The House met at 9:00 a.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!

Before we begin the routine proceedings, the Chair would like to welcome to the galleries today eight Adult Basic Education students from the Atlantic Construction Training Centre. They are accompanied by their instructor, Roland Lawrence.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, as Members of the House of Assembly are aware, the Select Committee looking into the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and the issue of wearing sidearms presented their findings to the House on Tuesday, March 31. I said publicly at that time that government would deal with the report quickly.

I wish to inform the House today that government has examined the report presented by the Member for Topsail and his committee, and that government will proceed with the implementation of the recommendations.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: I wish to commend the Member for Topsail, Mr. Speaker, and his committee for the excellent work they have done.

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary is already an armed force. They have provided superior service to the people of this Province for over 126 years. It has been found by the committee that the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary do require the use of sidearms during their regular patrols, and the people of the Province will be better served as a result.

This issue has been debated through public hearings and an in-depth study has been completed. We are satisfied the time has come to amend the RNC firearms policy to allow members of the RNC to wear sidearms on a constant basis when on duty, based on the operational duties being performed.

As members of the House are aware, until now the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary have been referred to as the only unarmed police force in North America. It is time for this Province to join with every other jurisdiction where professional and able police officers serve to protect the public.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Just a brief comment in response to the presentation by the Minister of Justice.

The Minister of Justice has indicated in his Ministerial Statement that until now the RNC has been the only unarmed police force in North America. At this time, I would like to pay tribute to those individuals who made representations before the committee on an aspect with respect to our culture and our traditions, and the role that the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary has played.

There were quite a number of compelling arguments, those that were along traditional and cultural lines, and I think this is an opportunity to pay tribute to those individuals who have strong feelings in this regard. However, in essence, what the issue has boiled down to is this: The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary is an armed police force, it has been an armed police force for a number of years, and the question that the committee had to face was the issue of accessability to arms. It was felt unanimously that in the interest of the public at large, and in the interest of the safety of the individual police officer, the particular present policy ought to be amended.

But I would like to pay tribute to those individuals who contacted committee members by telephone or in writing -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: - or made representations, and who made compelling arguments and strong cultural arguments with respect to a way of life in this Province. However, other issues were taken into account and therefore the findings were as they were.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I apologize again for not having a written statement available, but because of the time during last evening and this morning it was not possible to get it done.

I would like to apologize as well, Mr. Speaker; I spent some time last evening actually scouring some of the shops in St. John's to see if I could find a mask depicting Jim Carey in the movie Liar, Liar. I figured I would wear it in the House today, but I did not have one to wear. I will try to get one at a later date.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to give an update briefly with respect to the policy that governs the licensing of private training institutions in Newfoundland and Labrador, and provide a clarification again for members of the House and the general public.

Mr. Speaker, the policy and legislation in the Province indicates - and this has been the policy and the legislation for twenty years, introduced by the former Administration when I believe Mrs. Verge was the Minister of Education - when a group, an individual, applies to operate a private institution in Newfoundland and Labrador, the government is compelled to check four things and four things only.

First of all, is there an approved program? Go through a process to check and see that there is an approved program of studies.

Secondly, that there is an approved and proper physical facility. We do admit that part of the act may need amending, because we do have the possibility in this modern day and age of some virtual facilities where courses can be offered through the Internet and so on; you may not actually need a physical location to bring students.

Thirdly, that there be qualified instructors.

Fourthly, that there be financial capability as determined by the ability to post a bond in case there is a financial failure later for the institution.

Those have been, and continue to be, the rules, Mr. Speaker, for twenty years. Whether or not the financial capability is determined is a process that is gone through by financial institutions and banks, not by the government.

Mr. Speaker, this government does not have a policy, and is not entertaining a policy, which would include the notion that there should be a complete detailed personal background check on the individual's past history. Mr. Speaker, we do not believe that whether a person has been convicted of an offence, whether it be a minor offence, a speeding ticket or anything of that nature, or whether it be a very serious offence, up to and including such things as serious sexual offenses or even murder, that a person should be excluded from ever running a business in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that that is the position of the Opposition, as quoted by their post-secondary education critic. Mr. Speaker, that is not the position of this government with respect to any business in Newfoundland and Labrador, including private training institutions.

Mr. Speaker, the other thing, just for clarification, is that there seems to be some confusion, that the official Opposition seems to think and represent that private training institutions are government agencies. Mr. Speaker, private training colleges in Newfoundland and Labrador are no more government agencies than a corner store is. I think that they should understand exactly what the nature of it is. If they want to debate the merits of the policies on which these training institutions are established, we would gladly do so in the future.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

First of all, the same as yesterday, of course, the courtesy of a copy of what the minister was going to say was not forthcoming again today. I guess, Mr. Speaker, he does not want us to prepare to make a response, but I do not need to prepare to make a response to what the minister just said.

First and foremost, Mr. Speaker, he does not need the mask that he was looking for.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SHELLEY: Secondly, Mr. Speaker, it is the position of the government now that they have this big policy which is going to protect the students, which is the only thing I am concerned about, a policy in this Province so that if an institution starts up -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. J. BYRNE: Would you quieten down that bunch of clowns over there.

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

MR. SHELLEY: The only thing the minister should be concerned about, Mr. Speaker, is that the policy be what it is today or whether he should add something to it. If the minister is satisfied - what is really shameful is that the minister in this House today just admitted that the policy governing corner stores is just as important as private institutions in this Province. So go tell all those students, and all the students who are going to come behind these students, to say that this government and this minister are doing a great job of protecting students' interests, Mr. Speaker. It is a shameful day in this House, Mr. Speaker, when this minister has just dug a hole so deep that he will never crawl out. Because yesterday he stooped to a new low.

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

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think we finally have the government policy on private post-secondary institutions. He recognizes that they are a business like any other, that they are no different from a corner store. The reality is that this government has taken $25 million per year out of the public post-secondary system, and for the private system they go around advertising as government-approved, student loans available under the government student loan program.

Post-secondary students have to have protection. They have to have a government policy that guarantees they are going to get a quality education that is going to be worth the money they are paying for it, and they are not going to be left hanging in the wind by a government policy that ignores them and leaves them to the forces of the market. It is not fair to students, and this government had better change its policy.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, my question this morning is for the Premier with respect to out-migration. The statistics that just became available demonstrated clearly that the problem of out-migration is more serious than it ever has been in the Province. In the last quarter, 3,128 people left the Province, up by over 1,000.

The question I have for the Premier is what plans, generally, do government have to try to curb out-migration? In view of the fact as well that about 75 per cent or 80 per cent of the number leaving are young people, young professionals, young people with skills, the types of skills we need if this economy is going to drive forward and be prosperous. A general question: What sorts of plans does the Premier have in place to look at this problem, in view of the fact that it is greater than it has ever been?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question of the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition is right to point out that out-migration continues to be a reality in Newfoundland and Labrador. We have gone from the highest birth rate in the country to the lowest birth rate in the country, in good part because most of those who are leaving are people of child-bearing age - young families, young couples who are going elsewhere to find employment, Mr. Speaker. That is why it is important to move quickly to get development occurring on as many fronts at once, as is possible. That is why we pursue the policy - I believe, as the Leader of the Opposition knows - of providing for a generic off-shore oil and gas regime. And, as a consequence, we are seeing, Mr. Speaker, a very significant increase in the amount of activity in the off-shore oil and gas sector.

It is why we are pursuing a policy of seeing the development of the Churchill River system proceed, and by proceeding now, to put in place a Letter of Intent, as soon as possible, with the Province of Quebec for development of the Churchill River system; the investment that will flow from it and, of course, the jobs and the royalties to the Province that will come from it.

I appreciate, by the way, Mr. Speaker, that the Leader of the Opposition, following his questions on that matter last week, did take the time to go and receive a full briefing on this proposal. I am hopeful, as a result of that briefing, and perhaps a further briefing will be offered to all members of his party by the Minister of Mines and Energy, that we might have the support of all sides of the House for this project so that it can proceed as soon as possible to create jobs, to give people who are now leaving, an option to stay and to work in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, with respect to Voisey's Bay, the government's policy remains unchanged and, as far as I can tell, it is one which is supported by all sides of the House - perhaps with the exception of the Leader of the other party not in the House - that is, that we cannot anymore give away the resources of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. We cannot say we are going to allow the richest nickel, copper and cobalt deposit on the planet earth, to be turned over for quick development, for a mine development, without the full benefit and the high-tech and high-paying jobs associated with a smelter refinery.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: This, too, Mr. Speaker, is part of our policy to develop the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Leader of the Opposition quite rightly asks, What other plans does the Government have? Mr. Speaker, our plans include the further development of the manufacturing sector, a sector which is amongst the leaders in Canada, in growth in this Province at this time.

Mr. Speaker, another area for development is the IT sector, the Information Technology sector. This year, the city of St. John's will play host to the largest, ever in history, IT Sector Conference in Canada.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER TOBIN: We are going to grow that sector. Today, we have over half a billion dollars -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. the Premier to conclude his answer.

PREMIER TOBIN: Well, Mr. Speaker, if the Leader will ask more questions, I will give him more answers.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, you would think, by listening to the Premier, that there should not be 3,125 people leave in the last three months, that there would have been 3,125 people come into the Province in the last three months!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: The fact of the matter is that people are leaving in record numbers. Simply put, outside of the mega-projects - to use the words in his own Speech from the Throne - mega-projects will take care of themselves. But the reality today is that those mega-projects which he just talked about are not providing jobs for people in the Province today.

I will ask the question again, or I will ask it in a different way: How are the regional economic boards - REDBs, as the minister responsible puts it - in any tangible way impacting on life in rural Newfoundland so that people who don't want to leave, who have the skills to participate in our economy, how are they providing the employment opportunities for people in this Province today, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition says there is out-migration in the Province and indeed he is right. He says there has been an increased level of out-migration in recent years, and indeed he is right, but if this is a revelation for the Leader of the Opposition then I would suggest we all need to pay closer attention to what is happening in this Province since the collapse of the fishery in 1992. Mr. Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, you cannot ignore these realities. Tens of thousands of people in this Province have been left without the means of a livelihood, and out-migration is the consequence. Mr. Speaker, if you take a look at the demographics of the Province, it is rural Newfoundland and Labrador that has suffered the greatest loss of population; it is rural Newfoundland and Labrador that has the greatest economic challenge; and that is why this Administration created the first ever Department of Economic Development and Rural Renewal!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: And yes, Mr. Speaker, we have put in place, for the first time ever, the nineteen economic zones, the so-called REDBs. We have gone out and held public hearings all across this Province. We have asked for the top 100 priorities of these REDBs, and in the last period of time these boards have created over 1,000 new jobs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: They are doing a tremendous job and, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that if he is asking government today if there is a magic plan to wave a wand and wish away all the problems of rural Newfoundland, and wish away the collapse of the fishery in 1992, there is not. But I can say this: We have to work together in this House to ensure there is an appropriate and comprehensive follow-up to the TAGS program, there is money for economic development, there is money for capacity reduction, and there is money for income support. And we have to make sure that the kind of attitude seen by The Globe and Mail to wish us away, or send us a one-way ticket to Toronto, is never accepted in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I am not asking for a magic solution, for some magic plan that government can pull out of the hat. What I am asking for, simply put, is a recognition that for the first time in this Province the out-migration problem is bigger than it ever has been. Forty-one per cent of graduates from post-secondary institutions left this Province -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: No, I say to the Minister of Justice, I didn't just discover it, but it is obvious that you might be just discovering it.

Forty-one per cent of graduates left this year from our post-secondary institutions. If we are going to work together, I say to the Premier, well then, let's begin. Every plan is just that, but the execution, the implementation of it, is what is required.

Would the Premier consider a plan for young graduates whereby every young person is either in a training institution, doing some form of community service, or doing some form of apprenticeship program? Would that be a small beginning to try to keep people who have the skills at home in this Province?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, let's be straight in the House. First of all, we have had out-migration in this Province for a very long time. By the way, if you want to get into that game we can go back and look at even pre-collapse of the fishery, 1992, and I believe it was an Administration of a colour with which the Leader of the Opposition is familiar. We had out-migration then, and we had quite high numbers, perhaps even higher - if you take out the TAGS equation, or the collapse of the fishery equation - than we have today.

Quite frankly, that is a silly contest and a silly game to get into. There is out-migration in Newfoundland and Labrador because we have had a catastrophic failure of our fishery. It has nothing to do with politics or which party is in power, or which party is in the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition, I think, knows that and would acknowledge that.

The issue is, what can we do? I say to the Leader of the Opposition, we put in place last year - and I think it was acknowledged last year - the largest ever youth employment program that has ever been provided for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: I say to the Leader of the Opposition, before he too quickly says no, I at least ask him to check the facts.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER TOBIN: The Member for Ferryland is saying federally. I tell him provincially as well. Mr. Speaker, in the Budget announced last week we decided as a Cabinet to replicate in exact numbers the size of that program, and this year our total youth employment expenditure - and the Minister of Human Resources and Employment I know will correct me if I am wrong - is in excess of $7 million for 1998.

We are taking the kind of specific and targeted measures that are being talked about by the Leader of the Opposition. I say this to the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition, I believe, has been on the right wicket when he says we are going to judge the government and its proposals on their individual merits. I say to the Leader of the Opposition that the development of the Churchill River system is important for Newfoundland and Labrador.

The recent agreement that we have arrived at begins the process of re-balancing the opportunity for Newfoundland and Labrador. The Leader of the Opposition said he wanted to be briefed on it, he said he had many questions, and I ask this as a straight question. He was briefed for some hours this week on the details. I ask the Leader of the Opposition: Will he now put aside this tone of `we don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing,' and will he tell us where he stands on the Lower Churchill River development? Will he make up his mind?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, to conclude, every single former president of Hydro has endorsed it, the labour unions have endorsed it, the boards of trade have endorsed it, every thinking person in Newfoundland and Labrador has endorsed it. Can the Leader of the Opposition make up his mind and endorse this good development project?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Waterford Valley.

MR. H. HODDER: Praise the Lord! We are tempted to say: Praise the Lord but hold the ammunition!

