MR. SPEAKER (Hodder): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

MR. SPEAKER: This afternoon we have members' statements as follows: the hon. the Member for the District of Windsor-Springdale; the hon. the Member for the District of Grand Bank; the hon. the Member for the District of Kilbride; the hon. the Member for the District of Burgeo & LaPoile; the hon. the Member for the District of St. John's North; and, the hon. the Member for the District of Carbonear-Harbour Grace.

The Chair recognizes the Member for Windsor-Springdale.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HUNTER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, and fellow hon. Members of the House of Assembly, I rise in this hon. House today with great pride to congratulate the Green Bay South Minor Hockey on their banquet held on May 7, in Triton.

The banquet was a time to present awards to this year's achievers in Minor Hockey. Dylan Walsh was named Bantam Player of the Year; Ryan Burton won the Atoms Player of the Year; Daniel Roberts received the Calvin Fudge Memorial Award for Most Valuable Player; Jarvis Budgell and Mackenzie Roberts were both awarded Peewees Player of the Year. The two youngest winners, Ty Winsor and Clarke Burton, both age four, had the honour of cutting the banquet cake to start off the event.

A Coaches Appreciation Award was presented to Dino Winsor by the Green Bay South Squirts. The awards were presented by the following people: Rod Woodford, Heather Fudge, Roger Roberts, Kevin Rideout, Gary Roberts and Terrance Roberts.

It takes dedication, determination and long hours to be involved in children's sports, and I would like to thank everyone involved in the Green Bay South Minor Hockey League for making it a success.

I would ask all hon. members to join with me today to congratulate the Green Bay South Minor Hockey League.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House today to recognize the seven CEOs from this Province who were honoured amongst the "Top 50 CEOs in Atlantic Canada" at a gala hosted by the Atlantic Business Magazine this past week in Halifax.

These annual awards by the Atlantic Business Magazine are a salute to excellence in corporate leadership. Those awarded have shown recognition of the important connection between economic and social development, and as such have displayed dedication to growing their organization, advancing their respective industries and improving the quality of life for all Atlantic Canadians.

Mr. Speaker, the winners from this Province come from many different industries within the business community, from construction to publishing. In alphabetical order, the winners from Newfoundland and Labrador were: Jerry Byrne, President and CEO of D.F. Barnes Group; Allison S. Chaytor-Loveys, CEO of the Newfoundland and Labrador Credit Union; Debbie Hanlon, CEO of Coldwell Banker Hanlon; Christopher Hickman, Chairman and CEO of the Marco Group of Companies; Guylaine Joncas, Manager of the Minaskuat Limited Partnership in Happy Valley-Goose Bay; Earl A Ludlow, former President and CEO of Fortis Properties and current President and CEO of Newfoundland Power; Axel Meisen, President and Chancellor of Memorial University.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join with me in extending congratulations to these CEOs for their continued leadership in the business community and their exemplary service to the people of this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. DINN: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in this hon. House to congratulate the four Grade 6 classes at Goulds Elementary School who, on Monday, May 14, 2007, received their graduating diplomas for this year's DARE Program.

The DARE Program is the Drug Abuse Resistence Education Program offered by the RNC in collaboration with educators, students, parents and the community. Its purpose is to help students recognize and resist the many direct and subtle pressures that influence them to experiment with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, inhalants or other drugs, or to engage in violence. The program tries to equip the children with knowledge, skills, confidence and self-esteem to deal with pressures in the future. Students are encouraged to use positive peer pressure to counteract negative peer pressure.

There were approximately 100 Grade 6 students who graduated from the DARE Program last Monday. Each student had to write an essay about the ten-week program they had just done. At the end of each essay was the student's personal pledge. One student from each class was selected to read his or her essay to the audience.

I ask all members of this hon. House to join me to congratulate the kids, their teachers: Mrs. Bavis, Mrs. Phelan, Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Higdon for a job well done.

I would also ask that we show our thanks and appreciation to Constable Nixon who taught the DARE program on behalf of the RNC.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this House today to acknowledge Jodi Osmond, a Port aux Basques native honoured to be part of the Easter weekend events commemorating the ninetieth anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

Leading Seaman Osmond, is the daughter of Jerry and Beatrice Osmond of Port aux Basques. Jodi is a marine engineer technician with the Canadian Forces, currently stationed onboard the HMCS Montreal based in Halifax. Ms Osmond was in France as part of a thirty-two person naval gun crew, and along with other military personnel for the commemorative events, which included the dedication of the newly restored National Canadian Vimy Memorial.

Mr. Speaker, thousands of Canadians participated in the ceremonies in tribute to the solders who participated in this battle. The Battle of Vimy Ridge began on April 9, 1917. Canadians captured the Ridge, but at a cost of more than 10,000 casualties, of which some 3,598 were fatal.

According to Ms Osmond, "On the morning of the Vimy ceremony, my Petty Officer First Class asked me to play the role of assisting the prime minister with the laying of the wreath. I said yes. I was very nervous, but was honoured to be picked for that part of the ceremony. It was the greatest feeling in the world, and one of the best things I have done, or probably ever will do, in my military career."

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join with me in extending congratulations to Jodi Osmond on her involvement and participation in the ninetieth anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDGLEY: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate a long-time member of the public service on receiving the Certificate of Merit award from the Canadian Council of the Blind, the CNIB, during "White Cane Week."

On May 14, 2007, Mr. Albert Williams, a budget analyst with the Budget division of the Department of Finance, was honoured for his special contribution to the well-being of blind, visually impaired and deaf-blind Canadians. During the CNIB "White Cane Week" Mr. Williams was nominated to receive the Certificate of Merit for his efforts to ensure that budget documents are produced in Braille.

Some five or six years ago it was brought to his attention that a visually impaired member of the community wanted a copy of the Budget. Knowing that the Budget documents were not available in Braille, Mr. Williams took it upon himself to ensure that the Budget Speech and related tables were converted into Braille and he has continued to do so ever since. Budget 2007 is the fifth Budget that has been converted into Braille. Actually, "White Cane Week" took place in February, but due to his busy schedule, Mr. Williams was unavailable to receive his award until last week.

Mr. Williams has been an employee with our provincial government since June 17, 1968, so next month he will celebrate thirty-nine years of service. He began his career in the Economics and Statistics Branch before moving into the newly created Treasury Board Secretariat where he remained until a couple of years ago when the Secretariat was reconfigured and became a part of the Department of Finance.

Mr. Williams has gone beyond the call of his job related duties to ensure that all members of the public, regardless of their physical limitations, have equal access to this public document. He is to be commended for his sheer thoughtfulness and outstanding contribution to the public service. Mr. Speaker, I might also add another positive note, he is a fan of the Montreal Canadiens.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDGLEY: I ask all Members of the House of Assembly to join me on congratulating one of our own workers, Mr. Albert Williams, on receiving the Certificate of Merit award from the Canadian Council of the Blind.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SWEENEY: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to extend congratulations to the Carbonear Collegiate Sentinels Female Basketball Team, who have won its first girls' basketball provincial banner.

The Carbonear Collegiate Sentinels hosted the School Sport Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial 3A Girls Basketball Tournament March 30 and April 1. Teams from Labrador City, Baie Verte, Ferryland and Salmonier were all vying for the provincial banner in the biggest female basketball tournament of the year.

Members of the Carbonear Collegiate Sentinels Female Basketball Team are: Laura Jenkins, Jessica Andreasen, Victoria Ralph, Rebecca Sparkes, Amiee Slade, Ashley Hutsell, Catrina Winsor, Ashley Clarke, Sara King, Jannah Earle, Jessica Ash, Sarah Blake, Carolyn Horwood, Jessica Harris and Coach Ed Jarvis.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join with me in congratulating the Carbonear Collegiate Sentinels Female Basketball Team who are the School Sport Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial 3A Girls Basketball Champions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Statements by Ministers.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I was at Memorial University this morning to welcome more than 100 students from across Canada for a week-long national forum. The interchange on Canadian Studies offers young Canadians the opportunity to participate in a bilingual forum on issues of importance to the country. This year's conference is focused on the environment.

Each year, the host jurisdiction shifts between provinces and territories. Hosting students welcome fellow student delegates from across Canada into their communities and homes. They then have the opportunity to travel to the home of their billet for a one-week period, completing the interchange.

The conference is co-sponsored by the Department of Education and the Eastern School District. Throughout the week, students will enjoy thought-provoking, informative sessions, and hear from nationally recognized keynote speakers. This morning the students listened to Bob MacDonald, a well-known science reporter and host of CBC radio's Quirks and Quarks.

Tomorrow they will have the pleasure of hearing from Dr. Elizabeth Penashue. We all know, Mr. Speaker, Dr. Penashue has been an outspoken opponent of low-level flying in her native Labrador. She promotes the traditional Innu lifestyle and its important relationship to the land. To quote Dr. Penashue, "She is the voice of the people. She is the voice of the animals. She is also a voice for the environment." And she is the perfect presenter for a conference such as this.

It was encouraging to see such an enthusiastic group of young people who share a dedication to the environment. They have come to this Province eager to learn and determined to make a difference for their homes and their country, and they are truly an inspiration.

While the students are here, they will take daily field trips to areas of interest and participate in many work-shops. They also have a full week to enjoy the hospitality that is the backbone of Newfoundland and Labrador. In the end, Mr. Speaker, they will return home as ambassadors for our Province.

Mr. Speaker, half of the students registered for this forum are from Newfoundland and Labrador. Clearly, they share concerns affecting the environment and they are willing to do something about it. This is a tremendous opportunity for them. We want our young people to have a well-rounded educational experience so they are ready to take on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

More than $1 billion is allocated in Budget 2007 for education to ensure our students will continue to perform strongly on the national and international stage. But, more importantly, Mr. Speaker, they will lead our Province to a future of prosperity and self-reliance.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the minister for a copy of her statement and say welcome to the 100 students from across the country. My understanding is, like the minister said, fifty of them are from here in our own Province.

I can assure you that the theme they have focused on this year, the environment, is a very, very important one here in our Province. The two keynote speakers they mentioned, I am sure - Ms Penashue, we all know the lady and I am sure they could not pick a better choice to speak to the youth on the environment.

Mr. Speaker, here in the Province we have many environmental issues. We hear on a daily basis about the waste management and the concerns that towns are having, and many of them are finding it financially difficult. We have issues where old oil tanks that are being dug up are causing major issues. It is good to see fifty of our young people who are becoming involved in the environment.

I say to the minister, maybe there is some other programming - I know much is being done - that can start at the various levels in our high schools and elementary schools to help children have a greater respect for our environment and protect it in the future.

On behalf of all members in the Official Opposition, I want to thank the sponsors - I think this is a worthwhile project - and wish them every success in the week ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

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

I recognize the wonderful program that these 100 students are involved in. I am absolutely delighted to see that the organizers had the wisdom to invite Dr. Elizabeth Penashue to speak. Dr. Penashue has shown through her life that she just does not talk the words, she just does not speak what she is thinking, she puts her life on the line for what she believes in.

I think all of us in this Province, and in this House, are aware of the degree to which she has put herself on the line with regard to saving her land in Labrador. I hope that we are all, in this House, open to the lessons that I hope these 100 young people will learn from Dr. Penashue as she speaks to them today.

I think, too, that we need, as the people in this House -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has lapsed.

MS MICHAEL: By leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave is granted.

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

I hope that all of us in the House, and especially those in the decision-making position of government, are willing, too, to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to the environment and to look at things that these young people are going to learn about in their own - especially those from an urban setting, things like retrofitting their residential homes for better climate, for better air, to save our environment. We just cannot educate; we also have to put resources into helping the people of our Province in dealing with the environmental issues in their own lives.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to inform the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that on May 4, 2007, the provincial government amended the Labour Standards Regulations to enhance provincial job protection for workers who wish to access the federal compassionate care benefit to provide care for terminally ill family members.

This amendment builds on measures taken in 2004 when the provincial government amended the Labour Standards Act to ensure job protection for workers who needed to access the compassionate care benefit to care for an immediate family member.

The steps we took at that time ensured that workers accessing the compassionate care benefit were provided the same legislated protection from being disciplined, demoted or dismissed that existed for those accessing maternity and parental leave benefits.

In June 2006 the federal government broadened its definition of family member for which workers can access the benefit so that they are able to provide critical care, not just for immediate family but extended family and close relations.

Our amendment to the Labour Standards Regulations mirrors this change in federal Employment Insurance Regulations.

The provincial government recognizes the valuable contribution made by workers in this Province. By extending this additional measure of job protection, the provincial government has taken a significant step forward to protect the rights of working people in Newfoundland and Labrador.

I believe this change is particularly significant for the women in our workforce who are more likely to answer the call to provide care for those who are critically ill.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BARRETT: I want to thank the hon. minister for an advance copy of his statement.

It was, I guess, the former Liberal government in Ottawa that extended the Unemployment Insurance Benefits so that a person of the immediate family could stay at home and receive benefits and look after an immediate family member, and subsequently they extended that to include people who are close to you. I think it is very, very important.

I think most of us in life can really identify with this, because most of us always end up with some immediate family member who is critically ill and needs extra assistance. Sometimes we can get home care workers, but a member of the family is probably more important.

I would like to see this extended further in terms of people who are -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has expired.

Leave has been granted.

MR. BARRETT: I would like to see it extended even further in terms of some of our disabled people, to make sure that there are family members. I know, in my years involved in politics, it is always a battle to try to get a person who is a member of the family being able to get reimbursed to look after somebody who is disabled. I would like this to be extended even further in the future to make sure that not only people who are critically ill, but people who are disabled, can have some member of the family stay at home and look after the particular individual.

I look forward to another Liberal government in Ottawa that will take such great initiatives.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

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

I remember well when this change came in, in the federal EI regulations. Workers in the country, and especially women workers, for the reasons stated by the minister, lobbied for this for a long time and it was long overdue when it finally happened. Obviously, I would expect nothing more but the provincial government to change its legislation to match what has happened federally.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's allotted time has expired.

MS MICHAEL: By leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave has been granted.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much.

I would encourage the provincial government now to take a bit of leadership and at the time when they can communicate with the federal government, that may not be in the present, but to keep in its mind that workers would still say that there needs to be an extension not so much with regard to who one is caring for - although I agree with my colleague who just spoke, that should happen - but extension also with regard to the length of time. It is hard to define critical illness, I know, but I think the time does need to be looked at as well.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

Oral Questions.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions are for the Minister of Health.

We had a briefing this morning - I should say, not yet completed - with the officials of Eastern Health with respect to the ongoing issue involving the breast screening process, and we are due to finish it tomorrow.

The minister, of course, just held a press conference outside the House, just before the House convened, dealing with the appointment of a judicial inquiry. I say to government, I am very pleased that finally, after three days of prompting last week when the seriousness of this issue was brought to government's concern, they finally woke up and, at the request of the Opposition, you have now agreed to do a judicial inquiry. I thank government for that; you are certainly on the right track.

I ask the minister: In your press release that you just put out, I am a little confused in that you say, in paragraph four,"Cabinet will appoint a commissioner, set the terms of reference for the inquiry and authorize an appropriate budget."

The issue is, "...set the terms of reference for the inquiry...". Then you go on later in your press release to outline six key questions, you call it, and you conclude in the second last paragraph by saying that, "The Commission will make recommendations as necessary to address the issues identified above."

My questions to the minister: Who decided that these would be the six key issues, and will the inquiry be limited to just these six or will there be further Terms of Reference coming from Cabinet?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There will be additional Terms of Reference provided for the Commissioner. I think the member has raised an issue around the numbers of questions to be asked. What is important, I say to the member, is, if you look at the very first key question - this is one of six - we asked: What went wrong with the ER/PR tests that resulted in a high rate of conversions when retested? Now, we are going to prescribe to the Commissioner exactly how you will approach the inquiry. We provide the Terms of Reference, set the Budget and appoint the Commissioner. The approach taken by the Commissioner to seek answers to these questions may prompt many other questions that will need to be posed to come to an understanding of what the answer to those six key questions would be. We assume that during the inquiry the Commissioner will, in fact, delve into a variety of issues that will give rise to his insight into what actually took place here that will give him the ability to answer that very first critical question.

Inasmuch as we provided in these six key questions some key issues that we want to ensure are answered as a result of the inquiry, I am very certain the Commissioner will explore other issues that will lead him to an understanding of the issues that we have raised here.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. PARSONS: Thank you.

Because, Mr. Speaker, we went through this with the fibre optic inquiry whereby the Auditor General was brought in and we found out a few days later that Cabinet papers would be exempted, I ask the minister again, for certainty: Are you telling the people of this Province that whoever is appointed Commissioner here will not have any limits placed on him as to what they inquire into when it comes to this breast-screening incident? Can you give that undertaking to the people?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: As the member would fully understand, having been a former Attorney General, under the current legislation, the Public Inquiries Act, the Commission has the authority basically to run the Commission as he or she sees fit, but that Commissioner will also have the ability to subpoena witnesses, to be able to subpoena any information that they want. The rule of evidence that applies here is very different than what the Auditor General may be going through, which is the reference that you are making to the other kinds of issues that have been raised in this House in recent months.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

I ask the minister: Do you think it is appropriate that you, as the current minister, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs as a former Minister of Health, and the current Minister of Justice as a former Minister of Health, should be a part of Cabinet which is setting the Terms of Reference which should, in fact, be examining the actions of you people yourselves? Isn't that a conflict of interest?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I realize the member opposite just got a copy of the release moments before we came into the House, but I would ask him to refer to the second page. I would ask him to refer particularly to the fourth question, which says, "Once detected, did the responsible authorities communicate in an appropriate and timely manner with the general public about the issues and circumstances surrounding the change in test results and the new testing procedures?"

Very clearly, if the Commissioner - in their review of the circumstances around this ER/PR testing - comes to some conclusions about what information Eastern Health Authorities had, or what information any minister in this House would have, or any official in government would have had at that time, they have been directed, in this question here, to, in fact, report on that, to comment on that, to bring some conclusion, to get an understanding of who knew what, when. Clearly, number four very specifically speaks to that particular point, I say, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. PARSONS: No, Mr. Speaker. Just so there is no uncertainty here - because words are very important, and there is nothing worse than saying one thing today and then trying to fish yourself out of that hole later on and say, I did not say this or I did not say that - my question was quite simple: Does the Minister of Health, and the former two Ministers of Health who form part of Cabinet, and you are saying here in your press release issued a few moments ago that Cabinet will decide the Terms of Reference, don't you think that is an obvious conflict of interest when you three, who probably and no doubt will be summoned as witnesses in this very inquiry, are playing a role in deciding what the Terms of Reference will be for that inquiry? Now, that is pretty simple. Don't you see that as a conflict and that you should not be involved in setting those terms?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, what I want to assure the member opposite, and the members of this House and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, is that when this government appoints the Commissioner to do this review, this Commissioner will have the ability to garner what information that person wants to ensure that they get a full understanding of what actually took place here, what actually happened, what gave rise to the issue before us, and any information that Commissioner wants to have, they will have available to them. If the Commissioner, and I say, Mr. Speaker, if the member opposite has some real concerns around the Terms of Reference and the questions being posed as being too narrow in scope, if that is the issue he is raising, I am certain that the Commissioner, once appointed - if the Commissioner has some concerns about their ability to carry out the functions because the Terms of Reference or the questions themselves may be too narrowly defined, we would only be too glad and be prepared to look at the Terms of Reference to give that person an ability to be able to get full access to the information that they want, I say, Mr. Speaker.

There is no intent here at all, none whatsoever on the part of this government, no intent to restrict what the Commissioner may want to do to ensure that they get the answers for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, so all of us in this House and the people of the Province will fully understand what happened with respect to ER/PR testing with the Health Care Corporation of St. John's between 1997 and 2005.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I hate to belabour the point, but it is pretty straightforward, very straightforward, Minister. Don't you see that it is an obvious conflict of interest when you, as the Minister of Health, Minister Ottenheimer and Minister Osborne, who were former Ministers of Justice while this was going on, are in a conflict of interest? Will you agree to exempt yourself from any consideration as to what the Terms of Reference are? It is not about what the Commissioner can or will or shall do, it is about: Do you think you should be part of that decision-making process? That is pretty simple, and if you do not, you have tainted the process from day one. If you are going to do this, do it right.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, clearly, the member opposite is standing in this House today prejudging what the Terms of Reference might say. When the Terms of Reference are developed, Mr. Speaker, the member opposite will have an opportunity if he wants. If he reviews the Terms of Reference, because it will be public, if, in fact, members opposite or anyone in this House sees the Terms of Reference and feels they are so restrictive that the Commissioner will not have an ability to come to the right conclusions and to gain an understanding - but to stand in this House today and suggest that a Terms of Reference, that have not yet been developed, would be restrictive and would, in fact, not allow the Commissioner to have an ability, whether or not there is a conflict here, let's judge that based on whether or not the Terms of Reference in any way handicap the Commissioner, I say, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I did not think this was such a complicated issue; and, with all due respect, Minister, there is a big difference. What I am asking here is not whether the Terms of Reference will ultimately be fair, be broad enough, be expansive enough, to do the job that needs to be done. My question is to you: Don't you see it is an obvious conflict of interest for you, the minister in charge of the Department of Health, which is going to come under the examination of this commission, to be deciding what the Terms of Reference should be?

Now, what is so difficult about you responding to that? Can't you just say you will not take part in it or you are going to take part in it? Just let us know, which do you plan to do?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair recognizes the hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, in my capacity as Minister of Health and Community Services, I have a duty and a responsibility to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. When we participate as a Cabinet, we participate in the development of the Terms of Reference for this commission, we will, in fact, have the best interests of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador at heart. There will be no interest, no intent and no desire - and, in fact, the Terms of Reference will clearly reflect that - to, in fact, conceal anything, to hide anything, or to try to, in fact, protect anyone who may have been involved in this whole process.

This is a very transparent process, and that is why we have selected a commission to do this, so it will be open, it will be transparent. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador can participate if they wish. As I understand it, there is a process where people can contact the commissioner if they want to make a contribution; so they can, in fact, have that input if they want.

I say, Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, the interest of this government is to ensure that we fully understand, and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador fully understand, what happened in this set of circumstances. That commissioner will be able to comment on that.

I say to the member opposite, before you start judging what the Terms of Reference might be, wait until you see them in print.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

References to the Chair should never be made in the House.

The Chair recognizes the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is obvious the minister is fudging on his answers. This is pretty straightforward questioning here, and I am sure the media and the people of this Province are going to put it to you again, but you cannot duck it like you can here in Question Period.

Will you or will you not play a role in deciding the Terms of Reference? That is the issue, and you will have to deal with that in your conscience.

Now, I am talking to the same individual across this House today, Mr. Speaker, who was here last week putting litigation above the system, about safety, and this is a person who is asking us to trust him and what he says.

I say to the minister again - a simple question, Minister, a simple question - your press release of a few moments ago, number four, when you used the words "responsible authorities", can you give us your undertaking that responsible authorities will include the Department of Health and any other function of government that needs to be examined? Can you say that?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, if that is what the hon. member was asking, why didn't he ask the question instead of that song and dance? Because, very clearly, the answer to that is yes, absolutely yes.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you.

Pulling teeth again, Mr. Speaker, with this crowd.

One final question. I will get an opportunity, obviously, once I have had more time to go through this, and we can ask further questions in the days to come.

For example, we talk about the independence of this commissioner. I ask the minister - I assume that in the interest, again, of total openness and transparency - would government consider, when they choose the commissioner here, that you, of course, will look for, no doubt, the best person to do it, but also not necessarily confine to within the Province?

For example, when we did the Lamer Inquiry into the justice system, we chose the former Antonio Lamer, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, which brought - to me, he was beyond reproach to do that inquiry.

