confidential data?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

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

I have no idea what you are talking about, some sort of severance or severing of some employee. I don't know what you are referring to in this particular case but what I can say to you, Mr. Speaker, is that as the Minister of Social Services and as a member of this government we have a lot of confidence in our front line workers. We support the work they are doing. We respect the work they are doing under very challenging situations and in as much as I can speak for over 1,100 employees, I am confident that they are working to the best of their ability and that they would not release information that is inappropriate. If they are, if they have, I ask that you bring it forward and we will deal with it in an employer/employee fashion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

My question is for the Minister of Human Resource Development or Human Resources, whatever the new name is.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Not yet? As of April 1 then.

In view of the fact that the federal government has given notice that it will opt out of the program for older worker adjustment based on March 31, 1997, and in view of the fact that they said that any new program designed for older worker adjustment would have to be negotiated between the Province and the federal government, can the minister, who is now responsible, advise the House on where those discussions are? Can we look forward to a new program for older worker adjustment and when will that be coming?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Development and Rural Renewal.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, I still have employment programs until April 1.

In terms of the older worker program, we are still in discussions with the federal government. There have been no commitments yet. The program runs out March 31. We are hopeful that there will be another program introduced but as of today, we still don't have anything for them to talk about.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Kilbride, on a supplementary.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the Provincial Government move, and move expeditiously. For the last twelve months this government and, indeed, the people of the Province have known, that at least once case, Hopebrook Mines, is closing down. It has been forecasted for over a year. Some twenty workers who would be eligible for that program have written the minister and have asked could anything, or can anything be done to provide them some adjustment when a major site closes down, some adjustment in the workforce to get them through to retirement benefits? Can the minister comment on that? Is her department, or is government proceeding to look at doing anything for those twenty workers, especially in view of the fact that government has realized for the last year that this closure and shutdown was coming?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Development and Rural Renewal.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, we are as concerned as anyone with respect to what may happen at Hopebrook Mines. Clearly, we have to work closely with the Federal Government in developing any program for older workers, and will continue to work very closely with them. We have nothing at this point in time. The other program is still in existence until the end of March, but we are hopeful that there will be something. The federal government knows exactly where we are coming from on this front; that we really are pushing for a program as a result of the Powell one being gone.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Kilbride on a supplementary.

MR. E. BYRNE: I would suggest that concern, on the one hand, is one thing but action, on the other hand, is completely another. In view of yesterday's announcement where some $308 million was announced for the Province for over the next three years, and in view of the fact that a letter written to the minister by the president of the local union out there has requested a new program, and has also requested a retraining component, would we see coming from those funds announced yesterday a program for older worker adjustment - those funds which will be co-managed by the Province, over which the Province has some discretion and some decision-making? And, will we see a retraining component put in place for not only workers at Hopebrook, of major shutdowns, but for other workers in the Province as well?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

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

Although, this particular program has not been targeted as one of the areas, it can, in fact, meet the requirements because anyone who has an attachment to the workforce within the last thirty-six months, and anyone who has paternal or maternal relationship to the workforce within the last five years, will have access to training and programs.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Kilbride, a final supplementary.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, maybe I should have asked the question of the minister first because now we are getting somewhere. She is saying on the one hand that this program, or the conditions we have talked about, actually meets the requirements. If they do make the requirements, let me ask the minister, will she make a commitment today to meet with the local union out there to access the situation of the twenty older workers, and to put something in place for them before August 31st of this year so it will give them some sense of security as to where there future is going?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

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

I think there is a different issue here. I support my colleague in that there is a separate program in place for older workers which expires the thirty-first of this year. As my colleague has said, there have been ongoing discussions about renewal of some form of contract and we are working with the Federal Government on that. But, with respect to the other part of the question, anyone who has an attachment to the workforce and is wanting or willing to work and find alternate training or some assistance to find work, that program, the Labour Market Development Agreement, can assist anyone in that program.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, this government will meet with anyone at any time to assist them in any way we can. But, I cannot make a commitment because I would like an opportunity to meet with them. If they want to meet with me, I would be happy to meet with them.

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

MR. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Minister of Environment and Labour, can he guarantee this House that no deals will be entered into on water export, and that no applications will be approved on water export, until a generic royalty regime has been in place on the export of water from our Province?

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

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the interest of the member in the water resources of the Province, and I can commit to him that this government will not undertake a deal, or a new arrangement of a proposal, to deal a proposal on water export without full scrutiny. The government is looking at this as an opportunity for the people of the Province. We look at it as a pro-active policy, and we will bring forward the guidelines and the strategy for dealing with it. We have already announced a public policy and are filling out the details.

Mr. Speaker, the government will deal with the matter and will deal with proponents in a serious way. I am sure that as you bring it forward and create some opportunities that it will be seen as a positive policy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask the minister: When can we expect a generic royalty regime on the export of water from our Province?

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

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, it has been suggested that it would be in the fullness of time; I am going to give him a more concrete answer. We are working on it right now as we speak. The Department of Industry, Trade and Technology is working with our Department of Environment and Labour, and we are going to have a royalty regime in place very shortly.

Mr. Speaker, we are hoping that once we do that we will see people coming into the Province, and people within the Province, looking at this opportunity. As a matter of fact, we have had a number of enquiries for water export in the Province, and we are looking forward to seeing it occur. So I can assure the member that we will have the arrangements done in due course, and that as we see the proposals come in, we will be able to see it come forward.

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

MR. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In the department's regulations regarding our provincial water supplies, there is an order of priority for water use in this Province. Energy is behind both domestic and export use of water resources. Is the minister prepared to accept an application today for the export of water from Star Lake?

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

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I cannot say that, because we have not seen an application. We would have to review the application, review the proposal, and see whether or not it would meet our policy. If a company wants to bring forward a proposal for some water body, then they can do so and we will consider it with the policy.

Now, this is a pro-active policy with water sources that we may have in the Province that are not utilized, where they can create an opportunity for value-added water export opportunities.

I do not know; I have not seen an application for Star Lake, and if we do we will deal with it.

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

MR. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister has before him proposals which are going to the environmental assessment stage on the export of water from Gisborne Lake. I ask the minister: When is he going to establish a bulk volume maximum on the export of water, such as they have done in British Columbia, so that our Province can not only take the benefits from a water royalty regime but we can also take the benefits from the jobs for bottling, packaging, labelling, and even the shipment of water from Gisborne Lake?

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

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I am finding it a little bit strange that the Opposition has such an interest in what we are going to do with our water in a sense of the possible opportunity, and they are really not advocating that we look at this opportunity, but they are not expressing any opposition to the importation of bottled water into this Province, which is costing us - we are not getting any opportunity out of that whatsoever.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. K. AYLWARD: What we are trying to do, Mr. Speaker -

MR. E. BYRNE: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. E. BYRNE: (Inaudible) juice coming into this Province from other provinces (inaudible).

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

MR. E. BYRNE: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, we are exploring the opportunities to export water out of the Province. We are trying to create some job opportunities for the Province.

The British Columbia policy I am very familiar with. As a matter of fact, they are looking at our policy now because they think it is not half bad.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the homework that the Opposition member is doing, because he is doing his homework and I appreciate it. I say to him that we are taking the policy forward, and we are looking forward to creating some new opportunities for water export.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time for Oral Questions has elapsed.

 

Petitions

 

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

MR. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am happy today to again rise and present yet another petition against the privatization of our provincial parks. The petition reads: We, the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador, wish to petition the hon. House of Assembly to voice our concerns over the government's decision to privatize our provincial parks. We are asking the government to immediately reverse its decision to privatize the parks, as we feel the decision was made in haste and without any consultation from the people who own these parks, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, this is one of a number of petitions I have presented against the privatization of provincial parks. To date, we have approximately 17,000 names on petitions. It is quite clear that the people of our Province are not in favour of the privatization of our provincial parks. The people of our Province own these provincial parks. Provincial parks are not meant to generate a revenue surplus. They are paid for by the taxpayers of our Province and they are meant to be utilized and enjoyed by the taxpayers of our Province. It is appalling that our Province is looking at privatizing a number of provincial parks, especially on the eve of the most important tourism year in our history, the Cabot 500 year. There will be plenty more petitions coming forth on the privatization of our provincial parks. This is an issue that will not die.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

I am pleased today to stand in my place and support the petition presented by the Member for St. John's South regarding the privatization of parks. We have been presenting petitions in this House now for the past while concerning this issue, an issue that the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation announced with no public consultation whatsoever. Within two days, she was backtracking in the media, making statements that the media were out to get her; basically, I would say, that they were not quoting her accurately. In actual fact they were quoting directly from a press release that the minister put out.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: The Minister of Education is over there, Mr. Speaker, he just woke up. He does not seem to take this matter too seriously. I think he should. Because what is coming down the tubes with respect to parks and other issues in this Province will directly impact upon that individual in the near future when we see large demonstrations in the streets concerning this issue and many other issues that this government is planning to force down the throats of the people of this Province.

Now, as I said earlier, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation introduced this change to the park system, the privatization of parks within the Province, with no consultation whatsoever from the public. I remember, during the last election the now-Premier, the then-person looking to become Premier again, after it being handed to him on a platter - and we had members from the opposite side, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture and a few more who were afraid to run, who announced that they were going to have news conferences to announce that they did not have the nerve to run against the Premier. The Minister of Education was touted to be number one and probably could have been, if he had had the nerve to run against the Premier. But he did not have the nerve. A few members on the other side of the House got together and did the job on him. When he was out of the Province they decided to anoint the Premier we have today.

That is a side issue. This issue is an issue that the people in this Province hold very dear to their hearts. They feel they own the parks, and they do own the parks. The public of this Province have paid, year-in and year-out, over the years for these parks. They have announced millions of dollars. Millions of dollars went into these parks over the past few years. Two years ago, the then-Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation at that time, who is now the Minister of Education I think, announced the privatization of over twenty parks, to enhance the public park system in this Province. What has actually happened now, a year or two later?

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Now the Minister of Education is saying we should have privatized them all. That is the very point that I am getting to, Mr. Speaker. A year-and-a-half after we privatized twenty-eight or twenty-nine parks, some of them not operating today, we have another twenty-one being privatized. So now what are we getting into?

Are we getting into a situation now, where a year down the road the number of parks that are left, Mr. Speaker, will be privatized and we will not have any public park system whatsoever within the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador? I think, Mr. Speaker, that would be a tragedy for the people of this Province.

We are touting all the time, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, the Premier and a few other ministers on that side of the House about the potential for tourism in this Province. People from outside this Province, from all over Canada, North America, Europe come here to see the way we live. And the way we live, of course, and the traditions we have include the park system. Visitors do not want to see, in the parks, all kinds of water slides, merry-go-rounds and Ferris wheels and that type of thing, Mr. Speaker. They want to come and see the natural environment, the pristine environment that we have now, Mr. Speaker. That is what people are coming into this Province to see. But if we leave it to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation and a few of the people that are advising her, what will we see here in the parks out in Butterpot and a few of the other parks around the Province? Disneylands; are we going to have a bunch of Disneylands here in Newfoundland? Is that what we are trying to promote in this Province? Is that the idea that the government has to -

DR. GIBBONS: An awful lot of people go to Disneyland.

MR. J. BYRNE: Yes, they go to Disneyland, there is no doubt about that, I say to the Minister of Mines and Energy, who woke up just now, Mr. Speaker. There are a lot of people who go to Disneyland, there is no doubt about that but they go to Florida for that, Mr. Speaker. They do not come to Newfoundland for Disneyland. That is the point we are making. That is the very point that I am making and the people in this Province are making, Mr. Speaker.