My question, Mr. Speaker, is for the Minister of Education.

During debate on the amendments to Term 17, the Premier and the minister noted in the debate that the time had come to end the practice whereby teachers could be hired or fired for any other reason than their capacity to teach, their competence and their professional qualifications.

I ask the Minister of Education, if he has taken steps to make sure that all teachers currently being hired in this Province with the various school boards are, in fact, attaining their new positions without regard to their religious affiliations?

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

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, the entire Legislature took such steps last fall just before Christmas, in passing the new Schools Act which is currently in effect and basically indicates that there will be a single, school system, Mr. Speaker.

The circumstance that the Opposition critic refers to, with respect to hiring on the basis of factors other than qualification and experience, namely, religious affiliation, was a feature of the denominational system, in which we do have denominational schools operating this year for the last time in the history of the Province.

Mr. Speaker, if there are denominationally-based schools operating in September of 1998 or beyond, they will be private schools, run for a particular group and paid for by themselves, not by the public purse and, Mr. Speaker, there is absolutely no basis under law, in the Province, as of January 1998 for a school board to hire a teacher on any basis other than qualifications, experience and the ability to do the job.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Waterford Valley, a supplementary.

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

I wish to bring to the minister's attention that I have several applications for teaching positions that are being circulated to applicants from boards and were obtained as late as this week, and in these applications it is quite clear. What has been asked for here, with this particular application, is, religious affiliation; another one here, where in the applications, teachers have been asked to state their religion, which, of course, is contrary to the will of this Legislature and contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom and the Human Rights Code. I want to tell the minister that I have had some complaints from applicants, because they are intimidated by it, and would he today, assure all teachers and tell all school boards in this Province, that they should not, under the legislation of this Province, ask for or expect any teacher applying for a job to state their religious affiliation and to assure them that it has no impact at all on the hiring practices?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have no idea why that particular question would be part of an application. However, Mr. Speaker, it is not that the posing of the question is contrary to anything by law, the fact of the matter is, every individual applying has a right not to fill in that section. There is no obligation, Mr. Speaker, for anyone to fill in a section on an application stating what his religious affiliation or denomination is.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, there is no obligation by law for anyone to fill in anything on an application suggesting what their gender is, whether they be male or female. Those issues are irrelevant and, Mr. Speaker, it is not a question. The major question is not whether it is on the application, it is whether or not it is considered at all in the determination of the job being filled.

Mr. Speaker, I will take the matter up with the school boards to make sure again that they understand fully that there is to be absolutely no reference to factors other than qualification, experience and ability to do the job.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Waterford Valley, a supplementary.

MR. H. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, I just draw the minister's attention to the fact that on this particular application, it says that an application for a teaching position and all sections must be completed for each competition, then it mentions: excepting where it says `optional'. The only optional clause here, is where it says: `maiden name'. Where it says religious affiliation, it clearly says that you must fill it in. A new teacher would take this application and would read it to mean that there is not an option. This is very intimidating to young teachers. Therefore, I bring it to the minister's attention and I am sure that before the day is out, he will cause this to be happening and I seek his assurance on that.

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

MR. GRIMES: Without question, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the hon. member bringing it to my attention. We will take action with the school boards today to make sure it is completely and absolutely understood that that should be no part of this process.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions today are for the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

As the minister knows, many communities in this Province are experiencing severe economic difficulties, in large part because the moratorium has destroyed their economy. Investment and infrastructure that they made during the good times are providing to be impossible to finance and now the times are bad and the revenue base is gone. Difficult times, minister, deserve special considerations. How many communities have applied to the minister's department for funding under the debt relief fund?

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

MR. A. REID: The department, Mr. Speaker, estimates that there are approximately 100 communities that we will have to address over the next year or two. Up to now, we have taken care of, I think when the contracts are signed in the next couple of days, around twenty. The serious ones, in my estimation, would be up around fifty, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Can the minister provide us with up-to-date information to indicate which communities have received relief from this fund and in what amounts?

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

MR. A. REID: Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that this House and the public of Newfoundland and Labrador want to know what communities received debt relief. I am sure that some communities would be quite embarrassed if their names were brought up in the House, and how much they got, but I would certainly be willing to provide the hon. member with the list if he wanted to come to my office. I could provide that but, Mr. Speaker, some of these communities are in, like he said, desperate financial shape and I do not think that we should be standing in the House talking about one community compared to another. So my answer is going to be no, I am not going to provide it to the House, Mr. Speaker, but I will provide it to the hon. member if he would like to see it, and if he wants to release it, then it is up to him.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Also I would like to ask the minister: What is the criteria used to select which communities get relief, and in what amounts? Is the minister confident that the criteria is fair, in light of today's reality?

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

MR. A. REID: Mr. Speaker, when the program was announced the government, at the time, announced that we were expecting communities, especially communities that we - and when I say we, I mean the department - considered to be probably not charging their residents enough per year. There are communities out there, for example, that are paying very little in regard to taxes to the community. We said at the time that government would be willing to do its share in helping these communities but in doing that, the communities must show us that they are willing to do a portion, to do something that would show that they are trying to do the best they possibly can.

The criteria, basically, Mr. Speaker, we did not really set anything in stone. We said that we thought it was a departmental and not a government decision. We thought that a dollar-a-day for services in the community per community, a dollar-a-day, which is $365 a year, was a reasonable amount to ask for people to pay for water and sewer services, street lighting, recreation and all the other things. Now, Mr. Speaker, I think I can say today that there are still large numbers of communities in this Province who are not paying a dollar-a-day. Now, I feel quite honestly that - I suppose with my experience in municipal politics, $300, $350, $400 a year is not very much for a person living in the community, that are getting services, to pay for those services. So the answer, Mr. Speaker, to the hon. member is no, there is no set criteria. We did not write it down but we have asked communities, based on where they are and their ability to pay, to increase taxes to certain levels.

I guess the question is originating or being stemmed from the conversation that was had yesterday with the media in relation to a town on the Southern Shore. I was pleased to get a call yesterday from the mayor who basically, I will say, apologized to me for what he said openly on the radio and since that particular time, this morning, I signed a new deal with that town that I believe they will accept. They will get a letter from me within a matter of an hour or so and I think that they will accept. I think that problem on the Southern Shore is rectified as of this morning. I hope it is, because I do not want to go through that again.

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

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question this morning is for the Minister responsible for Forest Resources and Agrifoods.

Over the last weeks and months even, Mr. Speaker, there have been a lot of meetings around the Province, called by loggers, to discuss concerns with the forest industry. Of course, you see some similarities between what is happening right now with the forestry and what happened with the fishery, the crisis we are going through in that now.

Mr. Speaker, the comparison is that it is a renewable resource that the people who know it best, not the scientists, but the loggers, have raised some very serious concerns. I think all members of the House of Assembly can agree to that. Of course, when we see the wood deficit and so on in this Province, there is reason for concern.

My first question to the minister: I would just like to ask him if he had people at these meetings, and how does he respond to some of the concerns brought up by the loggers at these meetings around the Province?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, first off, I thank the member for the question, and I welcome it. It is a sensitive issue when you have technology in an industry, and we have technology in this industry, especially in the last decade, and in the next few years we will probably see some more.

We are, at present, the lowest mechanized province in Canada when it comes to the forest industry, and we are going to see some movement toward that end. We have had meeting with both unions, in particular. The loggers' unions represented the forestry workers for both pulp and paper companies. We discussed with them the possibility of some way to have a transition with the workforce, an adjustment for the numbers that are affected. We have had some discussions with the Minister of Human Resources and Employment about the use of a labour market agreement. So we are working on those possibilities.

We also cannot ignore the reality of technology and the fact that it is occurring in this business. We are going to see some more of it, Mr. Speaker, but I think we are seeing a lot of jobs created in the sawmill industry. So the forestry sector is not losing jobs at the end of the day. We are gaining a lot of jobs in the forestry sector through integrated sawmills. There is a lot of good work being done.

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

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

First of all, I think it is a sensitive issue. Well, I know it is because I have been talking to loggers for years in my district. It is no different from a lot of others around. When you stop and talk to a logger on the side of the road who has been working, he tells you the same stories that fishermen told over the years.

I agree with the minister, by the way, of course, that there is technology in every industry. We move on, technology moves on, and we have to keep up with that. I have no problem with the fact that technology is going to increase in the forest industry and we have to make provisions for that.

My next question, Mr. Speaker, I guess, is one that the minister partly answered. I am concerned now - and I guess you have to have foresight to make sure that that is taken care of - the people who are replaced by these harvesters, that there is some kind of program in place, some kind of transition in place, so that they move on, if, in fact, mechanical harvesting is going to move on in the Province.

Mr. Speaker, the second part of that question, which is also very important, is: What control does the government have, and what policies are being put in place, so that we do not see fifty harvesters move into the Province, or a hundred, or whatever; so that there is some control over the harvesting? I think it is a direct question that needs to be answered. The government needs to put a specific plan in place to control and also to offset people who will be replaced by those harvesters.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, we have had discussions with the pulp and paper companies about their plans for the future. We are discussing with them now the plans that they have for further mechanization. We are trying to get a handle on what they are proposing to do.

As I said earlier, we have had meeting with both loggers' unions. In their collective agreements there is a guarantee of work for loggers. So what the companies have been doing is guaranteeing employment for loggers, and through attrition, trying to ensure that no one gets displaced.

Over the next two to three years, there will be some mechanization. We have had some discussions with the unions about meeting on the Labour Market Agreement which is a federal-provincial agreement. We are going to have some further discussions with them. We have had, and we are going to have more discussions with the companies about the impact of mechanization.

At the same time, we are trying to ensure that the industry is efficient and that it survives into the future, and also that we see a lot of jobs created in the sawmill industry. We are seeing a lot of jobs created in a lot of regions of the Province, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

Again, with the last comment the minister made, yes that is true, the integrated sawmill industry has great potential in this Province. There are some things happening in my own district now. I do agree that that is the way to move, as far as the forest industry is concerned, to more use of our industry, Mr. Speaker, more use of the resource so that it provides more jobs.

The next question, Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask today and have the minister to respond to, is on silviculture. I say to the Premier, we talked earlier about job creation and helping and so on. There is nothing I can think of more, Mr. Speaker, if we can send anybody who needs a job into the forest industry to plant and thin trees and do silviculture work. Because it provides jobs to plant them, it provides jobs while they are growing, and it provides jobs at the end of the day.

The question is, as far as silviculture is concerned, and I think the minister would agree that it does provide jobs - I hope the Premier agrees with that - that with the statements lately by Kruger, silviculture programs, in the paper, could the minister tell us what the silviculture programs for this summer are and how he feels they are going to progress?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, we are very proud of the silviculture program the Province has put together with the companies. The last number of years there has been major reinvestment in our forestry, in regeneration, and in silviculture work. Last year we had over 2,000 people employed, collectively, in silviculture work all over the Province in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. So this program we will see again this summer in probably around sixty to seventy communities of the Province. We had, I think, over 150 projects last year. We will see the silviculture effort again coming this summer. We will have a further announcement on the amounts and so on very shortly.

We intend on keeping up the major silviculture effort with the companies because it is paying off. Down the road, for the future of this industry, we are going to see our forestry stands in very good shape for the sawmill industry, which is expanding. This year we had the highest lumber production on record. We also had the highest pulp and paper production on record. Given a limited wood supply, we are doing very well with it.

Thank you very much.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South; time for one quick question.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I had some questions for the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture but I don't have time to carry out the questions. I will have a quick question for the Minister of Forestry and Agrifoods.

Minister, a few months ago myself, you and your staff, visited a group of farmers in the Lethbridge area. Since that time there have been questions asked in the House of Assembly, there has been a private member's resolution brought forward, dealing with the control of moose in the general farming area of the Lethbridge area. I would like to ask the minister if he has made any decision on allowing an early hunt in this particular area. When can the farmers know what that decision will be?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the member for the question.

Before Christmas we went down and met with farmers in the Lethbridge area. They have identified a major problem they have been having for a number of years. We are looking at, and will have a decision very shortly, in the next days or so, on dealing with an early hunt in that area specifically. We may have that decision early next week, as a matter of fact. I will be passing it on through the House to the member. We are concerned and want to make sure farmers in that area get support.

We are also looking at a crop insurance adjustment there to allow for that. My understanding is that we have been able to get an arrangement that I think will be acceptable. Again, we will announce that at the same time.

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

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

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

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the House there was an exchange of words, and at one point the Speaker asked members to withdraw certain comments that had been made. The Member for Conception Bay South withdrew a statement directed at the Minister of Education.

I also pointed out to the Chair yesterday, and to the Speaker yesterday, that the Member for Conception Bay South had shouted statements across the floor quite loudly. They could be heard both on this side of the House and, quite frankly, in the gallery, words to the effect, directed to me: How much is he into you for, Premier? Words to that effect. I don't know if I have the exact phrase, but words to that effect.

The member denied having made such a comment and I accepted, after some debate, that denial. This morning on CBC Radio, CBC Radio was in fact playing two things: one, the member denying having made such a comment; and then, two, by enhancing the tape, the member's voice actually saying exactly those words repeatedly: Premier, how much is he into you for?

Mr. Speaker, the clear implication there is of somebody contributing money or giving money or somebody being on the take. This is clearly unparliamentary. These words -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER TOBIN: It is not foolishness, I say to the Opposition House Leader. These are serious allegations. They are unparliamentary. I understand that things are said in the heat of debate and discussion. I would ask the hon. member now, again today, to do the honourable thing, to stand and withdraw these words which have now been broadcast across the Province.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South, to the point of privilege.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

First of all, let me say that I do not think CBC Radio is the official record of this House of Assembly. I have not heard the tape, by the way, so I really do not know what CBC have played and I really do not care what CBC have played because they have their own way of sprucing up the news, and I think that was fairly evident last night, but I will say this to the Premier. Like I said, I have not heard the tape - I assume the Premier has heard the tape - but if I have offended the Premier or anybody else on that side of the House, I certainly will redraw the remark. Things are said in the heat of battle. I certainly did not mean to offend you. If I did that, I certainly will withdraw that remark.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair would like to take this opportunity to welcome twelve Journalist students from Lawrence College. They are accompanied by their instructor, Mr. William Callahan, who was a former Member of the House of Assembly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. A. REID: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The Urban And Rural Planning Act."