I am just wondering if the minister can assure us that we will not be restricting ourselves. Not that there are people in this Province who are not capable - I am sure there are - but that we will also look wherever we need to look to get the best person to do the job outside of the Province, if need be, and to ensure the absolute independence that is necessary here.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: I say to the member opposite, I want to assure him and members of this House, that is exactly what we will do. We want to make sure that we have the best person available to us to do this job, regardless of where they live.

The member has our assurance, and the people of this Province have our assurance, that the person that we select to be the commissioner for this inquiry will be a person who has the credentials, has the ability, has the independence, to be able to do this job and do it appropriately to give the people of Newfoundland and Labrador exactly what they deserve in this inquiry.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BALL: Mr. Speaker, one of the many issues that has arisen as a result of the problems associated with breast screening is a shortage of health care professionals in the Province, and how this many have contributed to the problems in the health care system today.

As confirmed this morning in our meeting with Eastern Health, we are already at a 30 per cent shortage of pathologists in the Province. We also recognize that the work of the pathologist and the oncologist, they determine the treatment levels for women diagnosed with breast cancer.

I ask the minister: What is this government doing to address recruitment and retention of pathologists in the Province?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There are some twenty-one pathologist positions in the City of St. John's, under the Eastern Health Authority. Since 1997, and predating that time, there has been some turnover in that position. In fact, during that period we have probably had about a 50 per cent turnover. What we are experiencing in the last two or three years is no different than was being experienced by Eastern Health in the proceeding five, six, seven and eight years.

One of the most significant changes that we have made recently, we have made a tremendous enhancement to their compensation package that has recently been put in place for them, which we hope will make a major difference in our ability to be able to recruit, and to retain those that we have. We now have a compensation scheme that makes us competitive with the Atlantic Provinces.

One of the things that is interesting, Mr. Speaker, about this particular discipline, there is a major shortage in the entire country. In fact, the programs across the country, the residency programs across this country, are not generating enough to satisfy the demand in the entire country. We are one of many provinces, many jurisdictions, that is not uncommon to be out continuously recruiting pathologists.

We have had some success, we have had some turnover, but we now have made ourselves much more competitive compensation-wise.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair asks members to keep their questions and their responses to roughly a minute.

The Chair recognizes the Member for Humber Valley.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BALL: One of the things we might want to do, I say to the minister, is put more focus on what we do with our own graduates, I guess, Newfoundland graduates in particular.

Mr. Speaker, Eastern Health stated this morning that it was never the intention to ignore the issue of incorrect breast screening results and, once they were identified as an issue, they would be acted upon as quickly as possible.

I ask the minister: After two Ministers of Health became aware of this alarming situation, why was this information never released to the public, and only released based on a court affidavit?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, I have said in this House, and said outside several times, that the responsibility for the delivery of programs and services has been given to the four health authorities in this Province. As a government, we respect their ability to be able to deliver programs and services. We take advice from them on critical issues facing health care, the advice that they get from the experts within their organizations. The advice that was provided to Eastern Health in this particular circumstance was to, in fact, focus on those individuals who needed a change in their treatment regime, and that is exactly what they have done here.

The exploration of what happened here - and I think beyond what I have shared, which are just statements of fact in terms of the timelines here, who knew what, when, and what information we had available to us, I think became statements of fact that I have made here, and others have made, in and outside the House, particularly Eastern Health.

The member opposite now is starting to explore an area where I think is one of the reasons that we have, in fact, put in place an inquiry. We need to fully understand what happened here, the why and the how come.

I say, Mr. Speaker, some of the questions that are -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair recognizes the Member for Humber Valley.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BALL: Mr. Speaker, we learned today that there are other problems that have arisen in our health care system; in particular, those regarding a radiologist on the Burin Peninsula. In that instance 3,500 people are potentially affected and a toll-free number has already been put in place to handle those inquiries.

I ask the minister, and we asked this in the House on last Thursday: Why is this government refusing to set up a similar toll-free line to address questions from women affected by or concerned with the incorrect breast screening results?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: I do not think we have ever refused - we have never said, regarding Eastern Health, we would never set up a toll-free line. I think what I have said in this House, and I think Eastern Health has said to you in response to questions: They would make contact with the patients who have been impacted. They have indicated that those whose test results have changed, that they have made contact either directly with them or through their family physicians. I do not think either Eastern Health or ourselves have said, as a government, that we would not do certain things. What we have been clear about, and Eastern Health has been clear about, is they want to ensure that the people who have been impacted understand what took place here. As I understand it, Eastern Health has made themselves available to answer questions with respect to inquiries from individuals who have been impacted as a result of some of the media outlets that carried stories in late 2005 and 2006. There were many inquires at that time, Mr. Speaker, and they, in fact, made efforts to make contact directly with patients and their family physicians. There has been no attempt not to provide information, I say, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, confidence in our health care system in this Province has to be eroding by the hour. Eastern Health has just issued a press release about a review of the services being provided by a radiologist at the Burin Peninsula health centre. The radiologist in question has been temporarily relieved of clinical responsibilities.

I ask the minister: What concerns have been raised regarding the quality of the services provided by this radiologist?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, as the member would know, a radiologist role is to read and provide the results of certain X-rays, CAT scans, mammographies and ultrasounds. A radiologist provides that information to family physicians and other individuals who are treating patients. Mr. Speaker, what Eastern Health has identified is they have a concern about the results of those tests, the reports that are being provided to family physicians. What they have done here is they have taken a step to ensure that they protect the patients who are involved on the Burin Peninsula and ensuring there is accuracy in those reports that are going out to family physicians and other treating specialists, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, we all know what a radiologist does, but I was asking the minister: What are the concerns as a result of the testing that has been done and the services provided by this radiologist?

Mr. Speaker, there are 6,000 reports on 3,500 patients in question here. Was the minister made aware of these concerns? And, if so, when was he briefed?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, I became aware of this on Friday past and I had a briefing of the details on Friday. This is today, Tuesday, and I think Eastern Health has been very prudent in what they have done today. They have made sure that the people who were having access to that service have been advised. The family physicians who are referring patients have been contacted. The examinations that have been done are now under review.

I think Eastern Health, today, made a prudent decision in letting people know the status of those reports and they have taken a prudent step in dealing with their ability to be able to provide an accuracy in the reporting coming out of the Burin Peninsula health facility, I say, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister again: What is the nature of the concerns with respect to the services being provided by that radiologist? There are 3,500 patients out there today, 6,000 reports, and these patients are wondering: What is the issue here?

I am asking you again: What is the nature of the concerns with respect to the services provided by this radiologist?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, the reason I gave her an explanation of what a radiologist does is so she could understand the nature of what it is we are dealing with here.

If there is a concern about a service being provided by a radiologist, it obviously speaks to the interpretation of those X-rays that are being done. I guess what we are seeing here is a concern has been expressed by Eastern Health about the nature of those reports and their accuracy. What they have done, as I said a moment ago, in terms of their response, they have been able to identify a process to have those reevaluated. They are putting in place a mechanism, as we speak, so that people on the Burin Peninsula can make direct contact by phone or in person at the Burin Peninsula health centre, to be able to get the answers to the questions that they have. They are initiating a process to make direct contact with the patients who have been impacted by it.

Mr. Speaker, what we are witnessing here is a health authority recognizing, through their quality assurance initiative, that we have a problem, and they are moving forward to correct it. That is exactly what is taking place here, nothing more, nothing less, I say, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank, on a final supplementary.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, I report we are talking about 6,000 reports here on 3,500 patients.

I ask the minister, again: What exactly was wrong here? Why has it taken 6,000 reports by this radiologist for Eastern Health to act? What are you doing to ensure that this extensive review is going to take place in a timely manner, not in five weeks or ten weeks or fifty weeks, but in a timely manner?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, we fully understand and appreciate the gravity of the issue before us. You do not have to preach to us about what has happened here. We understand fully what has taken place. I think what we are talking about here is an ability - Eastern Health has initiated a process to have those same films, those same X-rays, those some ultrasounds, those same CAT scans, those examinations reread by another radiologist so we are able to ensure that there is accuracy in the reporting, I say, Mr. Speaker.

The member opposite is anxious to know what is taking place today to ensure that this will not happen. I am trying to tell her exactly what is taking place. Eastern Health, I think, has acted prudently in their action today. Their response today is appropriate to ensure we understand what has taken place here, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure what the member would want to have.

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

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

Having just received the press release with regard to the judicial inquiry after I had sat in the House, I am trying to get my thoughts together because I do have a lot of questions.

When the minister spoke in response to the Opposition House Leader, he indicated that the Opposition would have an opportunity to see the Terms of Reference after they are put together. If the minister is open to input into the Terms of Reference, then why wouldn't the minister set up - and this is my question for the minister - a process whereby the two parties in Opposition could have input into the Terms of Reference before they are finalized?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The questions raised by the House Leader of the Official Opposition are clearly around wanting to make sure that the Terms of Reference were broad enough to ensure that the Commissioner would have an ability to get answers to all of the questions that would be necessary to bring closure to this review and to gain an understanding of what has taken place here. I gave the member opposite the assurance that it was our government's intention to ensure that the Terms of Reference were broad enough to allow that Commissioner to get those kinds of answers, so there would be no conflict here. It would be quite open, and I wanted to give him an assurance that when - in fact, he was commenting today and criticizing what might be in a Terms of Reference before they are published. My point was very clear. These Terms of Reference will be broad enough to ensure that happens, and that the commissioner will not be restricted in any way by the Terms of Reference that they have to work within.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The implication of the minister is that the minister and the Cabinet have all the wisdom and that there is no possibility that perhaps the two parties in Opposition might have something to add.

I did hear the minister say that you would be able to have your input after they come out; the public could have input into the Terms of Reference after they come out. I do not know what he meant by that, so I am asking once again: Why wouldn't you consider getting input to draft before you finalize the Terms of Reference, Mr. Minister?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Clearly, Mr. Speaker, what I had said, when questioned earlier, in my answer earlier, was that, when the Terms of Reference were made public, I had made a commitment and an undertaking that they would be broad enough, they would be clear enough, they would not be restrictive, and that they would not reflect any kind of an attempt by government to conceal information that might protect either the health authority or current ministers or former ministers or anyone in Cabinet, I say, Mr. Speaker.

What we will have in this Terms of Reference will be very broad. It will give the commissioner an ability to be able to do the review in a very thorough, a very open, a very transparent and a very unbiased fashion, I say, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS MICHAEL: Mr. Speaker, I just have to say that we have just gone through a very, very intense, difficult week, and the public has been speaking to us about their concerns.

The minister is asking me to be confident in what he and the rest of the Cabinet are going to come up with. I now know that three Ministers of Health had reports made to them by the Eastern Health Board on this issue, that they all chose, with Cabinet, I assume - I cannot say for sure - did Cabinet join them in saying this information does not go public?

Mr. Minister, are you asking me to have faith in you when three ministers did not see the need for this information to go public until the information came out in affidavits?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if there is a question in that rant anywhere, but just to make sure that the member has a clear understanding, I was clear in this House today that the Terms of Reference that will be developed by the Cabinet of this government will, in fact, make sure that this commissioner has an ability to conduct a review in a fair and open fashion. In no way whatsoever will these Terms of Reference restrict the commissioner's ability to look at any decisions that were made by this government, this minister, former ministers, anyone in Cabinet, Cabinet as a whole, the health authority.

If the member would read question number four in the release that was distributed today, it was clear, abundantly clear, that the commissioner will be asked to address that very specific question about responsible authorities. The responsible authorities in question would be the health authority itself and the government of the day, I say, Mr. Speaker. I do not know how clearer that can be.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time allocated for Question Period has expired.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

In compliance with the Public Tender Act, I am pleased to table the Report of the Public Tender Act Exceptions for the month of March 2007.

Further tabling of documents?

Notices of Motion.

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

MR. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Taxation Of Utilities And Cable Television Companies Act. (Bill 22)

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Schools Act, 1997. (Bill 24)

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

MS WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Highways Traffic Act. (Bill 23)

Thank you.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Elections Act, 1991. (Bill 21)

MR. SPEAKER: Further notices of motion?

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 11, I give notice that I will move that the House not adjourn at 5:30 p.m. nor at 10:00 p.m. tomorrow, Thursday, May 24.

MR. SPEAKER: Further notices of motion?

Answers to Questions for Which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition on behalf of the people on the Great Northern Peninsula, of the Roddickton-Englee area in particular.

Mr. Speaker, last week there was some issue around a company in that area, Wood Product Industries, that had originally signed a deal with government to get a sawmill and particle board plant going in that particular region. One of the issues around that was a wood allocation that they had been committed to, of 21,000 cubic metres of wood.

Well, Mr. Speaker, the people in that area were dependent upon this allocation, many of them, as harvesters, to earn a living, and I think the real question that they have, and the real reason behind this petition, is in asking government: what their intentions are for this wood allocation, when it will be issued on the Northern Peninsula, whether it is going to be to this company or to another company, and when that is going to happen, because many of these people are dependent upon that allocation of wood to have employment in that area.

While I know, Mr. Speaker, that 21,000 cubic metres of wood is not necessarily going to provide for a full sawmill and particle board plant, it would certainly go a long way in that area to create some jobs of substance for the people in that particular region.

Mr. Speaker, the petition itself, I guess, is directly related to the wood allocation but it certainly speaks to the company as well, and the company's involvement there, and the fact that they are prepared to make a commitment for the long term.

Mr. Speaker, what the residents of this area are asking is that government make some decision in terms of this wood permit, where it is going to be allocated - if to this company or to another company - and when it is going to be put to use in this region of the Roddickton-Englee area to create jobs for the people in that particular area.

Mr. Speaker, maybe some time this afternoon in Budget debate we may be able to get some response from the government on this particular petition, and some explanation as to why the permit is being withheld in the Department of Natural Resources at this particular time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

Order of the Day.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to call Motion 6. I move that the House, pursuant to Standing Order 11, not adjourn at 5:30 o'clock today, May 22.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that this House, pursuant to Standing Order 11, not adjourn today, Tuesday, May 22, at 5:30 p.m.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

Motion carried.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to move Motion 7, that the House, pursuant to Standing Order 11, not adjourn today at 10:00 o'clock, today being Tuesday, May 22.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is, pursuant to Standing Order 11 that this House not adjourn today, Tuesday, May 22, at 10:00 p.m.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, I would like to call motion 1, which is the adjourned Budget Debate. I do believe that the debate was adjourned by my colleague, the Member for Terra Nova, and I believe that he has somewhere around -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: What? I understood that my -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Andersen? My notes said Mr. Oram. Mr. Andersen, the last speaker? Well, then the speaker is on this side next.

All right, if that is the case, then thank you, Mr. Speaker. I call motion 1, the adjourned Budget Debate. Did Mr. Andersen have time left?

MR. SPEAKER: Motion 1, the Chair needs to consult - the Chair's notes indicates that the hon. Member for Terra Nova had already spoken.

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, Your Honour, perhaps we need a minute. My notes indicated that - let me see here now. The Budget Debate, my notes indicated that the hon. Member for Terra Nova adjourned the debate and when we checked with the Table we understood that he had ten minutes left. Now I am told from the floor that did not happen, that the Member for Torngat Mountains finished speaking. So, I will need some advice. If the member spoke, he spoke, and we will go on to the next speaker, that is all.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair will recess the House momentarily so we can consult with the Table Officers.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair has consulted with the Table Officers and we find that the hon. Member for Terra Nova had spoken and that his time has expired.

The Chair recognizes the hon. Member for Mount Pearl.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DENINE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, today I want to talk about the Budget that was presented a couple of weeks ago and shows the vision of what this government is all about.

Mr. Speaker, when I go back through the Question Periods and listen to the questions from the Oppositions - I know there have been some very important issues, no doubt about that. Today was no exception, a very important issue, but, you know, Mr. Speaker, I cannot even remember - maybe one or two questions on the Budget Speech. That is all the Opposition had, one or two questions. Now they can correct me on that, and (inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DENINE: Obviously, I did not.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DENINE: Mr. Speaker, if I can do my little twenty minutes here uninterrupted - and obviously I cannot, but I will try to get through it. Obviously, of the Leader of the Opposition: Did you hear, did you hear? Were you here? I was here for every one, all the Question Periods and all the questions. Contrary to what the Leader of the Opposition is saying, there were very, very few questions on the Budget, very few questions. Now -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DENINE: Mr. Speaker, this Budget was probably one of the best budgets that was implemented in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador's history.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DENINE: Now, I can see why they did not ask questions, Mr. Speaker, because they did not want to bring out the good points of this Budget. They did not want to bring out the good points that this Budget presented to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, obviously.

Now, Mr. Speaker, what did our Budget do? Well, if we take our first Budget to this Budget, it was certainly a significant improvement, there was no question about that, because we were basically looking at the record that was left by the past Administration - which I am not going there, that is enough of that. We have gone beyond that vision. We are leading the way. We are showing the light of what is going to happen in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador to come.

Mr. Speaker, what did we do in the Budget? We hit the pockets of every Newfoundlander and Labradorian. We increased the disposal income of every Newfoundlander and Labradorian today. They are getting a certain amount of money back so they can put it back into the system and buy things that they could not normally do. Now, where did that come from? That came from a number of issues, a number of areas in our Budget.

One of the first ones was the personal income tax reduction. Who did that benefit? That benefitted all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Everyone who was earning money, and it was taxable income, they received the benefit from that. It may be small in some cases, depending on how much you paid in. It was a benefit for everyone in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Then there was money for seniors. The benefit income tax threshold was increased for seniors, and that put money in the pockets of seniors. So, when you look at it, what did it do? Again, it put money in the pockets of our seniors.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things we looked at, basically, is our poverty reduction. I said some things about it the other day: What did our poverty reduction do? It was a document that was developed by this government. It showed a vision of how we want to reduce poverty in this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It was a document that was taken, not put on the shelf like a lot of documents are. It was a working document. When I talk about a working document - I have been with HRLE, I have been in Municipal Affairs, and now I am with the Department of Education. Every time there is a policy being developed, one of the first questions asked: Well, what does it do to help reduce our Poverty Reduction Strategy, or reduce poverty in Newfoundland and Labrador? How does it incorporate our vision for reduction of poverty? Every piece of document that has gone through Cabinet has had that question asked.

Mr. Speaker, in Canada, I think we are one of two provinces that have, really, a working vision of reducing poverty in this Province. We have been complimented by many, many people across this country, congratulating us on a great job in reducing poverty. We put in a total of $91 million over the last number of years to help reduce poverty, and this again helps promote a healthy society in which we are to live.

Some of the things we did - and I am not going to go into them all - for example, Mr. Speaker, one of the things we did was to eliminate school fees. That was the year before, two budgets ago, eliminated school fees, and what did that do? That put the extra $50 or $60 or $70 in the pockets of people who need it most, because those are the people who could ill afford to pay those schools fees. Where did that money go? That money went into the pockets of the parents and guardians of those children. They were able to take that money and spend it on clothing and other necessities for the starting up of school. That is what it did, and that has helped reduce poverty.

We also initiated free textbooks. Now, again, what did that do? It put money back into the pockets of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, free textbooks for children - nine to twelve. When students start school in September, especially in the high schools, the books are fairly expensive. Even though they were subsidized sixty-forty, it was still a fair amount of expense for parents to incur. We looked at that, and sometimes it was $250 to $300 depending on the courses which the child was doing. Now, what did that do for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador? They will find that out in September. They do not have to put that money out. They can take that money and put it into the children's needs in the home, put it into clothing, put it into food, put it into whatever they feel fit, as a parent or a guardian, they want to do. What did that do? Again, Mr. Speaker, that is what it did: it helped us along tremendously with our strategy.

We have also given a reduction in Newfoundland and Housing rents to people trying to better themselves, and that helps reduce poverty. That puts money back into pockets.

Let's go back. When you look at what we have done and how we have come about this, everything I have spoken about today has put money back into the pockets of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. That is what it has done. That is the whole vision, to be able to put more disposable income into people who need it most. That is what this government has done.

Mr. Speaker, when I also look at what we have done, we have increased the minimum wage by fifty cents - and this is the second increase, I believe, since our government has taken over - on October 1, 2007, and a further increase in the minimum wage in April, 2008. Thus, the minimum wage will be $8 per hour effective April 1, 2008.

Some would say, well, why don't we increase it to $10? Mr. Speaker, we have to take one step at a time to make this happen. Should it be $10? It probably should, but we have to look at the impact on the industry when we start increasing the minimum wage. There is an impact. I have talked to some of the smaller businesses and they can certainly see an impact on it.

What does the minimum wage do for us, and do for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians? Again, it puts money back into the pockets of those who need it most. That is what we are doing. That is our vision. That is what we have in mind, and that is what we are doing.

Mr. Speaker, also, we invested, this year, $140,000 to update the provincial strategy on our literacy plan. This, Madam Chair, Mr. Speaker - you are not usually in the Chair when I speak so I get kind of used to Madam Chair when other people are in the Chair - this strategy is to redevelop where we are going to go in the future. What are we going to look at as far as literacy is concerned? If you look at what we have done for literacy, and another thing that we have done for the reduction of poverty, to help people along, is to further their education, to come back to schools, to increase their literacy rates, to make sure that everyone has - Mr. Speaker, what we did, we made it accessible to all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Last year, Mr. Speaker, what we did was put it in thirteen new locations. That is what we have done. What does that do? To the people who are into the skilled trades, if they want to upgrade their literacy skills, that is what we have done. We have done that for them. We have done it for the people who want to go back to upgrade, to go and further their education. We want to make sure of that, because a lot of people in Newfoundland left school for numerous reasons. They left for many reasons, why they did not finish off education. It could be a family matter, economic reasons, and other reasons that we do not know. We want the people of Newfoundland and Labrador to avail of all possibilities of upgrading themselves to further their education.

Mr. Speaker, when I look at what we have done with education, this Budget has had the highest infusion of money in the Province's history in education. Over $1 billion has been put into education. Now, what does this say about our government? Well, this says a lot about our government because, if we want to development an economic future for our Province, we have to have a well-educated society. We have to have people who are going to become our leaders, our leaders of the future. Those people are going to take over when we retire. There are going to be forty-eight new people here in about ten more years, or fifteen more years - not next year. Well, some people will be new, but not very many on this side, on the other side.

Mr. Speaker, when we look at education, to put that money into education, I thought, as a former teacher and educator, that this was a very strategic move. What did we do? The retention of 137 teachers into the system - 137 that, if we go strictly by the Williams-Sparks formula, would have been lost, they are retained. Retained this year, put back into the system to help reduce the stress of teachers.

What else did we do? We put thirteen teachers in for growth areas in certain parts of the urban areas of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador that are experiencing a significant amount of growth. New subdivisions are going up, new families are moving in, and the workload of the schools, the pressure that is being put on the number of schools in the urban areas, is significant. So, what did we do with that? We put thirteen new teachers in.

Also, Mr. Speaker, we put twenty-five new teachers in to help out with the math program. It is part of an $11 million strategy to improve the math skills of the students of Newfoundland and Labrador. That is what we have done, and we have done it because we want to make sure, not only are we adequate, not only are we good, we want to become the best people in math in the Province, in the country, so that our students are as good and better than all the other provinces of Canada.

Mr. Speaker, we also invested in the skills. We put equipment in twenty-five new schools last year. I think this year we put it into eight more, for a total of thirty-three schools. Thirty-three schools will have, in their school, over $100,000 worth of new technical equipment to help the students in those high schools to learn new trades, to learn what trades are evolving around. Trades today, Mr. Speaker, are a whole lot different ball game than they were twenty-five or thirty years ago. The technology involved with skills today are significant.

I talked to a cabinetmaker, who I know lives in Mount Pearl, and we had a chat on what skills are needed in that industry. When he told me, he did not really want carpenters, carpenters was only one part of it - years ago carpenters were the ones that did it. Today they want people who are computer literate, people who are able to go to a computer, press a button and out comes the molding that they are going to use for cabinetmaking, and it takes a lot of skill to do that. So that is what our program will do. It will help prepare our students for the skills and technology that is needed for the future. That is what we have to do, because we have to look to the future and look at what is required of our students when they graduate. What skills are they going to need? What skills do they need to possess, and what do they need to know to better themselves and make this Province a better place to live? That is what we looked at, that is what we wanted and that is our vision.