I had a meeting in my district a few weeks ago, on a cold winter night, a stormy night, actually. I had taxpayers from Mount Pearl, St. John's, Pouch Cove, Flatrock, Torbay, Bauline, Logy Bay, Mr. Speaker, from all over, at the meeting. There were close to sixty people there on that mid-winter's night in Newfoundland, to talk about the parks. So that will give you some idea of the passion that people have with respect to the parks in this Province. Mr. Speaker, I saw passion in that room that night, in the Kinsmen Centre in Torbay.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. J. BYRNE: By leave.

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

MR. SPEAKER: No leave.

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition from a number of residents from Labrador City in the district of Labrador West, who are petitioning the hon. House of Assembly to direct government to establish a universal, comprehensive school lunch program for every school in Newfoundland and Labrador to help end child hunger and to give our children a better chance.

Mr. Speaker, this petition calls on government to recognize the dire need that exists in the schools of our Province to ensure that all children who are attending school have an opportunity to learn their lessons, to learn what school has to offer, to be able to pay attention in school and not be diverted from that attention by their own need, by hunger.

Mr. Speaker, just today on my way in here after lunch, I heard an interview on CBC radio. Cathy LeGrow, who is involved with the School Trustees Association of Newfoundland and is also the Vice-President of the Canadian Federation of School Trustees, announced that her organization, as a Canada-wide organization, has adopted as a special concern, the needs of hungry children and poor children in this country. They intend, Mr. Speaker, to get active in advocating programs for children, in particular, programs such as a school lunch program and the programs for pre-school needy children which have been identified in Dr. Patricia Canning's report, Special Matters, which was released last fall after the government had sat on it for some months.

Mr. Speaker, this hon. member and other colleagues who have spoken on this petition to date have recognized that this is a vital and pressing need, that it cannot be less than the highest priority of government to recognize the need that children have for a proper diet and proper nutrition in order to allow them to participate fully in school programs and to learn what they need to learn to give them a chance to get a decent education, to give them a chance to get the skills that they need to be able to make a life for themselves in society, to be able to support themselves and have a decent life to support a family and to contribute to society and the economy. No one, Mr. Speaker, will deny that that is the goal of each and every individual, to have a happy, productive life and to be able to participate fully in the society around them.

This petition, Mr. Speaker, is pretty basic. It recognizes that poverty and its effects are serious problems in this Province and that things are getting worse for people, not better. We have a situation where more than one-third of Newfoundland and Labrador children live in families on social assistance, and we know from recent reports from the Dietetic Association that the amount of money available on basic social assistance in this Province is hardly enough to buy food, a nutritious food basket, let alone to provide for the other needs of a family on social assistance. It is estimated that 85 per cent of the basic social assistance rate would be required to feed adequately, a nutritious diet to a family of four here in St. John's.

Mr. Speaker, this is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with not by a model. I know the Minister of Education spoke yesterday and said: we have looked at that and it does not work. Well, I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, we have not had a program that the Department of Education has sponsored. We have not had a program that the school board has paid for. We have not had a program where school principals and school boards implemented a program that provided a school lunch program in each and every school in the Province. If the minister is saying that we have tried that and it has failed, I defy him to tell us when and where that was tried in this Province.

We have a situation, Mr. Speaker, where the needs of children have been well documented and have been presented to this government and now it is time, Mr. Speaker, for the government to act.

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

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

I rise again today to support the petition that is put forward consistent with the ones that I have presented and consistent with the ones that the member has been getting, in his capacity as the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

Mr. Speaker, in the Canning report, the report of the review of special education, there is a whole chapter which talks about Poverty and Education - Chapter 3. All members would do well to read that chapter in some considerable detail because that chapter focuses on the connection between poverty and education. Just read a few sentences from it: Poverty, with its host of attendant problems places children at risk of school failure.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we know that to be true. We know that is a researched fact. In fact, a review of all the studies from the 1920s to the 1970s was conducted by authors Challs, Jacobs and Baldwin in 1990, and they found that children's literary skills were correlated consistently over studies and over time with the professional, educational and economic status of their parents; so, Mr. Speaker, we do not need any more research. We know that these students who come from poor families and who are under or malnourished, are at risk of school failure for reasons that are far beyond their own control. So, Mr. Speaker, we know that we have to address the problem.

I have met with researchers who have been putting forward these particular statements. Earlier today, I met with a leading international researcher who studies nutrition and who will tell the connection between nutrition and health and performance. We know that there is a correlation and we are saying to the government, we have to do something to address it because our failure to address the issue of poverty in children will be long-term. It is not something that we can say as a child gets older that by the time they are ten or twelve or fifteen that it goes away. It is cyclical. The children of today will be the adults of tomorrow and if we do not address the issues today in a wise manner, we are going to pay the price. And the price is going to be in poor attendance at school; it is going to be in people who do not reach their potential; it is going to be in families that are going to be dysfunctional economically. So, all of the research -

I commend the entire chapter 3 of the Patricia Canning report to all members, and if you have any doubt at all as to what this correlation is, then read through that entire chapter. Read through the chapter in the Williams Royal Commission report that talks about barriers to educational performance. One of the first barriers mentioned in the Williams Royal Commission report is the barrier of poverty.

Mr. Speaker, we say to all members that we, on this side of the House, intend to continue to put forward the issues of children, because if we do not intervene when they are very young, then we have lost the opportunity to encourage them to reach their full potential, and opportunities that are lost in childhood are opportunities that are lost in adulthood.

Therefore, we say to all people who are interested in this particular topic that we, on this side of the House, commend any member - we know other members are getting petitions. We find it ironic that not one single member on the government side has brought forward a petition on this matter. Therefore, we wonder why the petitions are not being brought forward by the government members. We know they exist; we know that they have been forwarded, but we do not see these petitions being brought before the House. Yet, this government prides itself on consultation. Well, a petition is a form of consultation. It is a way in which people can say to their elected members: Would you bring this forward to the House of Assembly for some consideration and put forward my view?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

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

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just have a few comments in response to the petition presented by the hon. member and supported by the Opposition House Leader.

The question at the end, or the proposition raised by the Opposition House Leader is wondering why members on this side of the House do not bring forward similar petitions. It is because, very simply, we take the issue very seriously and do not want to play politics with it by making that kind of a comment.

The reality is that just like the two members today, they know full well that there is a provincially-based school lunch program in place. It is very well funded, very well organized, tremendously supported by volunteers, a full staff, supported by the corporate sector, available to people everywhere in Newfoundland and Labrador. And members on this side, when they get the petition, instead of raising the petition in the House and making a speech about it, they do like the members could have done today, they refer the petitioners to the provincially-based School Lunch Program and say, `If you want to have it considered in your area, meet with these people. They will show you how to organize it; they will show you how to access the funding; they will show you how to make it work.' That is what members on this side of the House do. They do not get up here and get on with this foolishness for political reasons.

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. GRIMES: They take it seriously. We are trying to deal with it, and we deal with it seriously.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Is the Minister of Education saying in this House that he is accepting zero responsibility for petitioners coming before this House for that very important issue? Is he referring it to an arm's length board? Is that what the minister is doing, because if he is doing that he should not be sitting in that seat as Minister of Education?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

The hon. the Minister of Education.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, more evidence of exactly what I was just saying. Members on this side of the House, this government, support the petitioners because they take the issues seriously. We have put our money where our mouth is, along with corporate sector sponsors in the Province, in terms of looking at funding very well established School Lunch Programs, and knowing that we are supporting a recipe for success that is already well developed in the Province.

Instead of doing what the hon. the Opposition House Leader suggested, that they get up and wonder why the petitions are not being raised in the House, just to bring attention to it, we bring it to the attention. The government, when it was brought to our attention last year, responded by putting in an extra $125,000. We now have another $200,000 put in by a major corporate sector sponsor. We refer the people to areas where the program is working. We are not interested in politics like the members opposite are, we are interested in results for the benefit of the children, and that is what we are determined to deliver.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

I rise today to present a petition on behalf of a number of people in St. John's, Torbay, Middle Cove, Terrenceville and other areas. Of course, it is concerning the privatization of parks.

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Now if the Minister of Education wants the floor, he can certainly jump up and have a few words.

MR. GRIMES: I probably will.

MR. J. BYRNE: I hope you do. It is about time for you to get up and give a bit of support for the people in the Province who elected you to speak on their behalf, especially with respect to the privatization of parks, which is a big area; it is a big factor out in your district, I would imagine. No doubt about it, Mr. Speaker.

I do not know if the Minister of Education would like me to read this petition, but he usually has a problem with the wording of petitions. I will read it:

To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland in Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador asks for the House of Assembly to accept the following prayer: We, the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador, wish to petition the Provincial Government, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation and the Premier, to immediately reverse the decision to privatize the provincial parks, as they are the people's resource. We feel that this decision was made in haste - which has been proven before - without any consultation of the people who own the parks, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Education was just on his feet speaking to a petition. What I can gather from what he said, to put it in my own words, I suppose, the petitions in the House are not being presented on that side of the House because - I am not sure if he said they do not take them seriously. Is that what he said, that the people over there do not take them seriously?

MR. GRIMES: Get Hansard and read it, boy.

MR. J. BYRNE: Anyway, Mr. Speaker, here is the answer. The reason why they do not present them over there is that there is no point in the people giving petitions to them to be presented, because they are not supporting the petitions put to them. Petitions are a form of consultation, as mentioned by the Member for Waterford Valley, they are a form of consultation, and this Province has done no consultation on any of the major issues.

The Minister of Finance and Treasury Board went around with - I do not know what kind of a show, some kind of road show, and pretended he was listening to the people. An individual even brought it up to him the other night when he was on television answering questions, that it was a show, that they were not being listened to, he was just writing notes, basically ignoring what was being said. That is the type of thing that has been going on in this Province with respect to the government, no consultation, trying to give the impression, sometimes, that there is consultation, but none, not really.

Now, this petition here with respect to the privatization of parks: I was mentioning earlier when I was speaking to the petition presented by the Member for St. John's South that there were phases going on here. A couple of years ago the government decided they were going to privatize so many parks to enhance the public park system. They are privatizing so many more now, and next year, maybe the year after, we will see no public park system in the Province.

The Minister of Education, when I was up speaking the last time, made a comment that we should not have a public park system in the Province, it should be completely privatized. If that is the case, then that begs the next question - taking good notes now, I hope - who is going to get these parks? Who is going to get them? They have gone against their own review that was put out not long ago that suggested they would not even look at, consider, privatizing parks this year because of the Cabot 500 celebrations - that they would not consider privatizing the parks. But the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation in her wisdom, the lady who said last fall, with respect to people coming to this Province, that they could stay in igloos in Newfoundland and Labrador - now, that is the person we are putting this whole park system on, that is the person who is going to be making the decision here with respect to the privatization of parks in this Province.

The Minister of Education supports it. Obviously, everybody on that side of the House supports it. There is not one individual on that side of the House have yet stood in their place and spoke against the privatization of parks. They know full well that the majority of people in this Province oppose the privatization of parks.

Now, another comment that was made was that there may not be any job losses, and that the employees can take over these parks and put in a business proposal by April 4th, 6th, or whatever the case may be.

Now, first of all, is that realistic, to put in a business proposal to take over these parks within three or four weeks from the first announcement, when what you have to look at was the finances, the usage, and all types of factors, including looking for funding from the banks? Can you imagine the number of employees that are part-time employees who work summertime, and part of the fall, maybe, going to a chartered bank looking for financing to get into a business when their UI is going to run out in two or three weeks? Mr. Speaker, that is a joke in itself.