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

MR. T. OSBORNE: I have a petition to the House of Assembly. The prayer of the petition reads:

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

WHEREAS many public service pensioners who spent a lifetime contributing to their society are now slipping deeper and deeper into poverty;

WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to ensure public service pensioners receive a raise in their pensions whenever public servants receive a raise in pay, and to reverse the policy of clawing back Canada Pension Plan benefits from public servant pensioners, as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, we have spoken on this issue in the House on a number of occasions. We have presented a number of petitions on this, and we will continue to present petitions on this particular issue, because our public service pensioners have not received a raise in pay since 1989.

Now that the public service workers are going to be receiving a raise in pay, we feel it is only right that the public service pensioners do as well. The cost of living has gone up considerably since 1989, yet the public service pension has not. Neither have the public service workers, yet they are now going to be getting a raise.

Mr. Speaker, we have also made statements in this House and on the record saying that if indeed government are unable to give public service pensioners a raise in pay, the least they can do is discontinue the claw-back from their pension benefits because of the fact they are receiving Canada Pension benefits. These public service pensioners have paid into both pensions, both the Canada Pension and their public service pension. They are entitled to both pensions. It is completely and totally unacceptable that this government claw back from their provincial pension benefits a portion of their Canada Pension benefits.

Mr. Speaker, my understanding is there are over 11,000 public service pensioners out there and many of them are, in fact, receiving a pension of less than $11,000 or $12,000 a year. Many of these people are widows or widowers and have to keep up a home. Many of these people not only have contributed much of their lifetime working for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador as public service workers but they are now working as volunteers on community groups, different organizations, and still contributing to society, contributing to this Province and to the people of this Province. The least we can do, Mr. Speaker, is discontinue the claw-back of their pension benefits because of them receiving Canada Pension.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MS S. OSBORNE: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support the petition of my hon. colleague.

Isn't it ironic that a couple of days after the anniversary of the inception of HST we are standing here presenting a petition on behalf of some of the people in this Province who are living at or below the poverty line.

Now somebody on the other side, when my hon. colleague stood up to present a petition, said there are too many petitions. I think if you look up `petition' in the dictionary, it would mean `plea'. It is unfortunate that the people, the residents of our Province, have to plead and beg with this government in order to be able to sustain some decent style of living.

The HST was instituted or brought in to give people a tax break. I would like to know how much you can spend, when your income is $11,000 a year, to be able to justify that as a tax break. People who are in higher income brackets, who can go out and make major purchases, certainly get to take advantage of the tax break of HST. But our pensioners, who have given so much of their lives to the service of this Province, who are now living at or below the poverty line, whose expenses have been increased but whose pensions have not been increased, are certainly not getting to take advantage of this.

I think it is incumbent upon this government to have another look at the decision they made in regard to the pensions of the public service pensioners, to have another look at the amount, and to index it at least to the raises that the public servants themselves receive.

Thank you.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is my privilege today to present a petition on behalf of the residents along the Southern Shore. This particular one is from the community of St. Shotts, and it is related to the Goulds bypass road. There are petitions filtering in every single day throughout the district.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank God they do not have to wait for a cardiac bypass, I say to the Minister of Health. Thank God for that. In fact, talking about that bypass, I am getting a lot of calls from people waiting on that too, waiting for one year. I had one particular person call just last week.

But this particular petition deals with more of an infrastructure nature. It is pertaining to the construction of a Goulds bypass road. It has already, as the petition would indicate, been identified under the Canada-Newfoundland Transportation Initiative. The prayer to the petition reads:

WHEREAS the construction of the Goulds bypass road has not begun despite repeated promises from government; and

WHEREAS the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has indicated that construction of the Goulds bypass road will not begin this year; and

WHEREAS significant opportunities for development in the region are contingence upon completion of the Goulds bypass road; and

WHEREAS the viability of our communities and businesses is dependent upon adequate transportation infrastructure that allows our region access to the opportunities and markets of the capital region; and

WHEREAS the growth of our communities is closely related to the ability of our citizens to commute to work within a reasonable time each day over highways that are in good condition; and

WHEREAS the financial resources to begin the Goulds bypass road have been identified under the Canada-Newfoundland Transportation Initiative;

WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to begin construction of the Goulds bypass road this coming year, as in duty bound your petitioners ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very necessary link. I say to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, they are filtering in every day. It is not that I am going to present you with one every day but I do have a couple of more. I am doing them by community where possible, and I am expecting hundreds of others.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Actually, I only have two left. Each day when I go in, one filters in through the mail, I say to the minister. I would like to have them all at the one time, a few thousand at one time, to present. It would be suitable.

I am going to keep reminding the minister of the importance of this piece of road to people not only on the Southern Shore but in the Goulds area, the Kilbride area, and people who use that area, tens of thousands of people. In fact more people utilize this area by tourism than there are people living on the entire Southern Shore, right from St. Shotts into Waterford Bridge Road. There are more people who utilize that, and they have the numbers to show that. From the increase in number -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I might say to the member that the bypass road out to Conception Bay North is very important; it is vital. I occasionally drive down that highway, every single community and every turn there. A bypass road would be very positive there, not just for regular traffic but for businesses in the area being able to move back and forth to the city. It cuts down on travelling time, it cuts down on their overhead costs, the repair of vehicles. It is more efficient use of their time and, by the way, it cuts down on pollution in the environment, as my colleague alluded to.

If you take forty-five minutes to drive from Big Pond to the Confederation Building when it should be done in about ten or fifteen minutes, that is thirty minutes more polluting the environment. Certainly, the last thing we want is more pollution in our environment. We have been fortunate to have an environment that is - a very sparse population and not too much industry.

With a smelter refinery in Argentia that is going to be on stream in another two years, we will be turning out refined nickel. It is important that the benefits from infrastructure are felt in all aspects. They are felt in the environment. Reduction of emissions into the air is one aspect. Another aspect: it helps promote tourism and move people into an area where they can move in quickly. They don't want to spend all day long driving to a particular historic site. They want to be able to do it in as short a time as possible. Not only that, it cuts down on the cost of maintaining vehicles.

Going through the Goulds area with water and sewer, roads dug up, pavement broken, bumps, it is unbelievable. If the minister drove even a little bit further beyond where he lives, up to the other end of the Goulds, you will see that it even gets worse. It is in desperate need. Then that minister, to say on CBC Radio last year - I am sure the Premier is familiar with CBC Radio.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. SULLIVAN: Just thirty seconds to finish up, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Does the hon. member have leave?

MR. SULLIVAN: I will present another one if they will not give me leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Does the hon. member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. SULLIVAN: To have that Government House Leader, the Minister of Development and Rural Renewal, say on the radio in the morning -

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, but the current one. You cannot refer to them by their previous one when you are addressing them now.

To say that people who want to drive the roads should get up early in the morning. How do you tell a mother with three young kids to get on the road at 6:30 a.m. and drive into work here for an hour-and-a-half? Probably her husband is away working in Alberta or some other part of the country. You have to understand, you have to have a reasonable convenience for people commuting to work and raising families.

I am delighted that the minister has seen the light. He has seen the necessity of the Goulds bypass road now. He just threw out that little (inaudible) there on behalf of his Cabinet and government to see what their reaction would be and, I can tell you, it was quick. It was very quick on behalf of people in the area and people in the rest of my district, in the Kilbride district, in the district in which the Government House Leader lives, so he sees the value of it. We just hope that the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation also sees the value.

I will have to take him up to my district but I do not want to use my car, the roads are too bad. I would prefer to use one of those 1,100 vehicles that are being leased or bought by the government here, the excessive number of vehicles that are used by the government, because we -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Oh, yes. Tell us about all those that were bought last month. Tell us about those that were bought this month, before the end of the fiscal year. Tell us about all these, I say to the minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I will agree to hook on my trailer and put him in the trailer, but not in my car. When I go into that district I want him behind me, to make sure he is not in the one vehicle. If he were a good Works, Services and Transportation Minister, he would say it should have been done long ago; He was the minister before and it was not done. That is part of the problem.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) archaeological dig (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes. At least we have a minister there now, even though he has not committed yet this year, who will given me a letter saying it will be done and it is in the plan. At least that is something this minister has done. That is something the previous ministers have not done. At least, Mr. Speaker, we are going to see bulldozers, we are going to see activity and employment going on. Hopefully this year when the tenders come in and are that extra million or two under what he anticipated, we will be able to put it there and get something moving this year.

I am looking forward to those tenders being called under the Newfoundland Transportation Initiative, those for the Island portion, to see what money is left, so we can have a start there, have some activity and have some hope for people there. I am sure the Member for Grand Falls - Buchans knows what I am talking about.

There are people who have invested hundreds of thousands, almost in the millions, in building up in Bay Bulls an opportunity. Hopefully there will be an offshore base there that employs, if not in the hundreds, at least in the tens of people right there in the town to help community areas that have been devastated and to have a transition from the fishery.

It is a community that is doing quite well, and it can become really a hub of activity on the offshore if the minister, in his wisdom, can find a couple of million this year to get a start there so that $10 million project will be completed before 2002, 2003. We need it now. We need it as soon as possible, and hopefully we will see some activity this year.

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

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

The Member for Ferryland is continuously receiving petitions from people on the Southern Shore to have the Goulds bypass road started this year. This petition is from St. Shotts. He presented a petition the other day from the people in St. Shotts, in the District of Placentia - St. Mary's, and he presented a petition here yesterday from the people in Trepassey.

It is quite interesting to note that the former Minister of Works, Services and Transportation said here this morning that this should have been started years ago, that the Goulds bypass should have been started years ago. I would have to ask the question: If the former Minister of Works, Services and Transportation believes that, why didn't he do something about it years ago when he was Minister of Works, Services and Transportation?

The present Minister of Works, Services and Transportation recently put out a press release saying that the Goulds bypass would not be started this year but maybe next year, a $10-million project, is it $10 million?

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes.

MR. J. BYRNE: It is something that is desperately needed for the people of the Southern Shore.

The point I made yesterday, of course, was with respect to the environment, and spending an extra half hour in that short distance from the Goulds to St. John's, people travelling back and forth, the pollution from the exhaust in the cars and the hundreds, maybe thousands, of cars each morning and evening travelling over that road.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the Member for Ferryland mentioned tourism on the Southern Shore and there is -

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible) last year.

MR. J. BYRNE: Pardon?

MR. SULLIVAN: In the tens of thousands, (inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: In the tens of thousands, possibly 50,000 people last year, tourists, more people than live on the Southern Shore itself, travel the Southern Shore visiting the communities of Bay Bulls, Witless Bay, Tors Cove, Mobile, Calvert, Fermeuse, Ferryland, the whole gamut.

MR. SULLIVAN: Walt Disney (inaudible) film up there now.

MR. J. BYRNE: There is a film being done up there, Mr. Speaker; that is what the Member for Ferryland tells me. Hopefully there will be a film done up on the Southern Shore. For where, Walt Disney? Go on. That is interesting. More people going to the Southern Shore.

What do they have to drive over? A road that is in disgusting, pathetic condition; potholes, ditches across the road, repaved where people had put in water and sewer over the years. Aside from that, the road itself is not designed to handle the amount of traffic on the road in the mornings and the evenings. The Goulds bypass, again, as I mentioned here the other day, is a part of the overall plan put together by the experts, I suppose, at the Department of Works, Services and Transportation, for the design and the flow of traffic in and around St. John's.

I would assume this is going to be connected to the Outer Ring Road eventually.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes.

MR. J. BYRNE: The Member for Ferryland confirms that. It ties into Pitts Memorial Drive, which in actual fact will be all hooking into the Outer Ring Road and what have you, to facilitate the flow of traffic in and around St. John's. Again, the sooner we get the Goulds bypass started it will be to the betterment of the people of the Province overall, but in particular certainly the people living on the Southern Shore.

As I said, with respect to tourism and the regional economic board up there in that area, they have supported this for some time now. The municipalities on the Southern Shore support the construction and the start of the Goulds bypass road. As I said earlier, the former Minister of Works, Services and Transportation believes this should have been done years ago. I cannot understand why, out of the amounts of money that are going to be spent on road construction in the Province this year, that this cannot be started.

In the Budget Highlights 1998 it was mentioned that the provincial government is going to put in, I think, $16 million in road construction. If you join that with the amount of money that is coming from the feds, the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation has stated here in the House that this is going to be probably the most amount of money spent in years and years on the roads in Newfoundland and Labrador. Again we get back to the point: Why can't we use some of this money on the Goulds bypass?

In my district there have been some designs done and land purchased for the Torbay bypass. That is something the former Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, the present Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, put on the back burner. I know the response. He is going say now: You are a Tory, you are not going to get any.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Tory.

MR. J. BYRNE: There it is, see, Mr. Speaker? Did you ever watch The Muppets, the two guys up in the gallery? There is one over there. The same old foolish answer, wearing thin, the same old stuff. The Torbay bypass is a road that is desperately needed down our way. If the Torbay bypass is not started, maybe the Department of Works, Services and Transportation should look at putting in a four-lane highway down through Torbay.

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?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No leave.

MR. SPEAKER: No leave.

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

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

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

MR. SPEAKER: Motion No. 1.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I was going to take a few minutes today to enlighten the government on the details of this Budget. Right here are my copious notes, all on one page, I say to the minister. I am just looking for the Budget book.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I have my research, but in twenty minutes you don't need to do a big amount of research.

The first thing I am going to do is talk about a false Budget that has been presented. I am not going to say it's not true, it's a lying Budget, I never said that at all. I wouldn't say that; that would be too unparliamentary.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Actually, I didn't say it was false. I said I am going to talk about the false Budget.

Overall, when you look at the Budget and aspects of it - and I mentioned yesterday, I only had just a few minutes to get into this - there is a significant amount of money going to need to be found in the next year or two because there is a structural deficit built into this Budget. I just make reference to it, and I commented on this concern a year-and-a-half ago when we were talking about HST.