MR. JOYCE: Sit down, boy (inaudible).

MR. DENINE: Mr. Speaker, it is too bad the cameras of the House of Assembly cannot pan because the Member of Bay of Islands, if the people of the Bay of Islands could see him now. If they could only see him. It is too bad they cannot.

Mr. Speaker, when we look at our education, we also look at the post-secondary. Again, I think we probably have the lowest cost of post-secondary education, pretty close, in Canada; probably second to only Quebec.

Over the last four years tuition has been frozen, and that cost this government a significant amount of money. Again, why should we do it? We should do it because it is an investment in our future. We need educated people. We need an educated workforce and that is one way of making sure that when they go to university they get that education.

Then, Mr. Speaker, we also introduced the up-front, needs based grant; a grant that when students are in need in university, they fill out the regular form for a Canada Student Loan and when it is assessed, if they come above the $140 per week provincially, what is past $70 will be an up-front, forgivable grant. For example, if someone is assessed at $100, then they will get $30 a week, up-front, interest free, not repayable grant. That is what it will do. That will affect 7,800 students in our Province. That is what it will do, and that is what we, as a government, want to do. We want to put our future in the hands of our young people and that is putting the money where our mouth is.

Now, Mr. Speaker, when we talk about debt reduction, we talk about debt reduction in terms of the post-secondary students coming out of their training, coming out of their courses, owing a significant amount of money. Now, what we have done with that - prior to this year's Budget they would pay back 2.5 per cent over prime. In order to recoup costs and administrative costs, 2.5 per cent was added to the loan; interest on the loan.

Mr. Speaker, what did that do to our students in post-secondary? Well, what it did, in most cases if they borrowed the maximum, I think a reduction of 2.5 per cent back to prime basically gave them $6,000 that they did not have to pay back. What did that do? Again, what does it do? It helps our post-secondary students again, and puts the money in the hands of them so that they can reinvest it back into the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. That is what we have done. All these initiatives that I have spoken about since I started has put money back into the pockets of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, every cent.

Mr. Speaker, I know I do not have time, my time is running out, but what I want to do -

MR. REID: Talk away.

MR. DENINE: I think I have some leave. I think the Leader of the Opposition is really intent on what I am saying. He wants to hear more, obviously, and believes everything I am saying. I will go back to it, because the lack of questions on the Budget -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's allotted time has expired.

MR. DENINE: By leave?

MR. SPEAKER: Leave has been requested.

AN HON. MEMBER: Leave to clue up.

AN HON. MEMBER: Be very short.

MR. DENINE: Oh, I will be short, don't you worry about that. I am never long-winded.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave is granted

The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. DENINE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There are a couple of other things I want to talk about. In this Budget, there is a projected surplus of $261 million. We took that and we did not put any cost to that. We did not spend it. That is an investment. We put investment in drugs, investment in dental, investment in roads, investment in economical development, investment in attracting businesses, and in health care.

Mr. Speaker, I ask you, I ask the people of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, this is a Budget that we can all be proud of, on this side, and this is why - and I said it in a couple of speeches that I had here - I am not sure but I think this may be the first Budget in history that is going to be passed unanimously.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It was interesting to listen to the Member for Mount Pearl make reference to the fact that no one on this side of the House speaks to the Budget when they get up to debate the issue. One of the things I thought was really interesting that he said was how this Budget hits the pockets of every Newfoundlander and Labradorian. Nothing could be said more clearly than that. Indeed, it does hit the pocket of every Newfoundlander and Labradorian, Mr. Speaker. In fact, the problem we have here is that we have a government that has taken great pride since it has been in office in taking money out of the pockets of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. I think we all can speak to that when it comes to paying $180 to get your vehicle licensed, and it does not matter whether you are a senior citizen or whether you are a teenager or whether you are middle age. They do not discriminate, I will say that for the government. It is going to be $180 to get your vehicle licensed, and we do not care what age you are.

How about $125 for ambulance fees? Again, no discrimination here. It does not matter that you are sick. It does not matter that the last thing you can afford is to pay $125 for an ambulance fee. You are going to pay it. Yes, this government has ensured that they have hit the pocket of every Newfoundlander and Labradorian because in a lot of cases what you will find is that, if you have a senior citizen who is sick, a lot of them cannot afford the $125; so, of course, they have to turn to family.

I know an example of a senior citizen who, in fact, passed away a couple of weeks following this, I am sad to say, but she went to the Cottage Hospital in Grand Bank. You are only allowed to stay overnight two nights in the Cottage Hospital and then you have to go home. What the family would do, because the lady wanted to be where there was health care available to her - she was nervous about being at home, wanted to be in the hospital in case anything went wrong - she would go up there, they would have to get an ambulance to take her to the hospital, she would stay there for two nights and they would have to get an ambulance to take her back home, she would spend one night at home and then they would have to get an ambulance again to take her back to the hospital and then get an ambulance back to her home. Four nights, and that is what the cost was to her, Mr. Speaker, back and forth, the cost of an ambulance.

As I said, unfortunately, that dear lady passed away. When the family was going through this, the family was going through this knowing that she wanted to be in the hospital and they felt obligated, of course, to make sure that she was where she was comfortable in her dying days. That is the kind of thing that we are dealing with from this government, when you talk about hitting Newfoundlanders and Labradorians in the pocket.

Let's talk about the insurance tax, 15 per cent insurance tax. Whether it is on your home, whether it is on your vehicle, whether it is on your marine equipment, Mr. Speaker, 15 per cent insurance tax. Do you know what the government is pocketing as a result of that tax? Thirty nine point five million dollars coming out of the pockets of every taxpayer in this Province. Like the Member for Mount Pearl said, no doubt about it, this government hit the pockets of every Newfoundlander and Labradorian with this Budget.

I listened to him speak, Mr. Speaker, and I have to ask where he lives. I have to ask where the Member for Mount Pearl lives. One thing I can say, it is certainly not in rural Newfoundland. I can attest to that, and certainly my constituents can attest to that. In fact, I think he must be living in a wonderland, certainly not in Newfoundland and Labrador. We have people moving out of this Province on a daily basis. You know, if there was an employment opportunity here for them, they would not be moving. They would not be going to Alberta, or to B.C., or to some other province in this country looking for work.

When the member stands and talks about a Budget that hits the pocket of every Newfoundlander and Labradorian, I know of constituents who are moving off the Burin Peninsula, and not just my constituents, constituents of the Member for Burin-Placentia West; they are leaving and going out West. That is the sad thing about this, that this Budget does nothing to create jobs, nothing to create employment opportunities for people who want to stay in Newfoundland and Labrador. Again, I say to the member, you must be living in wonderland, because I know people who are leaving the Connaigre Peninsula who would much rather be in Newfoundland and Labrador but cannot afford to stay here because there are no employment opportunities for them.

Now, there is this creature called the Rural Secretariat. When I get asked what the Rural Secretariat does, I really have to say, I don't know. I really don't know what the Rural Secretariat does. Now, it is funny because when you look at the activity plan for 2006-2008 for the Rural Secretariat, it says: The vision of the Rural Secretariat is of sustainable regions with healthy, educated, prosperous people living in safe, inclusive communities. It says: The mission of the Rural Secretariat is, by 2011 - 2011, Mr. Speaker - the Rural Secretariat will have implemented effective tools and processes required to ensure the consistent and formalized consideration of regional impacts in the development of public policy.

Now, that is a mouthful. It is a mouthful for me and, I can assure you, it is a mouthful for those people who are having to leaving this Province in search of employment, who are saying: What do you mean, 2011? Where do you think we are going to be in 2011? We are having to leave on a daily basis now to go to Alberta, to B.C., to P.E.I., to New Brunswick, and the Rural Secretariat is talking about 2011, in gobbledygook, that anybody would have to ask a question: Well, what about me? What does this mean for me in terms of a job? It means absolutely nothing.

Do you know what that is costing? Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, what that is costing. The Rural Secretariat, the salaries alone just for the Rural Secretariat is close to $1 million. It is almost as much as what they spend on salaries in the Premier's department. In the Premier's Office, your salaries are close to $1.4 million. The Rural Secretariat, just to have this creature that, who knows what it does - whatever it does, it is not going to happen until 2011 - close to $1 million. We have an Assistant Deputy Minister; we have a Director of Regional Partnership Development; we have a Director of Research and Analysis; we have a Program & Policy Development Specialist; we have ten Regional Partnership Planners; we have a Manager of Financial Operations; and, we have a Clerk Typist III. Close to $1 million, and yet we have to see anything - anything - that would give us any reason to believe that this is money well spent.

The Rural Secretariat, most people don't know but that is something good to eat. Those of us who have been listening to this government for the past three-and-a-half years tout the virtues of the Rural Secretariat, are shaking our heads. Shaking our heads because that close to $1 million is just for this year. They have spent that in other years. So you are talking three-and-a-half years here of money being spent, to do what? When we have so many people who need help.

When we talk about the Budget, let's talk about money that is not being well spent. The members opposite like to talk about: the government is doing this and the government is doing that, but talk about money that could be used for a better purpose, and one of the areas would have to be the Rural Secretariat. When you talk about close to $1 million, the jobs - earlier we said: Wait now, the Rural Secretariat has not created any jobs. Well, I take that back, Mr. Speaker, because, in fact, do you know something? The Rural Secretariat has created sixteen jobs, but they are all in the Rural Secretariat.

It reminds me of money that is being spent in the infamous Department of Business. When questioned in Estimates about how the money was being spent: How many jobs were being created? The minister was truthful. Not one job, he said. Not one job was created by the Department of Business. Now, he said: Oh, wait now. We have fourteen new jobs that are now being created and they are all in the Department of Business.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS FOOTE: Fourteen new jobs in the Department of Business. Sixteen jobs in the Rural Secretariat. Then the Premier stands up and says: Wait now, we are going to create 1,000 new jobs in the public service. Well, I can tell you where they can create some jobs. I do not care what part of the Province it is in, but when you have a call centre that is operating out of Montreal, where you have to call to book space in a provincial park, there is something wrong

with the system. There is something wrong with those who are making the decisions that would see that happen.

The cost of making a reservation - oh, and by the way, there is a cost of making the reservation and that does not include the cost of the actual reservation, what you have to pay when you are there. Guess what, Mr. Speaker? If you change your mind, if you make a reservation for two weeks and you decide: No, I am only going to go for one week, there is a cost associated with cancelling, a cost associated with changing your mind. I think it is $8. So, there is something wrong with the system when we are supporting a call centre out of Montreal for making reservations in a provincial park.

My colleagues have said before: When we have to take people up to Montreal to explain to those who are going to be answering the phone, explain to them about this Province, where our parks are located, what is in them, there is something wrong. Just the cost that the government incurs in doing just that. Then tell me that somebody in Montreal, when answering the phone, will be able to tell whoever is on the other end of the line how long it will take you to get from Port aux Basques to Clarenville, how long it will take you to get from Deer Lake to Grand Bank. They do not know. These are questions that I think they should be able to answer if we are going to be able to upscale our tourism market, if we are going to be able to take advantage of the person answering the phone, which is what it is all about; which is what marketing is all about.

Someone might call and say: I want to go to Swift Current. Whoever is on the other end of the line might say: Well, you know, if you are going to Swift Current did you think about taking in Woody Island? These are opportunities that are being missed because this government has made a decision to have a call centre in Montreal take reservations for the provincial parks in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Now I know what the minister has said and what the Premier has said, they went to public tender, there was only one response and it happened to be a call centre in Montreal. Well, guess what, Mr. Speaker? Governments can change their mind. Governments can change their mind, and now we are in a situation where we have so many students out there who really do not know what they are going to do in terms of summer employment because of a decision made by the federal government. What an opportunity for this government to employ those students. An opportunity missed, Mr. Speaker, but that is not uncommon with this government.

The Member for Mount Pearl talked about, again, this Budget and how good it was. Well, let's talk about the strategy, or the lack of a strategy for implementing the use of insulin pumps, insulin pumps that mean so much to people who desperately need them. No strategy, but we do know that when you turn nineteen you can no longer avail of this service. What happens when you turn nineteen? Do you just drop by the wayside?

There is another drug, Mr. Speaker, that this government should consider and should have been part of their Budget, Avastin. It is a drug to deal with age related macular degeneration. I had calls from people who are going through the most trying time of their lives. In fact, without this drug it is not even a possibility, we do know that they will go blind. We have people who are making every effort. We have people who are calling all their MHAs. We have people who are fundraising. Mr. Speaker, given the cost of this drug and how often you have to use it, it will take a lot of soup suppers, it will take a lot of bake sales to be able to avail of this drug.

AN HON. MEMBER: Fifteen-hundred dollars a treatment.

MS FOOTE: Fifteen-hundred dollars a treatment; just for one treatment.

There is something wrong, Mr. Speaker, when in a Province we can be spending close to $1 million in salaries for a Rural Secretariat, which, according to the government's own documents, says that 2011 the Rural Secretariat will have implemented effective tools and processes required to ensure the consistent and formalized consideration of regional impacts in the development of public policy.

I repeat, Mr. Speaker, a mouthful, a mouthful that means absolutely nothing to the people who are suffering with age-related macular degeneration, to the people who need insulin pumps, to the people who have to pay $125 for an ambulance, to the people who have to go and pay $180 to get their vehicle licensed, to the people who are paying 15 per cent on their insurance cost.

So, tell me again about this Budget because you are absolutely right, I say to the Member for Mount Pearl, this Budget hits the pockets of every Newfoundlander and Labradorians, but it is not something I would stand up and take pride in. It is not something I would stand and pat myself on the back for; because, on the contrary, we have people who are suffering, people who could have been helped, while this government brags of a surplus. We have people moving away, trying to find employment, people who really do not know where the next cent is going to come from, and at an age when they have never had to leave home before. So, while these people are suffering, while these people are finding it very difficult to make ends meet, we have a government that stands up and pats itself on the back because this Budget hits the pockets of every Newfoundlander and Labradorian.

People in Newfoundland and Labrador want to be heard. They want a government that understands their needs. They want a government that listens. They want a government who does not have to be pressured into doing things that are right. They want a government that is going to make a difference in their lives, a difference that matters, a difference that is good, not a difference that costs them more money to live, not a difference that costs them money just to live a comfortable life, not a difference that costs them an arm and a leg for a treatment to prevent them from going blind.

I do not know how many of you can relate to that, but I can tell you that my grandmother went blind and it is not pretty. It is not pretty, to watch someone lose their eyesight.

I met a lady the other night -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's allotted time has expired.

MS FOOTE: Time to clue up, Mr. Speaker?

MR. RIDEOUT: Time to clue up, sure.

MR. SPEAKER: Time has been granted to make some concluding comments.

The Chair recognizes the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Thank you.

I met a lady the other night who needs this drug. She has had a couple of treatments - of course, they have had to pay for it themselves - but her husband is so frustrated because he really cannot afford to provide these treatments for his wife. Do you know what he did? He went on-line to see if there wasn't some other remedy, and he found an alternative medication. Now, he does not know if it is CSA approved, he does not know if it has been tested, but guess what? He has ordered those capsules. I think he said it is going to cost maybe $80, and I think they last maybe a couple of months. That is what people have to resort to, because this drug that will make a difference is not being made available.

It is time that this government listened and realized - you brag about a Budget that you say hits the pockets of every Newfoundlander and Labradorian. Understand that you are doing so in a detrimental way.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am absolutely floored by one of the comments of the hon. member across the way who says the people need a government that listens. My goodness, from going through this Budget, I do not know what else this government has done if it has not listened. The people need a government that makes a difference - if this government has not made a difference in this Budget, then God help future governments. The people need a government that does not cost them more money to live - we could spend hours on our anti-poverty strategy in answer to that question.

Anyway, I digress, Mr. Speaker. I want to get into my own comments here. I just want to make some general comments about this Budget before I get into some specifics. It is not very difficult to put together twenty minutes on this Budget. All you have to do is take any of the documents and start commenting. The name of this Budget: Vision, Action. This government has both - the vision, and they have taken the action. It represents the Province making strategic investments to encourage economic growth, social programs and modernized infrastructure. This, Mr. Speaker, with a projected surplus of $261 million in an election year, unheard of, especially in this Province.

We had, in the last two years, in 2006, a surplus of $76 million. We reduced our debt by $70 million. In 2007-2008, we are going to have a $261 million surplus, we are forecasting. In addition to that, we are going to reduce our debt by $66 million; and, in addition to that, we are going to reduce debt servicing costs by $51 million, all while have a surplus of $261 million.

Mr. Speaker, some of the highlights in general terms: Reduction in personal income tax rates puts more money, as our esteemed Member for Mount Pearl stated, into the hands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and has increased the Province's competitiveness, the lowest tax cuts in Atlantic Canada.

More than $100 million to attract businesses to invest in programs to grow the economy. For the first time, over $1 billion in education. A budget of $2.2 billion for health and community services, and additional spending of $28.9 million for Poverty Reduction Strategy, giving us a total this year of $91 million, a model for the rest of Canada.

Another $440 million to go into infrastructure spending as part of a $2 billion, six year program. A commitment of $55 million in new spending over the next five years for the Northern Strategic Plan for Labrador.

These are some of the highlights of the Budget, Mr. Speaker, and you could spend hours on any one of these.

I just want to say a few words about the tax cuts. As the hon. member before me mentioned, this will put money into the pockets of Newfoundlanders. The total cost of these reductions, $111.3 million in 2007 and $160.5 million annually, once they are fully annualized. Never before in history have we been able to do that. I just want to be specific for a minute. A one-income family or a single-parent family with a taxable income of $15,000 annually does not pay any tax. Those earning $35,000 will save $469 and those earning $50,000 will save $814.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition made hay the other day over the fact that he thought this was a tax break for the rich. Well, when you look at the proportion of tax returns, it is the lower income people who get the biggest break. It is the lower income people who get the biggest break.

Tax on the first income tax bracket are reduced from 10.57 per cent to 8.7 per cent. Tax on the second bracket from 16.16 per cent to 13 per cent. Tax on the third bracket from 18.2 per cent to 16.5 per cent. In addition, to protect the taxpayers from the effects of inflation, most of the tax brackets and most non-refundable tax credits and certain benefits will be indexed annually, beginning July 1, 2007.

I want to speak for a minute about the new thresholds that have been established, and these are important and they are significant. Not only are they significant for the anti-poverty reduction program, they are significant to put more money in the pockets of taxpayers and they are significant for rural Newfoundland. In 2006, a single person with income of less than $12,000 was not required to pay provincial personal income tax. Effective January 1, 2007, this threshold has been adjusted to $13,000 and this amount will be indexed in 2008. For families, including single-parent families, the income threshold has been adjusted from $19,000 to $21,000. In 2008, approximately 31,100 individuals will receive a low-income tax reduction compared to 25,900 under the old system, an increase of 5,200 beneficiaries, of which 4,000 will no longer pay any provincial income tax. That is significant, Mr. Speaker, that is significant.

The Seniors' Benefit for married seniors enhanced by (inaudible) a qualifying threshold. In 2006, a senior couple received a full Seniors' Benefit if their combined income was less than $15,032 and received a partial benefit with combined income up to $21,482. Now, Mr. Speaker, for 2007, the income threshold has been adjusted. The full benefit is now up to $25,000, a $10,000 increase. The partial benefit is up to $31,587, a $10,000 increase in the threshold for the Seniors' Benefit. About 3,800 senior couples will receive a Seniors' Benefit cheque for $768 in October this year. Another 32,000 will receive a cheque for a partial benefit. That is going to increase the total of the Seniors' Benefit to $12.2 million and increase it more than $4 million over last year. As a result, Mr. Speaker, and here is the important figure, in 2008 approximately 7,000 senior couples will receive the Seniors' Benefit compared to 1,100, an increase of 5,900 couples. That is just amazing.

Now, as a former educator, I cannot get through this presentation without referring to that part of the Budget dealing with education. Now, the Member for Mount Pearl has done that on a number of occasions and being involved in that department, of course, he is close to it. There are so many things to say about education that it is pretty hard to pass it over.

I want to begin with K-12. Budget 2007 increased the funding for the K-12 system by $41 million. Free textbooks amounted to $12.8 million. All the money going into maintenance and renovations, construction of new schools - and incidentally, I am getting one of these myself in Placentia in my district - improvements to the curriculum and additional teachers; $49 million for repairs and maintenance in new school construction. Now that is $12.3 million over last year.

One of the big figures here that school boards are so happy with, and people like the CEOs of school boards, 67 per cent increase in their operating grants; fifty-five cents and ninety-two cents per square foot. That is going to do wonders for our maintenance programs in our schools. Increased by over $14 million to give each school board increased funding for maintenance of their schools. That is a tremendous infusion into our education system, and one which makes school boards very happy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. COLLINS: Other investments that come to my attention, and one that I want to comment on in a few minutes, is the investment in the future of skilled trades and technology pilots in our high schools. While I am on that subject I should point out that we are all aware in this Province about the issue of skilled shortages in this Province. I have a friend who is the CEO of one of the bigger construction companies in this Province. He keeps telling me the same story all the time. He just cannot get workers. He cannot get employees, cannot get skilled employees. Even when increasing the wages significantly, he still cannot get them. It is not only a phenomenon that is unique to Newfoundland, all of Atlantic Canada. He also conducts business in Ontario and he says the same thing is true there, you just cannot get workers.

This government will invest $6.7 million in this Budget to help people take advantage of new opportunity to skilled trades and to ensure a highly qualified workforce to meet industry demands.

Mr. Speaker, in Placentia Bay - and I alluded to this in an earlier presentation - over the next four or five years we are going to see expanded industry in commercial development with the INCO project, the CBRD project, the second refinery at the head of the bay, and now the Liquefied Natural Gas project is holding its hearings. There is going to be a tremendous demand for skilled labour in Placentia Bay. In fact, in the construction stages of the INCO plant and the refinery we are talking 6,000 people, 6,000 workers in the construction phase. They are just not there. If both of these projects take off together, then we have an enormous problem on our hands with respect to getting skilled labour for those jobs.

This government is investing $3.9 million in this Budget to expand career and employment services. These will include almost $1 million to expand the delivery of career and employment service outreach in rural Newfoundland by establishing five new Career Information Resource Centres; $1.5 million to implement employment and business development projects to rural areas of the Province to enable people to participate in the labour market; over $1 million to expand the graduate retention program to help an additional 100 graduates strengthen their attachment to the labour market; $500,000 to hire ten career information officers to work with teachers, guidance counsellors and students in the K-12 system to identify career information and labour market trends, and provide career education supports. The high schools are very excited about that, Mr. Speaker, because that is where it all starts.

A few years ago, and not all that long ago, we felt that our kids had to go to university when they got out of high school. The skilled trades were looked upon as secondary occupations. If our kids did not go on to university and become professionals then we felt that we, as parents, had done a bad job. Well, that is no longer the case, thanks be to God. Now we are putting our emphasis on the skilled trades, because that is where it is at. The provincial government recognizes that people need to make better career decisions, and are investing significantly in our skilled trades and in our high schools.

In support of the Skills Task Force, which made its report the other day, it brought together a partnership of businesses and labour and government and post-secondary institutions to make plans for developing a skilled trades program in this Province. The provincial government is now investing $2.8 million in support of that Skills Task Force to improve the responsiveness of the skills training and the apprenticeship system in this Province. Now, that is going to include $660,000 to expand post-secondary programming in the skilled trades and technology offerings at the College of the North Atlantic to meet the increased demand for skilled workers; $567,000 for national apprenticeship standards, including $200,000 to introduce standardized examinations.