Then the government says, well, maybe we can assist these people. Now, they are going to assist these people. It is going to cost $1.8 million a year to keep the public parks open.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. J. BYRNE: By leave, Mr. Speaker.

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

DR. GIBBONS: No leave.

MR. J. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Minister of Mines and Energy refuses leave for me to speak on the parks system so obviously he supports the privatization of parks.

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

MR. OSBORNE: I am happy to stand and speak on this particular petition. I have presented a number of petitions on the same issue already. There are a number of reasons why I am happy to stand and speak on this particular petition. As my hon. colleague has mentioned the time frame to set up a business is just not there. The last of February we were told that these parks are going to be privatized, and by April 4 people were suppose to come forth with a business plan. They were supposed to design a business plan, put their financing in place, and have employees put in place. They were suppose to be aware of how they were going to operate that park, and even more startling was the fact that if they put in a proposal and it was accepted they were suppose to have this business up and running to the same standards that our provincial parks are operated at for this tourist season, and that is just simply impossible.

AN HON. MEMBER: Maybe their friends were picked out beforehand.

MR. OSBORNE: Yes, unless there was somebody picked out for these parks beforehand. It is impossible to have a business plan put in place and operated prior -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When the parks were privatized in 1995 there were twenty-eight parks taken out of the system. On June 14, 1995 the first notification of successful applications was put in for the takeover of these parks, after the notice was given on March 7. That is a number of months before they actually had their first notification to actually operate one of these parks as a business, and that is a reasonable time frame. What the provincial government is expecting here, Mr. Speaker, is completely unreasonable.

On March 7 when these parks were offered up for private takeover the then Minister Grimes stated that government is committed to protecting and preserving the Province's most important natural areas that have been selected to represent the ecological diversity of our Province. He went on to say, at that time those parks identified to remain in the system were done so under the direction of the 1995 task force.

Has the ecological significance of these areas changed in a mere two years? Because, after twenty-eight parks were taken out of the system, and we were told that the remaining parks were going to stay there to protect the ecological areas of our Province, and that they would do so under the direction of the 1995 task force, it is amazing how, all of a sudden, now, two years later we can chop another twenty-one parks out of the provincial park system and justify it in the name of saving $1.8 million.

Furthermore, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation can say that these parks will still be legislatively protected, yet through the tendering package the very same minister is offering a fifty-year lease on these parks to the successful private operator. With a fifty-year lease these private operators, if they are unable - and I would suspect many of them will be. Because according to the program review that was released in September 1996, many of the private operators of parks in our Province today are suffering financially, and do not have the financial ability to invest into these parks to keep the standards up to what the standards are in the provincial parks.

If these private operators who are in place right now are suffering financially, that tells you that the private operators of these twenty-one parks may suffer as well, the same way the existing private operators are. If those private operators are expected to pay the wages and pay the utilities and keep the parks up to standards -

MR. SPEAKER (Penney): Order, please!

MR. OSBORNE: By leave, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member's time is up.

MR. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just a couple of comments with respect to the petition; again, I find it a little difficult that the hon. members in presenting the petitions about their concerns with respect to the parks in the Province - it would have a lot more credibility from this side I think if we felt they were dealing with the issues on the merits of the case and recognizing the facts of what had occurred before, instead of making up a story, and the whole notion....

The saddest part of it all, I think - and I won't take much time, because I look forward to hearing the rest of the dissertation by the Leader of the Opposition and their finance critic about the Budget. He is doing such a great job. The saddest part is to see a person like that, who is a good, decent man, being willing to get on with all kinds of foolishness and nonsense that he knows to be untrue, and is getting dragged down in the mud for whatever reason. I don't understand it, because I know the hon. member from a life long before politics. I know that he is basically a decent person. I can't believe some of the things he utters now for a purpose of politics, because it can't be anything else. It isn't at all based on anything he has had in his past. Let me give one example of the problem that we have.

MR. H. HODDER: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. GRIMES: We have issues with respect to -

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

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

MR. H. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, I thought I heard the Minister of Education say the hon. the Member for St. John's South knows what he has said to be untrue. That would have the affect of deliberately misleading the House. I'm raising the point of order that I do believe that breaches the rules of parliamentary procedure.

MR. SPEAKER: The Speaker will be very happy to check Hansard, but if the hon. minister made that statement I would ask him to withdraw.

MR. GRIMES: Yes, Mr. Speaker. If I said anything - I'm not suggesting that anybody is lying here. I would not suggest that, and I have not suggested that, and would withdraw it. If there are any words that show up in Hansard that suggest I said that I withdraw, unequivocally.

Let me give an example of the concern that we have. In presenting the case with the previous examples of privatisation where we did a dozen or so, fifteen or so, parks a couple of years ago with great success, the Opposition is willing to present the view that is saying a number of them were offered for privatisation and they were closed. They know, for example, that one of them is the Baie Verte Park that was offered for privatisation the last time as a technicality. Because it hadn't operated as a park for some ten years before that, but it had to be put into the group and decommissioned and reverted to Crown land as a technicality. They would offer that as being a failure of the system, a park that we reverted to Crown lands that had not operated as a park for ten years. The Member for Baie Verte can attest to it, old `coppertop' himself. He knows it to be the fact. His colleagues know it to be the fact.

But they will stand up and try to suggest that the whole thing is wrongheaded or going in the wrong direction because that park wasn't picked up by a private operator. The reality is it had not operated as a provincial park for over a decade before it was decommissioned the last time. They are willing to stand up in the House and go to public meetings around the Province, Mr. Speaker, and say there is a sign of failure in the last initiative because of the fact that a park, that had not even been opened as a park for ten years was decommissioned, made into Crown land because nobody had used it as a park for ten years. That is what they present in public meetings and in this House as an issue to say here was a park that used to run and it shows that privatization does not work. They know the difference, Mr. Speaker, and that is the point I'm trying to make. When you know the difference and you are willing to use it as information to mislead the people in the Province in public meetings and otherwise, that causes great difficulty, Mr. Speaker, with the credibility of the whole issue.

MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the hon. the Member for St. John's South.

MR. OSBORNE: Mr. Speaker, I find it appalling that the previous Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, the now Minister of Education can stand in his spot and say that we are spreading falsities over here.

Mr. Speaker, the Province's own Program Review that was put out by the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation on September 27, 1996 - and I have stated in this House many, many times, Mr. Speaker, that of the twenty-eight parks cut from the system there were serious inquiries on fifteen of which ten are still operating. Mr. Speaker, in the Program Review -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Is the hon. member speaking to a point of order or is he just engaging in the debate?

MR. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Just in conclusion to the petition, we take the petitions on all matters seriously because they are signed by residents of the Province who have expressed a concern but the point that I make, Mr. Speaker, is when they sign the petition - because people go around for political reasons and no other and mislead them at the public meetings. They say because a park like Baie Verte is not operating it shows, proves and demonstrates - that is what they say at the public meetings, Mr. Speaker, and if you are sitting in a public meeting and they know the difference but they portray it and represent it differently and lead people into saying, you have to sign this -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. minister's time is up.

MR. GRIMES: - than that, Mr. Speaker, is why we have difficulty with the presentation and the sincerity of it.

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I wasn't going to rise but I would like to respond to some of the comments the hon. member made and to present the following petition that; we the residents of Newfoundland -

MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the hon. the Minister of Education.

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, we were speaking to a petition that was raised by the Member for Cape St. Francis and spoken to by the Member for St. John's South and responded to by the Minister of Education. That petition, as I understand the rules of the House, is completed.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I was presenting another petition -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Is the hon. Member for Kilbride presenting a new petition?

MR. E. BYRNE: Absolutely, as I already indicated.

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

MR. E. BYRNE: As I was about to read; we the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador wish to petition the provincial government, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation and the Premier, to immediately reverse the decision to privatize the provincial parks as they are the people's resource. We feel that this decision was made in haste without any consultation of the people who own the parks, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I am not going to take up too much time but the Minister of Education has raised the notion and the question of credibility and that is exactly what this issue is about. It is about credibility. It is about the credibility of government decision making. It is about the credibility of government consultation. It is about the credibility of the haste with which government made this decision and it's about the credibility of the reasons government has put forward for this decision in closing down provincial parks. I would like to visit a couple of them. Government talks about, that in no way, shape or form will any of these privatized parks or the ones that are put out for sale, the ones that are privatized, will interfere with the upcoming Cabot celebrations. A legitimate question, will it or will it not? The only information that we have and the only information that we have been able to determine for ourselves, to ask government questions on is governments own information which came from program review.

The other information that we have is based upon sound and factual experience of how the parks, that were privatized in 1995 and the process by which they were privatized and the time frame from beginning to end in terms of what it took.

Let's look at program review. In government's own Program Review, internal documents provided to the minister, it said clearly that any initiative to privatize parks right now would probably interrupt or interfere with accommodations for the upcoming Cabot celebrations. That is in government's own report. I will send the Minister of Education a copy of Hansard later.

The last privatization initiative which occurred in 1995, by the time privatization began and the call for proposals went out, it took approximately one year - not three months - it took one year for that process to complete itself. Now those are facts. Those are undisputable. Some would call it self-evident, but the reality is that they are what they are. Neither the Minister of Education nor the Premier nor the Minister of Tourism can dispute it because those are the facts.

Let's look at the Minister of Tourism's response in terms of talking about the employment benefits, that there would be absolutely no decrease in employment as a result of the privatization initiative. That is what she said. Let's look back to 1995. How many of the provincial park employees that were part of the privatization scheme of provincial parks in 1995 are working in those parks today?

MR. J. BYRNE: How many? I don't know.

MR. E. BYRNE: Zero.

MR. J. BYRNE: Zero?

MR. E. BYRNE: None.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. E. BYRNE: Not one.

Let's talk about when the Minister of Tourism turned around and said to provincial park employees: The opportunity for you, as employees, will be there for you to take over the parks and run them as your own business.

Let's look back to 1995. How many of those employees actually were in a position or took over the privatized parks at that time? None, Mr. Speaker, zero.

When we look at the process, the timeframe which people were given to put together a business plan for these parks, we ask questions: What is for sale? What is the cost price? Is Cochrane Pond the same price as Jonathan's Pond in Gander?

MR. J. BYRNE: Who knows?

MR. E. BYRNE: Nobody knows, and the government and the Ministers of Education and Tourism can get up and try to lambaste the Opposition for articulating questions that the public themselves are asking? The questions that the public themselves are asking and not getting any answers?

Mr. Speaker, it is unacceptable in this day and age, on such a serious issue where there has been significant public outcry, that fundamental questions surrounding this issue on the privatization of parks are not being answered. Simply put, government has within its hands the ability to stand up and answer the questions put forward by the critic of tourism, the Member for St. John's South. They have the ability and the power within their hands to stand up and lay all their cards on the table.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Does the hon. member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Yes.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Kilbride, by leave.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that.

Government has before them an ability and power to lay all of its cards on the table, and to come clean with the people of the Province on this issue and answer very fundamental questions, questions that people themselves are asking. The Opposition is asking for nothing more and nothing less.

Thank you.

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

MR. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I stand to support this petition, and in supporting the petition I would like to refer to the government's own Program Review, to clear the air and correct something that was said in the House on an earlier petition on the same issue.