For example, we took a chunk of $348 million and we said, give us that and we will forego $150 million in revenue; actually $240 million, but the other new taxes brought in an extra $90 million. So we are going to forego $150 million in revenue from RST to HST for the Province per year, and we will take a chunk of money of $348 million.

Now, what happened? Last year, in the Budget, we built in $127 million - it is called transition assistance - out of that $348 million. This year we took another $127 million and we used it. That is $254 million. That leaves about $96 million or $98 million left for the next two years. We are going to take $64 million and then $32 million. That would be $96 million left. Sixty-four million would be factored in next year, and then $32 million and then it is gone.

In other words, what do we have next year? We have on this HST alone - the $127 million will go down to sixty-some million - we have a $63 million shortfall there, and there is going to be $127 million in two years, that the economy has got to grow and get extra revenue on that 8 per cent that we are getting under the 15 per cent. We get 8 per cent, the feds get 7 per cent. So, you take 8 per cent just on that item alone, take $127 million, it is very, very significant.

We would have to have retail sales that would grow by a few billion dollars. We would have to have a 67 per cent increase in retail sales in three years, to make up for the shortfall on the harmonization.

I agree with a single tax. It is much more convenient, it is easier, more effective administratively, less administrative problems associated with one collector rather than two collectors, and so on. But we took a chunk of money that was inadequate. It was inadequate to be able to meet it. It plugged a hole for the short term.

In addition to that $127 million we are using this year in the Budget that won't be there next year, we have also borrowed on the future too by borrowing on Term 29. We were going to receive $8 million a year forever. Over a twenty-year period, that is $160 million. There are positive aspects to this too, you could look at it, and that is not the point I am harping on. You took $130 million up front. You said: We will take $130 million over three years, instead of $160 million over twenty years, and we will get nothing for seventeen years. So this is the last year. There is $40 million in that Budget this year, that is under Term 29, plus the $127 million under transition assistance. That is $167 million in this year's Budget that will not be there next year. So, we have to find $167 million by increased growth in our economy, increased taxation or reduced expenditures, assuming all other factors and predictions remain the same. That is a significant amount of money.

Where is it going to come from? We are seeing some being siphoned out of education, not all being reinvested like we were told. We are seeing health care and much, in spite - I will get to that little later. In this Budget what we received over last year - it was painted and glossy in the fact sheets and the back-up information - that $20 million went in last year. Well, that $20 million went in last year. That was not enough to meet the overruns with boards in this Province. They are in the tens of millions of dollars running in the hole. That is right. They are running in debt. The Health Care Corporation of St. John's will be $21.8 million in debt, $4.8 million last year. They are going to be running in debt this year and next year. With what they have, and the other boards, they cannot even meet their debts; they are running up debt.

We put $10 million in. Now, look at $10 million extra in boards on several hundred million dollars. They are just getting a little over 1 per cent. A little over 1 per cent more went into the operating budgets of health care boards around the Province this year when the inflation, by the government's own estimate here in the economy, has said inflation is going to be greater than 1 per cent. So, the CPI, I think, 1.2 per cent, if I remember the figure correctly. It makes reference to it here in The Economy.

In other words, inflation is going to increase more than the amount that went into the budgets for health care boards to operate here in the Province, and 1.2 per cent is the figure they used. In other words, Health Care Boards this year, the Health Care Corporation in St. John's and the Central and Western, all these boards, will be in a tighter financial situation at the end of this year. If you look at the consumer price index and the cost - and the consumer price index, while it applies generally to basic goods and services, is more pronounced within the Health Care Institutions. Because in the medical field, the cost of equipment and so on, and expenses, do not rise as slowly as in other sectors, in food and various other things. So, we are finding that they are going to have less dollars to work with, and that is a very grave concern.

We just wrote off $25 million in debt on school boards and we said: Here are ten new boards. You are out there debt free now. You are not going to have to borrow, we are going to provide money from the Province to give you for school construction. Then we turn around and say to Health Care Boards: You go out now and borrow $130 million to build a Janeway and close the Grace. It was $100 million in June of 1996, it is $130 million now, and it is pushed ahead from 1998 to 1999, and the longer the delay goes on the less savings there are because you haven't the consolidation taking place.

The minister told me yesterday that we are not going to move fast. The slower they move in doing the job, the greater the costs incurred in the process, and the further your savings are delayed.

What do we have? We have $130 million and that will not, I say it will not, enable us to achieve savings within our system. When you re-organize and consolidate, it is for one of two purposes, and I support it if it meets one or both of those purposes. An improvement in the quality of health care is one and/or an improvement in the efficiency in the administration of those services.

We have just spent $22 million by the time the debt is paid back for the Grace and St. Clare's, by buying back; $6.5 million for St. Clare's and we just spent, I think, four point some million on the Grace. It came to $11 million. When it is paid off, with the St. Clare's over twenty years - it is costing over $750,000 a year, with six years to repay the debt on the Grace Hospital. There is still a cost of restructuring. That comes to $1.1 million a year. It adds up, in total, to $1.9 million a year, each year it is going out now; just to pay for the purchase of those facilities.

Add that $2 million on top of the $130 million, and if you look at the $22 million we are going to pay overall, if you want to apply that to the cost of restructuring on top off of the $130 million they are admitting right now, we are up to $152 million; not counting the moving costs, the transition from closing down the facility, not counting the equipment in the newly renovated structure or in the new additional structure. I can tell you, we are going to be up to $200 million.

There was supposed to be a $20.5 million saving by doing this, we would have $20.5 million extra which we could reinvest. I asked the Health Care Board, at their first annual general meeting that they held when they were formed, how much savings are going to be realized, and what are you going to do to finance it? They said: There are going to be $20 million in savings when we restructure health care here in the city of St. John's under the health care Corporation. We are going to take $10 million of that and we are going to use it to pay on the money we are borrowing, and $10 million to reinvest in the system. Now the costs have gone up and we do not have $10 million in savings, it is down to $7 million; not factoring in all those other costs. The Auditor General addresses many of these particular areas too.

So, we are going to revamp a health case system that I predict will end up having less dollars for operation, and we are going to be paying for bricks and mortar from the operation money that is given to Health Care Corporations. That is what is going to happening. Now, it should not happen. Furthermore, when you look at it, we have the lowest number of beds per capita of any Province in the country today. We have the lowest number of acute care beds of any Province in the country today and we have a population that is older, an aging population, which tells us something is wrong. When you have more older people and more people needing hospital care, surgery, and you have the lowest number of acute care beds - we have gone from 3,000 to less than 2,000 in the last seven or eight years - it tells us that there are people out there today that need to be in hospital that are not in hospital, that are on a waiting list. It tells us that people in hospital today must be very acute cases, very, very acute cases.

We have a massive problem in the administration of health care in our Province. We have problems with almost every single board being able to carry out the duties and responsibilities entrusted to them. What are we going to do with these boards now? We are telling them take child welfare, take family rehabilitative services, take youth corrections; on top of boards that do no have their financial house in order.

The minister tried to say the last day, in response to a question, the Committee on Children's Interests recommended putting child welfare with Health. I do not have a problem with that. I don't care whether it is in Social Services, Health or Human Resources. It is not important where it is, it is important that the structure is in place to deliver the service that is provided. So it not a cosmetic thing. It should be a functional, highly operational service that is provided, and it does not matter what particular bowels of government it is placed in. It should be able to be functioning and with the personnel to do.

We have a massive problem here within the health care of this Province and it is crumbling down around our ears in administrative wastage at the organization level. We do not have the systems in place. All we are seeing now is people getting shuffled around. Chairs were shuffled around boardroom tables that did not achieve the purpose that we wanted to achieve. We are gobbling up tens of millions of dollars, I will not say hundreds, but we are gobbling up tens of millions of dollars in administrative inefficiencies in our system, that should be used to pay more nurses on the front-lines and more front line workers in other parts of the Province.

It is unbelievable that somebody cannot get a handle on the system here to get it up and running more efficiently. It is a very, very serious problem that we are facing that is going to become more acute in the future; more acute as we lose our young people, as we lose the people who do not take up a big chunk of the costs of medical services here in our Province. It is the very youngest people and the oldest people that consume the greatest amount of services and costs in our system, particularly aging people.

How many people in their seventies and eighties have you heard of today that are driving away to the mainland to live? Not very many. Who are the people going out, the 3,128 people who went out in the last quarter? At that rate, 12,500 people over a year, about 8,000 last year. They are not people in their seventies, eighties and nineties going out of here. The people who are staying here are the elderly people. It is their home, they are living here. We are going to have a more pressing problem in the future if something is not done.

To throw extra responsibilities on it and tell them they are now - and here is another big issue - not only responsible for new things, when they have not been able to handle administrating the ones they have, but now you go out and borrow. We are going to not only make you responsible for taking care of the sick, we are going to make you responsible now for the steel and mortar that is going up. We are going to make boards responsible for that. Not elected boards, entrusted and elected by people to run it, as the people want, but hand-picked appointed boards. Many of these boards have competent the people. All boards, I guess, have at least a certain number of competent people, who have experience either in the administrative end or in the medical field. It is very important that the public who have a vested interest should have an opportunity to have the representation on those boards. We just saw it with school boards. If we are going to entrust the education of our children and our future to elected boards, should we not entrust the future of our health care to elected boards and the people out in society who have various skills and so on to bring to the particular job?

Now only that, this year, much as government likes to delay it - I mean, we had a balanced Budget last year actually, more than a balanced Budget. We had a surplus last year in the Budget, even though the Budget did not show it. The Budget never showed it. What was tabled in the House last week, well we did not need this to show it. What we wrote off in the last fiscal year, that would have been a balanced Budget. We wrote off a $4 million, a scholarship fund, warrants that were signed on March 13, tabled here just this past week. The scholarship fund for the next two years was paid out of last year's Budget. That is $4 million there that we could have had. Twenty-one point eight million, given to the new corporation for the construction of schools in the Province. It is called The Newfoundland and Labrador Education Investment Corporation. Twenty-one point eight million for construction of schools, $4 million for scholarships; that is $25.8 million right there just on those two items alone, paid in last year's Budget but to be spent this year and next year. So we had a surplus Budget last year.

So, we are all setting the stage for next year's Budget that will start showing - transfer many of the costs, pay then out of this year, because we provided a Budget last year, that I said from day one when I was finance critic and Leader, is not a true and accurate Budget. It deliberately misrepresented true figures. Maybe I will withdraw the word `deliberate'. It might be unparliamentary. It misrepresented the true figures, as I said, and we would see in the final analysis.

We have the proof here when you look at it. The proof is there. They painted the picture they wanted to paint. So when their figures came in, look, we are on Budget, we are ahead of Budget, it is very easy to do that. It is grand to paint the picture and then show up: We could have had a significant surplus this year but we wanted to wait until next year. Next year will certainly be closer to an election year. It will be three years after next February. When the next Budget comes down, you will have entered your fourth year then and you have all these little prepaid things and goodies to show; a nice, surplus Budget and lots of desk-thumping here. When you run out of here next year, after the Budget and all the desk-thumping, and run out to the people: We are going to have an election now; surplus Budget, some dollars thrown into health care and education, all of a sudden another big charade and we have a little election next spring again.

So I am sure it is all part of the plan. It is pretty transparent, though. You don't have to look very closely at the figures, at the results, at what is happening to see the direction that government is taking.

There are some other areas here (inaudible) too. Some of these are the creative accounting, I guess, setting the political directions. Some others are certainly legitimate. Some others are direct, real expenses that occurred during the year, that were not included in the estimates; some are. We had the Outer Battery slopes stabilization project for which the provincial government has the responsibility. The city should not have to bear that responsibility. I agree with that. I do not have a problem with that one.

There are other areas: Municipal Affairs; debt financing; and there are those on job creation for a devastated people out there who were ready to turn to social assistance and managed to get some temporary job creation. We know it is not the long-term solution but it is important; people who have no food to put on their tables, in a house with an income that puts them below the level of social services, and they have to resort to that. To maintain their dignity, at least they go out and get work for a period of time and get a certain income, and then they would, basically, draw down on an EI fund whose surplus is going up to $19 billion at the end of this year, and they will not do anything about it. It is their right to utilize it, to draw on a fund that has a surplus.

We should be stronger here in that, the provincial government, in saying that it is criminal, they should not be allowed to be running up surpluses in the EI fund. It should have a certain amount of money there for emergencies. You should lower the premiums or increase the payouts. It is as simple as that, if you have a surplus in and EI fund. I can see taking out a chunk to use for job creation, for training, or in areas where it would help people become employed. I mean, those are noble motives for an EI fund. But not to syphon billions, throwing it into the general revenues of the country and not utilized for the purpose for which it was given.

I mean, that is under a false pretence. That is really fraud, what is happening. It is a fraud to take money for EI premiums from individuals and businesses and use it for some other purpose. That is not why it was created and it should not be allowed to happen. That is what Paul Martin did and that is wrong. That is how he helped balance the budget, by doing that, by robbing the EI fund and cutting back health, education and social assistance payments to provinces, down-loading. It was not an appropriate way to go.

This government responded in a certain way, by saying to municipalities: Now you have to take the responsibility. The feds are doing it to us, we will do it to you.

Mr. Speaker, we have the same taxpayer - myself and everybody here is a taxpayer, or most people, at the municipal level, at the provincial level, and at the federal level - coming out of the same pocket, and it is being pushed down to the lowest level where people are in the greatest degree of difficulty in trying to cope with what is already happening with an economy that has been on a downward slope since the closing of the fishery in 1992.

There were many instances before the closure of the fishery in 1992. Back in the 1980s in Labrador, northeastern, further up on the northeast coast and those areas, experienced a fishery downturn before 1992. The member for the Straits and those areas, and Southern Labrador, and White Bay, Bonavista and those areas, Notre Dame Bay. In those areas we have seen a pronounced decline in the fishery. It is only off the coast of the Avalon that the fishery was very prosperous, up to the time the moratorium was announced, and they had some of their better years. So we have seen that downturn prior to 1992.