What I like about this Budget, too, Mr. Speaker, is that there is $596,000 put into it to strengthen the participation of women in skilled trades; $96,000 to introduce a Youth Apprenticeship Program in the K-12 system and, along with that, $75,000 to establish twenty-five scholarships of $1,000 each to encourage youth participating in Youth Apprenticeship Programs to continue their studies at the post-secondary level, and then another twenty-five scholarships of $2,000, post-secondary awards.

Mr. Speaker, this government is putting the emphasis where it should be, on the K-12 system in developing the skills programs. Being an ex-educator, and knowing what has happened in the school system over the years, this is very exciting to see that development in the high school system. That is where the foundation is going to be laid, and that is where the whole thing starts in order to attack this problem we are going to have in the next few years of a shortage of skilled trades in this Province.

With respect to post-secondary education, a $14.4 million investment this year by this government to help current and former students reduce their debt load. Talk about a government who listens. The students came to us, this government, met with caucus, met with Cabinet representatives, and this government listened. As a result, this government now has made the following changes to the student loan program valued at $14.4 million: dropped the interest on student loans from prime plus 2.5 per cent to prime, at a cost of $3.7 million. This is going to have an immediate impact, Mr. Speaker, on 46,000 people who are in repayment of their student loans.

Government also introduced an up-front, needs-based grant program, providing financial assistance of $10.7 million, so that the students who could, before, borrow $140 a week on the provincial portion of their student loan, now that will be reduced to $70 because they will have an up-front grant of $70. That is cutting in half the amount of money they will have to pay back. This is also the first time, since this loan was introduced, we now include the two year program at the College of the North Atlantic; those people also qualify for the non-repayable grant.

What this means, Mr. Speaker, is that this Province is leading the country with the lowest interest on student loans. Couple that with the freeze on tuition rates and this government has listened to students and has responded, and responded big time. As I mentioned, Mr. Speaker, it is hard to get through the Budget without talking about the big ticket issues, education being one of them.

I want to go on and pay some attention to the anti-poverty program that this government is pursuing. We have added almost $29 million this year to the current annual investment of $62 million; we are now up to $91 million in Poverty Reduction Strategy. That is in addition to the drug enhancement programs.

The last member who spoke across the way mentioned the government not funding the drug having to do with vision care. Many of us received e-mails over the last couple of weeks from different people talking about that particular drug. The minister, in his response here in the House a few days ago, made that perfectly clear how this policy is dealt with and how it works. There are so many diseases and so many drugs and so many problems that you could address in health care, Mr. Speaker, the list is endless and it is impossible for this government to address every health care problem that exists.

With respect to anti-poverty and low-income families, some of the things we have already mentioned, some of the education initiatives, like, for example, free textbooks, $12.8 million for free textbooks, it is going to go a long way to help low-income families. Two point three million for enhanced dental services for children between the ages of thirteen and seventeen is a tremendous incentive, as well as $500,000 to develop the enhanced home visiting model; $650,000 to increase the Newfoundland and Labrador Child Tax Benefit; $300,000 to increase the Mother Baby Nutrition Supplement, and money to the Kids Eat Smart Foundation, all of these are tremendous initiatives undertaken by this government in the interest of anti-poverty legislation.

With respect to helping women, $250,000 to help low wage income earners access legal services, especially with regard to family law matters. This is a very, very significant initiative by this government. An increase in grants for the Province's eight Women's Centres and so on. The list goes on and on with regard to anti-poverty initiatives of this government.

Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of other things I want to touch on, that I think are important. They have been mentioned already and they will be mentioned again, obviously.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that his time for speaking has lapsed.

MR. COLLINS: Mr. Speaker, I will leave it at that because I have a number of things here to get into and I do not think you are going to me enough time to get into that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. COLLINS: Okay.

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

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member, by leave.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to just briefly refer to rural Newfoundland, and what is in this Budget for rural - because it comes up so often that there is nothing in the Budget for rural Newfoundland. Everything in this Budget is for rural Newfoundland. Everything is for rural Newfoundland.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. COLLINS: One final thing is something that is near and dear to my heart, because it is the biggest need in my district. If I went and knocked on doors in my district, door-to-door, nine out of ten doors would say the same thing: roads, roads and more roads.

This is the second year now of the government's investment of over $2 billion over a six year period: $440 million this year going into infrastructure, $160 million into roads, including $66.5 million for a provincial roads improvement program. We could do with another $60 million, Mr. Speaker.

A project of mine, and a pet peeve of mine, in this Budget I would like to see a lot more money going into roads. Then, again, money has to be proportioned. You cannot have money for everything. That is why I say to the members opposite, when you look at money for health care services, you cannot handle all health care services, you cannot solve all of your needs at the one time. It will take us years to catch up on the roads, with thirty years of neglect in my district. With thirty years of neglect of our roads, they have gone to the state where they are almost impassable in some cases, but we will get to them. We will get to them year by year. It will take some time to do it, but at least we are started on them; we have a program to do it. We had a release today in my district, for example, outlining the amount of roadwork that would be done this year, and that is a tremendous start to solving these problems.

Mr. Speaker, I will end there.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BARRETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Indeed, it is a pleasure for me to rise today and to participate in the Budget debate.

I guess, looking at it, it is the eighteenth time that I have participated in a Budget debate in this House of Assembly. Since 1989, I have been either on the government side or on the Opposition side participating in the Budget debate.

It is nice to come after the Member for Placentia, I guess. It is not very often you get two people from Placentia Bay speaking back-to-back in the House of Assembly, so this place should be abuzz with knowledge before I am finished, after just coming from the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's and his participation in the debate.

Will I be voting for the Budget? I guess that is the question. The answer is: I will not be voting for the Budget, and there are various reasons why I will not be voting for the Budget.

As a person who grew up in Placentia Bay, on a small island in Placentia Bay, I guess, back in the 1960s, under the great Liberal governments, the Liberal government of Joey Smallwood, I guess the Liberal government at that particular time saw the young people in our Province as the greatest resource that we had. There is no doubt about it. In the 1960s in this Province, and in the 1970s, the early 1970s, I guess former Premier Smallwood saw that the future of Newfoundland and Labrador lay in its greatest resource, which was its young people. The government of the day, they invested heavily in education, invested heavily in post-secondary education. As a matter of fact, some of the greatest initiatives of this Province took place in the 1960s in terms of post-secondary education, in terms of the creation of Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador and the great deal of money that was put into Memorial University.

I guess the other thing that we had in 1963, and I have spoken before in terms of the great initiative, and I like to give credit where credit is due, in that we had a Prime Minister of Canada, also, who saw the Canadian young people as a great resource. In 1963, one of the best acts was ever passed in the House of Commons, and it was not passed by a Liberal government, it was passed by a Conservative government, and it was passed under the leadership of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. I give credit where credit is due. It was very, very innovative. The Occupational Training Act which was passed in the House of Commons at that particular time provided the vast wealth for post-secondary education and training.

We talk a lot about skills training, and the great initiatives about skills training. We have not even touched the surface in terms of what is available, in terms of - there is no wonder we have a skill shortage in this Province and in this country, because we do not provide the resources any more. We do not provide the resources for our young people.

I was one of the Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who graduated from Memorial University with no debt - no debt whatsoever. I never had a debt when I graduated from Memorial University. I also graduated from the Clarenville Vocational School in 1965. I graduated from the Clarenville vocational school as an electrical apprentice in 1965, and when I received my certificate I was debt free.

MR. JACKMAN: How many schools have you gone to?

MR. BARRETT: If the Member for Burin-Placentia West listened he might learn something for a change.

I graduated in 1965 from the Clarenville vocational school and I graduated debt free, and I worked in that particular trade.

The thing about it was, the reason I graduated from the vocational school debt free was that there was free tuition - free tuition! - at that particular time, thanks to John Diefenbaker and Joey Smallwood. Not only did I get free tuition at the vocational school, but I also received $100 a month allowance in addition to free tuition. That was tremendous, being able to go out - I was able to work at the Holiday Inn and the Arts and Education Building in Memorial University, and I graduated and got a hefty eighty cents an hour salary at that particular time.

After that, I went to Memorial University and did an education degree and I graduated in 1969 from Memorial University with no debt, because at that particular time going to Memorial University I got free tuition, and not only that but the last year we were in University Joey Smallwood gave us $100 a month to help us out.

What I am saying here is, I think we should look at the greatest resource that we have in this Province, our young people. We talk about providing for our children and our grandchildren, but I think we have missed the boat. I guess, one of the biggest disappointments for me in my eighteen years in politics is that I would have liked to, at some time, be able to stand in the House and congratulate a government that was providing free tuition for our students. That is the biggest disappointment, I guess, when I was a part of government. Now, when I was part of the cabinet and part of the government we did implement a tremendous cut in tuition fees, a 25 per cent cut in tuition fees. We reduced the tuition fees by 25 per cent. We were on the road to providing free tuition. As a matter of fact, I guess our objective at that particular time was - if we had continued on in government right now, instead of getting up and bragging that we have all this surplus, we would be getting up and saying, we are providing free tuition, we are giving free tuition to our students. Right now, I think that is where we should be going; not only in terms of free tuition for Memorial University but free tuition in terms of our trades programs. I think we are going to see a great shortage in terms of trades people in this country. Part of the blame is on the federal government and part of the blame is on the provincial government.

It is unbelievable the subsidization that this government of Newfoundland and Labrador is providing to Alberta, because we don't have a national training program. In years gone by we had a national program, and the intention of the national program was to provide a skilled labour force in this country. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador weren't subsidizing Alberta, but today we are.

I was recently at a parliamentary conference and I said to the people from Alberta: One of those days you are going to get a bill from Newfoundland and Labrador for the amount of money it has cost this Province in providing a skilled work force for your province. That is what is happening right now in our country, that poor provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador are subsidizing rich Alberta, because we are sending our trained young people who the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador have paid for to Alberta to develop the economy of Alberta and we are not getting any money for it.

So much for the free tuition part of it. The other part of this Budget, and which this government doesn't brag about very much, is that they have the cash, they have the money, and the reason they have the money is because the government, which I was a part of, provided the cash. The government of which people on this side were a part of provided the cash.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are not serious! You are not going to say that with a straight face!

MR. BARRETT: I will say that with a straight face, for the hon. minister, and it is a true statement. We have provided the cash for this Budget. The major projects that were started under the previous Liberal government is providing the cash for this government. We just have to look at Hibernia. Under which Administration did the Hibernia project start under? Which government started Hibernia? Which government started the Bull Arm Site Corporation? Which government initiated the Hibernia project which built the major GBS for Hibernia? It was in Bull Arm and in the District of Bellevue.

There was a time when there were 5,000 or 6,000 workers working in Bull Arm doing the GBS. That GBS is offshore now pumping oil out of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and Labrador. The price of oil at that particular time, when the project was started, was $12 a barrel. Today it is $66 a barrel. It is amazing the amount of revenue that is coming into the provincial government from this Hibernia project; a project that was started by the previous Liberal government.

The next major project that was started under the Liberal government was the Terra Nova project. The Terra Nova project was not a GBS project but more and more benefits came to Bull Arm. A lot of the topside structures, all the infrastructure for that project, a lot of it was built in Bull Arm and it went offshore. Now it is pumping oil at $60-odd a barrel providing revenue for the provincial government so that this government can get up and brag and say that they are rich.

The next major project that was started under the Liberal government was the White Rose project. The White Rose project, a lot of the work was done in Marystown. Just a few years ago in Marystown and on the Burin Peninsula there was a beehive of activity. If you go to the Burin Peninsula today you will see people leaving in droves in their U-Hauls because there is very little activity happening on the Burin Peninsula. The White Rose project is out there today pumping oil which this government is getting the royalties and the benefits from and can get up and brag that they have all this money which they can pour into the Province and they have a surplus.

The other project that is bringing a lot of money in, and the one that we debated very, very vigorously in this House of Assembly, and that was the Voisey's Bay project. The Premier today, who was Leader of the Opposition at that particular time, said it was an agreement that you could drive a Mack truck through and it was disastrous for the Province. It should not go ahead. There should never be a Voisey's Bay. This was this Premier that we have today.

Well, to the people of Long Harbour, it shows you the kind of government we have today. We have a major project like Voisey's Bay going into Long Harbour and the roads to Long Harbour are impassable. The road to Long Harbour is impassible because this government is not facilitating that particular project at all. There is no infrastructure being provided by the government. The role of governments is to provide infrastructure and to facilitate the development of this Province, and right now the road into Long Harbour is practically impassable. The road from Long Harbour to Argentia, and Placentia area, which is the main commercial relationships going on between these communities, the infrastructure there is falling apart. You cannot even drive on the road, and this government is ignoring what is happening in this particular area.

The road to Fair Haven, the road to Bellevue and all these communities around there - which right now the government should be out in these communities and looking at these particular communities in terms of providing the proper infrastructure within these communities to facilitate developments, but this Premier is so against this particular project that he would rather see it go to Australia, to tell you the truth. He would rather see the nickel from this project go to Australia or somewhere rather than go into Placentia Bay in the development in Long Harbour and Argentia. He has fought it every step of the way. The way he is punishing the people in that particular area right now is not to provide the infrastructure.

The Voisey's Bay project will have a great impact on the communities of Whitbourne, Markland, Blaketown, South Dildo, Norman's Cove, Long Cove and Chapel Arm, Bellevue, Chance Cove. All these particular areas there will become the major residential centre for a lot of the workers working in Long Harbour. But what is this government doing? Just sitting back, forgetting all about it, not providing the infrastructure and the resources that are needed for the people in this particular area to start businesses and promote this particular area.

I do not know what they want to do. I guess what this government is hoping we will do is that all of the developments will take place in the Donovans Industrial Park. That seems to be the role of this particular government, to make sure nothing happens in rural Newfoundland, that it all takes place in Donovans Industrial Park.

AN HON. MEMBER: What do you have against Mount Pearl?

MR. BARRETT: I have nothing against Mount Pearl whatsoever, but I can tell you one thing: I do not know what this government has against rural Newfoundland and Labrador, because it is ridiculous in terms of what is happening out in the Long Harbour area right now. There is no government committee, there is nothing appointed to look at the infrastructure and the resources that are needed to make sure that this project goes ahead.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BARRETT: Long Harbour is in Bellevue district right now.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BARRETT: Right now, I remind the Member for Mount Pearl, I speak for the people of Long Harbour. Right now, this is what the people of Long Harbour are saying to me, that this government has ignored the community of Long Harbour and ignored the infrastructure.

As a matter of fact, the people of Long Harbour are very, very, very creative. As a matter of fact, when the whole idea of the smelter was on the go, they teamed up with the people in Placentia and Argentia and, instead of fighting with each other, what they did was prepare one proposal and they could not care less where the plant went, whether it was Long Harbour or whether it was Argentia. Right now, because of circumstances, it is going in Long Harbour.

The other area that I want to look at in terms of the major initiative of the previous Liberal government is the Transshipment Terminal in Arnold's Cove. There was a time when the oil companies and people were looking at taking this particular Transshipment Terminal and putting it in Nova Scotia, but the Premier of the Province at that particular time, Brian Tobin, said no way, that Transshipment Terminal is going to be in Newfoundland and Labrador. Right now, we have a great deal of people, a great number of people, working in Arnold's Cove at the Transshipment Terminal.

Mr. Speaker, this government today can stand in the House of Assembly and say not only that it has a balanced Budget, but it has a surplus. The reason why, Mr. Speaker, is because of the great leadership of the previous governments in terms of the great initiatives and the great projects that were initiated by the previous Liberal government.

If you were to do a report card today, the only thing this government has done is to close down facilities within Newfoundland and Labrador. They have not opened one facility. They have not started one job since they were elected. This government has been a dismal failure in terms of what is happening right now.

As a matter of fact, the only thing that we can see this government, the great innovative things they do, is to spend $23,152.92 on a limousine service for the Premier and ministers in Ireland. That is their great initiative that this government has been a part of, for the last year or so, going to Ireland to celebrate the jubilee in Ireland and spending all of this money on a limousine service, and the people of Long Harbour, the people of Fair Haven, the people of Bellevue, do not have roads to travel on. They cannot go on the limousine service -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. Member for Bellevue that his speaking time has lapsed.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, there will be plenty of opportunities to further participate. I am sure that this Budget debate is not finished, and I will be very proud to stand and vote against this Budget.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: Mr. Speaker, I am getting an opportunity to get up for the first time to speak about the Budget, but I cannot go into my spiel until I address some of the comments of the hon. Member for Bellevue, to get up first and say that he is not voting for the Budget, very proud to say that he is not voting for the Budget, and then to bring us down memory lane back to the 1960s, to go back over the 1960s, and then jump to the 1990s and talk about what a wonderful time, under the Liberal regime, this Province went through.

I say to you, Mr. Speaker, when we took over this government in 2003 we were $11 billion in long-term debt because of that trip down memory lane. So, I say to you, where is he coming from? How he could get up on his feet and talk about how wonderful the 1990s were, and how that Liberal Administration did so well with free tuition which, I might add - not free tuition, but I guess a tuition freeze. What he did not say was that through the 1990s the post-secondary students of this Province incurred the largest debts ever in post-secondary in this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: You compare it across this nation, Mr. Speaker, we were the highest across the nation. Yet, this person gets up and talks about a tuition freeze in the twilight days of that Administration - a 250 per cent increase from the 1990s up until 2000; 250 per cent. No wonder they stood up and said we have to freeze tuition. They had on choice, it was through the roof, but I say to you, Mr. Speaker, not only - and just let's stay on post-secondary. The deferred maintenance through the 1990s in our post-secondary institutions, all you have to do is just go down Prince Philip Drive and look over at the College of the North Atlantic. I guess it was built in the 1960s - what a fantastic facility - and over the 1970s and into the 1990s it did perform very, very well; but, again, when it came to the 1990s, what was cut out? In 1996, we had the post-secondary fund cleaned out federally. The feds kind of backed off. Not only did they back off, but the Liberal Administration at the time backed off as well, and their response, their response to the piling amount of money that was needed to keep these facilities going, what did they do, Mr. Speaker? They went out and they started to close our colleges. Not only did they close our colleges, but they closed the skills training. How many times have we heard, as members: What happened to the skills training?

This member gets up today and talks about: Well, what are we going to do? We don't have skilled workers. Why? Because again in the 1990s, the skills training that was so prevalent back when this member evidently graduated in 1966, it was gutted.

I say, Mr. Speaker, it is quite obvious to me that members can be blinded, as this member from Bellevue is blinded, as to the significance of this Budget that was presented by this government a little over a month ago.

I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that I have been in politics now since 1999 but I have lived in this Province for close to over half a century and let me say, Mr. Speaker, that I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly. I really have seen the good, the bad and the ugly, and more ugly, I say, in the 1990s than I am seeing right now. Ugly in the sense of an Administration that allowed the finances of this Province to fall into disrepair. Again, in 2003 when this current government took over, what a task we had. What a task to look at, again, over $11 billion in long-term debt and close to $1 billion in current account.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you, we were not phased by that. We dug our heels in, and under the leadership of our Premier, under the leadership of a Cabinet with the support of caucus, we turned that around. We turned it around dramatically from almost a $1 billion deficit to the surplus that you see today, Mr. Speaker. We are talking about a surplus of over $200 million. Again, Mr. Speaker, it was not easy. Some very hard decisions had to be made, but decisions we did make, and now three budgets of consecutive surpluses tells us, Mr. Speaker, that we did make the right decisions and that we are moving.

Again, I get back to the Member for Bellevue who says, quite categorically, Mr. Speaker: Not going to vote for this Budget. This Budget is no good to rural Newfoundland, to urban Newfoundland, to any part of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I say, Mr. Speaker, that is a person who is blinded, because anyone, all they need do is pick up the document, go through it, and there are a lot of very, very positive initiatives there that we can look at.

Let me just go through some of them, Mr. Speaker, because it deserves repeating. No matter how many times we say it on this side of the House, it is not getting through to the other side because, again, blinded; blinded by the best Budget that this Province has seen since Confederation, I say to you, Mr. Speaker.

Let me just go down through it very strategically, I say, Mr. Speaker, because I cannot, in twenty minutes, even come close to telling the people of Newfoundland, or reminding the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, what a tremendous Budget this is.

Again, the largest tax reduction in the history of this Province, Mr. Speaker, again putting money back in the pockets of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, so that they can take that money and use it for their benefit and the benefit of this Province. The total value of this personal income measure is in the form of $155 million, Mr. Speaker. That is significant money that is going back into the pockets of people so that they can take that money and improve their quality of life, Mr. Speaker.

Just going through it, on the business side, it is important that we realize that we must continue to grow our economy. What better way than through our Department of Business. We look at, Mr. Speaker, $25 million as a new business attraction fund. We look at $7 billion for a business (inaudible); again, money that is there, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that we have every opportunity to grow economically, to promote business, to increase the business opportunities, to attract investors to this particular Province.

Again, I go back to the Member for Bellevue talking about infrastructure, Mr. Speaker, saying that this is not done or that is not done or whatever. I say to him and to others, Mr. Speaker, that this government over the next six years is putting $2 billion into our infrastructure. What does that mean? Does it mean that we can do everything instantly? I say not, Mr. Speaker, but I would say to you that in the last almost four years that this government has picked up the slack that was created in that other administration on the other side.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: I tell you, Mr. Speaker, when I say slack I mean slack; deferred maintenance, roads - in one year I think they put $6 million into roads. Then the former Minister of Transportation up on his feet and complaining about a road not done in Long Harbour! It was under his watch that these roads could have been done and they weren't done. Why? I would have to ask him. He would have to explain that.

This government, in this year, are looking at putting in something to the tune - I answer these queries from the other side - of $166 million in roads. Compare that, I say to the hon. members; $6 million one particular year. Out of that $166 million, $66.5 million for a provincial roads improvement program; $17 million for construction of Phase III of the Trans-Labrador Highway and $15 million for the sealed surface on the Trans-Labrador Highway; $166 million, Mr. Speaker.

Again, infrastructure: In 1989, the former Conservative government had a vessel replacement strategy that was scrapped, Mr. Speaker, when the need for ferries - I won't tell you what the previous administration did. They searched the world until they could find the worse rust bucket they could get, hauled it back to Newfoundland, and I don't even know how much it cost.

MR. FITZGERALD: Eleven million dollars.

MR. HEDDERSON: Eleven million dollars. That was their vessel replacement strategy. Well, let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that this government is picking up where that previous Conservative government left off. This year alone, $15 million under Vessel Replacement Strategy for two new ferry vessels, and an additional $1.3 million for a total $16.3 million to refit government-owned ferry vessels.

I say to you, Mr. Speaker, infrastructure, a very important part, not only for the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador, but again to attract business and to go forward.

MR. JOYCE: Sit down.

MR. HEDDERSON: I am not going to sit down, I say to the Member for Bay of Islands. I am going to stand up here for as long as I can stand up to remind the people of Newfoundland and Labrador what a government we have -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: - and what a Budget we have. I am not going to listen to the negativism from that side. I am not going to give into that. Like I said, I would be very much surprise that any of you can get up because you will have your heads down if you are voting against this Budget.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HEDDERSON: Just to branch off a little into my ministry as well, under the infrastructure, again, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, when it comes to tourism, when it comes to culture and heritage, I am very proud to say that this Province is very much in tune with where we should be going in those areas. Under that, we have $2.8 million for improvements and construction of various tourism and cultural sites such as our Visitor Information Centres in Port aux Basques and in Whitbourne, a number, not all, of our provincial historic sites, our arts and culture centres and, of course, the Corner Brook Museum. I am telling you, it is very important that we do put the funds in, because again, these buildings need to be kept up in order to provide the services that are required.

In agriculture, $16 million - I am just going through the book here. I tell you, as much as I am putting in or sending out to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, I am leaving a lot out. Again, I depend on the members on this side to get up and remind the people of Newfoundland and Labrador of the significance of this Budget in 2007.