Mr. Speaker, it says here that of the twenty-eight parks removed from the system in 1995, only eleven were operational during the summer of 1996, and that number actually now has gone down to ten. Of those eleven, six were operated by individual entrepreneurs, so if the government figures they can boast about that number, Mr. Speaker, I can't see why, I can't see how. Mr. Speaker, based on the results of the 1995 divestiture, it appears that few individuals are willing to invest in the camp-ground business during these economically depressed times. That comes from the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation's own program review, Mr. Speaker, and in our cross-Province consultations with the people something that the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation herself has refused to do, Mr. Speaker, we have never mentioned, not even one, never mentioned the name of one of those twenty-eight parks closed, let alone the park for Baie Verte. We never said that twenty-eight parks were privatized and it is now only ten operating; we said exactly what I said in this House today and what I said in the House yesterday and what I said in the House on many other occasions, Mr. Speaker, and that is, that of the twenty-eight parks that were removed from the system in 1995, that there are only ten operating today and let me make that quite clear, because, the Minister of Education apparently has a problem understanding that.

Mr. Speaker, further to that, we have spoken about the standards in the parks and, in the minister's own program review, released by the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, it states quite clearly that, the standards of provincial parks tend to be higher than that of the private sector equivalent. The Province provides higher quality facilities. It also says, Mr. Speaker, that provincial parks are legislatively protected and policy driven to ensure that the environmental and safety issues are addressed in an adequate manner therefore ensuring that the nature of tourism product is maintained at a high standard.

Mr. Speaker, it says that: provincial parks provide a high quality outdoor recreation opportunity in a safe and environmental manner. They serve as an environmentally sensible means of enjoyable outdoor recreation without putting undue pressure on the environment. Private park operators may not have the financial resources or the desire to implement the standards that are commonplace in our provincial parks.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know how much clearer we can be on this particular issue, and the people of our Province are very, very concerned about the privatization of provincial parks and I feel that, in our consultations with the people of our Province, we have gone about this in a very fair manner. We have represented the facts, we have not clouded the issue, and the reason we have gotten 17,000 names on petitions, Mr. Speaker, is because it is a very real issue. It is a very sincere issue, and, Mr. Speaker, it seems that it is only the Opposition and the people of the Province who have a concern with the privatization of the provincial parks.

It appears to me that the government is in favour of it with the exception perhaps of one member and that member was quoted in yesterday's regional paper The Advertiser, as lobbying hard the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation to try to get her to keep certain parks in that area open but, to no avail; so we may have some people sitting on the back benches, Mr. Speaker, of this House, on the government side, finally starting to feel the pressure of the people in their areas and that has become evident because some members, at least one, has been putting pressure on the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation to reverse her decision, at least, in part. On that note, Mr. Speaker, I will pass the floor back.

Thank you.

 

Orders of the Day

 

MR. TULK: Motion No. 1, Mr. Speaker, the Budget Speech.

MR. SPEAKER (M. Penney): Motion 1, the hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board to move that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole on Ways and Means to consider the raising of Supply to be Granted to Her Majesty.

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: No, that is Motion 1, Budget Speech.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am delighted again to have an opportunity to give the real Budget of this Province for 1997-98, the real Budget. We heard the Minister of Health tell us today, he is not asleep at the switch. I mean, how many people in this Province today really think he is at the switch? I would say that in a poll of the people in this Province, there would not be one in a thousand who thinks the Minister of Health is at the switch. In fact, he is far removed from it, and here in the Budget, released last week, it is a glossy - the only thing that was not glossy was the paper it was printed on, that is the only thing that was not glossy about it.

While I am on the Minister of Health, yes, the Minister of Health's famous quote I think I will start with that while he is still here. He says: It is a crafty piece of work my son, your fingerprints are all over it. That is what he said. I mean, can you imagine coming out of the House here and saying to Malcolm: It is a crafty piece of work my son, your fingerprints are all over it?

(Inaudible) the same minister who tried to bluff us in the House today. He tried to bluff us with a ministerial statement that was over two years ago, Mr. Speaker. They had a statement saying that we are going to assist physicians in rural Newfoundland. He said: How are we going to assist them? Here is how we are going to assist them. Can you imagine? The physicians who are in Baie Verte, La Scie, Bonavista, Burin, Bell Island, Goose Bay, Labrador City, Lourdes, Old Perlican, St. Anthony, Virgin Arm, Glovertown, Lewisporte, Port aux Basques, St. George's, Twillingate, we are going to give them, if they stay there for two years, a big sum of $5,000 a year before taxes, $2,000 a year after taxes.

MR. MATTHEWS: You don't know what their after-taxes income is. I mean, that is like saying you are only getting about $3,000 a month. I mean, you are (inaudible) tax bracket.

MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, I thought I had the floor. I thought I was recognized to speak.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I will explain it after taxes. On a salary –

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

I will confirm that the hon. Leader of the Opposition was recognized by the Chair and you do have the floor.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Speaker is aware of it and the Minister of Health is not. On a starting salary - and I will give you my reasoning for that deduction, Minister of Health. I know he isn't the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board. He might like to be, but God help us, he isn't. If he does to finance, and every year he gets his hands on it, what he is after doing to health....

Based on the salary scale that your department has provided, it is $67,400, roughly. It is the starting salary for a physician in rural Newfoundland at the bottom step of the scale. He can go to a high amount of roughly $100,000, but I would say the average, and the minister can confirm this, is about $80,000. That would be the average in the Province. Based on that gross income, when somebody has a taxable income over $60,000 you are into a tax bracket that takes away about 52 per cent or 53 per cent, assuming you have no other income.

We do have salaried physicians out there today doing locums. We all know, and (inaudible) heard the minister on the radio this morning on C.B.C. talk about it. The issue I raised in the House a year ago, I said to him: You will pay transportation for a doctor. He said: Here is what you will do. On the Burin Peninsula I raised it. The doctors on the Burin Peninsula were worked to death. Even when they are off, when they want to come in on call, they won't pay them. But they will fly somebody in to the Burin Peninsula and pay their air fare, or pay their ground transportation. They put food in their refrigerator, I will tell him. They will pay him $500 a day, I think it is, and numerous other costs, and they won't increase the salary of the doctor who is in the area.

The minister said: There is enough out in locums. I warned him a year ago on the public record, and he was on the radio this morning, lo and behold a new discovery. All these locums, he said, could be paying other doctors. I would say whoop-de-do! The minister woke up. Not at the switch but well removed from the switch, about a year later, and now he is looking at the situation. Look, if you have to pay doctors enough to serve in rural Newfoundland they won't have to be worrying about locums. When you have a loco in charge of locums we have a big problem, I would say.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I say to the Minister of Mines and Energy, no, there are no votes in Placentia for you at all, none whatsoever.

Now, based on the mathematics - the Minister of Health asked the question - based on the three -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Ferryland?

MR. SULLIVAN: There aren't many of them left up there. There are not many votes left in Ferryland. The Liberal ones are getting scarcer everyday in Ferryland, I can tell him, in Calvert, in Bay Bulls, in Witless Bay. Sensible people in that district, very intelligent people in Ferryland district.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Pardon? Well, they weren't for seventeen years, I say to the minister, and they were almost Liberal when I ran first in 1992. Almost, 125 vote difference. Forty-two per cent of the vote I managed to squeeze in on. So there is no such thing –

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Well now, I thank the minister for his great confidence in me.

Back to the Minister of Health, based on the three levels of income set down by Revenue Canada on taxable income - I am answering the minister's questions - Minister, the $5,000 you give the doctors in these areas, their take-home, excluding other deductions - whether it is UI, Canada Pension or other insurance, any other deductions -would only be a little over $2,000 based on the income tax scales that are out there today on salary level.

MR. MATTHEWS: Are you saying we should not have given them anything, or what?

MR. SULLIVAN: You should have given them more.

MR. MATTHEWS: More?

MR. SULLIVAN: More.

MR. MATTHEWS: Where?

AN HON. MEMBER: In the Budget, boy!

MR. SULLIVAN: In the Budget; $2.6 million in the Budget spread over eighty-four unfilled positions that is $3,000 a year. The tax income there at that, $1,300 of take-home pay and you expect them to stay - $50,000 less than they are getting in other provinces.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where are you going to get the money, `Loyola'?

MR. SULLIVAN: Where do you get the money? Okay, I will tell you where we can get some: first of all, instead of increasing Cabinet we can reduce it down to a dozen instead of going up to sixteen. Instead of having forty-eight seats, we can have a maximum of forty seats, which we called for, and I have. It is too big. Can you imagine, forty-eight people around this House of Assembly wasting taxpayers' money when nine sensible people could be doing the job? Now, why do we need thirty-nine others here in this House? I do not see it. We will have a more cost-efficient and effective government, I can guarantee you. We may find one - yes, up 4 per cent in the last one. At that rate we -

AN HON. MEMBER: You are up to ten now, are you?

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, at that rate, in about fifteen year's time - actually, at that rate, believe it or not, 32 per cent - Premier Wells had 47 per cent, 15 per cent shy. So at that rate, in one year we will have enough votes in this Province and that is the mathematics of it. Now, the reality is, at the rate you are going it could be a lot sooner. Do not worry, if you can keep that Minister of Health around and a few others, you will get where we want you to be very soon, very, very soon. The Minister of Health and the Minister of Finance, I am not sure -

MR. J. BYRNE: The Minister of Education.

MR. SULLIVAN: The Minister of Education, he did the job on tourism, Cabot 500, millions unaccountable of taxpayers' dollars into education. He promised savings in education. What did he do? Oh, we need Term 17. We cannot have those senators holding it up. We need it to put the money back into education. To reinvest it, he told us. What did he do when they got it through? They siphoned it out, sucked $40 million right out of education, out of the classrooms, on the backs of the people in this Province who need it. That is what they did - a breach of faith that the people placed in them. They have breached that contract. They were going to reinvest it back into education. They were going to improve the classrooms. They were going to deal with problems in curriculum, deal with disruptive behaviour. We have a report here, the problems in our system, the Dr. Canning report. Now, they do not like the report - there are other opinions. The Strategic Social Plan - they are re-doctoring the Strategic Social Plan that went around the Province.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Millions of it altogether. I am not sure of the figure on Special Matters. I do not know what the dollar value on it was. It is in the thousands of dollars, anyway, several thousand.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Dr. Canning? No, it is not Dr. Canning from Labrador West. He might be getting there but - it might be a special matter we need to deal with but it is a different one.

The minister had the audacity to tell us: We are doing what we can - cardiac surgery, doing what we can. Three-and-a-half years ago it was a problem. There are twice as many now as there were then. Where is the problem? It has not been solved because when there are more people getting put on a list, fifty-five days in hospital expecting to get their surgery tomorrow and next week and the day after, it is a strain. Someone with 80 per cent blockage, I tell you, it is really enough to put someone over the brink. It is enough to bring on death, basically, with the stress. Nobody should have to - then, the minister, to stand in the House today and imply that we should send them home. The minister said we should send them home. What an insult by the minister!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) said that.

MR. SULLIVAN: It is an insult.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) you said send them home!

MR. SULLIVAN: I said you should do the surgeries.

AN HON. MEMBER: You said send them home!

MR. SULLIVAN: The minister, talking about sending them home, the Minister of Health, sick people in hospital. Can you imagine the Minister of Health saying that? If you were in hospital you would get served, I say to the minister. You would get served. You should send them to the operating room, then you should send them to the I.C.U., then you should send them home. I say to the minister, that is what you should do.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SULLIVAN: Sometimes I wonder who is recognized here to speak. Sometimes it hurts a little bit to tell the truth. I can understand why the minister feels bad. The guy who failed to have accountability on millions of dollars of Cabot 500, gouged $40 million out of education, the guy who was the saviour of teachers in the Province and then knifed them in the back, and he has the audacity now to tell us he is interested in education in the Province. He should be so embarrassed he does not even come to the House. You should stay away, Minister.