We have looked at students in the process. Students haven't received the appropriate assistance they need under this Budget. One of the biggest problems we have is with the debt load of students. Just imagine a twenty-two-year-old or twenty-three-year-old today coming out of university with a $25,000 or $30,000 debt. Some people can afford to be able to contribute to their children's education, or have some avenues, but most people can't. The Paul Martin millennium fund or Chrétien millennium fund is only going to help 6 per cent to 7 per cent of people in this Province. What about the 93 per cent that it can't help?

This scholarship fund, it is an (inaudible). While it is something, and anything that is positive I applaud it, it is not going to help those who are burdened with debt relief who come out of school, bright, intelligent people. What are they going to do? They are going to leave this Province because their debt load is too high to be able to recover and make their payments, to be able to get a car. You have to be able to drive to get to work today. As you get a bit older you have to settle down. You can't repay your debt by staying here and hoping to get a substitute teaching job, or whatever the other job is, and working half a year; or getting five months' work and getting EI for the rest of it.

What are you going to do? The bright ones are leaving. I have spent over twenty years in the school system and I have seen it. I have seen it today. Some of the brightest students that I have taught in school, today are working with computer companies in Ontario. They are working with very prominent companies. Many of them are with Northern Telecom. They are out there today, engineers in the field. There was one in my office this week who has gone with a major oil company, right out of school and into a major job that is paying close to six figures - right out of school into a job - because they wanted to go somewhere where they could pay back that $30,000 or $35,000 they owe. They can't do it by staying here and hoping to get a job.

We need to do something to keep these bright entrepreneurs, leaders, not just of tomorrow but some of them are really becoming leaders of today, out there in the business world. We have to do something more than throwing $1,000 at a student today and saying: Here, that is what we are going to do for you.

What better way to take surplus in the (inaudible) fund into education and invest it? If you are going to do something for all students, maybe we should contribute more to Memorial to keep tuition down, or keep the tuition down in our colleges. Students also indicated they wanted debt relief and they didn't get it. That is what they wanted. I spoke with the Federation of Students at their AGM last year and the year before. I addressed them and sat down with them, and I have met them in my office and the boardroom. Students today, I can tell you, while they certainly appreciated that, and that is part of the problem, it doesn't address the high debt loads we are facing today that are doing two things basically.

One main thing that is happening is the high debt load is driving students out of this Province. That is what is happening with doctors. I have spoken with doctors; I have taught people who are doctors. I went to university and went to a pre-med program with people who are doctors today. A doctor who moved to the States to go to work, last May told me: I never got a call from one person in this Province recruiting a doctor in med school. I went to med school here at the Memorial, and not one person called me and offered me a job, to go to work here in Newfoundland and Labrador, to recruit me. He and his wife packed up and went out of this Province. They went to the States. They called him in May, when he was finished. He had a commitment, and they left here. That person is down working in the United States since last May or June, whenever they went. He never got called.

We have doctors leaving on the West Coast of this Province today, psychiatrists leaving. We are in a crisis here in health care with children, several hundred on a waiting list, waiting to get the necessary psychological and psychiatric care that they need, and a place that is full because we are too wrapped up in the large administrative structures of bricks and mortar and dollars into corporations that are administrative nightmares.

You talk to people in the system today here in this Province, and our health care boards by and large are an administrative nightmare. The minister admitted herself -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. SULLIVAN: By leave?

MR. SPEAKER: Does the member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Did he ask for leave?

MR. SPEAKER: Yes.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Is leave being withdrawn?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I really appreciate the five seconds of leave I did get, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

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

I am pleased to rise in my place today to say a few words about the 1998 Budget.

Mr. Speaker, where do I start with respect to this Budget? The first word I would have to use to describe this Budget is `trickery'.

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. TULK: The hon. gentlemen wants to know where he should start. I suggest to him that he start with the cover -

AN HON. MEMBER: There is no point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. TULK: - and that he look at the Coat of Arms and spend his whole thirty minutes talking about the Coat of Arms, because he will make a lot more sense than he is going to make when he is talking about the details of the Budget.

MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

The Hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

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

Mr. Speaker I have to speak about the Government House Leader with respect to the Budget. That member over there, the Government House Leader, the Member for Fogo I think it is.

MR. TULK: No, it is Bonavista North.

MR. J. BYRNE: I am sorry, Bonavista North.

The Government House Leader has been a member sitting in this House of Assembly longer than almost anybody else here, other than a couple: the Member for Terra Nova, the Member for Windsor - Springdale, and a couple of others maybe. How often has that man - and he is the Premier's Government House Leader - stood in his place since I have been here and talked about a point of order? I do not think, in maybe the fifty, sixty or seventy times, he had a point of order yet. Obviously, Mr. Speaker -

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

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

MR. TULK: If the hon. gentlemen would like to know how many times I have lost a point of order in this House, I will have a count done for him on Monday and present him with the evidence.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

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

The Government House Leader is going to give me a count of how many times. I would like to get the percentage also. Could he provide me with the percentage, how many times he was right?

MR. TULK: Yes, (inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay, get the percentages. Just let me know that, that is all. I would say 90 per cent of the time he did not have a point of order.

MR. TULK: Maybe ninety-five.

MR. J. BYRNE: Maybe ninety-five he says, so there it goes.

AN HON. MEMBER: What is your point?

MR. J. BYRNE: My point is this: We have a Government House Leader here who does not have a clue about what he is doing in the House of Assembly. That is the point. And if I have to explain that and spell it out for the Member for Humber East - you have to put everything in black and white. The level of intelligence, he just cannot figure things out. You have to spell it out for him.

Now, Mr. Speaker, with respect to this Budget, the word I was using to describe the Budget was `trickery'. Why do I use that word? Because they talk about a balanced Budget by the year 1999-2000.

Mr. Speaker, last year they came down with a three-year Budget. A three-year Budget they had planned, and the three-year Budget was something like two pages long. Now if you look at the regular Budget, Mr. Speaker, it is usually a document like this. Now they come out with a three-year Budget and are going to have a balanced Budget in the year 1999-2000.

Mr. Speaker, the word `trickery' again comes to mind because last year they announced a lot of cuts for the next three years. Now how many cuts did they announce this year, Mr. Speaker? None, because they were all announced last year; but I am sure they will be implemented this year, Mr. Speaker. They try to gloss things over and make everything look hunky-dory and wonderful for the people of the Province.

As an example, when the Minister of Finance was presenting the Budget - and I don't recall the specific item - I remember him announcing something in the range of $500,000.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Can you? I was wondering about that.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Yes, well -

MR. SULLIVAN: The context.

MR. J. BYRNE: There you go, there is no point. It is the context, as usual. I am not talking about an individual, I am talking about a document, so I think the Speaker would rule it in order. Mr. Speaker, I think you would rule it in order if it was questioned but it is not being questioned.

Now, to get back to the point I was making, the Minister of Finance announced a $500,000 item in the Budget. But when you size it up and look at the Estimates, it was cut something like $100,000. The people believed out there, and putting it forward, that they were getting $500,000. They were, but they did not tell them they were being cut by $100,000.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: No, that would describe you would it?

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: No, I don't need to use that word, Mr. Speaker. The Budget is what I am talking about here now. This document, Mr. Speaker, and I went through the -

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Who was?

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: The Minister of Finance was talking (inaudible), he said.

Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of items. I only have a half hour to speak on this topic, on the Budget, and there are so many things to address. For example, Mr. Speaker, in the Budget I did not see anything in there that was specifically directed towards the out-migration in this Province. The biggest, single problem facing this Province today is out-migration, Mr. Speaker, because it has such an impact on all aspects of the Budget, all aspects of the services for the people of this Province, out-migration.

Now StatsCan put out a release the other day saying that the Province's population shrank by a record 3,128 in the quarter ending October 1, 1997. The previous record for the three months was July 1, 1997, when it shrank by 2,126. Now that is over 5,000 people, and when there are 5,000 people leaving this Province the transfer payments are cut by $10 million.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Ten million. If 5,000 people leave -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: No, that is what is here, according to StatsCan.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible) for every person that leaves this Province, we lose (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Directly we lose $1,700 in equalization and $500 in CHST for each person directly. That is $2,200 -

MR. J. BYRNE: Well, Mr. Speaker, according to StatsCan, from '93-97, because of the out-migration in this Province, the Province lost $40 million in transfer payments; $40 million from '93-97. There was nothing in this Budget that was directed at stopping the flow of people leaving this Province.

I was saying here the other day in this House of Assembly, I was making a comparison, how ironic it is that we have Dr. House at Memorial University putting articles in the paper now talking about the recovery in Ireland, about the great recovery in Ireland, how they approached it and what they should be doing, and how this Province should be doing it. Now I find it strange -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: No, no, when my time is up you can get up and speak.

No, I don't have a question. I am just making a statement with respect to how it is ironic that we have a situation in the Province today where we have the highest out-migration ever that we know of since statistics have been kept.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: When you get your chance, get up and have your say. Mr. Speaker, the out-migration in this Province now today is outrageous. We have a professor at Memorial University, Dr. House, who is making the comparison with respect to the recovery in Ireland. We had a situation in the 1800s, I think it was, when we had the potato famine in Ireland, where they had an out-migration in Ireland. Many of those people came to Newfoundland, down to the States, the Eastern Seaboard and what have you. What I am saying is we are 200 years behind.

We have the Premier of the Province who got elected the last time around - and many people on that side of the House got elected on his coat-tails the last time around - promising a better tomorrow. Here we are, two years later, and we have the highest out-migration ever, in the Province. We are looking at a cycle of 200 years. Maybe we will get a recovery 200 years down the road. I hope I am wrong, I sincerely hope I am wrong.

MR. SULLIVAN: He was talking about Alberta.

MR. J. BYRNE: He may have been talking about Alberta. But, Mr. Speaker, this Budget does nothing to resolve that situation.

It is only a couple of days ago that it was the anniversary of the HST being implemented in this Province. Again, it was something that was pushed down our throats. There was a lot of objection to it. We, on this side of the House, brought up a lot of concerns with respect to the HST. The point that was made was that we were going to drop it back from basically 19 per cent - when you combine the RST and the GST - to 15 per cent, and it would save money for the poor people in this Province.

I would like to know if there have been any studies done in the past year - and the government has the bucks to do whatever they want to do - as to how much money the average family saved. I would venture to guess they did not save any money. Because I remember the Member for Baie Verte taking a typical family, I think, of two children, a low-income family, or someone on social assistance, and looking at their basic needs and the amount of money they have, somewhere around $11,000 or $12,000, and they lost $700. That is alone, just with the HST. The Member for Baie Verte did that before we brought in the HST and did a comparison of what things would cost with the HST, and they did not save.

Because what happened, I say to the Member for Conception Bay East & Bell Island, was that there were more items taxed. For example, Newfoundland Power, the electricity rates were taxed that were not taxed before, and that is a bare necessity. How many people with that salary range or that income can go out and buy clothes every month? They have to pay for the electricity every month. They get second-hand clothes, hand-me-downs. That is the problem, and those are some of the points we made.

The Member for Conception Bay East & Bell Island is over there trying to inject, asking me questions. I am up speaking, making the points I want to make with respect to this Budget, and there are a lot to be made. I only have a half hour. I would suggest that the Member for Conception Bay East & Bell Island get up and speak for a half hour on the Budget, and we will see what he has to say, see if he will support the Budget as he is saying here in his seat.

Just some of the highlights from Budget Highlights 1998 that was put out by this Administration. It comes with the Budget each year and it is a good thing.

MR. McLEAN: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Support this Budget? You will see if I support this Budget, I say to the Minister of Government Services and Lands. I am sure he supports the Budget. He supports whatever the government says, Mr. Speaker. Whatever the Premier says, he says it. He supports the government on everything, even stuff he has second thoughts on, and I know. The Minister of Government Services and Lands should be very careful and thankful to me, as a member over here who has asked him questions in this House of Assembly, has been very kind and gentle with that minister, because I think he is a decent man.

I remember being in a public meeting with that minister. He was just new on the job, mind you, Mr. Speaker, and I had to come to his protection. I had no problem doing that, so he should not be trying to heckle me. He should be over there encouraging me to make my -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Could you speak up, I cannot hear you.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I will not get into it - I want to address the points on this Budget. Because there are so many things I could say about the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture over there, who is trying to distract me from the concerns of this Budget.

In the third item, Mr. Speaker, with respect to living within our means, the Government says: that the Government continues to be prudent in its financial management and accordingly is providing for a $30 million continency reserve again this year - $30 million, Mr. Speaker - a contingency fund. Now, I understand, if I read the Budget right and listened to the Minister of Finance - he talked about a $10 million deficit this year - $10 million, I believe - and if you take this $30 million out of the budget for the contingency fund, in actual fact, there is a $20 million surplus - $20 million this year that this government can do what they want with. Basically they can take $30 million and come up with some hairy-fairy idea, whatever they want to do, and spend this $30 million, without coming back to the House of Assembly. Mr. Speaker, I have to question that. Last year they had $30 million for the same thing, and I am sure next year they will have another $30 million - that is $90 million - $90 million over three year for the government to spend in whatever way they wish.

In the departmental estimates, Mr. Speaker, there is certain criteria set down - certain allotments of money that have to be spend on certain subheads, but this $30 million, they can do what they want with it. Maybe the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs and and the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board might be able to see fit to fund a new arena on the Northeast Avalon out of this, Mr. Speaker - $1 million is all we are after for an arena on the Northeast Avalon, with the municipalities pumping in $130 thousand, the committee pumping in a fund raising over $100 thousand, and private investments of possibly up to $1 million - we had last year. That would create jobs on the Northeast Avalon, something that is desperately needed for the people in the arena - something they had been looking for for ten years. I thought, Mr. Speaker, we had it last year - an arena in the Northeast Avalon or the funding for it - but, no, we seem to lose it at the last minute. So maybe, out of that $30 million they might see fit to come up with $1 million for the municipalities on the Northeast Avalon.