Our Provincial Energy Plan, Mr. Speaker - of course, again it is so, so important that we move forward in a progressive way, in a modern way, with a clear understanding of where we should be in years to come. We are not talking next month or even next year, we are talking about -

MR. JOYCE: Sit down.

MR. HEDDERSON: On energy, I must say to the Member for the Bay of Islands, I have lots of it and I have lots of time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: Let me tell you, you are not going to wear me down in any shape or form.

MR. JOYCE: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the Member for the Bay of Islands for his co-operation. Every member has a right to speak in this House and I ask the Member for the Bay of Islands for his co-operation and not be interrupting when a speaker has been identified by the Chair.

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

MR. JOYCE: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bay of Islands on a point of order.

MR. JOYCE: Mr. Speaker, as I am saying things back and forth in the House - and it is common in this House of Assembly and the member did mention that I was saying stuff - it was for the speech. I just ask for you to consider, Mr. Speaker, that when I spoke last week on a point of order - you have to hear me out. Before you try to jump up now, you have to hear me out.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

I say to the hon Member for Bay of Islands, that it is not his right to question a decision of the Chair. The Chair plainly heard the member interrupting. It has been happening on a continual basis, and I implore the member for his co-operation.

MR. PARSONS: Point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. PARSONS: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Again, as Opposition House Leader here, I think we show the utmost respect for the Chair and for this House. To treat, I believe, a member so abruptly - and you have not even made a ruling that he did not have a point of order - I do not think that is appropriate. We all are here to show due respect for the institution and for the people who fill the institution. I think this member has a right, like anybody else in this House, to state his point. It is absolutely then your prerogative to decide whether he does or does not have a point of order. I think it is inappropriate for any member of this House to be sat down without having a reasonable opportunity to make their point.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

To that point of order, the Chair listened to the hon. the Member for Bay of Islands. If a member is going to make a point of order, the point of order should be concise and to the point, and it was not. The member referred back to a decision, something that happened at another time in this House, and that is why the Speaker rose on that point of order and said that there was no point of order, or at least he is ruling now.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: Mr. Speaker, no matter what they say I bounce back up and get right back into the energy. I am here. I am here.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: No one on that side is going to shut me up, I say, Mr. Speaker, no one there, not when I have good news because this Budget is full of good news. You see, they do not want to hear good news on that side, they do not want to hear it. They are going to hear it, regardless, and good news. Again, I have to remind the members on the other side, I guess, what they are voting against. Reference was made by the Member for Bellevue about education, well I tell you, Mr. Speaker, this year, for the first time in our history, we have passed the $1 billion mark in education. I tell you, $1 billion that is going to be spent -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: - it is going to be spent, Mr. Speaker, in ways to address. Someone also mentioned that we are not listening and we are not responding. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, I have been in the education field for too many years perhaps, as a student, as a teacher, as a parent and let me tell you, I have seen a lot of budgets come, I have seen a lot of budgets go, but I tell you the budget in education and the direction that we are going in is second to none, and it is really setting the stage.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, $41 million into the K-12 system? One billion overall and an increase of $14.8 million for new school construction; $5.2 million to retain. I mention the word retain, Mr. Speaker, because we are talking about holding on to 137 teaching positions. Again, this is the second year in a row that we have retained the teachers in the system. Again, as we move forward as well in the wings or shortly thereafter, we will have a revitalization of the formula for the allocation of teachers and as well, the ISSP system.

I will continue on. Mr. Speaker, I know as a teacher in the system, when the students would hit Grade 9 they would have to shell out a fair dollar for their books. These books over the years increased ever so much and there were some subsidies to try and alleviate the price of it. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, that this in one full scoop this year, this government has seen fit to provide free textbooks for the K-12 system. That is a tremendous investment of $12.8 million. What an opportunity now to allow our students to have the textbooks that they have in good shape and ready to move forward.

Again, Mr. Speaker, on the post-secondary side, and it is important. Post-secondary is important as we look at making sure that not only do we have the buildings but the programs, and we continue our support for post-secondary. With regard to funding, $20.4 million for Memorial. That is a total investment - $15.3 million for a new academic building in Sir Wilfred Grenfell and also to look at the construction of two new residences, one in Corner Brook and one in St. John's. This is a rural Province and student residences are so important to, again, encourage our students to move to these areas to avail of the residence and then to go forward.

The tuition freeze, Mr. Speaker, maintained yet again, both at Memorial and the College of the North Atlantic. Since this government has taken over in 2003, we have made tremendous gains with regard to student debt, and more so, the student loan program. I remember when we first took government this previous Administration had left something dangling. For some reason they did not move forward when they could have. They could have made it six months or a year beforehand. They never moved forward on bringing together both our federal and our provincial loan programs. We did it immediately. Even though it did cost us something like $100 million to buy out the loans, we did do it forward.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation that his time for speaking has expired.

MR. HEDDERSON: Just a minute to clue up?

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

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member by leave.

MR. HEDDERSON: In cluing up, Mr. Speaker, it is just, I guess, signing off for the present because with this Budget I did not get even one-third of the way through to talk about the excellent way in which this government has managed its finances and not only managed it in the short term, but did some very, very positive things for the long term.

I will leave it at that, Mr. Speaker, and again, I guess, stay tuned.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate an opportunity to speak on the Budget here. I have twenty minutes. I guess we have had some discussions here. The minister alluded to, just before me, about whether you would or you would not vote for the Budget or speak in favour of it or against it. For the record, I will be voting against it. Not only will I be voting against it, before I sit down and my twenty minutes is up, I am going to move a motion of non-confidence to prove exactly how I feel about it. So, there will not be any question about where I stand or do not stand. I will move the amendment of non-confidence in this government based upon this motion. That is exactly where we are going to go.

I noticed the minister too, he talked about: Oh, how could you vote against a budget that is so good? Of course, that is history. That is tradition, folks. Anybody in the history of legislative assemblies knows - the Government House Leader is over there. The Government House Leader sat on this side of the House and he knew there were budgets that had good pieces in it, but you stake on principle. You disagree with it, and you are not a bad person because you vote against it. You guys can get up and rail all you want: You are not voting for tax cuts, you are not voting for this and you are not voting for a new ferry program, you must be bad people. That is not the way it works. To vote against the government is not necessarily saying you do not agree with the good stuff that is being done. Who would ever vote against something that is good for anybody? What you do in your legislative role here is point out to the people that it is not the be-all and end-all. Yes, there are some good things in it but there are a lot of things missing because if they were not missing, and if we did not need anything to be done in the future we would not need governments. That is what it is all about. So that is not lost on the public, that you are entitled to cast your opinion and you are not a bad person, you are voting against it. Some of the fees you cut, I like it, but you did not cut enough. I am disappointed. So what am I supposed to do, vote for it even though I disagree that you did not go far enough? Absolutely not! That is foolishness. That is not the way the system works.

Anyway, I have a few points. I am going to get a chance again to speak on the Budget later on, the non-confidence motion and so on, but, anyway, I have a few comments. By the way, people do listen to this. I was in Burgeo a couple of weeks ago to the high school graduation. I ran into a young lady, a good supporter of mine actually, Theresa, she said: I hope you are back in the House again on Monday because dad cannot wait for the TV to come on at 1:30 p.m. on Monday. Dad, by the way folks, is a gentleman by the name of Jack Simms. Jack Simms, eighty-two-years of age and not only does he follow it, he follows it religiously and he wants to make sure that he understands the process. I say good afternoon to Mr. Simms and stay tuned because your member is going to have a few words now on this Budget and hopefully explain some of the things about it he does not like.

Before I do, Grand Bruit, and I say to the Minister of Education, I spoke earlier in the session on supply and I pointed out this fiasco, is the only way you could describe it, whereas the good folks in Grand Bruit are not allowed to use their school - which, by the way, is no longer a school after school closes this year because they are ceasing to have a school. They cannot use that building for their Come Home Year. By the way, I said to the minister last week, I asked her to get involved and I say now to the residents of Grand Bruit, I have not heard from the minister. I have had no intervention from the Minister of Education, despite my asking her. This is a really major issue, I am sure, that the minister cannot attend to this.

I say, as well, to the folks who run the school board in Western Newfoundland, Dr. Elliott, and the lady who wrote the letter to the people of Grand Bruit, your time has run out. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves when you cannot give some answer to a simple question like this to people who are having a Come Home Year in Grand Bruit.

Anyway, this is my volley. We will continue this volley in another public forum because this needs to be and will be resolved, one way or another. It is time to get off your duffs and get it dealt with. Even the courtesy of a response would be appreciated. It is absolutely unacceptable that the people in positions of administration in this Province cannot respond to concerned inquiries. It is not rocket science. It is called courtesy.

Anyway, moving on to the Budget, the document that sparked my attention, by the way, not only the Budget itself, and all the details filled with all kinds of figures and facts and different departments have different things - we went through the Estimates here, where we see where you are spending money, or what the money was spent on. For example, when I questioned, in the Estimates, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, we had some really good discussions. Dr. Feelgood, of course, who runs a limousine service in Ottawa, Dr. Fitzgerald, he runs a limousine service for the Province of Newfoundland. It costs you half a million bucks, folks.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: I say to the Minister of Transportation and Works, maybe the Member for Torngat used it, and maybe MP Simms used it, but this member here will not be using it. I think it is an absolute waste of money - absolutely a waste of money - and there is no need for it. In fact, putting politics aside, if I were an MP in this country, just follow the thought process on this -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. PARSONS: - an MP who was elected in this Province, who needs to ask a provincially-appointed emissary if you can open a door for him in Ottawa, there is something wrong with that. There is something wrong with that, folks, and I don't care if it is Mr. Simms or who it is. The bottom line is, you should not have to do it. If I am an MP, elected to represent the people, and I cannot get any doors in Ottawa opened, I have a problem.

That is what I say to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, when he flashes around the letter for MP Simms. No problem, I will say it to Mr. Simms when I see him. Absolute foolishness, and unnecessary, and I say the same to the Member for Torngat. He is in a different situation, by the way, because he is not a federal MP, so I can see he is a different case again, if he has to go somewhere to get a door opened.

The other things we talked about with the Minister of Intergovernmental Affair, fur coats and stuff, that was a nice one. Eight thousand dollars we paid out, folks. I mean, Mr. Simms now sitting in Burgeo must be having some laugh to himself. Can you imagine, that we paid $8,000 of taxpayers' money so that the Premier of this Province could buy two fur coats to give to Ralph Klein and his wife? Now, put that in your oil tank, Mr. Simms. That does not buy much oil for you, does it? That is how down to earth this is, folks. That is when you look at this Budget and you see things that have been spent, and you ask why we would vote against such foolishness? Expenditures that we have had, and expenditures that we may be contemplating. That is why some people need to have some common sense here and say no, we do not agree with everything that you are saying here, absolutely not. Yet, to be chided because you actually said that and you disagree with it.

One of the books that accompanied the Budget, by the way, is this one right here. I assume this is not a prop. It is a document that was tabled in this Legislature, so I would think it does not constitute a prop under the rules, but some of the words on it are certainly misleading. One of the words says: vision. We are going to come back to that, vision. That is a pretty strong word, somebody is a visionary, a pretty strong word.

When you open this book, folks, when you open this book and you go inside, there is a section there that starts on page 35 and it says, "Inventory of Major Capital Projects". This book, by the way, is put together to have you believe, folks, in the public, that this government over here caused all of this, that they are responsible for and should get credit for all of what is in here.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. PARSONS: The Minister of Transportation and Works is clapping. Well, I am going to show the Minister of Transportation and Works now just how misplaced his clapping is, because we are going to go through this book.

The total in this book says that in this Province right now - it says, "Inventory of Major Capital Project". Just so people understand capital projects, it is not a fancy term. All it means is work that is ongoing, something that is being built or being constructed. So, the question is: Where is it happening in the Province? What is being built where?

These people would have you believe, of course, as part of their Budget, that they did all of this and they are doing all of this. Well, I am going to start with one statistic first of all. You talk about how facts are so important, and figures. The total of the value of capital projects ongoing in this Province according to this document is $8.4 billion - total, $8.4 billion - but guess what folks? I went through line by line in this book, the visionary book, and did the total, and $7.2 billion of that $8.4 billion this government has absolutely nothing to do with, not a cent. Not a cent. There are three groups that are responsible for the figures in this book, three figures, three people. One is the provincial government, the second one is the federal government, and thirdly is private business interest. That is who does all this work, three groups.

I am looking at people over there on the other side right now - you cannot see them in TV land - but as I am looking at them their jaws have hit their desks because they actually believe, too -

AN HON. MEMBER: The Member for Mount Pearl is one.

MR. PARSONS: The Member for Mount Pearl, for example, is awestruck. The Member for Mount Pearl actually thought that Premier Williams and his crowd were responsible for all of this.

Meanwhile, let's take this a little further, by the way, because I am sure - I am not lecturing here. I get accused of lecturing, but I would rather think that I am educating. God knows, there is a little bit of education needed over there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MADAM SPEAKER (S. Osborne): Order, please!

MR. PARSONS: Because we all go out on the hustings, folks, and we all explain the message in our own ways to our own people.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MADAM SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. PARSONS: We have to make sure that we are telling the truth in those messages.

MADAM SPEAKER: I ask the hon. members to my left to please maintain order.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Madam Speaker, I appreciate your protection.

Let's go back, because a lot of people never picked up on those figures. Let's make sure we have the right figures in mind, and I challenge anybody over there, or in the Department of Finance, to bring forward information or facts saying that what I am saying here now is not accurate. That is a challenge, either one of you.

The fact is, you put out a booklet talking about capital projects of $8.4 million - actually, it is $8,368,000,000. I rounded it up for you, gave you the benefit, $8.4 million. The truth is that your government, this government, only is involved in $1.1 million. Can you imagine, $1.1 million? What is the percentage of that? In order words, something that you are trying to take credit for, you have absolutely nothing to do with 85 per cent of it. How is that for a spin as a government, I say to the Member for Mount Pearl, I say to the Minister of Tourism and Recreation, who was up here shooing off about oh, we are doing this, we are doing that, and we have done all of this?

We are going to take this to another level. Now that I have pointed out the general fallacy of your vision - somebody else might have had a vision. There are a lot of entrepreneurs in this Province who have vision, a lot of them, and I am going to point out some of them. It has nothing to do with your guidance, nothing to do with your help, nothing to do with your assistance, nothing to do with your vision; nothing. We are going to go through it and pick out a few of them.

One here is in the Member for Gander's district, the Minister of Business. This is on page thirty-six by the way. Car dealership, $1 million. Construction of a new Ford dealership. Now, buddy, that is a pretty good one. I wonder what government has to do with putting a Ford dealership in Gander. I wonder what you have to do with that one. That is a pretty good one.

Another one here, page thirty-six again, folks. Now, this is what your government, people, your government in this Province, is out telling you, that they are doing all of this stuff. Now you ask yourself - I say to Mr. Simms down in Burgeo, I say to you, Mr. Simms, look at this one, Mr. Simms: Construction of a Shopper's Drug Mart pharmacy and medical clinic at the former Newfoundland Margarine site, St. John's, $2 million. Now, I wonder what department of this government is putting a Shopper's building down in the Newfoundland Margarine building. I wonder? That is great stuff to be out touting in your book of vision.

Let's take another one now, the Redevelopment of Memorial Stadium. These are big chunks of money, folks, big chunks of money - $20 million that Loblaws, I believe it is, have decided to put into the redesign and the redevelopment of Memorial Stadium. We have a government with the audacity, the gall, to put it in a book of their vision that they are adding to the capital structures of this Province.

Anyway, folks, I am at my fifteen-minute mark, as I understand it, in my twenty-minute speech, but we have to come back to this, because I am not even at the proverbial tip of the iceberg yet. the sad part of this is I am only going to get to speak about twice more on the Budget. Can you imagine where we are going to go before we are finished with this? I wish I could speak for twenty-four hours straight.

At this point, Mr. Speaker, as the Member for Burgeo & LaPoile, I would like to move a non–confidence motion in this Budget, seconded by the Member for Twillingate & Fogo. I move that all the words after the word, that, be struck out and replaced with the following, "this House condemns the government for its failure to deal with the economic problems of rural areas of this Province and bring forward a plan that generates sustainable economic growth that builds on projects developed by previous administrations."

Madam Chair, I have had the document read by the Table Officers, I understand that it is in order, and if it is, I so move this non-confidence motion in this Budget.

MADAM SPEAKER: Yes.

MR. DENINE: (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: I say to the Member for Mount Pearl, maybe if you were listening, which you are not apt to do, you would have seen and heard that I said it was seconded by the Member for Twillingate& Fogo.

MADAM SPEAKER: I understand that the Table Officers have reviewed-

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MADAM SPEAKER: Order, please!

I understand that the Table Officers have reviewed the motion and it is deemed to be in order.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: I say to the Government House Leader, I certainly do want my time. In fact, I might be running out of time sooner than I anticipated.

Anyway, I get an opportunity sooner than I think to continue with the book of vision. This is the book of vision I am going to call it. There is, according to my calculation, $7.2 billion worth of vision in this Province by someone other than this government. Can you imagine the gall, the unmitigated gall, to suggest that we in some way had something to do with this capital works project. By the way, folks, anybody knows that these things just are not figures on paper. These are not just figures on paper, a supermarket being built for $2 million, a car dealership for $1 million. Those things translate into jobs, and that is where I am going with this, because this talks about jobs. This keeps people employed in this Province. Instead of having private charters taking people from here to Fort McMurray every week these projects put people to work in this Province, so they are here with their families living here, paying their taxes and probably much more contented than if they have to be travelling away to work.

This translates into jobs but, you see, the way this government operates, the spin on this, is we put this in our book of vision therefore we get credit for having done this, therefore we get credit for all the jobs that are associated with it. See, folks, that is where spin comes from. That is called the spin of a government. A government typically is in charge of the propaganda machine; what messages they send out. Anybody, for example, who has a Web site, this government has put out enough ministerial statements and press conferences and briefings in the last three years that it could have kept Stephenville mill going. There is enough paper turned out by this Administration that Stephenville could have been going full tilt; absolutely no need to shut it down. Then again, I digress. I will not get into Stephenville because we know what happened to that. That is another visionary move of this government. I will come back to that in another speech.

L et me continue on with the book of vision. I have done the supermarket. By the way, there is another pharmacy in Gander again. I am really looking forward - I am sure the Member for Gander is going to be out on the soapbox taking credit for this one.

MR. REID: He doesn't own it, does he?

MR. PARSONS: Maybe he owns it himself, I do not know. There is another pharmacy in Gander called a pharmacy box store. I do not know what the government had to do there.

This is another good one. The Member for Mount Pearl would like this one. I am sure he played a role in this. Bilroc Industries Limited - construction of a new building to house operating divisions in Mount Pearl. It is done by the Town of Mount Pearl. I am sure this government had a lot to do with that.

Reardon Construction and Development Ltd. - construction of a six lot commercial development, St. John's, $3 million. That is good. I am sure you people over there created the right economic circumstances for Mr. Reardon to go ahead and do this; no doubt about it. I am sure you put money into it.

Look at this one. This is really good. The Member for Placentia & St. Mary's, I guess is the proper name, this is a great one. This is something that his Premier, his government, I am sure, are touting to the high heavens that they played a role in and are contributing to: Environmental remediation of the former U.S. Navel Base in Argentia, $106 million.

MR. REID: Where is the money coming from. Federal government, is it?

MR. PARSONS: Absolutely federal funds. Not a penney from this government gone into that, and yet this government is going to take credit for it. Oh, we are good guys because we put that in our book. That is our book of vision. That is a good one.

Another one here, and get this one, folks. You want to talk about big numbers and what they mean in terms of employment. Refinery Upgrades, page 37. North Atlantic Refinery Ltd. - ongoing productivity, environmental and safety improvement including reducing sulphur dioxide emissions - $650 million. Can you imagine, $650 million that North Atlantic Refinery - now, I don't believe this government has any equity in North Atlantic Refinery, I don't think this government owns one penny of North Atlantic, but yet this government is going to take credit for $650 million in the North Atlantic Refinery. My! My! Shame on you!

This is a good one too. You talk about credit, and you have to give credit where credit is due. This government did play a role, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture did play a role here. Aquaculture Development, "Cooke Aquaculture Inc. - aquaculture development including a salmon farming operation, the necessary infrastructure for a processing plant, equipment and trucking." This Province put $10 million into that, and that is good. This Province put $10 million into that. The federal government put $10.5 million into this. Guess what the total project was, guys? You want to talk about who put their money where their mouth is and whose initiative it was - Cooke Aquaculture Inc., this project cost $155 million. Now, this government is taking credit: Oh, we are the great entrepreneurs of aquaculture development in this Province. That is a good one.

Now, we know somewhere they do put money, by the way. Everybody in Newfoundland knows this. We know where $15 million smackeroos went. We know where that went, and the Auditor General is going to find out soon enough how it went there. That was in the fibre deal. We know what happened there. We know where $15 million went away. By the way, folks, I think $10 million or $11 million of that is in this Budget. That is out the door. That was a great expenditure too. We are going to vote for that! I am going to be the first one on my feet voting to give that consortium or the fibre deal $10 million this year! You can bet on it.

I look forward to the Government House Leader and the crowd on the other side calling Division went it comes to the Budget vote. You have no worries about this character here, where he is going to be and where he is going to stand, when it comes to putting $15 million into fibre. I spent the last four or five months (inaudible) about fibre. I have heard so much about fibre we are all getting bound up.

Another one here, Corner Brook Pulp and Paper, I do not know when we took an equity share in that outfit, Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Limited. Paper mill expenditures, $19 million, not a cent of government money. Abitibi-Consolidated, expenditures include asset maintenance, forest access roads, bridge building, and $3.5 million in capital upgrades at Grand Falls-Windsor, a total of $6 million, Abitibi-Consolidated. I do not know that we own any shares in that company either. I know we did them a great disservice when we shut down Stephenville on them, or put them in a predicament where they shut down. We did not do much out there.

There is one here, I have to say, and again I keep coming back because I think probably one of the districts, other than Torngat, which is the greatest beneficiary - and the provincial Treasury, of course, which is the ultimate beneficiary of Voisey's Bay. There are two specific districts in this Province that benefitted great, big time, in terms of employment, on-the-ground returns, seeable returns, and that was Placentia & St. Mary's and the District of Torngat.

I refer you to page 40. You have to see this, folks, because seeing is believing. Now, in this book of vision, on page 40, mid page, they talk about the great major capital projects in this Province. Get this. Out of a budget of $8.3 billion, $8.4 billion, $2.9 billion is from Voisey's Bay. Can you imagine? You only have a budget of $8.4 billion - and this is the project, by the way, which this Premier, he was sat right over here on June 20, 2002, he was stood right here, as Leader of the Opposition, brought his podium out, sat it up here. I think it was about 8:05 on a Tuesday night and said about how this was a lousy deal, and how he was going to drive trucks through it. Mack trucks were the words he used.

I sat over there and asked him a number of question. I said: Can you show me where the off-ramps are, Premier? I would really like to know where they are. I was Minister of Justice at the time, and I sat down with some pretty good lawyers in this country, engaged two major commercial corporate law firms on the mainland, the two major corporate law firms in this city - one of whom, by the way, was led by the Premier's uncle. The Premier's uncle was involved with the law firm, and I pointed that out when I spoke. I said: Premier, for God's sake, tell me. I am going to be here voting for a deal and you are up saying that there are off-ramps; you could drive a truck through it. For God's sake, tell us. We do not want to make another Upper Churchill mistake. Don't get into rhetoric. Tell me, where in this deal - which, by the way, was on the table. They had a clause-by-clause presentation of it. There was no question about what was not in the deal; it was right there. I said: Premier, can you show me where the off-ramps are? Guess what, folks? I have never, ever, to this day, from June 20, 2002 to this day, had this Premier, or anyone else, show me an off-ramp in the Voisey's Bay deal.