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible) write my name on the Budget now, and see if I have a personal (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: That is on the Budget; that is Budget. Forestry and agriculture; it tells us in the Budget, and this is Budget, we are going to take up to $1.7 million out of silviculture in a province that is over-harvesting by 50 per cent.

MR. TULK: Over-harvesting by how much?

MR. SULLIVAN: They harvested 1.88 million cubic metres, that was the sustainable harvest, and they harvested over 3 million cubic metres. The companies alone took 1.88 million cubic metres and that represented 62.6 per cent of the total harvest, I say to the minister. That is what is in your report.

MR. TULK: No, it is not in my report. That is your fiction that you are trying to get out of the report.

MR. SULLIVAN: That is what is in your report. The minister does not know his own report. Did he read it?

MR. TULK: Yes, absolutely, long before you saw it.

MR. SULLIVAN: First of all, it took him six years to give us a five-year report on a twenty-year plan that will take fifty years probably to implement. I mean, get real. It is time -

MR. TULK: Thank you, teacher Sullivan. I can read as well as you can.

MR. SULLIVAN: I did not say you cannot read, I asked: Did you read it? I do not ever want to question anybody's ability. I just want to question whether they did do it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, and you should do something about it. Now, in Labrador, they tell us, there is another 550,000 cubic metres of which only 100,000 has been harvested. We have lots of trees in Labrador. Well, I say, God help us, if they do to the trees in Labrador what they are after doing to the trees in this Province under that minister.

MR. TULK: Your Tory buddies!

MR. SULLIVAN: The former minister, any minister!

MR. TULK: Your Charlie Power (inaudible) -

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

MR. TULK: - who you are now supporting in St. John's West!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: Any minister; this minister or the former minister, sure, any minister.

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

The Chair is not going to tolerate the shouting across the House any longer. I call for order.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, Mr. Speaker, proper thing.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The current minister, the former minister who represented Windsor - Buchans, now it is Windsor - Springdale. The former minister... I think it was forestry - no, I am not sure whether it was forestry, the Member for Humber Valley, whether the forestry was in with agriculture then. Anyway, whatever minister who was there. It does not matter.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: It doesn't matter where, I do not care who they were. When you over-harvest you have disaster.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible)? You are supporting him!

MR. SULLIVAN: Well, you are hardly going to support a person who cannot make up his mind. Who is going to support a person who does not know if he wants to run? Your colleague cannot decide if he wants to run. He has decided whether he wants to draw a salary from here and stay here and then run. He wants it on both hands. You have to make up your mind. How can you support a phantom?

MR. TULK: (Inaudible) forestry (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: The Government House Leader, responsible for setting decorum in the House here, is one of the ones who keeps the decorum least here in the House. No wonder the Speaker has a problem. No wonder they do not like what they hear about the Budget.

Today, as a prime example, I spoke on the Budget. I am delighted the Minister of Finance listened yesterday to what I had to say. I asked: Can you imagine people running volunteer organizations in this Province, screening people - in some organizations up to forty people - to work with young kids? We have had our share of abused young kids, sexual and physical and other types of abuse in the Province, and volunteer organizations need to screen -

AN HON. MEMBER: More than our share.

MR. SULLIVAN: More than our share.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, the member is well aware of that, I must say, very much aware of it.

And now, to go and charge them! I am glad the minister came back today with a Ministerial Statement that said, We are not going to charge volunteers of non-profit organizations to have that certificate. So that is backtracking, and we are delighted. We support backtracking, but what disturbs me first of all is: Where was the consultation that should have been taking place? Where was it? Where was the consultation on many of the decisions here in the Budget? Did they consult with these groups? No, but still you announced it and you backtracked. It shows a very ill-thought-out process here in the Budget, when you have to turn around the day after, when people in the public forum kick up a stink, to have to come back and say, `We were wrong'.

Well, at least admitting you were wrong is noble - I agree with that - but it is an insult to the people out there who were not consulted and have to keep reminding you of the effect it is going to have on volunteers in this Province. Volunteers in this Province are needed more than ever before because there are cutbacks. Government cutbacks to these organizations have made it all the more important to have these volunteers, and we should be doing everything to facilitate the process to make it easier for volunteers to work with the youth of our Province. I am glad the minister listened yesterday in my response to the Budget. I am delighted.

We have problems out there in our health system and there is not one thing in this entire Budget - this Budget dealing with hospitals and long-term care facilities, has $11 million less in it. How many people out there today really believe that our health care system is going to get better when you take $11 million out of acute care and other institutions? What are they doing? They are driving hospitals to borrow. The public relations notes prepared by departments tell us that the hospitals here - over the next three years, they are going to operate with a deficit here in the Health Care Corporation of St. John's. They are telling us that the Western Health Care Board is now operating at a current operating deficit, and now we are going to say government is going to balance the Budget and we are going to make the Health Care Corporation borrow $100 million to go out and do expansions and changes.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are into more fiction than fact.

MR. SULLIVAN: No, this is fact. It is here, and I will read it to the minister.

In The Evening Telegram, a quote by the Health Care Corporation, the Health Sciences Centre, goes on to say that the minister did not know -

AN HON. MEMBER: Turn it down.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, I can turn it down, too.

The minister stated in the House this afternoon that: I was wrong when I said the $2.5 million for cardiac surgery is not going to be borrowed.

Here is what the Health Care Corporation said at their news conference. The statement carried here said: This $2.5 million construction will start at the Health Sciences Centre this summer in conjunction with the construction of the new Janeway Child Health and Children's Rehabilitation Centre.

And it was on public record by Elizabeth Davis - I asked the question at a public meeting at Holiday Inn: What are you going to do for the $100 million? Is government going to borrow, or is the Health Care Corporation going to borrow? They have indicated, and it is on the record, that they are going to borrow $100 million, and what is going to happen there -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Pass it over and I will have a look. That is the one west of Burgeo. That is an excellent idea. I support that. I think it is tremendous; I sure do.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I support the ecological reserve, in fact, west of the Burgeo Highway, I do believe. It runs just directly west. I think it touches on the western side and goes further west. Is that under federal -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: No, that is strictly provincial?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: That is what I thought. I knew there was an announcement on that. You supplied the land and the feds supplied the money.

AN HON. MEMBER: Abitibi supplied the money.

MR. SULLIVAN: They supplied some of the land, didn't they? That announcement was a couple of weeks ago, or last month.

MR. TULK: No, last November, boy.

MR. SULLIVAN: Anyway, I do recall it, I read it, and we can only support it.

Mr. Speaker, health care is one area that has been hit extremely hard in this Budget. In fact it has been frozen over all the Budget, but acute care and long-term care has been reduced by $11 million, and it is going to have devastating effects. We have seen what effects freezing a budget, just one year ago, has had on health care in this Province. When you freeze it, it is equivalent to reducing it by about 7 per cent, and over the next year we are going to be seeing the affects in this Province. We will be seeing longer waiting lists, more concerns with health care because we will have more elderly people in the Province with greater needs. Even the minister and social strategic consultation documents indicate that over the next twenty years we are going to have less people working, less paying taxes, more elderly and a greater need for care, and less people to be able to fund that particular need.

That is the reality today, but the Finance Minister gives us a different picture, that everything is going to be hunky-dory in the future.

Maybe the Minister of Environment and Labour can answer today. The Minister of Environment and Labour did not know yesterday that to have a septic system inspected, it says in the book from $200 to $1,000.

AN HON. MEMBER: This book says $1,000 for individual systems.

MR. SULLIVAN: What are individual systems?

AN HON. MEMBER: (inaudible)

MR. SULLIVAN: They are not included, so a private residence outside a municipality - what about a municipality?

AN HON. MEMBER: A municipality is included.

MR. SULLIVAN: So the basic connection is on but they are normally done under a capital works contract.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. SULLIVAN: So, normally with engineered, on-site engineer, that company would now have to include in their price when they bid -

AN HON. MEMBER: It will be charged to municipalities.

MR. SULLIVAN: The municipality will have to pay now, and that will be a part of the money in the bid to allow in that allocation to pay for that price. In other words if a $200,000 capital works project is approved and there are going to be fifty services in that amount, up to $1,000, it could cost $50,000. No, $200 is the minimum it said.

AN HON. MEMBER: (inaudible)

MR. SULLIVAN: So you are not going to expect fifty connections and fifty (inaudible) at the one time. They are done in sequence as they are covered in. How is that going to be done?

AN HON. MEMBER: I can check on it.

MR. SULLIVAN: I certainly would be interested in knowing that. Even you have the details you could pass them on because they are very important to people out there, and it is important when a municipality is given a certain amount, by the time the consulting fees come off, the fees come off now for inspections, that is less money to do the actual construction work that is needed and the money does not go as far. That is an indirect taxation right on the people in those municipalities because when you get $200,000 you really only get $150,000 because the rest is going for inspections and going to pay the consultant engineers and so on. In other words we are hauling back the same money that government passed out, we are putting it back on jointly funded ones under federal infrastructure. The government has another way to haul back some of that federal money, and some of it local municipal money, to recover their one third on those projects. So that is a game we are playing.

Let us look at this scenario. If we are going to have $150,000, $50,000 $50,000 $50,000, and the $50,000 by government, the fees for inspection come back so government saves. They do not spend their $50,000 anymore now. They are probably only going to spend their $40,000 so they get $10,000 back and it only costs them $40,000 and they only have less than one third, probably 20-some per cent of what is expended. That is a taxation game; a manipulation of figures if that is the way it is done.

AN HON. MEMBER: (inaudible)

MR. SULLIVAN: Good. I would love to know the answer. We have asked it but I haven't got an answer yet. We asked in Question Period yesterday

AN HON. MEMBER: Yesterday, I have the answer.

MR. SULLIVAN: Today, good. Could we table and get a copy too?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. SULLIVAN: Good, I appreciate that. I say to the minister, I would like to have a copy, I will depend on my interpretation when I read it, I don't want to depend on the minister's interpretation as we would like to put the positive, true spin on it, not the political spin on that particular statement. I trust the minister's capability to do it but I am sure I like to rely on my own judgement of what is there, and then, if I am stumped and in doubt about it, I will consult with the minister and have his officials give me the incorrect version then.

Talking about municipalities, I have a feeling there is a little game happening here in government; they collect a part of their share, that is a little game of taxation there because the taxation is coming back to this government. When you have municipalities that have been cut in municipal operating grants, 20 per cent a year for the next three years and the minister I think, said that about one-half of the municipalities out there now I think are having problems. They are on the verge of bankruptcy I think and probably another forty or so are just about there and that is about 60 per cent I think on it. When you take back 60 per cent on those municipalities and there is a lot of examples like one little community that I will just use that is in my district had 127 people. They had 80-some odd two years ago and I think they are down 60-some odd now, a little municipality. They have no stores, no businesses, no tax base, direct a point on the elderly people - a lot of people moved out, just single people in some houses. They are going to have severe financial problems seriously -

AN HON. MEMBER: Why don't they come to St. John's?

MR. SULLIVAN: I would say to the minister, the $9 million to help him with refinancing that is fine, I mean, to help communities I don't have a problem with that but -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Nine, it is said in the Budget, isn't it?

AN HON. MEMBER: I got $1.5 million (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Oh, $1.5 million little fund aside, okay. So we would be looking for that $1.5. That $9 million to use and then we are going to devastate communities? In rural Newfoundland, communities will not recover from a 60 per cent slashing of their municipal operating grants. Idle communities that do not have without one business, with elderly people, population is half what it was four or five years ago. Other communities are dwindling in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. The communities are disappearing. I mean, they are practically disappearing, their tax base is gone and even were there businesses there, they are not functioning anymore and if you drive up property tax to a business that is not there, drive up the costs when there is no operation there, is going to create severe problems; you are going to compound the problems and I fear for what will happen, but there are avenues to address our concerns in the Province and we have put forth many of them; lots of avenues.