Mr. Speaker, some of the other concerns:

They talk about no tax increases in the Budget again this year. They said the same thing last year and the same thing the year before that, but let me tell you this, Mr. Speaker: the year before last, in the Budget, they had no tax increases, they said, but there were three pages of licenses, fees, permits, increases doubling, tripling and quadrupling and fees for things that have never been charged for before. But there was no tax increase. That was the year before last - three pages listed down. Mr. Speaker, last year there were six pages of licenses, fees, permit increases that were doubled, tripled and quadrupled and there were fees charged for things they had never charged for before.

MR. TULK: Do you want more?

MR. J. BYRNE: The Government House Leader is asking do we want more. My goodness!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: No, I am saying there is going to be - when I get a chance to go through the Budget and the Estimates - I am sure-

MR. TULK: None in there.

MR. J. BYRNE: None in there - well, I hope the member is right - I hope nothing increases. I want it to go on record, Mr. Speaker, that the Government House Leader there today, is saying that there is no licensing -

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Now, Mr. Speaker, that goes right back to the point I made a few minutes ago, that they announced all the bad stuff last year and implemented it this year.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: I am being honest with the people. Tell them what is coming, do not come in here and try to paint a hunky-dory beautiful picture for the people. Tell them what is coming. But I want to put it on record, that the Government House Leader just said, when we go through the Estimates this year, there will be no license fee, permit, increase of any -

MR. TULK: No (inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Increases I am talking about.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Ah, Mr. Speaker, now he is changing. So there you go again, right back to the point I was making a few minutes ago. Be up front with the people, I say, with respect to this Budget.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I will continue. Here is one, Mr. Speaker, in the Living Within Our Means: No new layoffs are anticipated. That is what he said in the Budget; then, within hours, the media interview him and he says: Well, 100 people will be going but here, it says: No new layoffs are anticipated.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Now, there you go, Mr. Speaker, exactly confirming my whole theme on this Budget of not being up front with the people; trying to lead them astray and let them think that there are more benefits in this Budget than there really are. Here is one. Now, this is a beaut, Mr. Speaker, this is a beaut: "Government has consulted with the people and is making investments in education, health care, and the reform of our social programs." Government has consulted.

Now, I understand that the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board and maybe the Member for Conception East & Bell Island had public meetings within two or three weeks of the Budget coming down, consulting with the people. Can he really and honestly believe that the recommendations or any points that were made at these meetings were actually included in the Budget? Sure, the Budget was out, being printed then. It was all decided, and that was only a façade, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Just listen, now. Listen to what I am saying.

The Minister of Finance and Treasury Board and the Member for Conception Bay East & Bell Island - his assistant or whatever you call him now -

MR. SHELLEY: Tag-along.

MR. J. BYRNE: Tag-along.

- had public meetings two weeks before the Budget came down, asking for public input and consulting the public.

Now, can he expect the people to really believe that what they were saying was included in the Budget, when this was out being printed then? I mean, it is too foolish to talk about, Mr. Speaker.

MR. TULK: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. TULK: Let me give the hon. gentleman a piece of information - for his information - and I think this can be proven correct.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: Yes, it is, because the truth of the matter is that the Budget was not put to print until I believe either the second last night or the last night -

MR. SHELLEY: Oh, yes, sure.

MR. TULK: No, I say to the hon. gentleman quite sincerely that there were changes made as a result of the consultations that the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board made, even up to the last evening before the Budget was brought into this House, and I think I am absolutely correct. I am sure I am correct.

MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order. The Government House Leader was providing further clarification to hon. members of the House of Assembly.

The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

MR. J. BYRNE: So there is no point of order again, and now the percentage of you being wrong has gone up to 96 per cent. With respect to what you just said, that the Budget was printed the day before, if it were printed the day before, two weeks before, you were out having these public hearings, getting people's input, and you mean to tell me that a Budget and all the Estimates that were that thick, were all changed and adjusted within a couple of days?

Mr. Speaker, how will I put this to be within Parliamentary rules and be diplomatic?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: I cannot say - oh, no, no, I would not do that. I will just say that I cannot accept what you are saying, I do not believe it in other words. I just do not believe it.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: You might be mistaken; you could be mistaken.

Another one, Mr. Speaker: Government will "add back" 200 of the 425 teaching positions that would have been eliminated - Now, Mr. Speaker, I have seen in the past that not the attitude but the tactics, I suppose, of this Administration, and the one before them, would be: Put it out there that we are going to lay off 1,600 people, feed it out to the people, and then lay off 1,200. Then: Oh my God, great, we only lost 1,200 instead of 1,600.

Here the same thing could be happening. I'm not saying it did happen, but they said: We are going to lay off 425 teachers, but now they are going to keep 200. That is something that could be considered that may have happened. I'm not saying it did, but it is a tactic that is often used by government, Mr. Speaker.

They talk about a $4 million award for post-secondary students, which could be 4,000 awards of up to $1,000. I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that is a step in the right direction, it really is, to help the students of this Province, but it doesn't go far enough. It is for the University and the College of the North Atlantic, but it does nothing for the people attending private schools within this Province. These private schools, by the way, mushroomed during the TAGS period when the money that was allocated for the fisherpeople of the Province - and it made millionaires out of people who started up these schools, training people. I don't care who they were. I'm talking about rights and wrongs.

Here is what I was saying all along - and this may be starting to be addressed now, hopefully it will be addressed in the post-TAGS thing - that we have somebody who is forty-five, forty-six or forty-seven years old in the fishery who doesn't have a high school education. These people have to get their high school education and they have to go out then to get post-secondary education. They would have been better off, Mr. Speaker, if they had taken this money and bought these people out and got them out of the fishery altogether. To give them these false hopes was wrong. To take the money and make other people who had nothing to do with the fishery rich was wrong. That's from my perspective as an individual.

I went to a number of appeals for people when the core fishery was on, and what have you, Mr. Speaker, and it was shameful to see what these people had to go through to be qualified to remain in the fishery. If they had done it right in the first place we wouldn't be in the situation we are in today.

Mr. Speaker, I had a lot of notes to comment on with respect to this Budget, but it seems like I only have a few minutes left. One thing I wanted to talk about while I was up was this: We had a meeting the other day with Tina Fagan, with the Canadian Sealing Association. They are now doing a wonderful job, Mr. Speaker, in promoting the seal fishery, let me tell you, and I believe they are on the right track. They are being very positive with respect to the approach they are taking. They have videos done. They have centred on a family, and they are showing the requirements of the seal fishery in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the historical aspects of the sealing fishery in the Province. They aren't directly out opposing IFAW and what have you. They are putting forward the positive aspects of the seal fishery, how it impacts upon the families of Newfoundland and Labrador, the income, the usage, the full utilization of the whole carcass from the innards, we will refer to them as, to the fur outside. Possibly there can be many jobs created in the future from this industry.

The minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture last fall made a big to-do with respect to the seal oil capsules. It seems to be quite a positive thing in the Province, and they are being produced. Hopefully, in due course the seal oil capsules will be produced in Newfoundland and Labrador and we can create an industry there alone from the seal oil capsules.

So, I just wanted to comment on that because I was really impressed with the presentation that Tina Fagan gave to the Opposition caucus, Mr. Speaker.

Now, another point that needs to be addressed - and the Premier touched on this last night really - is the perception of the people up along, as we refer to it, on the mainland. The single most group, I suppose, that is having the biggest impact on that is The Globe and Mail. Last night I watched the CBC news and I saw the Premier in debate with Brian - who?

MR. SHELLEY: Brian II.

MR. J. BYRNE: Brian the second.

Now it was hard to tell which one was the smoothest, but I would have to give the nod to Our Brian. He did a good job, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. J. BYRNE: Don't expect to hear that from me to often, but in the mean time he did and it was -

MS S. OSBORNE: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: I'm sure he is listening.

MR. J. BYRNE: I'm sure he is listening.

But in the meantime, it is something that has to be addressed, The Globe and Mail and the issues that were brought forward by the Premier last night with respect to the sealing industry, the TAGS, the Hibernia and there are a couple of others, Mr. Speaker. It seems that The Globe and Mail is always negative towards this Province. It was good to see him stand up for the Province, as he did last night. I am sure he had all kinds of reasons for doing it, there is no doubt there. I can't impute motives here in the House, I know that, but I'm sure he had some ulterior motives too, but at least I thought, on a couple of occasions, the person from The Globe and Mail was embarrassed, and rightly so.

Now, Mr. Speaker, back to the Budget. They also talked in the Budget, under Social Reform, about bringing opportunity and independence to families. It says, the basic rates for individuals and families receiving income support will be increased by 7 per cent over the next three years.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. J. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, now I'm being attacked by my own side for complimenting the Premier. I will do that no more.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, talking about people on social assistance basically getting a 2 per cent increase in 1998-99; 2 per cent. Now, a single individual who is capable of working is getting, I think, something like $87.50 a week. You get 2 per cent on that, I don't know, about $1.60 or something, is it? One dollar and sixty cents a week: Now, Mr. Speaker, that is a great, great increase for an individual to live on in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. If you put that up with respect to a single parent and a couple of children, Mr. Speaker, its negligible. Its almost an insult, really, Mr. Speaker. Two per cent: Not nearly enough.

The people in this Province - and I have said it many, many times in this House of Assembly, how people out there in this Province do not know where their next loaf of bread or pound of butter is coming from, to put food on the table in this Province, Mr. Speaker. It seems -

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

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Does the hon. member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. SHELLEY: Can't deny leave.

MR. J. BYRNE: He can't deny leave.

MR. SHELLEY: And the Minister of Health and Community Services can't deny leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair is trying to determine whether the hon. member has leave. Does the hon. members have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member does not have leave. I ask him to take his seat.

The hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

MR. DECKER: I have two options, Mr. Speaker, to listen to the Member for St. John's South or to listen to myself, and I think I would prefer to listen to myself this morning. The reason I say that is because I have sat here for the last few days and all I have listened to was a litany of negativity and I'm not prepared to sit here for another, what do we have, fifteen or twenty minutes to speak in this debate, and listen to another litany of naysayers and people who would tear down what we would attempt to build up. I'm sick and tired of listening to it, Mr. Speaker.

I heard my colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, a while back address a group of students out in Clarenville. He said: One of our biggest problems in this Province is our attitude. We are against everything. Nothing can work. Everything is going to go. She's gone, boy, she's gone, the bottom is out of her. That is perpetuated by that Opposition, continually against, against, against, against.

Mr. Speaker, I'm saddened today, as a citizen of this Province, to see the demise of the great Progressive Conservative Party, whose history goes back to Sir John A. Macdonald; a history of reasonableness, a history of fiscal responsibility, a history of following the middle of the road, do all things in moderation. These are Progressive Conservative principles. Yet, if you listen to them over there, they have become a bunch of bleeding-heart left-wing socialists who all they talk about - they are way farther left than the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi. I've never heard such a group of whiners, naysayers, negativity, since I've been a member; and even longer, since I've been a citizen of this Province.

You have to have a tremendous imagination to be able to find something negative in this Budget. This is one of the best budgets that I have heard since I have been following the political scene. I have never heard a better budget. Mr. Speaker, it's a long, long way from 1989 when we first opened the books, I will tell you. When we first opened the books in this Province I couldn't say very much positive because it was in a mess. I would refer hon. members to this little pamphlet, the highlights to the Budget. Anyone who reads this surely can only say: Congratulations to the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board, you have accomplished a great feat.

Look at this heading, "Living Within Our Means." That is a concept that every couple in this Province and every good citizen of this Province looks at. It is a very wise, sensible approach, to live within our means. But you know, Mr. Speaker, this is radical when you compare it to the way the previous administration governed this Province for seventeen years. They didn't know what it meant to live within your means.

I remember when John Collins gave probably one of his last budgets. He stood up in the House upstairs, when we were up on the tenth floor. We had a $50 million deficit. He was predicting it for the coming year. Did he come forward with any suggestions as to how he was going to deal with that deficit? Do you know what he said? He said: That's the best we can do. We are going to throw ourselves now on the lap of the federal government. It's your problem, Ottawa. Newfoundland's deficit is your problem, you deal with it, you bail us out. Did you ever hear such irresponsibility in all your life?

AN HON. MEMBER: That budget, by the way, went to $110 million.

MR. DECKER: You are absolutely right, it did indeed. God knows where it would have been if the people of this Province hadn't come to their senses and in 1989 made the choice to put a group of people there who were responsible, who could live within our means.

The next heading really, I believe, says a lot for the present Administration. It shows our understanding, not just of Newfoundland and Labrador but of Canada: "Health Care - Continues to be Our First Priority." That's what we are all about. It was a Liberal government, don't forget, which brought in the great Medicare which we boast about. The one distinguishing factor which sets us apart from the rest of North America is our Medicare. We are the great believer in that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. DECKER: We do, Mr. Speaker. We have an excellent health care system. You ask our American neighbours about our health care system and you hear the horror stories south of the border, where families go bankrupt.

MR. TULK: He had a heart attack when he went to the United States. What did it cost?

MR. DECKER: What did it cost, colleague?

MR. BARRETT: Fifty-four thousands dollars.

MR. DECKER: Fifty-four thousand dollars, Mr. Speaker, five days in the American hospital system. You ask our friends south of the border about our health care system. I don't know where my colleague would be if he had to come up with $54,000. I know where I would be, Mr. Speaker. It would put me practically bankrupt if I had to come up with $54,000, and a good many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, a good many Canadians, but where does this Administration stand? Health care continues to be our first priority, Mr. Speaker. We can shout it from the rooftops, but not only do we say it; we put our money where our mouth is.

Just go down through. In 1997-98 government injected an additional $20 million into the health care system. Now, Mr. Speaker, that became part of the base budget. That will continue forever. It will go on and on and on, that $20 million, but we are not satisfied to leave it at $20 million, which is a substantial amount of money. What did my colleague, the Minister of Finance, do with the full support of all my colleagues on this side of the House? He injected a further $10 million, Mr. Speaker.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: $12 million.

MR. DECKER: $12 million! It keeps going up. Do I hear $13 million? I mean, Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely unbelievable the commitment that members on this side of the House have to the health care system. The Minister of Health and Community Services can hardly contain herself in her seat. She is anxious to spend more money on health just as we identify the source, Mr. Speaker.