MR. REID: Or a loophole.

MR. PARSONS: Or a loophole, or a drive-through or anything else.

That is a pretty big statement to make. You have a number of lawyers over there. The Government House Leader is a lawyer. The Premier is a lawyer. You have the whole Department of Justice behind you. The Minister of Finance is a lawyer. The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs is a lawyer. The Member for Placentia & St. Mary's is a lawyer. I invited him: Point it out to me.

Guess what, folks? That is the kind of language that Mr. Simms in Burgeo understands. Mr. Simms understands that because he is a salt of the earth, common sense man. When somebody stands up here in this House and challenges the Premier, and all of you lawyers over there, and your legal resources, to show us over here, and show the people of this Province, where the Voisey's Bay deal is wrong, and all we hear is a deafening silence, all of a sudden people say: Ah, ha! Ah, ha! What is afoot? How come this fellow Parsons can stand up in there, be shouting these challenges across the House, and we do not get any response?

MR. BYRNE: You will.

MR. PARSONS: I look forward to them, I say to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. I hope we do get a response, but it is sort of long in coming. I have been here since June 20, 2002. That is five years, just about, and I have not heard it yet. I know the wheels of government move slowly, but they are moving backwards here.

In the meantime, by the way, the figure is so big in this book I had to look twice when I saw it, $2,900 million. Even just saying the words, $2,900 million, that is like $2.9 billion, that is what this Voisey's Bay project is putting into this Province. That deal that you cannot pick any holes in, that you cannot drive any trucks through, and you have the unmitigated gall to put it in a book here called your vision.

I do not recall that happening on your watch, guys. I do not recall that happening on your watch. I do not think that happened on this government's watch. I do not think that was any creativity by Premier Williams or any of you over there, not one of you, but this leads to another comment; because, by the way, those monies that I have alluded to here, that you have nothing to do with, this 85 per cent of the capital projects and the employment that it generates, and the taxes that it generates because these people who work here on these projects pay taxes that goes into your coffers, that is the money you are now spending. That is why we can have a bottom line Budget of whatever it is this year, $6.1 billion. That is why we can have a Budget like that, because we have projects such as this, but that is where the spin comes in again. Spin is when somebody tries to take credit for something that they had nothing to do with. I just point out Voisey's Bay as one example of that.

By the way, folks, I have no problem if anybody over there can stand up or go down to your Department of Finance and your Treasury Boards or any outside sources. I wouldn't get this EWA crowd. I saw some of the work they did. I wouldn't get the EWA crowd that you used on the fibre deal. I would challenge you: Is anything that I said here today -

MR. BYRNE: Do you question (inaudible)?

MR. PARSONS: Pardon?

MR. BYRNE: Do you question (inaudible)?

MR. PARSONS: Definitely, I say to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, I question the report that I saw tabled in this House by EWA. Absolutely, no bones about it. It was a piece of fluff. I called it a piece of fluff then, and it is a piece of fluff.

That is my position on that and there is nobody over there can prove me wrong on that one, either, I say to the minister. Because if it was, if he could, the minister of industry would have been on his feet long before now telling me he could.

That is why I issue the challenge again to you, I say to anyone over there: If anything I have said today, which is going to be in print, is not factual, not correct, by all means give me the figures, show me where I am wrong. If I, for example, have totalled this wrong, if it is not -

MR. TAYLOR: (Inaudible) interrupt you now? Do you want me to get up on a point of order?

MR. PARSONS: It is up to the minister. If the minister wants to interrupt me on a point of order, feel free. I have no problem with that. Feel free, not a problem, if you wish. Go right ahead.

MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development, on a point of order.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Madam Speaker, I ask the hon. member, while he is speaking about EWA and while he is speaking about the fibre optic deal, just run down the hall to the Hansard office, pick up his own words from this House sometime ago, outside the House in the scrum area where he said the project had merit, and where he also said that there was no smoking gun in all the papers that were released to the public, that this deal is clean.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: First of all, Madam Speaker, I agree absolutely, there is no point of order. Not only is it not a point of order, it is not correct. Absolutely not correct, I say.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. PARSONS: I say to the minister, I sat down and allowed you to make your so-called point of order. Now you should have the courtesy to listen. You shout and scream a lot and rant and rave, but part of learning is being a good listener, which you do not do much of, I say to the minister. Maybe you might have the courtesy to sit and listen. I listened to you and did not interfere. I say to the Chair, Madam Speaker, he is incorrect. Absolutely! I think anybody who has seen me in this House in the last eight years or so, I like to tell it like it is. I did say that the fibre deal - and just listen to the way this crowd will react now, folks. I did say, absolutely, that there was some merit in the fibre deal.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. PARSONS: Now, no problem - absolutely no problem in saying that. I said then, which is the part the minister - when you get into this spin thing - conveniently overlooks again, folks. I said it back then a week ago, I said it five months ago and I will say it five years from now. The process that was used to do the fibre deal was absolutely flawed. It was absolutely improper. Absolutely!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. PARSONS: That is where the minister has a problem when I say things, because he cannot believe that somebody could not only say something, but then get up and actually explain it. I can actually explain what I said. I do not need to rely upon spin for what I said. I don't need it. The day I asked the questions here he runs out and says: Oh, Mr. Parsons is in favour of this now, he never found no smoking gun. Well, folks, I will tell you one thing, there have been a few murders committed and they were not done by smoking guns. There have been a few murders committed other than with guns, I say to the minister. The fact that you did not find it does not mean it was not done. If I were to use his logic, because you never found a smoking gun, everything was perfect. I think we are going to find out when the Auditor General comes back what was perfect or imperfect about the fibre optic deal. The minister can use all the spin that he wants, the stench is in the nostrils of the public when it comes to the fibre deal.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. PARSONS: They know it, folks. They know it.

I was at a function in Burgeo and a person who knows no more about fibre than the minister, who thought it was wrapped up in duct tape -

MADAM SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that his speaking time has expired.

MR. REID: Give him a minute to finish his sentence.

MADAM SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?

MR. RIDEOUT: By leave.

MADAM SPEAKER: By leave to clue up.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I graciously acknowledge that the Government House Leader said I could have leave, but I will be back. I will not require leave right now. I appreciate your time and attention and I look forward to continuing my comments on their book of vision as we continue to debate the Budget.

Thank you.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I have been sitting here listening to a couple of folks across the way. The Opposition House Leader spoke about Mr. Jack Simms. I do not know where he is after forty minutes of that. Well, some people would say he has his TV turned off or he went and had his supper, or something, but I would imagine he found something a little bit more productive to do.

I am listening to the - I suppose you would have to call it the economic analysis that the Opposition House Leader is giving. I think governments, by their strength, would be ones who lead the economy, stimulate the economy. If I were to look at three phrases that I would use as an effective government, I would say they would be ones that would improve revenues, they would strengthen the economy and they would have a fiscal responsibility.

Take a look at it from two sides. There is the social side and the economic side. I guess if you want to take a look at a couple of examples, the Opposition House Leader talked about the investment into aquaculture. Well, all I have to say is - I will use the gentleman's name whom I know would not mind me using it, his name is Max Taylor. He is a fellow who has lived in the District of Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune for about forty years in a community called Boxey. I was speaking to him a couple of months ago and his words were, he has never seen such a busy time in the area for the last thirty, thirty-five or forty years. To me -

MR. REID: Who said that? Boxey?

MR. JACKMAN: Yes, Boxey, Belleoram area, and the mans name is Max Taylor.

The investment, and the aquaculture investment that is supported by this government and the federal government has proven that you are being a leader in the community up there. That is certainly not happening in around St. John's anywhere. That is in rural Newfoundland on the south coast, whereby we see a future that is going to be a very positive one and a rich one with aquaculture being the lead industry in the area. That, to me, is a major investment, one that will be very, very successful and that the people of the area will say: Well, governments were leaders in that and as a result of it, we have employment in our area. When a gentleman like him talks about people constructing houses, putting up apartments for rent, I mean that tells you it is a good investment and somebody had to have the insight and the leadership to partner with somebody such as Cooke's to see this progress.

Madam Speaker, I suppose we could stand here - and when the Opposition House Leader got up first he said he felt that jaws just dropped and they struck the floor over here. I can certainly tell you that mine was not one of them. I can tell you that for all the rest of the members over here, there were not many jaws that struck. They did not strike the floor, I can tell you that. If the cameras could only take a look at us, what we are doing at that particular time, I think we were kind of having a little chuckle at what the Opposition House Leader had to say, because all we have to do is go down through all the Budget announcements that have been made here and we have no problem standing up on this side defending it.

I have absolutely no problem going out to my district and speaking to students and seniors, and people who have had a tough time with the health care. I will use one specific example, and again, I know this lady will not mind. She is an MS patient who for years and years and years had been looking for financial support that would offset the cost of her MS drugs. This year she has it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: I can tell you, Madam Speaker, there is no one happier than that lady is because prior to this, every bit of investment that they had saved up they would have to use before they would get any support. That has changed and that is a very positive change for a lady - such as the lady that I am speaking about.

Then when I hear the Opposition saying they are going to get up and they are going to vote against it. Well, they may have the merit to some of the things they say, but when they vote against this Budget they are voting against Poverty Reduction Strategy now totaling $92 million. They are voting against an education budget that is $1 billion. They are voting against a drug plan that would see MS drugs now covered, or something different. They would be voting against the new enhanced, improved, student loan system. They would be voting against a reduction in income tax and a $2.2 billion investment in health.

So, as Mr. Jack Simms and others sit around watching their televisions and listening to the Opposition House Leader and the argument that he is putting forth, what I would ask the people of the Province is: From a social side, are people in this Province better off now than they were in 2003?

I can tell you that all I have to do is go to the Tim Horton's coffee shop in Marystown and you will hear it. One of the comments was: Don't know if there will be any Liberals standing after this election.

These are the kinds of things and, Madam Speaker, I thought what I would do for a few minutes is to run through some of the things and highlight some of the initiatives that are being undertaken in this Budget.

One of the things that we have taken a look to do, is to look at the R and D side, the research and development. If we are going to be leaders in the country and internationally, we have to do that. As a result, we are putting in $300,000 to develop a Research and Development Council. One of the speakers earlier, I think it was the Member for Bellevue, mentioned the resource of the future, one of the most important resources of our Province, that being our youth. I would like to just comment on that, if I could, just for one minute, kind of in the context of the R and D, the research and development.

I met with a group of students in Marystown Central High this Friday past. They are a group of students who are applying as a J8; J8 being a group that is looking to possibly go to where the G8 leaders meet.

Now, if you want to talk about a Budget that says vision, these are the kinds of people you want to sit down with. These are not people, these are not students who live in the past. These are people who see the future. Not only do they see the future, they see a global context. Sometimes a lot of us are very confined in our thinking to our Province, but these are young people who take a look at our place as a Province within the international community, and they are people who look to finding solutions to problems, not only in our Province but in places such as Africa. They have that broader, broader context, and when the Member for Bellevue talks about these people being the resource of our Province, the youth and the future of our Province, he is exactly right, but I think the difference in them and some of the people we see across the way is that they see a different future and their vision is much different from what we would have seen in the past.

Madam Speaker, we recognize the resource side to our Province, the forestry, and we are putting forth a sustainable development act. What that basically does is, we have to go out and governments, through the environmental side, have to speak with industry so that we can sustain our resources into the future. The key word to sustainable development is balance. For this year, we are putting nearly $1 million into two ventures. One that we are putting it into is the development of a sustainable act and the development of a round table. What that will do, Madam Speaker, is, we will bring together experts in the field who will roll out the plan as to how we can gain the benefits of our resources while still maintaining them; and, secondly, to put in the research side of it through the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Science so that we will ensure, well into the future, that our forests are maintained, our trees are maintained, our fish are maintained, and so on and so forth.

Another investment through my department, Madam Speaker, relates to the caribou. The year before last we committed $3 million to investigating what is happening to our caribou. It is a valued resource from the outdoor type of lifestyle that Newfoundlanders so much appreciate, and it is also a food resource, recognizing that our caribou are struggling, but not only are the caribou in our Province struggling, Madam Speaker, but caribou nationally. I read an article recently from a northern magazine that is seeing their caribou reducing in numbers. Therefore, we have invested, in this coming year, whereby we are going to try a pilot predation strategy to work with the outfitters and the resident hunters and trappers to see if we can stabilize our caribou population. We know how important that is, and therefore we have invested $650,000 into that venture, along with another $330,000 to continue to carry out studies. So, Madam Speaker, over the course of the last three years we will have invested $4 million in research related to caribou, to do what we can to eradicate the decline in some of their population.

Likewise, we have invested in one of the treasured resources in our Province, that being our parks. I think the people of our Province, and people nationally who have come and visited our parks, recognize what a gem we have. Some of our parks, like the Salmonier Nature Park, these are ones this year that we have seen the fee reduction so that there are no charges for people to go to these parks any longer. We are encouraging people to get more and more and more out into the parks.

In terms of our own provincial parks, last year we had, up to that point, committed $3 million to the revamping and the renewal of our parks within the Province. This year we have added an additional $1 million to that, so the number, right at this point, for our strategy to renew our parks is $4 million.

Madam Speaker, we have seen that our parks for a number of years were let to go by the wayside. As I travelled around last year and met with some of the staff of our parks, I do not think there is a group of individuals around in our Province who take more pride in the jobs that they do and in the service that they provide than the people who work in our parks, but they recognize and put forward the case that we needed some work done on our parks and, as a result, the major investment into that.

Now, there has been some talk about the reservation system, but I think it is important that we recognize how successful it has been. In the first short while, within the first week-and-a-half or so of putting that system on-line and through the telephone system, we had 2,060 bookings. That was all within the first week. We should recognize, and this is something that the Opposition have been talking about, the Montreal thing, well, 80 per cent of those reservations were made on-line, and that is an important point. At this particular time this reservation system can allow people to go into this system, they can go right into the park, they can even navigate their way through the parks to pick out their site, and when they arrive there, there is no such thing as rolling up to the gate and hoping that you are going to be in there. You have your campsite registered, reserved, and you know that it is there for you. This is an enhanced system and with the money that we are investing in our parks this year, we are kind of catering to a different type of clientele.

I have said it in here before, that the clientele that is in our parks right now compared to what was there twenty or twenty-five years ago is a totally different clientele. We have bigger trailers that people are towing around with them now. We even need to venture into setting up more electrical hookups so that we provide for that particular clientele, and that is something that we are doing within our provincial parks and through our department.

Another thing, Madam Speaker, that has certainly become first and foremost as we move to develop our list of items for the department, and one that certainly was very prevalent, was that we need more people to carry out the work that needs to be done with the environmental assessments. We have mega projects coming on in this Province; the Lower Churchill, the second refinery, the liquified natural gas plants. With those projects coming on stream, it was very important that we put in place the people to ensure that those projects go through the environmental assessment in a timely manner. Our provincial environmental assessment process is time framed. We have to react in certain times, therefore the onus is on us to support these projects and that we get through this environmental assessment process in a timely manner. As a result, we have invested for more personnel to be involved in the department at those projects. We will see them go through a timely process and certainly hope to see that those projects will be up and running and provide the income and jobs and the work in the rural parts of our Province.

Madam Speaker, I would be remiss in my last few minutes if I did not get into some of the other factors that we have put into this Budget certainly around tax cuts. When we can state, as a Province, that we have the lowest tax regime in Atlantic Canada, that speaks to people very, very much so.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: It does not matter what the crowd opposite say the people of the Province recognize that.

The second thing, let's go to education. Look at the items that have been actioned by this government over the last two years in education and I think you would be hard pressed to find a government in the last twenty or twenty-five years that would be able to top it.

When the Member for Bellevue was up speaking before about his schooling, I had to try and count off the number of years because I thought he was in school for about fifteen or twenty years before he got into politics, but I know different than that.

Mr. Speaker, let's just take a look at some of the other items that have been put into the Budget over the last two years in education: fees gone, free text books to Grade 12. The Member for Bellevue commented earlier about the lack of skilled workers, well if that is indeed true then somewhere along the way past governments failed to recognize and were not visionary enough to see what was coming in terms of the skill sector needs.

Now one of the things that we heard from people around the province when we did a talk, not so much with groups like the NLTA, but just picking out individuals and finding what the issues were, one of the key ones was career guidance; not the guidance as it relates to within school guidance with the social thing, about career guidance. As a result, in this Budget we have addressed that so that the skill shortage that we see, and will possibly continue, will be eradicated, and therefore we will have young people going into the trades.

Interestingly enough, I was the CONA graduation this past week and in the welding tech program, which the Member for Grand Bank attended, 45 per cent, I believe it was, of the people enroled in the welding tech program were females. It speaks volumes as to where we have moved in terms of the skills trade and that we recognize and encourage young women to participate in those programs. Therefore, this government is addressing that skill shortage and will continue to encourage programs in that regard.

So, Mr. Speaker -

MR. SPEAKER (Hodder): Order, please!

The hon. member's allotted time is expired.

MR. JACKMAN: Just to clue up?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave has been requested, leave has been granted.

MR. JACKMAN: Thank you.

The Opposition Leader tells me I have about four words left. Well, maybe I will sum it up in about ten or fifteen.

Mr. Speaker, all I have to say is that for someone to stand and vote against this Budget means they are voting very much against a social side to what government is, and what I hear in the district is very positive about this Budget and very positive towards this government.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think I am speaking to the amendment, if I am not mistaken, and I also believe I get an hour on this one and an hour on the main bill as well. So I will have two hours sometime between now, I guess, and 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock when we close tonight.

The Minister of Environment and Conservation talks a lot about if we vote against this Budget we will be voting against something or another. When I vote against this Budget tonight or when we take the final vote on this, I will be voting against what is not in it for my constituents and for constituents around the Province.

Before I start that, I have to make a couple of comments about our last speaker, the Minister of Environment and Conservation, the member who represents Burin-Placentia West. Every time the minister gets up to talk, he talks a lot about caribou and I am left to wonder whether he knows as much about his constituents as he does about caribou. I will tell you why, because what shocked me some couple of months ago was to hear the minister, the member who represents Marystown, get on an open line show and when asked a question by the host, I think it was Linda Swain at the time, about the sale of FPI's draggers, the member representing Marystown did not know that FPI had sold the draggers, even though there is a piece of legislation in this House of Assembly that, I might say, was brought in by the group opposite.

The member himself was a member of the Cabinet who brought in the amendment that said: No asset belonging to FPI could be sold without the written consent of the provincial government. Here FPI goes and sells off two of its new draggers, puts hundreds of individuals out of work on the Burin Peninsula, many of whom live in the member's own district, and he did not even know the boats were sold. That shocked me, I say to the minister, especially when he can talk at length about the state of the caribou herd. I wonder, does he realize the state that some of his constituents are living in or being forced to witness right now because of unemployment for the past almost two years as a result of FPI closing the plant in Marystown and decommissioning or selling the FPI boats? Mr. Speaker, I will get into that later on.

The member also talked about, if we vote against this Budget we will be voting against a tax decrease. Well, regardless of what we vote for, Mr. Speaker, I am pretty certain that those opposite will pass the Budget. They will pass the Budget. When the day comes that the vote has to be taken, I am quite certain that every member sitting opposite will vote for it, because to do otherwise they would witness the same fate that one, Fabian Manning, witnessed just two years ago when he spoke out about the Raw Material Sharing Plan; that ill-conceived Raw Material Sharing Plan.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, the only one over there who spoke up against it was Mr. Manning. Some of them thought about it. They talked about it privately at dinner meetings, but Mr. Manning was the only one who spoke publicly about it. As a result, he was forced to leave the Party and sit over on this side as an Independent. Now, I am certain that all thirty-four or thirty-five members opposite will, at the end of the day, vote for the Budget whether or not they like what is in it or not. I will tell you, there are a whole host of reasons I will not be voting for it.

I will get back to the tax thing. I will not be voting for it because even though everybody is going to receive a tax decrease as a result of this Budget, those opposite, especially those in Cabinet, will get a far larger decrease in their taxes than the average person in this Province. We will get into that topic, and I have discussed that here at length in the last little while.

We can also talk about what is in this Budget in terms of untendered contracts that we are going to have to pay for. I will start with one, the fibre optic deal that the Premier made with a close friend and business associate, Dean MacDonald, of Persona, when the Premier told him: Yes, the taxpayers of this Province would put $15 million into the project that he wanted to put forward. That went out untendered. That is $15 million that is in this year's Budget that the taxpayers of this Province - if we vote for this Budget, we will be voting for that $15 million to go to the Premier's friends and business associates. I cannot do that, Mr. Speaker. I cannot honestly stand in this House of Assembly and vote for a Budget that includes giving $15 million to close friends and business associates of the Premier.

I cannot stand in this House of Assembly, Mr. Speaker, and give another x number of dollars - because the government will not tell us how much it is costing us - for an untendered contract in Montreal for a call centre that answers when you call to make a reservation in a park. Now I have asked the Premier how much that is costing the taxpayers of the Province, why it is being done in Montreal, and I cannot get an answer to either one of those questions; what it is costing, or why it is done in Montreal, except that it is an untendered contract. The only reason that the Minister of Environment, the member who represents Marystown gave, is that they were the only ones to bid on it. Well, Mr. Speaker, I beg to differ.

There is another one in the minister's own department, the Minister of Environment and Conservation. In this Budget we will also be asked to approve an untendered contract to another Quebec firm. Now, they have the call centre up there. If you phone to make a reservation for a park in this Province you have to call Quebec and you have to pay a fee. We don't know how much it is costing the provincial government to do that, but we do know how much another untendered contract that went to a Quebec firm is costing us. It is costing us $768,000.

If some of you look in the Estimates and the book that you were passed today - all of us received one in the House of Assembly today, and it talks about all the untendered contracts that went out in March of this year, just a couple of months ago; all the untendered contracts.

If you look, there is one there, and we are going to be paying $768,000 to a Quebec firm to take the tires, to recycle our tires that we had here in this Province; $768,000 that this government is giving to a firm in Quebec to come and take our tires. Each and every individual in the Province who owns a car has to pay $3 a tire every time you get your tires replaced or changed, I might add.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. REID: That is what we pay individually for each tire. Now we are going to go and pay a Quebec firm - we don't know who they are, Mr. Speaker, we don't know why they got the contract untendered, but we are going to give them $768,000 so that they can take the tires from here and take them off to Quebec somewhere.

Mr. Speaker, we all know that when the crowd opposite, the government of the day, were in Opposition we had the member who is the Justice Minister today -and I think the Leader of the Opposition at the time called him some kind of a tiger when he was in Opposition about what he was going to do if they ever formed government when it comes to recycling and waste in our Province.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that we are closing at five-thirty for supper, so if that is the case, I say to the Government House Leader, do you want me to speak for the extra fifteen seconds or so or do you want me to adjourn debate and we will pick it up at seven o'clock? Is that the plan that we had.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I will adjourn debate until seven this evening.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair is of the understanding that agreement has been reached by both sides of the House that we will recess the House until seven, and the House will come back at seven o'clock when we will be hearing from the Leader of the Opposition who has about fifty-three minutes left in his speech.

The House is now in recess.

MR. SPEAKER (Hodder): Order, please!

Continuing debate on the Budget amendment.

The Chair recognizes the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, who has fifty-three minutes left in his allotted time.

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, if you listened to the government members as they have stood over the last week or two talking about what a great Budget this is, and everyone of them stands and says that you should vote for it because of all the goodies that are in there for everybody. I sit back and I think that every government - and they talk about things like money for health care and more money for education. I was just thinking, and I think I asked the Clerk of the House just then: Do you think that there has ever been a government since Confederation that has not said and done the same things, said that their budgets were great budgets and talked about more money for health and education? Because I do not think we have had a budget since 1949 that year over year over year did not put more money into health and education.

I noticed, as of late, that every member who stands talks about how there is $1 billion in education now. Well, I say, minister, that if there were not $1 billion in education this year we would be regressing rather than progressing because every government, up until now, has put additional funds in both health and education on a year over year basis.