One is called: taxing your resources, royalties return to the people who own the resource. Inco, and the big companies of the world out there and not a tax regime in place to solve our woes in the future.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Sure, Chile has one in place and there are discoveries from eighteen years later, Argentina has them, other provinces so you are going to wait until you discover something before you have a royalty regime. We are going to wait - before we change income tax or any other? That does not make sense. As long as you have potential for resources, you should have resource taxes.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Water is here, we have lots of that. You are planning on shipping out twenty-seven billion bottles the size of those little Evian bottles or Perrier Water, the equivalent of twenty-seven billion in one proposal of those. The water is there as my colleague indicated, it is clear water, it is as clear as what we see here, shipping it out of this Province, there should be a royalty on that. It is a resource. It is a resource. There should be a royalty on the nickel, copper, and cobalt coming from Voisey's Bay. There should be a royalty on all the resources of the Province. Alberta has a royalty. It didn't just settle for jobs. It didn't just say: Give us a few jobs. We did the Upper Churchill. We wanted jobs only, nothing else. What did we get? We got jobs only, and now we have a major headache to deal with for the next number of years.

The Premier tried to solve it last year when he skipped across the country with his little entourage, little publicity, hauled out secret document papers. Where are we with it months later? Right back where I said we would be. We have to sit down to the table. We have to develop an overall deal on the Lower Churchill. We have to look at opening up Labrador, and the Lower Churchill is the avenue to do it. That is the avenue to the Trans-Labrador Highway. It is the avenue to -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Pardon? Give what to Quebec?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Indeed I don't. I would like to take everything back that the former Liberal government gave it. I would like to take it all back. That is what I would like to do. God help us, and this Premier reminds me of somebody before who gave everything away. He is doing it now; he is doing a good job. I would like to reverse that. I would like to take it back, yes. Everybody would like to pull the plug on it but it isn't the legal route. It would get you in trouble; we will pay dearly for it. What you would like to do, what is best to do and what to do, are two different things.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, he was going to do that. All he did was pull out of a file that was there for ten or fifteen years a little piece of paper, jumped up and down in Montreal in front of a partisan crowd. He didn't go into the heart of Bloc Québécois territory to do it. No. His little road show got grounded. He got grounded on his little road show, that is what happened.

He got great mileage out of it. It made great publicity, it made great press, it was fantastic. But what did it do for the poor Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who are so used to the big show and nothing in the final analysis? That is what it was, a big show, and he is good at that. He is good at showboating; he is good at doing these things.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who is?

MR. SULLIVAN: He is.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who?

MR. SULLIVAN: Should be listening, I say to the Government House Leader. He should be listening. Maybe the Premier has gone out to make another phone call, another leak in Social Services. He has gone out to make another phone call, I would say. He has gone out to say (inaudible): We have to do something about this, we can't have this out in the public forum, and we have to silence this. That is where the Premier has gone out to. I can almost hear him on the telephone now asking: What are we going to do about it, Malcolm? We have to nip this one in the bud here. We don't want another leak in Social Services, it is just too embarrassing. Yes.

Mr. Speaker, in this Budget, and preceding it, the Harmonized Sales Tax is one that -

MR. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible) speak in the Budget debate, Loyola? Long as you want.

MR. SULLIVAN: I'm not intending to unduly prolong it. I think I've only spoken probably a couple of hours.

AN HON. MEMBER: Have you ever noticed how Matthews opens his mouth at the wrong time?

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes. Listen here, he only opens his mouth, I say to the Government House Leader, to change feet. That is what he does.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I was about to finish. I say to the Minister of Health, I think he is feeling a bit bad now that I've left him alone for a little while. I think he feels he wants a bit of attention. I think he is getting that yearning for some sun after this week. I think he can feel the heat now, the rays shining over Tampa Bay. He can see the sun coming over Tampa Bay. What do you call the - the skyline, is it, the big bridge, skyway?

MR. MATTHEWS: The skyway bridge.

MR. SULLIVAN: I think he can see the skyway there now.

MR. MATTHEWS: Listen, I look right (inaudible) over it, twenty-four hours a day.

MR. SULLIVAN: Listen here. I don't think you ever looked to the sky in your life. You are telling us - he was looking -

AN HON. MEMBER: Pie in the sky.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, pie in the sky; that is what it is. He has gone down to put his colour back in him so he won't look as embarrassed when health matters are raised here in the House and when people are waiting on longer waiting lists. That is what he is doing, down absorbing the rays.

I'm sure I have an opportunity under interim supply, when the opportunity arises very shortly, to have some comments on all this approval that this government is looking for to spend, what, $1.1 billion of our dollars in advance until the Budget is approved. Is that what you are looking for $1.1 billion?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: That is what I said; we will get to that in a minute. I said I will get an opportunity to continue and have a few comments under this. I am just trying to see how much money they are trying to - I am trying to see how much they are going to scam off the public - $1,019,465,700. It would not be a Liberal government if they didn't talk about billions and billions of dollars of wealth for the future. Where is the billions we are going to get from Voisey's Bay?

MR. TULK: Let's adjourn debate and get on with it.

MR. SULLIVAN: Sure. I have not had an opportunity to address Industry, Trade and Technology yet. I have not had an opportunity.

MR. J. BYRNE: Do it now.

MR. SULLIVAN: Now the Budget was not cut as bad as I thought it would be in Industry, Trade and Technology. It is not as bad as it should be. Now I want to find that three year plan for Industry, Trade and Technology, the one that the people of the Province are waiting to see. Industry, Trade and Technology, $15,014,900. They are going up to $19,017,000. There is an increase in the budget of Industry, Trade and Technology. Industry, Trade and Technology has an increase in their budget of $5 million. My, oh my, how many travel points can you amass on $5 million? How many travel points can you take with you? An increase of $5 million in your budget. I am reading from this, this is your three-year plan.

MR. J. BYRNE: What page is that?

MR. SULLIVAN: There is no page. They were too embarrassed to number it. Appendix I, Table I, Table II. If you look at Table II, under Resource there on Table II, under Industry, Trade and Technology, it says $14.9 million. It is going up to $19.5 million, $5 million extra next year. Yes, I read the note underneath, I read that. We can't get into all the fine print. There is not enough time to do it all.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) federal/provincial agreement.

MR. SULLIVAN: Sure, why didn't they? Most of them did anyway.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, they are all news ones that are going but then look, then it is going to decrease back in 1999. Oh I know what is there, I read it. You have to put them in somewhere. You may as well put them into industry. It makes it look good. The minister can more ably defend his $5 million increase I am sure. I am sure he can do that. He has a lot of commitments, a lot of places to be, a lot of things to do. I ask the minister, did you view any copper smelters when you were down in Chile? What is their capacity?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Oh, you didn't visit any smelters. Did you visit any wineries in Chile?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I think the Government House Leader realizes I am making eminently good sense and -

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, and I will get an opportunity, I say to the Government House Leader, under Interim Supply. This Budget here is full of trickery, crafty, a scam. This Budget doesn't present a true picture. The government and its loan banker and everybody else says different and they give us a different figure altogether. Who are we supposed to believe? Last year the same story and everybody else was right, the government was wrong. They missed the projection seven out of eight years. Who are we going to depend on - somebody who makes their projections - misses seven out of eight years?

So, Mr. Speaker, that will just conclude my opening commentary on our Budget. I will have an opportunity in the future again.

MR. TULK: Give us another (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Oh sure. I think an opportunity to comment - I would be remiss here again if I didn't just touch on the exorbitant fee increases; last year $40 million in fees.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is what they are showing.

MR. SULLIVAN: That is what they are showing.

This year, no new taxes. I just hope the Minister of Finance is here tomorrow. What is tomorrow? Wednesday. If the Minister of Finance is back here tomorrow I will get a chance to quiz him. I have a few other questions. Make sure he gets in early for Question Period. We have some important questions on those fees tomorrow.

If you take a fisherman - there are fishermen gone outside the Province purchasing boats, and I say this to the Government House Leader - just take a fisherman now who wants to take a boat from Argentia, who buys a boat in Nova Scotia and wants to take it out to Fogo, or lands in Port aux Basques or whatever; they have to apply now, I say to the member - and he has to have people in his district in this category - or anybody with a wide load on a highway, are now going to have to pay $300 just for the permit to be able to move it, not counting the cost they already incur, that extra pilotage cost on a highway. If you want to move a wide load on a highway it is $300 just for the paper. That is not cost recovery at all.

I say to government services, his department - a permit now to move a wide load on a highway... I used an incident last year when a person could travel right through Nova Scotia, got to North Sydney, was paying several hundred dollars a day for the truck to carry, a float to carry, a large boat to this Province, and had to stop in Nova Scotia, got in Sydney and was told, when he arrived eventually in Argentia, that you have to wait for three days, paying hundreds of dollars a day, and you cannot move it.

I made a call. I must say, I got good cooperation from the officials there. He got a bill after to pilot that along the highway, basically, the charges, and had to pay them, but now in addition to that there is a new fee in this Budget, $300 for the piece of paper, the permit. If you call producing a piece of paper $300 cost recovery... I ask the minister: Would that be what is referred to...

I think these are significant costs. It is listed under Motor Registration Division, on page 2 in Appendix II of the Budget, and it says, Special Permits, zero last year and now it is $300.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: No, that is not what it said there. It said that in some cases the range is from $200 to $1,000, like in the septic system. In this one it said the fee was zero and now it is $300. It did not say zero up to $300. It said $300. That is what is published in that.

If the minister can clarify that, I would be only too delighted because I do not want to spread false information on a fee; I want to have it accurate.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, sure, and hopefully we will be able to get that answer there.

With that I adjourn debate on the Budget.

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, Order No. 2, Committee of Supply.

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

 

Committee of the Whole

 

CHAIR (Penney): Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, thank you.

AN HON. MEMBER: Here we go again, second edition.

MR. SULLIVAN: I guess, as Abraham Lincoln said, I have slipped but I have not fallen; I am back again.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: It is the first time since I came into this House that the Government House Leader, this one or the former, when I was going to sit down said: Keep on talking. He urged me to keep going. I am kind of concerned about that. If it had to be the former Government House Leader I would be very concerned about it. I would be very, very concerned.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I tell you, I don't think I would be able to stand in the House after that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: He said, after another twenty years you will be quarter as good as I am. Is that what he said?

While we are on permits and fees, I know the Minister of Government Services and Lands is going to get that one. Taxi registration, I mean God help us, taxi people in this Province, in the city here, are having difficulty enough in generating business here in an economy that has declined - not as bad as government pretended it was going to be but it has declined - to have a 50 per cent increase in their fees. Now here is this government coming here looking for $1 billion. The Education Minister is coming in with a smile on his face and they are looking for $1 billion.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Who do we have before him? The Minister of Justice? Look, what the Minister of Justice did not finish off the current Minister of Education is going to finish. That is basically what is going to happen and God, help us. We know what has happened in the Department of Justice since the minister got in or the elect thereof.

I would like nothing better than the Minister of Education to get on my case because, I say to the Minister of Health, he was our hero at one time. He was our hero. We were in the classrooms and the President of Newfoundland Teachers' Association was up and he fought on our behalf. He said: Let's not have those increases. Let's get that .22 per cent extra on our pensions. Let's get that. At the same time he was preparing his agenda for after life that he is now going through here in the House. Then he came back and said to government - he took on government and he wept on the steps of the building, what Peckford was doing to the poor teachers of this Province. The Minister of Education, tears rolling down his cheeks. He wept. He was fighting for teachers in the Province, because Peckford was so down on teachers in the Province. We have to stand up and fight for teachers and all of a sudden he was silently building his political agenda to turn around and stick the knife in the backs of his former colleagues, the Minister of Education.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh no, you got the wrong minister.