Listen to this, Mr. Speaker. This year government will also provide a further $2 million to community health. Now, Mr. Speaker, what is one of the main things that community health does? There are many things. One of the main things is to prevent sickness before it can start; prevention. We are not satisfied to only deal with people after they have gone through the system and end up in the Health Sciences or end up in the Curtis Hospital up in my district, that great hospital up in St. Anthony to which the Minister of Health and Community Services has a great strong commitment. We are not satisfied to stop at only dealing with people who are sick.

MR. TULK: Where?

MR. DECKER: Up in St. Anthony, up in the senior citizens' home and up in the hospital that my colleague has great support for. Over the years, Mr. Speaker, we are not satisfied -

MR. TULK: Whose district is that in?

MR. DECKER: St. Anthony is in my district, Mr. Speaker. I am proud of it.

Not only are we satisfied to sit back on our laurels and spend $1 billion -

MR. TULK: Over $1 billion.

MR. DECKER: $1.2 billion, Mr. Speaker, on health care; we also have put our money where our mouth is. In addition to the money that we already are spending on community health, we are putting in another $2 million to keep people out of these hospitals, to keep people off the sick list, Mr. Speaker. Prevention, health care, that subtitle is so true.

Health care continues to be our first priority, and so it will be tomorrow and the next day and the day after that again, and we are proud of it! Yet, to hear members opposite get up and try to find negatives, to be a bunch of naysayers and find something against this Budget, they must be a group of people who cannot see any good in anything. They must have not blinkers, they must have blinders over their eyes if they cannot see how good this Budget is, Mr. Speaker.

Let me look down here. Mr. Speaker, $500,000 will be provided to assist with medical transportation costs for those who must travel for specialized health care services. Do you realize what this means to people in my district, Mr. Speaker? Because of the realities of health care, the way health care has evolved over the years, we are doing procedures now which my grandfather never even dreamed about, which my mother did not ever think could be done, but it is impossible...

These procedures are so high tech that government some years ago had to decide that we could not do all things at every single hospital around the Province. So we effectively have recognized three divisions: primary care, secondary care and tertiary care. In most cases the tertiary care needs of our people can only be met in the St. John's hospital. Tertiary care for open heart surgery for example, is done at that great institution the Health Sciences institution of which we are very proud. The teaching hospital, one of the best in eastern -

AN HON. MEMBER: What are we now spending up there?

MR. DECKER: I am not sure of the amount but I am sure the minister - that is in addition, though, to the Budget.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh yes, that is capital works.

MR. DECKER: That is capital works, that is right.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we have recognized that the hospital in St. Anthony, for example, cannot provide tertiary care to do open heart surgery. We recognize that if you live up in Goose Bay, where my colleague from Torngat Mountains -

MR. TULK: Or up in Nain.

MR. DECKER: - or up in Nain, you cannot have a tertiary care hospital. So we have to make it possible to bring our people into the tertiary care centre.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DECKER: Now, Mr. Speaker, if you live up in Nain, or if you live in St. Anthony, it can cause you quite a bit of money to pay your fare from Nain down to St. John's; and it is a problem that we have recognized for quite some years. The Minister of Health discussed it with her colleagues many times. We have the tertiary care centre in St. John's for many things. Getting people to St. John's is awfully expensive.

Now what we would like to be able to do - and no doubt if the Liberal government continues in power eventually we will, as we get around to it - is pay the full cost of bringing people from Nain or from St. Anthony, or from the Burin Peninsula or what have you, to the tertiary care centre. We cannot pay it in full, but we have taken one major step in that direction. We put $500,000 into the Budget so that after an individual, say in St. Anthony, spends $500 of his or her money to get back and forth to St. John's, then after that we will put in place a program whereby we will half the further cost.

Mr. Speaker, isn't that a tremendous, positive step which was taken in this Budget? Yet, all they can do is get up is whine and groan and complain and say what a bad Budget it is. I, for the life of me, cannot understand where they are coming from.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, just go on down. Health care continues to be our first priority. Look at this one here. This is the one my colleague was talking about: Work in continuing on $130 million capital project of the St. John's Health Care Corporation.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DECKER: Yes, he did speak about it. You know what he was complaining about? He was complaining because we said it was going to cost $110 million, and now it is going to cost $130 million.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DECKER: He was complaining. I mean, what a thing to complain about!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Opposition House Leader on a point of order.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise on a point of order. The hon. member attributed a statement to me that was not factual, and I think Hansard will bear out the real facts of the statement I made. So I ask the minister if he would withdraw that statement that stated something that was not factual. My comments were very, very, clear and very concise. If he wants a briefing, I will certainly provide it to the minister rather than make statements here.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I will certainly withdraw anything, but I know he was complaining. I thought he was complaining because it had gone from $110 to $130. Maybe I was wrong, but obviously I got through to him.

We are spending $130 million on the St. John's Health Care Corporation to build a brand new Janeway Hospital, Mr. Speaker. The old hospital which is there now, I heard the minister say, the walls are four feet thick. You wonder why the walls are four feet thick. It was built during the war. It was a bunker. We took it and used it as a hospital, and it has served us quite well. It served us quite well, Mr. Speaker, and we in this Province have a lot of respect for the Janeway and the things they have done.

My own child, who is now twenty-four years old, was in the Janeway Hospital when he was barely three months old, and I doubt very much that he would be alive to vote for his father today if there had not been a Janeway Hospital.

Many Newfoundlanders can tell similar their stories. That is why we can raise so much money with the foundation for the Janeway, because we have a lot of respect for the doctors and the nurses and all the staff down there. And do you know what we are doing? We are building a brand new Janeway, Mr. Speaker, and we are building it right next to the Health Sciences Centre -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: - where the delivery room will be, so that if there are problems with a newborn child you no longer will keep the mother in the Health Sciences and the baby several kilometres down the road at the Janeway, but just across the hall in a brand new institution. Aren't those Liberal policies?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: Yet, all the hon. members can do across the way is whine and say it is a bad Budget, and complain because we are giving a $130 million to the St. John's Health Care Corporation. Is it any wonder that our people have negative attitudes?

What a blessing it is that my colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, can go out say to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador: Do not be fooled by all the negativity you hear from across the floor.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: Think positive and look for the good that is in this Budget, Mr. Speaker. And there is good. This Budget is good.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I am going to have to get leave. There are so many good things in this Budget, I cannot be confined to twenty minutes. I will not confine myself to twenty minutes.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: I want at least a week, Mr. Speaker. There is too much good news in this Budget to confine it to twenty minutes. I am not going to do it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the hon. member he has half an hour, not twenty minutes. My only regret is that we have to tolerate another ten minutes of that acting here today in the House.

MR. DECKER: I thank the hon member, Mr. Speaker. Now I ask him, I ask the hon. Opposition House Leader, will he grant me more than half an hour? Because half an hour will not suffice, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I was denied leave beyond thirty. I will grant him exactly the amount of leave beyond it that they will grant to me.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: The hon. member asked a question, would I give him leave? I would be delighted, provided the same courtesy would be given to me to speak beyond my thirty minutes.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, he is playing weaselly games. He cannot bear to hear the good news. He does not want to hear the good news, Mr. Speaker. I say to the hon. member, if he is talking positive, if he is adding to the good things we have done for this Province, he can have all the leave he wants. I have an over-burden of negative remarks coming from the opposite side of the House, and I will not give leave for that. But if he wants to get up and try to encourage the people of this Province, give us some good news, I certainly will, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, I would like the member to be accurate.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: No I am not. He is delighted, he has nothing else to say. I would like to say that my complain was that we did not get enough. That is what I complained about, and I would like to set the member straight. I complained it was not enough to do the job that is needed, I say to the Minister, not that it was too much.

Hopefully the member will acknowledge the true accuracy of what I stated. Do not misinterpreted it and impugn certain motives here that were not in my statement.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, what you see here now, and I say this for the people around the world who are listening to this broadcast - as you know when you speak here now your voice goes out over the CBC, NTV and VOCM. It goes around the world. What I want to say to the people of the world who are listening to this today is this: The Opposition House Leader is using a tactic. He realizes that he is losing this debate. Now he is using a procedure, the procedure called a point of order.

Now they are not points of order. You have ruled on three and you have said they are not points of order. What he is doing is trying to interrupt. He is trying to get me off course. He is trying to waste my time. I barely have half an hour. How can I say all the good things about this Budget in half an hour? He is getting up and trying to eat into my time, and when I get to the end of my time and I am just starting to get half-way into all of the good news, I am going to ask for leave and he is not going to give me leave.

His side of the House will then have an opportunity to get up to speak, and we will have to sit down and listen to another litany of that negativity, Mr. Speaker. I am sick and tired of listening to it, and I am not going to put up with it any more.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the first theme in this Budget is to live within our means. I would recommend that everyone around the world listening to this would write to the Minister of Finance and ask for this little document which highlights the Budget.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. DECKER: I am coming to that, Mr. Speaker.

The first heading: Living Within Our Means. As my colleague from Topsail points out, we were on the verge of bankruptcy when we took over in 1989, but now we are living within our means and, as a result of that, we can do a lot of good things. In the first section here, health care continues to be our first priority.

I had just gone over a few things before I was interrupted by the Government House Leader. What else are we doing in health care? Work is continuing on new hospitals at Harbour Breton, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, and the extension of the James Paton Memorial Hospital in Gander. Now, put that in your pipe and smoke it, Opposition. What is negative about that, Mr. Speaker?

I remember when I was Minister of Health back in 1992. I went down to Harbour Breton with the member for the district at that time. I remember touring that hospital, built in the days of the Commission of Government. It was useful in its day, but it has reached the time when it has outlived its usefulness. And do you know what I said to the people of Harbour Breton? I said: You need a new Community Health Care Centre. And I said: In due course, I will work with your member, as I did, and I will work with successive Ministers of Health to ensure that when the time is right you will get your Community Health Care Centre. And now today to be able to stand in this House - to be able to sit in this House a few days ago and to hear the Minister of Finance commit to that hospital, it brought joy to my heart for the people in Harbour Breton who have so patiently been waiting - to wait so patiently for that announcement, and finally, with my good friend and colleague, the Minister of Health, was able to say to the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board: The time has indeed come, and now, to the people of Harbour Breton: You are going to get your new Community Health Care Centre.

MR. TULK: Go on there is more of them.

MR. G. REID: Fogo Island, `Chris'.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I am going to need more than half an hour.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we could have stopped, I suppose, if we were to follow other Budgets and other years, we could have said Harbour Breton, Happy Valley - Goose Bay, James Paton Memorial Hospital, I mean, these are three major announcements. Brian Peckford would have spread them out over six months and would have had about twenty-five press conferences on it, but what did we do? We did not stop. We could have stopped there - we did not. Government has a multi-year plan for new modern health facilities. Let me list them off, Mr. Speaker.

The replacement of the Blue Crest Nursing Home and the hospital in Grand Bank with a new multi-purpose facility. I visited that hospital with the Minister of Health, I went down in helicopter one day. Honourable members even criticized me for doing that. What did they call me? something `wolf' - who is the guy on the television program who goes in by helicopter or something?

Anyway, I went down and met with the people in Grand Bank and the people in St. Lawrence and talked about their problems in health care. And what could the Opposition do? They accused me of that guy, something `wolf' on the television program, who flies around in a helicopter - and said I went down and did not even shut the helicopter off, which was an absolute lie, Mr. Speaker, the helicopter was shut off.

I went in and had a meeting with the people and as a result of the meeting we recognized that there was a problem in Blue Crest and we told them that the time would come when their problem would be addressed and we would deal with the nursing home in Grand Bank.

Mr. Speaker, in the earlier days of these senior citizens homes, they were funded probably 100 per cent or at least 90 per cent by the federal government and they were funded, not as nursing homes, they were funded as hostels. They were much like personal care homes. The seniors who went in them were supposed to be well level zero, level one, people who could bring in their suitcases, unpack their suitcases and continue to live in a boarding house. Now, that is what the Blue Crest was build for. That is what the nursing home up in St. Anthony was built for. They were built for well seniors. Well, if you take thirty-five or forty sixty-five-year-old people and put them into a nursing home, guess what happens twenty years later. Many of them - not all of them - some of them are going to be feeble, some of them are going to be ill, some of them are going to need a higher level of care. So, we found out that all those institutions - there is one out in my colleague's district - out in Spaniard's Bay -

MR. TULK: (Inaudible), your time is going to run out.

MR. DECKER: - a similar institution. They have people who are ill, people who are sick, people who need chronic care. We have been trying, desperately, in these tough economic times - our commitment has never wavered, our commitment has never failed, and finally we have reached the stage that now we can go down to the people of Grand Bank and we can say: We have good news for you and the good news is this, the Blue Crest Nursing Home and the hospital in Grand Bank will be replaced with a brand new multi-purpose facility.

Now, we could have stopped there. We could have stopped there, that is a lot of good news, Mr. Speaker, but we did not.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about the transition homes?

MR. DECKER: I am coming to that. I am going to need more than a half hour, I cannot do it in half an hour.

MR. SULLIVAN: We might give you more time.

MR. DECKER: The replacement of the Carmelite House Nursing Home in Grand Falls - Buchans with a new long-term care facility. Where is the member for Grand Falls - Buchans?

MR. TULK: Over here.

MR. DECKER: Is that not something! I can say all the things about the Carmelite Home that I already said about Blue Crest; built as a hostel, people who went in were well people, they happened to be old in some cases, but now they need chronic care. Do we settle for the first few announcements that I have made? No, we are not satisfied just to deal with the problem in Grand Bank, just to deal with the problem in Harbour Breton, just to deal with the problem in Happy Valley - Goose Bay or in Gander. No, Mr. Speaker, we also have a commitment to Grand Falls, and we have that commitment because of the member.

The member, Mr. Speaker, has been fighting for this ever since the first day I met her out in the common room after we so victoriously returned after the last election. She has been fighting for her district and this is just one example of the things she has been fighting for.