I know when I was Minister of Education myself, and I was only minister for the K-12 portion of our education system, I think there was some-$600 million alone in that portion of the education portfolio. That does not include the money that went into our post-secondary institutions, like Memorial University, the Fisheries College, the College of the North Atlantic.

Mr. Speaker, to say that you have finally reached the $1 billion mark, when it comes to educational spending, is not a great deal to brag about. It is a milestone, I guess, that someone had to be up to $990 million at one point and that we slipped over the $1 billion mark, but that does not say a lot, Mr. Speaker.

When you talk about health care and you talk about adding new money to health dollars, I remember sitting on that side of the House in 1996 when the health care budget for the Province was, I think, $640 million at that time. That was some eleven years ago. I think today, if I am not mistaken, that budget - I think even when we left government in 2003, the budget at that time had crept up close to $1.2 billion or $1.4 billion. So we more than doubled it while we were there, but that does not give one reason to vote for a budget.

If things were so great and so rosy, we would not have things happening in our Province in health or in education as we are experiencing today. I think you know what we are talking about when we talk about health because we are talking about what has been happening with the revelations that have been coming from the Eastern Health Corporation. If things were so rosy and there was so much money in the Budget and in past budgets for health, we would not be standing here tonight or we would not have been listening for the past five or six days about what has happened with regard to breast cancer patients and the screening process and the tests that have been done on those individuals in the past five or six years. I think anyone who has listened to the media in the last couple of days would realize that part of the fault has to lie with the fact that there is really not enough money in the Department of Health to accommodate or to solve the problems that exist in it. If you listened to the oncologist from the Eastern Health region this morning on CBC, as I did, you would know that her plea was basically more money. She did not come out and say she needed more money but she did say that she needed more specialists, she needed more pathologists, so that what happened in the past will not happen again. That is all through the health care sector.

Just last Thursday morning, I think, I was listening to the President of the Nurses' Association, Ms Debbie Forward, when she was on talking about the need for more nurses in the Province and the fact that the nurses we currently have working in our health care facilities around the Island and in Labrador, are overworked. If you listen to her, what she says is basically they are underpaid, if you compare them to other areas of the country. As a result, this year what we are going to see in our health care with regard to nurses, is we are going to see nurses who have worked all year not being able to take summer holidays because we cannot find replacements for them. So, things are not as rosy as one would be led to believe.

If, for example, we had enough money in the system, I do not think that we would have happened what we found out today about the Eastern Health Care Corporation and the tests that the radiologist completed on the Burin Peninsula of 6,000 tests that this individual did, or 6,000 reports that he filed or did, the X-rays and all kinds of reports that he did from November until May on some 3,500 patients. All these tests today are being called into question. Eastern Health has to do a review to actually determine whether or not that individual read the reports right and, if so, prescribed the right treatments or passed on the results of these tests to physicians who might have prescribed the wrong treatments.

Mr. Speaker, if all is well in our health care sector, certainly we are not given the comfort in the last couple of weeks that is so. If you listen to the president of the nurses' association, if you listen to one of our chief oncologists, a Ms Laing, Kara Laing, with the Eastern Health Care Foundation, then things are not great in our health care system. Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that things are not great in the health care system in my district.

I am going to talk for a few minutes about the hospital on Fogo Island, because if those people opposite think that I am going to stand and vote in favour of a Budget that does not put five additional cents into the brand new health care centre on Fogo Island, well, I think you are barking up the wrong tree because I am certainly not going to vote for it.

Mr. Speaker, some three or four years ago we completed a brand new health care facility on Fogo Island to the tune of some $15 million. At the time, we built it for twenty beds: ten acute care and ten chronic care. When this government took control in 2003 - and the Member for Topsail was the Health Minister at the time - for some reason, unbeknownst to me and to the people of Fogo Island, she was left with a brand new health care facility, a twenty bed health care facility on Fogo Island, that was ready to open when this government took power. For some reason, and maybe she can explain to me and to the people of Fogo Island later tonight if she gets an opportunity to speak, why she decided that it was wise to only open ten of the twenty beds on Fogo Island, leaving ten beds vacant, two of which, or three of which, they later converted into offices. Then, Mr. Speaker, to find out, like I have found out since that day, that has put a tremendous strain on the individuals who live on Fogo Island. Let me give you a couple of examples about what I am talking about.

As a result of only opening half of the beds in that hospital, they have put a lot of hardship on the people who have the unfortunate occasion to have to visit the Fogo Island health facility. Mr. Speaker, not too long ago I had calls from people on the Island who talked to me about - even though there is a twenty bed facility, and even though there are ten vacant beds out there - people are left having to stay in the hallway on a stretcher, stay in a hair salon in that facility, Mr. Speaker, because there were supposed to be ten acute care beds there for senior citizens who would be unable to leave the facility to go and get their hair done, some of the older patients. What we find now is that we have patients being put on stretchers in the hair salon, in a brand new facility on Fogo Island.

We also heard incidents of individuals, a man and a woman, finding themselves in the same room in the hospital. Mr. Speaker, if, for example, that hospital was filled to capacity and there were not ten rooms that were never opened by this government, that would not be the case. For us who sit in St. John's, live in St. John's, or spend most of our weeks in St. John's working, I do not think any of us would find it acceptable tonight if we were taken to the Health Sciences Complex and put into a semi-private room with someone of the opposite sex. Now, if you had to do it, and there were no other means to get around it, I guess if you were sick enough, you would not notice it or you would not care, but it is unfortunate that, in a facility where there are ten vacant rooms, both male and female patients have to share a room and the same bathroom facilities, because they do not appreciate it, Mr. Speaker.

We have also had incidents on Fogo Island recently where an air ambulance had to be called because the doctors at the hospital are general practitioners and they do not have the skills nor the equipment to do certain procedures. We had an individual show up at the hospital some time ago with a problem that could not be treated there and, as a result, an air ambulance was called in at 9:00 o'clock in the evening and that air ambulance arrived on Fogo Island at 2:00 o'clock in the morning, a total of five hours being left there waiting for that air ambulance to show up.

Mr. Speaker, if the members opposite think that I can forget all of that and say, yes, this Budget is great because there are additional dollars in the health care, I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I cannot vote for that, and that is the reason I cannot vote for it, because I think that the people in my district, especially those on Fogo Island, are being discriminated deliberately against by this government simply because they voted Liberal; but they are used to Tory governments penalizing them, because from 1972 until 1989 that district voted Liberal all but once, and for those seventeen years they were penalized for voting Liberal when there was a Tory government in. Mr. Speaker, I think the same thing is happening today with regard to health care, with regard to transportation initiatives - that being the ferries and the road conditions - and with other infrastructure that the government brags about putting in other districts.

Mr. Speaker, that is with regard to heath care. There are lots of areas in this Province, I say to those who live outside of St. John's and who are on the Northeast Avalon, where health care is not so great as those opposite would lead you to believe. I think if you were to go to the Burin Peninsula tonight - the Minister of Environment and Conservation represents the district down there - you would find that things are not rosy, not as rosy as he would like you to believe, with regard to the health care system.

Mr. Speaker, they talk about education - and I briefly mentioned it a few minutes ago - and they talk about putting more money into school construction and renovations. Well, I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the government of which I was a part from 1998 until 2001, we put some $400 million in additional funding into the education system for new school construction and redevelopment of schools. We did schools all over the Province. We did schools all over the Island portion of the Province as well as Labrador, built new schools and redeveloped old ones, renovated old ones. I will tell you one thing, Mr. Speaker, we didn't discriminate according to how one voted. We didn't penalize seats that were held by Tories simply because the people in those districts voted PC.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that we built schools in the Straits in a Tory district. We built schools in St. Barbe District, redeveloped the schools in St. Barbe District, and we did them all over the Province, to the tune of some $400 million, simply based on need and not on how an individual or how a district voted.

Mr. Speaker, while I applaud anyone who reaches a milestone in their career, like the government happened to do this year when they reached the $1 billion mark in education, I can't say that everything is rosy in education. If it were, Mr. Speaker, we wouldn't be losing teachers in rural Newfoundland and Labrador this year, even though the minister would lead you to believe that they hired an additional 137 teachers this year. That is what we call a mug's game or a shell game over here. All that meant is that they didn't lay 137 off. There are no 137 new teachers in the system, and as a result we are still losing teachers in the rural parts of our Province because of declining enrollment. There has come a point, the point that I argued when I was Minister of Education, that regardless of the enrollment you still need teachers. You just can't continue, year over year over year, to reduce the number of teachers in a school simply because the enrollment has dropped.

Mr. Speaker, we have rural schools that are losing teachers this year. We also have rural schools, many, many rural schools, in Newfoundland and Labrador whose children and whose students now depend, for the most part, to do most of their high school education through distance education. That is, they do it on a computer, they do it online, where you have a teacher who is sitting in a Central region and the students in places like Change Islands and lots of other places like Change Islands around the Province do their Grades X, XI and XII for the most part, all of their curriculum, through distance education. While that is a good tool that you use in education, it certainly doesn't replace a teacher, having a body in the classroom, a teacher who you can interact with face-to-face, one-on-one, if you so desire.

Mr. Speaker, to say that we should stand and vote for a Budget simply because we are putting a few extra dollars in it for education, I can't do that either. As long as we depend, in my district, on distance education, having students go through high school using a computer rather than having a teacher, I can't vote for that either.

Mr. Speaker, there are lots of things in the Budget that I could talk about tonight, but I think the main item that has been missed by this government since they came to power is a way to stimulate the economy and try and do something for the rural parts of our Province. In 2003, prior to the election, and even in 2002 and 2001, when those people opposite sat over here in Opposition, they wailed and railed for days on end about the need to do something for the rural parts of our Province. Now that they have an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to do something they have done absolutely nothing.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair's attention is drawn to loud conversations from members to my left. The Chair is asking members for their cooperation.

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

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If the four or five ministers who are standing down in the corner have nothing better to do than talk and laugh, maybe they can take it out into the corridor. None of us would miss them, Mr. Speaker, because they are doing nothing to contribute to the debate in the House except stand around down in the corner and laugh at things. If that is the only way they can justify their income, I suggest maybe they would go home and watch the hockey game. They might find that far more exciting.

MR. TAYLOR: (Inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, it never ceases to amaze me, that the Member for The Straits, every time I get up to speak in this House he has to get into the yaps. That is all he does, is yap, yap, yap. He is like a crackie that chases you barking at your heels all the time. He is like a crackie and I have said it to him before. He has been doing it now for the last four or five years, that every time, for some reason, I get up to speak he has to be yapping. Maybe it is because he did such a poor job - and I reminded him and the Premier - that he did such a poor job in the Department of Fisheries that they had to move him out of it. Maybe that is the reason he has to yap every time I get up to speak, that he did not liked being moved out of the Department of Fisheries, that he knew that I knew he was not competent in the position. He thought he could bluff the Premier, and the Premier finally realized that he was not competent in that portfolio and moved him out, and maybe as a result of that he holds it against me and that is the reason he continues to yap.

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, when this government, including the Minister of Industry, the Member for The Straits & White Bay, when he sat over here on this side of the House, day after day after day he stood in the House of Assembly, along with the Premier, and those of you who are now in government who sat on this side, talking about no economic plan and no plan for rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and that they had a plan. How many times did I hear the Minister of Industry, the Member for The Straits & White Bay, stand in this House and say: You do not have a plan. You do not have a plan. You do not have a plan. Then, when we asked him what their plan for rural Newfoundland and Labrador was, do you know what they said when they were in Opposition, Mr. Speaker? We cannot tell you because we are afraid you will steal it.

In fact, the Premier went out during the election campaign in October 2003 and he talked about how he had a rural plan for this Province, and no more would the people on the Northern Peninsula, in Gunners Cove and New Ferolle and Bird Cove - and he would list them on and on and on, the number of communities - no longer would these people who lived in these communities be faced with snow up to their waist in the fall of the year, in the early winter, doing make-work programs. He said, never would that happen again if you elect me Premier. In fact, he said it on a stage. I know one individual who was on the stage when he said it, an individual from Main Point on the Northern Peninsula. He said he held the Premier's hand up when he was Leader of the Opposition, when he said: I will not forget you. No longer will you have to depend on make-work in the fall of the year -

AN HON. MEMBER: Main Brook.

MR. REID: - in Main Brook, because we have a rural plan.

Mr. Speaker, I have talked to that individual since. He told me about how he held the Premier's arm up that night when he made that speech, but he said he would never vote for him again because he let these people down. He betrayed them.

In fact, what has happened since then is, you have out-migration at larger rates than you had when the group opposite were sitting over here in 2002 and 2003. Rural communities wiped out, and some of the largest or most vocal advocates on the Northern Peninsula for an economic plan have since left themselves; and, as a result, we hear little from that area of the Province. We certainly do not hear from their MHAs. We do not hear much from the MHAs on the Northern Peninsula.

So Mr. Speaker, I will not be voting for this Budget because there is nowhere in this Budget where it shows anything, or any idea, or any piece or any shred of information, that this government has a rural plan, or any plan, to stimulate the economy, whether it be in the rural parts of our Province or in the urban parts of our Province; because, I have said it publicly time and time and time again, if anybody opposite, including the Premier, can stand up and show me where they have created a job in the past three years then I would applaud them, and I have not heard them.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, we have had a Department of Business - because you have to remember the Premier's background. We all know that he was a business person, that he was into cable, and that he applauded himself and he touted himself as being the great businessman, and that if you voted for him then he had a business plan for this Province. Well, Mr. Speaker, what has happened to the plan?

Upon being elected in 2003 he established a business department, the Department of Business, and they had a budget of millions of dollars a year that they have spent, and guess what, Mr. Speaker? They never created one job, except for creating the jobs for those who are employed in the Department of Business, the bureaucrats who work in the Department of Business. In fact, I say to the current Minister of Business, the Member for Gander, when asked in the Estimates Committee here just a week or so ago - the Estimates Committee, for those of you who are watching from outside, is where we get the opportunity, four or five of us, to sit down across the floor with the minister, and it is not on television, and we ask him questions pertaining to his department. We asked him, because he followed the Premier - the Premier was Minister of Business for three years, and just last June or July he appointed the Member for Gander to be the new Minister of Business - and, when asked the question: How many jobs did your department create last year? - what was the answer?

AN HON. MEMBER: Not one.

MR. REID: None. Not one. He said that himself.

Now, Mr. Speaker, you have to remember, it was the Premier who set up the Department of Business. It was the Premier who was the great entrepreneur and businessman. It was the Premier who was going to bring wealth to rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and to urban Newfoundland and Labrador, and to everybody, because he had a plan. Yet, he himself held the business portfolio for three years and never created a job. Now we have the Member for Gander who has been there for almost a year, and guess what? He has not created one either. He has not created a job either.

Now, he talks about how he has $25 million in his Budget this year to stimulate the economy, to attract new businesses, to create more employment. Guess what, Mr. Speaker? Next year this time we will be standing up here and saying, he hasn't created a job yet. That is what we will be saying, Mr. Speaker; he hasn't created a job yet. He had $3 million last year for job creation, or $12 million - what was it, $3 million or $12 million? Anyway, Mr. Speaker, they never spent that.

MR. O'BRIEN: (Inaudible).

MR. REID: Finally the Member for Gander has come to life over there.

MR. HICKEY: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. REID: And the Member for Lake Melville. I wondered when he was going to wake up.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair has recognized the hon. the Opposition House Leader and ask that he be allowed to give his commentary in relative quietness.

The Chair recognizes the hon. the member.

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your interference and protection.

I say to the Member for Lake Melville, if he wants to get up and tell me about the thousands of jobs that the Minister of Business, whether the current one or the previous one, the Premier or the Member for Gander, has created in his district, I will gladly sit down. If he wants to tell me how many jobs the Department of Business has created in Lake Melville in the past three years, I will sit down and let him talk about it. I won't be sitting very long, because he can't stand and say they provided one job in that area.

Mr. Speaker, if you look around the Province, and you have a look at what this government has done over the past three years to stimulate the economy, to grow the economy, to provide employment for those people in the Province who need it so desperately, because we have the highest unemployment rate in the country, we have the largest number of people who are leaving here on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis than anywhere else in the country - and what has this government done to stop that from happening or to create an atmosphere whereby people might be able to find employment? Again, they have done absolutely nothing.

Look around the Province - seriously! - those of you who live outside of this city, those of you who happen to drive out there, those of you who happen to speak to anybody. Tell me where the jobs have been created, tell me one initiative this government has undertaken that shows us today an area where there are more jobs than there were three years ago when you took government.

I can tell you one thing, Mr. Speaker, they are not on the Northern Peninsula. There are not more jobs today on the Northern Peninsula than when this government took over the government in 2003. If you move down off the Northern Peninsula and you go to the West Coast of the Province, Mr. Speaker, the opposite is true. Not only are there not more jobs, there are far fewer - far fewer! - than there were three years ago when this government took power.

Mr. Speaker, all you have to do is look at the Port au Port Peninsula and look at what has happened in the Stephenville mill, where 900 direct and indirect jobs were lost. Show me right there - show me where they have increased employment levels. Again, I will sit down and let him talk.

If the Minister of Education wants to stand tonight and show me how they have created more jobs than there were lost when they took government, or show me how there are more people employed on the Port au Port Peninsula, Stephenville area this year than there was in 2002, then I will sit down and let her speak forever. Because, Mr. Speaker, we know the difference. We know there are some 900 direct and indirect jobs gone from that Peninsula. If you go along the South Coast and up the Northeast Coast, everywhere you go the same is true, Mr. Speaker. There are far fewer jobs than there were three years ago. There are more people having left the areas.

Everyday, every week we hear the Premier stand in his place and say: Look what we did for Harbour Breton. Look what we did for Harbour Breton. Full stop. He does not say anything else. Look what we did for Harbour Breton. I wish he would stand and tell me exactly what he did for Harbour Breton, Mr. Speaker. I wish he would stand and tell me exactly what he or his government have done for Harbour Breton, because I know when I was Minister of Fisheries - we left government in 2003 - there were 350 people directly employed in the plant in Harbour Breton. Mr. Speaker, there is no one working there today.

In Harbour Breton, what has happened is that Mr. Barry of the Barry Group of Companies came in there and he bought the plant for $1.00, I think. It was given to him for $1. How many people have seen employment down there since then? How many people? I asked an individual from that area today, I said: How many people are employed in Harbour Breton at the fish plant? Maybe thirty, thirty-five. I said: Do they work every week? Some weeks they work thirty hours, some weeks they work twenty hours, some weeks they do not work at all.

Now, if you can stand over there, and if the Premier wants to stand and say look what we did for Harbour Breton, I can tell the Premier and the government opposite, the members opposite, you were dismal failures when it comes to Harbour Breton. You let John Risley and his group run roughshod over the people of Harbour Breton and you stood back and watched it. You stood back and watched it happen. Not only did you watch it happen, you went out and you did a better job selling the closure of Harbour Breton than FPI did. You did a better job of selling that to the general population of this Province than the Board of Directors of FPI. Because if you all remember, when they closed that plant two years ago, every single day the then Minister of Fisheries, who happens to be the Minister of Industry and Trade, God help us today, the Member for The Straits & White Bay North stood in the House of Assembly, or in front of a camera and said: There is nothing we can do for Harbour Breton because it has to do with the market in the world and the economic conditions that are going on around us in the world. He was talking about no money in groundfish, we cannot compete with Chinese labour and because of the high Canadian dollar. These are the three reasons why you have to close Harbour Breton. Now he did a better job of selling that than John Risley did because no one believed John Risley. I guess by now they are having some awful doubts about the Minister of Industry, I say to him. Because, Mr. Speaker, he did a better job of selling the closure of the Harbour Breton plant than anyone on the Board of Directors of FPI. So what have you done?

I would like for the Premier, if he is listening somewhere, come in tonight and tell me what he has done for Harbour Breton. Mr. Barry has gone down there and employed thirty or forty people in a temporary capacity. I do not know what this government did for Harbour Breton, but then again, he says: I am standing shoulder to shoulder with them. Well, I do not see any of them in here standing shoulder to shoulder with the Premier. I understand that most of them have gone to New Brunswick or elsewhere on the mainland to find employment. That is what I know.

Mr. Speaker, you do not have to go far from there. The next thing he will be saying: Look what we did for Fortune and Marystown. Fortune has not been open for over two years. There is no one there -

AN HON. MEMBER: And still not; still waiting.

MR. REID: And still not, and still waiting. All we hear is something about Cooke Aquaculture. Then, all of a sudden, when you mention Cooke Aquaculture, they jump up and down in their seats over there and say: Well, look what we did for Cooke Aquaculture.

Cooke Aquaculture has invested $150 million in fin fish aquaculture on the South Coast of the Province, and because this government puts in $10 million - you did this deal. So if you use that rationale - you put $15 million into the pockets of the Premier's buddies. Do we own Persona today? Do we own the fibre optic cable that is going across the Gulf of St. Lawrence? What do we own in that? The Minister of Industry cannot even tell us how many pieces of fibre we own that are duct taped together in that. So you put $10 million into a $150 million industry and you say: Oh, look what we did for Cooke Aquaculture.

Now, if you talk to Minister Hearn, the federal Minister of Fisheries, he will tell you too, by the way. He will tell you a different story. He will tell you that the deal for Cooke Aquaculture coming into our Province was negotiated in his office, and only when the deal was ready to be signed did the provincial Minister of Fisheries and the gang come down and say, yes, we are going to throw $10 million into this so we can claim that we did it.

You come out and you brag about the $10 million you put into Cooke Aquaculture - and I hope to goodness it works and employs hundreds, if not thousands, of people down the road in that general region, because they need it - but how come you are not out bragging about the $15 million you put into the fibre optics, and all of the jobs that is going create in the Province for your buddies?

Mr. Speaker, if you talk about the Marystown area, we all know what happened to that. As we speak, the Minister of Fisheries here is negotiating a deal that is going to see the end of the FPI Act, and the end of the company that was known as FPI, because he is ready to sign off a deal where they are going to divide that company up into three or four parts and toss that to the winds. At the end of the day, we are not going to have a marketing division. We are not going to see that infamous seafood company that FPI bought for $40 million in Europe, because that is going to be sold off to someone else and we are going to have another group buy what remains of FPI in the Province.

We have not heard how many employees they are going to have. We have not heard how many fish plants they are going to keep open. We have not heard any of that stuff, except that the company is going to be sold off to three different groups of companies, and we have no guarantees.

The minister talked for weeks here in this House, and to the media, that FPI would never be sold unless we had unfettered access to FPI's quotas. The Province would have to own the quotas. He has backtracked from that now. He will come in with some highfalutin scam one of these days to make people think that we actually have control of those quotas, but he is not going to get control of those quotas, Mr. Speaker. The Province of Newfoundland and Labrador is not going to get unfettered access to those quotas. Maybe that is the reason that the minister is delaying it for such a long time - the sale of FPI, piecemeal, scrapped, torn up, cast to the winds. Maybe he will explain that to us in a short period of time.

If you want to look at the economy around the Province, maybe you can all get up and say that we should vote for this Budget because we are stimulating the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador, because that is what you would lead people to believe with the tripe you have been getting on with here in the House for the last three or four weeks about what a wonderful Budget and everything you are doing for people. I wonder, do you ever stop to realize what is going to happen to this Province in the next two, three or four years while you sit patting yourselves on the back, congratulating yourselves for what a great job you are doing? I think it is time that you woke up, got in touch with reality. Go down and dip yourself in some salt water, if you can find a bit on the Northeast Coast of the Province that is not clogged with ice. Wake yourself up. Give yourself a jolt.

I listen to the Member for Placentia all the time talking about how wonderful things are.

MR. COLLINS: They are great.

MR. REID: Oh, they are great. Did you hear that? They are great. The Member for Placentia says they are great. Well, how many new jobs have been created in your district, I say to the Member for Placentia, in the last three years? How many?