MR. SULLIVAN: Oh no, we got the right minister but that does not concern me as much as sticking the knife in the backs of the students in our Province by telling us we had to approve Term 17 to put money back into education and where has it gone? The money has disappeared.

MR. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Oh I am delighted. I am glad he is because I am sure - I say to the Minister of Health, I am glad I know that because if I had to depend on the Minister of Health to listen and stay awake I would be in deep, deep trouble. He admitted today he is at the switch. He admitted today he woke up several months later and he wasn't at the switch. That is what he said today in the House I believe. Is that what he said? Someone said: where has the switch gone? I can tell you when you're talking about switches with that minister - yes sir; he was the person who ran for the PC Party. He is good at switches he is. He is real good at switches; a member of the 500 Club. Now he burnt his membership in the 500 Club in the fireplace of his mansion in the south. That is what he did. He is too embarrassed now to pretend he was an owner of a 500 Club membership. The 500 Club for his idol then at the time. His idol was Brian Mulroney and his $500 he forked out was to dine and wine with the Prime Minister of Canada and now we have a new Prime Minister. We don't get any dining. All we get from this Prime Minister is whining. That is all we get, whining continuously.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: No, Government Services and Lands - oh maybe I will; yes, maybe I will.

What happens when you are a Member of Cabinet and make a decision to proceed in a direction and then you come out publicly and go against that decision?

AN HON. MEMBER: Who did that?

MR. SULLIVAN: The Minister of Forest Resources and Lands. Who heard him on radio with his little (inaudible) balloon. A guy from Cabinet out there When the Minister of Environment and Labour and the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation indicated to me the decision was made in Cabinet, the Goulds bypass, the workers, they are buying up land, they are up cutting trees in people's backyards now and then the minister of that Cabinet, who went against his own Cabinet on decision, that is a fundamental - that is going against the Cabinet policy and now, he is allowed to stay in Cabinet. People were fired for less than that before, I say to the minister. Thank God John Crosbie gave you $700 or $800 million to be able to do -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) to do what you (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Sure. He was getting so much heat from the people in the agriculture industry, not speaking out and going along with it; he had to get on and make a little statement to try to pretend that he was for it, when he is a member of the same Cabinet that made an opposite decision. That is called hypocrisy in my book. Hypocrisy it is with a capital `H'.

AN HON. MEMBER: Loyola, (inaudible) boy.

MR. SULLIVAN: 1988? No, decisions were not made until last year. I spoke to the minister in your Cabinet and went to their office, and I spoke with them on the telephone and the minister would tell me it did not get approved then. Things are earmarked might be earmarked for things that are not approved until Cabinet decides where the funding is going for this year and next year and what their plans are and no decision was made in 1988 and don't let the minister try to convince me otherwise, it is utter nonsense, that is what it is; it is utter nonsense.

The Cabinet of which you are a member, made the decision and you are trying to distance yourself from it now to save face with the people in the agriculture industry. That is what you are trying to do. You are trying to play both sides of the fence and when you play both sides of the fence, sometimes you end up in a very unusual situation, I say to the minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not me (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: No, not you at all. Not you.

AN HON. MEMBER: You fellows (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes. I came here in 1992 and everybody else arrived here after we made the decision, blame it on us. Blame it on us, that is the easiest way to do it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) federal members (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I say, pick somebody to blame it on. God help us if you can't be any more decisive (inaudible) for a fellow member. It is quite easy to blame it on the people who were responsible for the situation and I don't care whether they were a PC or a Liberal, if someone did something, blame it on them if they deserve it and if they are guilty, blame it. Who cares what the stripe is?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Sure, PCs did lots of things wrong. The Liberals did. If something is wrong it is wrong, does it matter who made the decision? I am not worried about it to be honest with you, at all. If something is wrong, it is wrong and why should you say it is right when it is wrong?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) road built?

MR. SULLIVAN: Sure, I want a road built. I am on record on wanting the road built. I am not going to sit on the fence. I want the road built, it should go there. It takes forty-five minutes to drive from Big Pond to Confederation Building in the morning, and people have families - I heard the minister - families and young kids cannot get up at six and leave home early in the morning and drive an hour-and-a-half. Why should they leave an hour earlier with young kids to get ready for school and the husband probably away working at trying to get a job out of this Province? That is what I say to the minister. I drive to Big Pond from Fermuse in less than an hour and it takes me forty-five minutes to get to the rest of the way which is only about one-ninth of the distance.

AN HON. MEMBER: You need (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes. You need a bypass road in the Goulds, there is no doubt about it. It is badly needed there. It will free up and move people off the highway through the Goulds, free up traffic, it is a nightmare trying to get in and out of businesses in the Goulds, Bidgoods and other areas, it is a nightmare. People bypass it because you can't get in there; it is dangerous too to have that much traffic on a highway with residents. Relatives, people are being killed, yes a relative has been killed crossing a highway years ago in the Goulds, a distant relative and there are other people being killed on the highway. It is a dangerous highway -

AN HON. MEMBER: Did you ever see them upgrade the roads in the Goulds?

MR. SULLIVAN: Sure, I did. But it is not the solution when there are residents along an upgraded highway where people are even going to move faster. The solution is a bypass, and out in Conception Bay, it is positive. They should go out there - to have to drive down the Roaches Line that I did three times in the last two weeks. I drove out there; you need a bypass down there. Where you should be getting the money to do more work is not by sticking multi-million dollar overpasses, underpasses, in areas that do not need them. That is what is needed.

For two or three years we listened to them. Whatever they did after - the Member for Humber Valley can acknowledge this. (Inaudible) there was a road on the beach, there was a road somewhere else. It was discussed for about two or three years what they were going to do, I think, in putting it through Deer Lake, I believe, or Pasadena I think it was.

AN HON. MEMBER: Your ancestors (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Who?

AN HON. MEMBER: Your ancestors (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: That doesn't make me an either bit prouder of the situation, I can tell you, not one bit.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: God, there is only one choice to support out there. Who can you support? Who are you going to support? The current member, or the person who does not know if he wants to be a member, who wants to draw a salary here and go out and knock on doors, a person who wants to have his cake and eat it too?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) in your own party?

MR. SULLIVAN: Democratic process. They came out, thirty-some hundred strong. Almost 4,000 people came out. They almost knocked down doors to get out and vote, and you cannot get enough people who want to admit they are Liberal in St. John's West. They are afraid to admit it. You cannot get enough people to admit it, I say to the minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: Relevance.

MR. SULLIVAN: Relevance. I can tell you, this minister is very irrelevant, very irrelevant.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, we are talking about relevancy. We want to borrow over $1 billion to pay for a member we are just talking about here, so he can run a federal campaign. That is what we are talking about.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. SULLIVAN: That is part of the Estimates, isn't it? Aren't you going to pay him? Isn't this what you want the money for, to pay you and me and everybody else here, the civil servants, the public service, to do the work that is needed? Isn't this why over $1 billion is needed? Seventeen pay periods, I think, or whatever it is. I think it is up to seventeen weeks, or whatever.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, whatever it is. Oh, it is only a little over one-third of the year, about seventeen I think. I think I read that somewhere. Anyway, that is the purpose of Interim Supply. You give approval here to have this, to keep it running, to keep it operating. We want to see it operating, but we have great problems with the way it is operating. We would like to see it operated a little different, and we will do it and try to expose that. We will do as effective a job as we can with the numbers we have there. We would like to have more. Who wouldn't?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Sure, that's it. You should be praising people who do the best they can. I just wish I could say the same about members on that side of the House. I wish I could say it. It is too bad that all of the people with the good views out there are in the back benches. They should have them in the front benches. I think you should turn the front and back benches around and we will get a lot better government here in this Province.

AN HON. MEMBER: They are all just as good.

MR. SULLIVAN: They are all just as bad you mean? I said you are bad and they are good, so how can they be just as good? They must be just as bad.

AN HON. MEMBER: You have to be on your p's and q's.

MR. SULLIVAN: You sure do, I say to the minister.

I do not want to hog debate here all day long. I am sure we have lots of people ready to jump up here and -

AN HON. MEMBER: You don't have lots left over there, but they are ready (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Well, they are ready to jump up at a moment's notice. We have never had that problem. I can tell you, we have never had the problem that you have on that side of people wanting to get up and speak. There is nobody over here silenced. If people want to speak here, they can get up and do so. It is a democratic society and we encourage people to get up and speak their mind.

My only regret is that I am going to have to leave, I say to the Government House Leader, for a commitment. I hope I can get back Thursday again and do my best to enlighten the Government House Leader and other ministers on how best to spend our dollars.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Burgeo and LaPoile.

MR. RAMSAY: Mr. Chairman, the hon. Leader of the Opposition tries very hard to make everyone here think that the Budget is created by an ugly, three-headed monster.

You know, rural Newfoundland does play a significant role in the life of the Province, and it will continue to play a significant role in the life of the Province. With the activity that this government has undertaken with the Minister of Development and Rural Renewal assisting with the establishment and finalization of development plans for the twenty economic development zones throughout the Province, it is a key part.

They have tried every other way. The hon. member who lives here in the capital city and has worked in the capital city and has travelled a little bit, I suppose, as the leader of the third party, to a variety of different areas of the Province in trying to recruit and support and encourage his party candidates in those different areas - maybe the rural Newfoundland that we all espouse is the heart and the breath of this Province of ours, if those of us in the larger centres would just every once in a while think about what it would take to sustain the rural communities in the Province.

As we have throughout Canada, and this was mentioned by the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, seen equalization as a key to the future of the country, we also can suggest that the capital city should learn to share with the smaller rural communities that are having a difficult time in surviving. So those of us who contribute through the income tax system, as I'm sure the hon. Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi -

AN HON. MEMBER: Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi.

MR. RAMSAY: Well, the two different pronunciations. On one side of the street you would probably get a smack upside the head they say for saying it one way, on the other you get it for saying it the other way.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RAMSAY: It depends on who they are. Okay. Anyway, that is all a part of understanding what will make rural Newfoundland strong, and also rural Labrador. Not as a second part, but I have a part of the Province in my electoral district, which is an isolated area, that is not unlike the rural communities of Labrador along the coast. Because they are not a part of Labrador they are often forgotten and they aren't spoken of very often, with the exception of the times that I bring their plight and their difficulties to the attention of the people here in the House of Assembly.

The communities of LaPoile, Grand Bruit and Petites in my electoral district are no less important than Rigolet, than Nain, than any of these other isolated communities in the rest of the Province up in Labrador, and yet because they are on the Island it is almost assumed that they are serviced in a better manner than the others.

Now, granted, on the South Coast - and I can speak I would say for the hon. Member for Fortune Bay - Cape la Hune, he has isolated communities which are being serviced by the coastal ferry service on the South Coast in a much more frequent manner than they were in the past. This has helped to open up these communities and allow the people who live there a more regular transportation service on into the rest of the Province. But don't let them be forgotten. Don't let these smaller communities be seen as something that because they are in the Island part of the Province they should be forgotten.

The hon. members from Labrador have tremendous concerns for the isolated communities and for Labrador as being taken for granted, so to speak. I think that those of us who represent the Island part of the Province also have to look at the fact that parts of this Province sometimes feel that they are ignored and forgotten and taken for granted. That is a key part of the strategy for funding the economic zones.