Now, Mr. Speaker, your colleague, the Mr. Speaker, who is not in the Chair at the moment, I am sure he is interested in this. Mr. Speaker, the replacement of the cottage hospital in Old Perlican with a new community health care centre is another one, and yet they get up and they attack this Budget as being negative. They are nit-picking over little things they find, a comma misplaced, or an iota not in place or a period in a wrong place, Mr. Speaker, that is all they can criticize about it. Everything under the sun, they come up with, nay, nay, nay; but, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that your colleague, the Mr. Speaker who represents that district is not complaining because he has good news, and how many times did I hear him tell us about the problems out in Old Perlican, the problems with that hospital out there, Mr. Speaker. And they were told: Your time will come, and once we restore and we start living within our means and once we put the House back in order, we will be able to do all the good things that Liberal Governments have done right from the beginning of time itself, Mr. Speaker. Because I am sure the strain of Liberalism goes right on back to the earliest times of (inaudible). And, as my colleague says: This is only the beginning.

If members opposite cannot take this good news, then I would suggest to them, Mr. Speaker, that they get some group sessions going to prepare themselves. Because over the next few years there will be better news and better news still, Mr. Speaker, and they will have a lot to put up with. Neither did we stop with Old Perlican. Did we stop with Old Perlican, Mr. Speaker?

MR. TULK: `Chris', do you want to sing: `We have only just begun'?

MR. DECKER: We will have a chorus after I sit down.

We could have stopped with Old Perlican, Mr. Speaker. What did we do? Listen to this one: "The construction of new multi-purpose health care centres in Fogo and Bonne Bay", Mr. Speaker - Fogo and Bonne Bay.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: How many times did I sit down, Mr. Speaker, and listen to the Member for that District of Twillingate & Fogo, and what a member they have! How many times did I hear him lobby and bring it to the attention of the Minister of Health that we need a new facility out there in Fogo, and finally, Mr. Speaker, because we have put our house in order, because we have learned to live within our means, now we could go to the member and say: Here is good news for you, member, here is good news for you, colleague, you are going to get your hospital. Go out and shout it from the rooftops in Fogo, shout it from the rooftops.

I have not heard them mention it once; I have heard them get up and complain because we are spending $130 million in St. John's on the health care centre - instead of $110 million, we are going to spend $130 million. Well, Mr. Speaker, how many millions of dollars are we spending out around this Province? Add that all up, it must be what? in excess of $50 million there. I need more than half-an-hour, Mr. Speaker.

Then, there is Bonne Bay - my colleague, the Minister of Mines and Energy. How many times did I hear him lobby about the problem out there, and his colleague, the Member for Humber Valley, how many times have they lobbied about this? And now, Mr. Speaker -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. DECKER: I knew it, Mr. Speaker, I knew it, and I am not half-way into my speech.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: The member can have as much leave as he wishes to carry on.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. minister has been granted leave.

The hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General, by leave.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I believe we are witnessing a change of heart. In my former profession, we would refer to this as a conversion. I believe, Mr. Speaker, we have a conversion here today.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I cannot blame him for this conversion because he has every reason to be converted, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who is this?

MR. DECKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader. The Opposition House Leader has many, many reasons to be converted to the Liberal cause and I would not want to say - I would not want to even insinuate, but the hon. member himself knows where he is sitting. He knows where he can turn his back. He knows who he can trust standing up behind him. Mr. Speaker, I will not say any more on that.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I am just naming off a few of the highlights. Look, this is a little five- or six-page document and it has been nothing only good news for the last half hour since I have been up going down through them. Can you imagine in this big, thick book, which the Minister of Finance presented to this House some days ago, can you imagine all the good news that is in that, Mr. Speaker? I am just scratching the surface.

The construction of a new hospital, Stephenville - Port au Port, Bay St. George area. One of my colleagues from -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis, on a point of privilege.

MR. J. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I had to step out of the House of Assembly a few minutes ago to make a few phone calls and I missed the first half of the minister's speech. I wonder, could he repeat it for me?

MR. DECKER: No, Mr. Speaker, I will do better than that.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

That is certainly not a point of privilege and I would caution members that the rules of the House that provide for such points should not be taken so frivolously. The Chair will not entertain such points of privilege again.

The hon. the Minister of Justice.

MR. DECKER: I totally agree with your ruling, Mr. Speaker. How fast would this House become a bear pit? If we allow members opposite to have their way this House will become nothing only a bear pit, instead of the great hon. institution that it is, that I am proud to serve in and proud of the people back in St. Anthony, Roddickton, Conche, Noddy Bay, Cook's Harbour, Mr. Speaker!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: And L'Anse-au-Meadows, Englee and Bide Arm! The people who go out and work for me every time they get the opportunity and the people who are sending me e-mails, telexes and phone calls and telling me that they want me to seek re-election, Mr. Speaker! Every day that goes over my head they are telling me to seek re-election, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: You are my kind of preacher, brother.

MR. DECKER: But what I will do for my colleague, who abused the rules of this House and wanted me to go through the first half of my speech - what I will do for my colleague and friend across the way is, I will make it my business that as soon as Hansard is printed, Mr. Speaker, I will make sure that he gets a copy so he can read every word that he was unfortunately out of the House for and could not hear himself. He will be able to read it and probably, if we co-operate with Hansard, we might be able to get a copy of the tape so that he can actually listen. Now, Mr. Speaker, we are not televised yet so he will not be able to get the image of what I am saying and I would suggest that maybe half the speech will be lost if he does not get the visual content that goes along with it, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: Now, Mr. Speaker, under health care, our commitment to health, the new hospital in Stephenville - I was saying to my friend and colleague here, the Member for Stephenville, for many years he has been lobbying government to get this institution and how many times did you and I, my colleague, go back to Stephenville? I believe it was at least three times, met with the hospital board, toured the facility, saw the plastic buckets with the water dropping into them. And with heavy hearts we said to our people, our friends in Stephenville, your time will come! As soon as we clear up the mess that the previous Administration left us with, as soon as we learn to live within our means, as soon as we turn around and go for that better tomorrow, as soon as we turn the corner, you will get your hospital. What was my friend and colleague able to do this year? When the Minister of Finance came forward with this positive Budget, what did he do? He could go out and say to the people in Stephenville: Boys, we got it, we got our hospital! Shout it from the rooftops!

AN HON. MEMBER: How much?

MR. DECKER: How much? Millions of dollars.

AN HON. MEMBER: Don't forget `Gerald', now.

MR. DECKER: Now, Mr. Speaker, the Member from Clarenville.

MR. TULK: The Member for Port au Port.

MR. DECKER: The Member for Port au Port, I already referred to him before my other colleague came in.

What about Clarenville, Mr. Speaker? People say it is a great hospital out in Clarenville. You, yourself, Sir, I am sure would be aware of that institution. It is a great institution, great staff, great nurses, great doctors. Every man and woman who works in that hospital are committed to their work, Mr. Speaker, but are we satisfied to sit back? No, Mr. Speaker: Planning and design work will commence later in the year to address identifying needs at the Dr. G. B. Cross Memorial Hospital in Clarenville. Now, Mr. Speaker, how in the name of goodness can the Opposition - how many days have they been debating this?

MR. TULK: Oh, five or six days now.

MR. DECKER: How can they take five or six days and complain and whine and say the Budget is negative? How can they do it? They have imaginations, Mr. Speaker, they will be great science fiction writers I can tell you. They will all probably be grabbed up by science fiction magazines because the can invent negativism when there is nothing negative to invent - they can invent it, Mr. Speaker, they should be commended for that.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I am going to move on to the next section. I have not said all the good things that we intend to do in the health care system, I have not said all the things that we were going to do. I have just scratched the surface because, remember I am just speaking from a little five, six-page pamphlet, you have to go to the document itself if you want to address all the other and go through the system, go to the hospitals, go up to the nursing home in St. Anthony, Mr. Speaker, the one which my colleague, the Minister of Health and Community Services and I are going up to officially open later on this year, and I am just longing, Mr. Speaker, to hear her speech, because she is proud of that institution.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where?

MR. DECKER: In St. Anthony. We had planned to have this official opening in the winter, but if you have it in the winter months it is more difficult for people from around the various parts of the world to travel and we have people all over North America, former doctors - remember it is the International Grenfell Association that is up there - doctors and nurses and workers all over the world who want to attend the official opening, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister of Health and Community Services and I, are going up later on in the summer and she is going to make a speech, and she is going to say to the people of St. Anthony and she is going to say to the people (inaudible). She is going to officially open that institution, Mr. Speaker, and she is going to give credit to the member, because he takes great pride in that institution, Mr. Speaker.

She is going to give credit to the former Minister of Health and she is going to give credit to Dr. Kitchen, a former Minister of Health; she might even go back to when Ed Roberts was Minister of Health, Mr. Speaker, because she does not want to take all the credit to herself. She is going to give credit to all her colleagues and she is going to say to the people of St. Anthony: We would like to have done this for you seventeen years ago when you had a bunch of mobile homes, a bunch of trailers, Mr. Speaker, which were put there. She is going to say to them: We have been wanting to do this for seventeen years.

MR. J. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

MR. J. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, we have let the Minister of Justice go on now for nine minutes beyond his time, and he is just enjoying himself too much, so I withdraw leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave is withdrawn.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, to that point of order. I am sorry it has come to this, I really am.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: I realize, Mr. Speaker, it has indeed been difficult for members opposite. They are unable to bear good news. They want to be against everything. They want to go and get the attitude of our people -

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

MR. DECKER: - to be against and (inaudible). I am sorry it has come to this.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DECKER: Nevertheless, I will recognize that my leave has been taken away, and I am indeed sorry. I tell hon. members on both sides of the House that there is nothing personal. I will accept sadly that leave has been taken away, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, we did not realize the minister would be so disappointed and upset, so we will give him leave. I did not think he would take it so personally.

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

MR. TULK: The truth of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that somebody on that side has to be in control. If he is going to give leave, then he cannot have people jumping up and down and then go back to him afterwards and get him to sit down again. I say to the Member for Cape St. Francis, in future, leave the direction of this House in the capable hands of the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

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

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

I see the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture has come in and sat in the seat where he should be sitting.

I made a couple of notes when the Minister of Justice was up speaking. I could not help myself -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

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

I made a couple of notes when the Minister of Justice was up speaking. It was becoming evident that, in my opinion, he was becoming delirious, but when he sat down, with everybody getting up and applauding him, I am beginning to think they are all delirious.

Mr. Speaker, he mentioned, a couple of times, all the people throughout the world who were listening to him. It is quite evident that his listening population is far less than what he actually believes it is.

He mentioned a couple of time that his time was almost up. Now, that is a point that I agree with. He mentioned that they have almost outlived their usefulness. That is another point that I cannot help but agree with, that they have almost outlived their usefulness. He looked over at us and said our time will come. Now, that is a point that I could not agree with more, Mr. Speaker, that our time will come. While he was up speaking - and the Minister of Justice may recalled this - I remember reading -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. T. OSBORNE: I remember reading back in Hansard, five or six months ago, something that the Minister of Justice stood up and spoke back in 1988, when he said, that the fish, when it lays all of its eggs, does it without a quibble, I believe his word was, but the hen, when it lays but just one egg, makes quite a hackle. Then he went on to say: You see, Mr. Speaker, the hen is a Tory and the fish is a Liberal.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I could not agree with him any more there because we all know that the fish stocks have depleted, probably beyond repair. And they probably never will be back the way they were again. So, Mr. Speaker, the next time we go to the polls we will see just how much fish are out there. On that, I will go to the Budget Speech.

The Budget seemed to be so positive and uplifting in its tone that one might be forgiven for overlooking the facts that the social sector is suffering cuts; the child benefit deducted from social assistance was announced in the Budget Speech; school closures, Mr. Speaker. There was less announced for MUN, and the hospital wish list that has no target dates whatsoever in this Budget.

The resource sector is left floundering. There is not enough money for silviculture, no concrete new actions on the fisheries, and nothing announced on mega-projects; because, of course, it was supposed to be a social-conscious Budget.

The infrastructure sector is coasting on federal dollars for roads, while the municipalities are facing yet another year of downloading. We have seen that over the past week or so. While the government is now ready to sign a deal, or hopefully ready to sign a deal, with the Town of Trepassey, we see that the municipalities in this Province are suffering more cutbacks. They are forced to push those cutbacks on to the people living within those municipalities, and instead of government raising taxes and making the cutbacks, they are downloading that responsibility on to the municipalities.

The Budget is a perfect example of a government thinking it can just say enough things that people will be distracted from recognizing how little substance there really is in the Budget. And there was very little substance in this Budget document. I ask: Where is the substance in this Budget that our Province needs as it faces the new millennium? There was no substance. Last year we were promised a three-year fiscal economic plan. That was printed on one piece of paper - both sides - and less than six months later the government has amended even the generalities in that one piece of paper.

Where is the economic plan, I ask this government? Clyde Wells promised, when they hired the Economic Recovery Commission, a think-tank that produced none of the results our Province needed. The current Premier fired that very same commission, without replacing it.

He has no economic plan, Mr. Speaker. There is no strategy, no economic strategy.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. T. OSBORNE: Better for me to have it than you.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. T. OSBORNE: Yes, because nobody can understand what you are saying anyway.

There is not even a pretence of developing a strategic economic plan. We have seen more good sense from Dr. Doug House in The Evening Telegram in recent weeks than we have seen from the Tobin government in the past two years.

The Province is facing high out-migration, record numbers leaving this Province. The third quarter of 1997 saw more than double the number of people leave this Province than in any quarter of 1996. The government, in its Budget document, is predicting that more than 9,000 people will leave the Province this year. They have no concrete plan to reverse that cycle and bring people back to this Province, to keep people here even.

On that, I am going to adjourn debate and carry on with this on Monday.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I would move that the House adjourn until Monday at 2:00 p.m. I hope that in the process of calling the Budget Speech Debate again on Monday we hear the likes of the speech - I am doubtful that it can be done - but I would hope that we hear the likes of the speech that we just heard from the Minister of Justice.

I would move that the House adjourn until Monday at 2:00 p.m.

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