Because we have come up with many different schemes; we have come up with top-down schemes where the government decides that it is going to suggest to the people in areas of the Province what it is they should do; we have come up with schemes whereby we have sought to put in place development associations which had limited resources and were unable to develop the kind of structure and the kind of necessary... not effort, I shouldn't say that, but the kind of economic development support mechanisms for the people of the community that could actually see improvements to economic development. We are going to try a new model, and that will help us implement some of the parts of this Budget which are in the area of economic development.

I firmly believe in the future of rural Newfoundland. We say that because the cod fishery and other parts of the fishery itself have very little in the way of an ability to recover from the moratorium and the declining cod stocks and other things, yet we have to take a look at other reasons and explain and bring the technology to the people in the smaller isolated communities so that they, too, can avail of the implementation of the information highway, so that they in the community can explore other possibilities and can determine that you can do business, and you can learn to provide services.

With a good sound basic education you can do a lot of things from a smaller community just as well as you can from downtown New York City, and just as well as you can from Tokyo, Japan, it does not matter. If you go to the internet at any point in time you can connect to places all over the world. In a matter of five minutes you can be connected to computers all over the place. It could be in any corner of the world. All you have to do is know something about the country designation you are dealing with a company on there that happens to be listed in the Netherlands or happens to be listed in Japan, or happens to be listed in Australia.

These are the things that are just as available through the connection on a phone line to a smaller rural community, so what do we have to do here? We have tried through implementing new funding and new expenditures, one-time expenditures in the Department of Education, so that an extra $2.5 million will be there to help get our children more literate with the internet and with computer technology, and that should allow us to help them to harness this technology and to be as capable with it, as probably, I would say or suggest, definitely more capable than any member of the House here. I know most six, seven and eight year olds can deal with computers.

With the exception of the hon. Opposition House Leader who I know is a closet computer whiz. He is a gentleman who uses his computer not only for his mathematical skills in determining the number of questions asked in the House, but he is certainly one who had followed the growth of computer technology in the schools. The Opposition House Leader is certainly one of the more computer literate of members in the Chamber, and next to myself would probably rank a close second. He is better with the Math part of it than I am. As I suggested many of us here could be taught a few lessons by the children in the school system.

Anyway, we were wondering if this Budget gives the Opposition any real reason to be upset or to be concerned, or to be fearful of what it is we intend to do with the funding we spend. I am sure through the estimates process and the committees they will examine in detail with the ministers the various heads of expenditure and will determine from that whether they should in fact ask the more difficult questions at that time. As the hon. Leader of the Opposition has done here today in his mildly eloquent way has certainly offered to us his view on some of the things that are wrong, and the ministers have attempted to answer.

Those of us here, the private members on this side, along with those in Opposition of course, have a key concern for our own electoral districts. Not only for the sake of the fact that that is the electorate that elected us but also for the fact that this is a small role that we can play in helping to change the economy of the Province. If each and every one of us as elected representatives here were to offer a small improvement to the lot of the business community in our districts, to the lot of an individual or a group of individuals, or a school in our districts, then the whole Province will benefit for that effort. The whole Province will benefit and it will become a cavalcade even more because the effort we undertake will add. It is almost like the effect of compound interest as my hon. friend knows about compound interest being ready soon, I would say, maybe not so soon, to retire and will have been calculating the effect of compound interest on his RSP portfolio and determining just exactly what is the long-term growth effect, as the growth and the improvement to our economy of the people of the Province can benefit by the effort of all of the individual members here in the House. So I would certainly say that this Budget is a starting point. It is a long-term strategy, a three-year strategy for implementing budget expenditure headings that we can follow over the next three years so that there will not be any surprises. So the government can now go forward and make these things work and make the people of the districts - help them out where we can, lead them where we should, and certainly offer whatever assistance possible as a part of our duties to the constituents we serve in helping them utilize the government programs available, in helping them start their businesses, in helping them find out the information they need for better effect to their communities, to give their communities the necessary boost and also to help make these boards work.

We really do need the economic development boards to work, not just for political success, for the Province's success. I know a lot of members over there have genuine concerns and have expressed them quietly to some of us and likewise, in wanting to make sure that rural Newfoundland will help the larger centres survive. Because like they say, if you take a bayman out of St. John's than there is no St. John's. That is what will make it, create it and help it to grow. It is the same in the smaller communities on the West Coast; without those from the rural communities who travel to Stephenville, Corner Brook and Port aux Basques to do their shopping, these centres are unable to offer the services necessary to sustain the whole area - likewise in health care, likewise in education. These are all things that we need to support so that by supporting the smaller parts, the larger parts of our Province will grow, and certainly, we will be all the better for it as a group of citizens of this Province.

With that I will be seated and allow hon. members opposite to have a few comments.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Waterford Valley.

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

I am pleased today to rise for the third time to comment on the Interim Supply and to again direct a few comments, partially to the Budget. Since we have had the request from government for $1.19 billion and we have had the Budget brought down, I just wanted to make a couple of comments, because my good friend, the Member for Burgeo and LaPoile, of course, reflects on the generosity of the government. I wanted to reflect for just a few moments on a significant part of the Budget that shows how generous the government really is. I wanted to talk about the fact that the finance minister decided, out of great compassion, he would minimize the negative impact of the introduction of the Harmonized Sales Tax, particularly minimizing the impact on those who have low incomes. So, I was quite pleased when I heard the minister say in his speech that he was going to do something about the negative parts of the Budget and how it would affect those with low incomes.

I wanted to say to the government members who are here that we were expecting a significant statement. Then, when we got to the real words that were in the Budget –

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. H. HODDER: I know we are on Interim Supply. That is what I wanted to refer to, because when you talk about giving $40 to an adult per year that is very interim, that is a limited supply. So, Mr. Chair, I wanted to say to the Government House Leader that I want to talk about the first three months of Interim Supply. Forty dollars per adult per year works out, in effect, to be eleven cents per adult per day. Now, when we are talking about eleven cents per adult per day, then in the Interim Supply, we have enough money to give people, the adults, $40 per year; then we are looking here at about $12 in the first few months. So we are looking at $40 per year, which works out to be eleven cents a day.

AN HON. MEMBER: For what?

MR. H. HODDER: This is the money they are going to give per adult to reduce the negative effects of the harmonization -

MR. J. BYRNE: Eleven cents a day?

MR. H. HODDER: Eleven cents per adult per day.

MR. J. BYRNE: That is about as much sense as they have.

MR. H. HODDER: I have a whole lot of people out there who are calculating now how much money they are going to get in the first ninety days, and that works out to be $9.90. That is what is in the Interim Supply budget for people, the monies to help them get over the negative effects of harmonization.

I say to the Government House Leader that $9.90 is provided in this motion to help people get over the first three months of the budgetary year.

Now, if you happen to be a child, a child is going to get $60 per year. Sixty dollars per year works out to be sixteen cents per child per day. Now, Mr. Speaker, you do not have to be a great genius to figure out that sixteen cents per child per day is not going to amount to much in ninety days. All of these children out there who should be rejoicing in the streets, because this Interim Supply is going to give them the first three months at sixteen cents a day, then very quickly we could multiply that out to be around $14.40 in the first three months. That is what they are going to get. So a family, in the first three months, is going to pick up here about $23 if there is one adult and one child.

I say to the government, that is what Interim Supply means in real life, what it means to real families. Interim Supply is going to give, from the Budget here, eleven cents per adult per day and sixteen cents per child per day.

We look into the Department of Social Services which, of course, is listed here, and they have asked for $101 million of Interim Supply. Given that they are going to give them of the $40 that is provided for the adult, and they have the $60 per child, working out to eleven cents and sixteen cents, now, how miserable, how pitiful, how ridiculous, how much of a Scrooge can you be, when you say to a child; We are going to give you an extra eleven cents if you are an adult, sixteen cents if you are a child, to overcome the negative impact of the Budget!

I was also very concerned with the projections put forward by the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board when he talked about economic indicators. The economic indicators put forward by the government in the Budget of which, of course, we are talking here about the first three months, we do not see much to be happy about.

We don't see much to be happy about but in the Budget documents, you look at the gross domestic product at market prices and we see that the government is predicting that they are going to have a negative here of 4.4 per cent. The GDP at market prices is going to go down by 4.4 per cent and if you look at personal income this year, it is going to go down 2.9 per cent and, Mr. Chairman, the retail trade is going to go down 2.9 per cent as well.

So, Mr. Chairman, the only thing that seems to be going up here - we have capital investment that is going up by 7 per cent; the labour force is going to go down by .6 per cent; the employment is going to go down by 1.9 per cent and the only thing that is going to go up is the annual average of the unemployment rate. So here in the Budget indicators, the only prediction here in a positive way, a positive number, a sad positive number I would say, is the unemployment rate. So, Mr. Chairman, we look at this kind of data and we say: Ask yourself the real question.

Last year, the government indicated that the GDP would be at around 4 per cent negative but of course, Dr. Wade Locke said last year that they would perform much better than that. At the end of the day, Dr. Wade Locke was right! Good, good, so what the government has done in this economic indicator is put forward a worse case scenario, and then of course, if the economy performs a little better, then they can say how good we were. You know, we were wonderful because we knew it would do better, but I am just hoping that when the unemployment rate for next year comes out to be a little better than 20 per cent, that the government will be saying it would be pleased to come forward I am sure, but here, they deliberately inflated it seems, the unemployment rate, so that if it happens to be a little bit better than that, then they can say: well, you know, it was because of our strategic intervention.

So, Mr. Chairman, in reality, what we have here, seems to be a manufactured kind of forecast. It would seem that they like to deal in dire predictions in order to provide justification for their Red Book commentaries and - Mr. Chairman, am I being told that my time is up?

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. H. HODDER: Mr. Chairman, there will be more opportunities I am sure in the next while, I will continue my commentary then.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. TULK: Mr. Chairman, I was going to get up but there is not that much time left. I was going to get up for a few minutes and tell the hon. gentleman some bright spots in this Interim Supply Bill as it relates to the Budget but I suppose there is not much point in trying to do that. He refuses to see any brightness in his life. He refuses to have any positive outlooks in his life. He stays in the closet with his computer, we are told by the Member for Burgeo - LaPoile and pulls up negative figures all the time. He refuses to read the program put forward by the government which is so bright and cheery for Newfoundlanders, which Newfoundlanders have accepted beyond comparison.

There has never been a Budget - I say to the hon. member - there has never been a Budget so well received by the people of this Province as the one that was just put forward by our colleague here, the Minister of Finance. Of course, if I were him - I will be frank with him - if I were him I would immediately stand and say let's vote Interim Supply so we can get out of here. So I can get out of being embarrassed by the good news Budget. If he were a smart Opposition House Leader he would be advising his leader to leave, to get out of here and let Easter take over. Maybe when he comes back after Easter he will be able to find something a little more negative because the people of this Province, I say to the hon. gentleman, have accepted this Budget like no Budget that has ever been put forward in this Legislature.

They are over there scrounging around with twenty people in Corner Brook out to a meeting about the privatization of parks. Then the Leader of the Opposition yesterday had to stand up here and blame it on Holiday Inn. Holiday Inn gave the wrong direction. Now, Mr. Chairman, that is pathetic.

Mr. Chairman, I realize we are getting close to 5:00 p.m. I would like to go on for another eight or ten minutes but I am going to move that the Committee rise and report progress. Adjourn the debate and move that the Committee rise and report progress.

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

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Lewisporte.

MR. PENNEY: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole has considered the matters to it referred and has directed me to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

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

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House adjourn until tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. At that time we will be debating the Private Member's Resolution put forward by the Member for Topsail on labour mobility.

I move that this House do now adjourn.

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