MR. COLLINS: (Inaudible).

MR. REID: One hundred and fifty. Where are they employed? I say to the member, where are they employed? Stand up and tell me where the 150 jobs are. Maybe you can name them, if you want. Who are they employed with? The Argentia Management, because the federal government is in there spending $150 million cleaning up the waste. Is that where they are employed?

MR. COLLINS: No.

MR. REID: No?

So, you have an industry out there you have not told us about yet. That is just like you crowd opposite.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. REID: Maybe, Mr. Speaker, he is talking about Voisey's Bay.

Mr. Speaker, I digress, and I think I only have about eight or ten minutes left.

We can go around the Province from coast to coast to coast. We can start in Nain and we can come south right down here to St. John's, or we can go up to the Southern Shore, and things are not rosy. People are not happy with this government, and what you have been doing for the economy or for them in general. You can talk all you want about tax deductions, when at least the majority of people in the Province are making so little money that they probably are not going to have to pay any taxes next year anyway. Maybe those are the ones you are going to give a tax deduction to, the ones who do not get a tax deduction because they do not make enough income.

Mr. Speaker, I started by talking about my district, and I am going to go back to it. I talked about the hospital on Fogo Island, and how this crowd - a brand new facility, in 2003, just opened the doors - closed half the beds in it before they even opened them. Now, there is a paradox.

Mr. Speaker, let's talk about the great transportation initiatives, because the Member for Lake Melville, the Transportation Minister, is up every day talking about the millions of dollars they are spending in roads. Everyone in my district, councils and every interest group in my district, have written him, asking him where the money is for that district this year, and he has written them back and said: Stay tuned; we will be announcing it.

Well, Mr. Speaker, it is May 22 right now and there is no announcement made yet for a bit of pavement in my district. Now, we did make some progress when the Liberal government was in power from 1989 until 2003 in that district. We were paving roads, we were recapping roads and we were upgrading roads. We never got it all finished, but for this day and age, in 2007, there are still four or five kilometres of dirt road on Change Islands. There are still roads in my district not fit to drive over. You are going to say: Why didn't you do it all when you were there? Because we shared it. That is what I say to the members opposite. We put money into the Baie Verte Peninsula. We put money into roads on the Northern Peninsula and every other Peninsula in the Province, Mr. Speaker, whether they voted Liberal or Tory. This year, all of the sudden there is no money for roads in my district. I think we got $700,000 in capital works from Municipal Affairs, and I thank the minister for doing that. I am hoping, beyond hope, that he is going to find it in his heart to push the federal government into providing some more money for us. Other than that, Mr. Speaker, what has this government done for my district? What have they done?

Twillingate, as you all know, is one of the prime tourist areas in this Province. In fact, most tourists who come east of Gros Morne, because that is where most of them go, Gros Morne, most of the tourists who come east from Gros Morne go to Twillingate. After that they go to Trinity and after that they come to St. John's. Well, Mr. Speaker, I am telling you right now, if the roads down through Gander Bay, which is in the Member for Bonavista North's district, are not fixed and fixed soon, and if the road to Twillingate is not repaired soon we are not going to see another tourist.

The Minister of Tourism can get up and talk about all of the great initiatives and all of the great scenery and all of the great tourist destinations that we have in the Province, if one cannot get to them one is not going to go. That is what I say to the minister. Maybe if the Minister of Transportation wants to play politics with pavement in the Province, maybe the Minister of Tourism can intercede for the benefit not just of the people of my district but for the people in the Province, to at least try to do something with the roads down there.

Mr. Speaker, short of the tax break, and a very little one, I might say, when you look at the annual gross income of the constituents I represent in this House, short of that I don't see anything in this Budget to be jumping up and down and applauding the government for.

The Member for Exploits District was standing in the House last week saying, every single soul he talks to all they want to talk about is the great Budget. Well, Mr. Speaker, I don't live in dream worlds, I don't have fantasies of people coming up and telling me things that don't exist, like he does. I can tell you one thing, the Budget is not on the minds of the people I represent, and I would say the Budget is not on the minds of 99 per cent of the people we all represent in this Province tonight. What is on the minds of the people in this Province tonight, whether they live in Nain, or they live in Cartwright, or they live in Gunner's Cove, or they live in Toogood Arm, or Herring Neck in my district, or Change Islands, or on the South Coast of the Province, what is uppermost in their minds now, the people in this Province, is where they are going to find their next day's work. The biggest concern they have is, are they going to have to leave this Province to go elsewhere? It is not an easy decision to make.

There is someone your age or my age, or older, who is faced right now with the decision that they either leave this Province or go on welfare, because there are a lot of them like it. It used to be, Mr. Speaker, in your day, that only the youngest people left to go to work elsewhere, but today we have them in all age groups. No longer is it our youth. It is their mothers and their fathers and, in a lot of instances, as there were people in my district last year, an individual who is sixty-four years old who had to go to Alberta and work in the bush because he could not find a job here in this Province.

Mr. Speaker, what is this government doing for these individuals? That is not to mention the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of fish workers in this Province, whether they be in a boat or in a plant, who have not seen a cheque in the past seven weeks and cannot get their boats in the water to go fishing, and we hear nothing -

AN HON. MEMBER: That is not our fault.

MR. REID: No, it is not your fault, I say to the minister. No, it is not your fault, but it is your fault when you have meetings with the federal minister and you forget to mention the fact that they are in dire straits. That is your fault, yes. That is your fault. Who do you think these individuals are? They are Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. What are you doing to help them?

The Premier talks about going it alone on everything these days. In fact, the federal minister, when there was such a stink kicked up last week about student jobs in this Province this summer, when so many people screamed out that they were not getting federal money for student jobs this summer, guess what the Premier did? Came right out - not to be outdone - if the federal government does not kick in the money, we will.

AN HON. MEMBER: Right on!

MR. REID: Right on.

AN HON. MEMBER: Leadership!

MR. REID: Leadership.

Mr. Hickey - I mean, the Member for Lake Melville -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair asks members for their co-operation.

The Chair recognizes the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Nothing wrong with it, but how is it, I say to the Member for Lake Melville, the number one cheerleader out there - Thumper, we call him, because he is thumping on his desk day and night - what is wrong with doing the same for the fisherpeople in the Province who find themselves in a far worse position today than those students are finding themselves.

MR. HICKEY: You are joking, right?

MR. REID: I am joking, am I?

MR. HICKEY: You are a joke.

MR. REID: Oh, yes? I just wish that the people on the North East Coast could listen and see you right now, I say to the Minister of -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair asks the hon. members, when they are speaking in the House, to address their comments to the Chair, and the Chair asks hon. members to my left if they would refrain in their comments so that the Assembly can hear the comments of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

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

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I say to the Minister of Transportation, the Member for Lake Melville, this is no joke. You might think that I am a joke all you like, there are people who also have thoughts about you, I say to the Member for Lake Melville, but we won't get into that tonight. When he applauds the Premier for stepping in where the feds won't on job creation for students in this Province, all I am asking is: What are they doing to help the thousands of people who are involved in our fishing industry on the North East Coast of our Province and Labrador? What are they doing? It is just like it is not happening.

Mr. Speaker, we raise money every year in this Province for all kinds of disasters around the world. We step to the plate faster than any other Canadians when there is a natural disaster that has happened anywhere in the world. There is one happening on the North East Coast of the Province, in case you didn't understand it. There is one happening on the East Coast of this Province and we don't hear a word from the members opposite. It is almost like it doesn't exist on the Globe. If it were happening somewhere else and they were showing it on television, we would be shelling out money right now.

The Premier can stand every day and say, we don't care we are going to the loan on this, that or the other thing - and the latest one was the student programs, and I applaud him for it. He has the money. He has a $260 million surplus. But this is the same Premier who won't allow these individuals who have been without a cheque for the last seven weeks to get social services. This is the same Premier who won't allow individuals who have been without for seven weeks to apply for social services, because there is a rule in the Department of Social Services that you have to be without an income for sixty days before you qualify for social assistance. Just imagine, Mr. Speaker! These individuals have to wait another week or two before they can apply for social services, and the Member for Lake Melville wants me to stand and applaud him for that. Not likely. I won't. He should be ashamed, he and the Minister of Transportation, for even suggesting it.

For goodness sakes, wake up. Go around the Province, wake up, smell the roses, talk to real people out there, not those people who supported you during the election and applaud you for what a great budget it is. Go out and ask them what their concerns are. Don't come back here and say, oh, the only thing that people want to talk about is what a great budget it is, because that is not the real world. That is not the real world for one single MHA in this House of Assembly.

There is not just poverty in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, there is lots of poverty right here in this city. All you have to do is walk down over the hill here for five or ten minutes and you will run into it, Mr. Speaker, those who are without jobs and those who have jobs who are being paid seven dollars an hour. It is costing them more to get to and from work in the run of a day than they are making while they are here. Then, we are supposed to applaud this government for doing nothing for those individuals either!

Mr. Speaker, I think my time is just about up. I will break now and I will be back later, because I do believe I get another hour on the Budget.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

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

MR. SPEAKER: A point of order has been raised by the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you.

I am sorry to interfere with the minister here, but myself and the Government House Leader had a discussion earlier today. Tomorrow is Private Members' Day and we had put forward a motion last Thursday which would deal with a judicial inquiry issue tomorrow. We did it Thursday, of course, because the House being closed on Monday we couldn't do it on Monday as is normally required under the rules.

We find ourselves today where government, because of the announcements by the Minister of Health concerning the judicial inquiry, in a position where the motion that we had made last Thursday doesn't properly reflect, anymore, what needs to be done under that Private Member's Motion. I brought it to the attention of the Government House Leader this morning and said we would be requesting leave to file an amended private member's motion. Actually, it is pretty well a new one, I guess, in view of what was announced today.

We have that ready here now, and the Government House Leader tells me that would be done by consent. If I could, I would just read it into the record.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes, Mr. Speaker, that reflects the consensus between the Opposition House Leader and myself.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair understands, then, leave has been granted by all hon. members.

Agreed.

The Chair recognizes the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It has been proposed, of course, by the Member of Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, seconded by the Member for Burgeo & LaPoile, myself:

WHEREAS it has been revealed that there were error rates of 42 per cent in estrogen and progesterone - I am sure I didn't pronounce that right - receptor tests of breast cancer patients conducted by Eastern Health and the circumstances surrounding the release of this information has shaken confidence in the health care system in this Province;

WHEREAS Cabinet ministers were made aware of the problems being experienced with these tests at Eastern Health and may be in a potential conflict of interest in establishing terms of reference for any inquiry;

BE IT RESOLVED that this House of Assembly supports the appointment of a judicial inquiry that is independent, has broad terms of reference established with input from all parties in the House of Assembly, and has the power to investigate the actions of Cabinet ministers and Department of Health officials into circumstances surrounding faulty estrogen and progestogen receptor testing for breast cancer patients and the release of this information.

I have given that to the Table Officers who have determined that it is indeed in order.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair is familiar with the motion that has been put forward and rules it to be in order. I do understand that the motion will be debated tomorrow, on Private Members' Day, Wednesday, the twenty-third of the month.

The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately I only have twenty minutes to respond in some way to some of the statements made by the Leader of the Opposition.

I know, Mr. Speaker, after listening to him tonight, if there is anybody out there who managed to keep their television on for the full hour that he was talking then they must be, right now, aggressively pursuing a campaign to bring Jim Bennett back.

Mr. Speaker, the problem that the Leader of the Opposition has is that a little over three-and-a-half years ago the people of Newfoundland and Labrador recognized what the Opposition were, or what they are, recognized what the government of the day were, and they grabbed them by the scruff of the neck and the slack of the pants and they threw them out through the door, Mr. Speaker.

The problem that they have, and the people of the Province, I am sure, when they did that, looked around and said: Well, you know, there is a role for an Opposition. There is a good purpose, a point in a democratic society, for an effective Opposition. What have we seen, Mr. Speaker, in three-and-a-half years since the hon. group opposite were booted out of government by the people of Newfoundland and Labrador? We see, today, the Leader of the Opposition polling 7 per cent, Mr. Speaker. Seven per cent. They really need to look at themselves when they have their next Super Weekend in June, I believe it is, in Gander. They really need to sit down and have a look at how come they continue to slip in the eyes of the public. You have to look no further than their performance here in the House of Assembly. They have to look at Hansard.

Here we are, four-and-a-half months, roughly, from election day, and we listen to the drivel from the Leader of the Opposition here tonight. I can understand an Opposition getting up - here we are in Budget debate - I understand that they have to bring forward their non-confidence motion. I understand all of that, but they stand up here four-and-a-half months away from an election, and can anybody tell me that they saw one iota, one little piece, element, atom, molecule, electron, whatever, one smidgen, Mr. Speaker, of a policy piece? One little piece of evidence of a little bit of vision of what the members opposite have for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador in the coming election and for the four years beyond that, Mr. Speaker? They did not have it in 2003 and, as a result of that, they were removed from office. They do not have it now in 2007.

We put out a plan. We laid it out to the people of the Province in the Throne Speech and the Budget Speech, Mr. Speaker, and I challenge the members opposite, since they were challenging us to lay down stuff here tonight, I challenge the members opposite to point to evidence that there is a wave of dissatisfaction in the masses of Newfoundland and Labrador with the Budget that was placed in front of them a couple of weeks ago and that we are debating here today.

I heard the member opposite talking about poverty there a little while ago. There is a poverty of vision over there, Mr. Speaker. He talked about poverty, and that this government has done nothing for poverty. A Poverty Reduction Strategy was rolled out last summer, and more elements of it rolled in this Budget past, Mr. Speaker, that is the envy of people in this county, that we have other jurisdictions, other provinces -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: - looking to study the Poverty Reduction Strategy of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. What did they do for poverty? I will tell you what they did for poverty, Mr. Speaker. They increased it while they were in government. Did they have a Poverty Reduction Strategy? Mr. Speaker, the evidence would have to suggest that they had a poverty increasing strategy.

Mr. Speaker, I am just going to say, I listened to the Leader of the Opposition tonight. I was just saying about a relative of mine - I am not going to say who it is - he likes the truth so much, Mr. Speaker.... Uncle Mose said this about Grandpa Walcott in The Chronicles of Uncle Mose: I wouldn't say that Grandpa Walcott lied. A more accurate description was that he liked the truth too much. He liked it so much that he stretched it to make it go further.

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of evidence of that in Newfoundland and Labrador around some of the comments that have been made recently on poverty reduction strategies, on the Budget generally, on infrastructure spending and what have you.

I listened to the member again, the Leader of the Opposition, the Member for Twillingate & Fogo, talking about: Where are we spending money on roads? Not spending it in the Twillingate & Fogo District.

Well, if my memory serves me correctly, I allocated $1 million for Twillingate & Fogo last year, $1 million for road upgrading. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that is $1 million more than the Member for Bellevue, who was the Minister of Transportation and Works in 2003, allocated in my district.

In 2003, Mr. Speaker, with the state that the Northern Peninsula Highway was in, from one end of her to the other, there was not one copper spend on the Northern Peninsula by the members opposite, so don't go standing up on your high horses tonight and chastising us about how we are spending roads money. We have been far more even-handed in the allocation of roads money under this Administration than you saw under that Administration, certainly in my district while I sat there. I cannot speak to what happened in others, but I can certainly speak to what happened on the Northern Peninsula in the three years or three construction seasons that we sat in Opposition, myself and the Member for St. Barbe.

Mr. Speaker, I have to touch on some of the issues from my district, because the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair has been prodding at me a little bit in the last few days about the situation in Roddickton, standing up and presenting petitions and what have you, Mr. Speaker. Well, let me deal with that straight up, just like I have done over the past couple of weeks on CBC Radio, I believe on Open Line - I cannot remember for sure now - certainly in the newspaper on the Northern Peninsula, and certainly straight up with the people who are involved with it, I can guarantee you that.

I got elected in 2001. In 2001, I was in Roddickton that spring. I was told by the people who were going to be operating the Wood Products Industries particle board plant that they were going to have that plant operational within a month. That was six years ago. There is yet to be one piece of particle board come out of that place.

You talk about going around and leaving people with false hope. Well, I do not go around leaving people with false hope. They might not like what I say, Mr. Speaker, but they get the truth straight up. I will say this: I will not be like - I never was like, and never will be like - the Member for Twillingate & Fogo, when he conveniently danced around the issue of the crab licence in St. Anthony and led them on a wild goose chase about how he would transfer a licence from Ramea to St. Anthony, Mr. Speaker, and then pulled the rug out from under their feet three months later. I will not do that to people, Mr. Speaker. I do not do that.

When I went into Harbour Breton two-and-a-half years ago with the Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune, he can certainly attest to the fact that I did not go in there and leave them with a pile of false hope. I told them they were in for two rough years, and if the right decisions were made and if there was co-operation things would start to turn around, Mr. Speaker. I did not say they were going to turn around 365 times, two days later, I can guarantee you that. I did not lead them on any wild goose chases. I sat down a good many times in the INTRD boardroom and the Fisheries boardroom and what have you, as part of a committee of ministers, with the people from Harbour Breton, and had some pretty frank conversations with them. I can guarantee you, the mayor of the town down there, Mr. Stewart, can certainly attest that there were no punches pulled over the course of a couple of years there; but, Mr. Speaker, that is not the way the members opposite played the game. They did not play the game that way. They certainly did not play the game that way with my people, I can guarantee you that, the people in The Straits & White Bay North.

Back in 1999, I believe it was, when Brian Tobin stood on a sawdust pile in the middle of an election campaign up in Roddickton and talked about this great facility that was going to be built and going to be employing seventy-five or a hundred people, and here we are now, eight years later, and it is still not operational. So, what did I do? Then the sawmill burned down in 2003, and the Northchip operation went bankrupt in 2003. Both happened at the time they were in government. What did they do, Mr. Speaker? They did the same thing with that as they did with the Poverty Reduction Strategy: nothing. They did not have a strategy because they did not know how to deal with it.

Mr. Speaker, we worked with Holson Forest Products and have a sawmill in operation in Roddickton again now.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TAYLOR: I say to the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans, I sat down here and I listened the whole while the Leader of the Opposition spoke, and the one time that the Speaker stood I was talking to a couple of my colleagues, not yapping across the floor. I ask for the same courtesy from members opposite, Mr. Speaker, certainly from the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans.

Now, Mr. Speaker, what did we do? We worked with Holson Forest Products. We invested $200,000 or $250,000 with them, and we have a sawmill in operation in Roddickton again now, where none was in operation under their watch in the last year that they were in government.

What else did we do? We tried to work with the principals of Canada Bay Lumber, Chimney Bay Lumber, Wood Products Industries, which are the same two people for the three companies. We worked with them. We offered them $250,000 under our SME Fund but, because they would not agree to the conditions, they did not get it. Well, the conditions were that they bring the particle board plant into operation and they rebuild the sawmill.

What did the principals of those three companies say last fall and winter? If I remember correctly - and they are here now fearmongering about us trying to take this permit and haul it out of the Roddickton area, which I have to say is just fearmongering and people being politically too cute by half - the fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, the principals behind Canada Bay Lumber last winter wanted to take that very permit, the very sawmill licence, and haul it out of that area to Daniel's Harbour.

Mr. Speaker, I said: No way, it is not going to happen - and the Minister of Natural Resources backed me up on it. Mr. Speaker, that sawmill will either be rebuilt in Roddickton, or - the permit definitely will not be leaving the Roddickton area, I can guarantee you that, not as long as I am a Member of the House of Assembly.

We sat down with the principals of Canada Bay Lumber. They came to us and offered us, back in October, I believe it was, the full repayment of their Wood Products Industries debt, $1.16 million. They offered to rebuild the mill, all through private financing, through a financial institution in Europe, and all they wanted in exchange was a five year timber sale agreement and a sawmill licence.

Mr. Speaker, we negotiated over the course of a number of months with those people and, if my memory serves me correctly, on January 25, on the eve of a court date, an agreement was reached. In that agreement we said: You will provide us with financial reports on April 15. You will provide us with $850,000 on May 10. You will begin construction on May 15, and you will conclude construction on September 15, on a $2.5 million sawmill. If you meet all of those conditions, you will have a five year timber sale agreement and you will have your sawmill licence.

They signed the agreement and we signed the agreement. When we got a month away from the most critical date, which was the date that they had to pay $850,000, I will tell members here, and the people of Roddickton, if anybody managed, as I said, to suffer through the Leader of the Opposition and still have their TV on, the fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, about a month before the critical date of May 10, the principals of Canada Bay Lumber, Wood Products Industries, Chimney Bay Lumber - it is convenient how they have so many company names and it is only two people doing exactly the same thing, but in any event - came to us and they were not satisfied to have Chimney Bay Lumber as the name in which the cutting permit and the five year timber sale agreement was issued. They wanted Wood Products Industries on it.

Well, Mr. Speaker, we did not want to put Wood Products Industries on it because the agreement was between the government and Chimney Bay Lumber, and if we allowed that permit to be issued to Wood Products Industries we had absolutely no leverage against the people and we had absolutely no protection for the people of Roddickton. We had no way to ensure that the permit would stay there. We had no way to ensure that the sawmill would be rebuilt, and we had no way to ensure that the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador would at least have $850,000 repaid against the $3.7 million that those people owe us.

That is what the dispute was about in the last month. When push came to shove, Mr. Speaker, they did not pay the money. They would not give on Chimney Bay Lumber, Wood Products Industries. We even offered to issue the permit in Wood Products Industries and Chimney Bay Lumber.

So, Mr. Speaker, the issue is dead. The sawmill will not be rebuilt by those people. The cutting permit will not be issued to those people. The company was written this morning, signed off by the Deputy Minister or the Minister of Natural Resources, I am not sure whom, sent off to them this morning. They were informed that, because they contravened a number of clauses, the permit will not be reissued. They have indicated to us in writing that they would like to have the opportunity, at fair market value, to buy the house and the two cottages on the property. That was a part of our agreement. We will honour that, Mr. Speaker, if they come forward with the money and pay fair market value for it. Outside of that, the remainder of the property is in our hands and the permit is in our hands. Whatever can be done will be done to ensure that the people who traditionally cut that permit, and the people in Roddickton who traditionally sawed that lumber, Mr. Speaker, will have access to it in the future. That will all be dealt with over the course of the next week of so, subject to legal advice from the Department of Justice and in co-operation with the Department of Natural Resources and my department.

The people of Roddickton need not fear having that permit go up the coast, which, by the way, would have happened had we let the principals of Chimney Bay Lumber have their way back in October or November, whenever it was last year, when they were in the newspapers and on the radios shooting off about all they were going to do.

Mr. Speaker, those are the facts as they relate to Chimney Bay Lumber. If the people want to see a copy of the agreement that was signed - I am sure, subject to proprietary information, they could probably get it through ATIP anyway, but if that is required so that people can see what happened - no problem, but that is what happened.

Mr. Speaker, I am just going to talk a little bit about economic development now. Mr. Speaker, why don't the members opposite - their star candidate who came out of their Super Weekend, the Mayor of St. Anthony, was in the paper - why don't they go and get a clip from the paper? I believe it was in December or January, when the Mayor of St. Anthony was interviewed on the outlook -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Speaker, can you please find something to quiet down the Leader of the Opposition? He was quite vocal a little while ago, when I was having a conversation with my colleagues, so if you could actually quiet him down now from shouting across the House it would be greatly appreciated.

As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, on the economic development front, why don't the members opposite go - they have this star candidate, as I said, who came out of their Super Weekend, the Mayor of St. Anthony. They thought they had three or four people. They had Marshall Dean, the guy in St. Anthony who owns the iceberg water bottling plant, they had him drove. I know that he was called. There are three or four others that I know of were called but they could not get them to bite. They ended up with Boyd Noel, the Mayor of St. Anthony. That is good enough. I have no problem with Boyd, but they should go and check his words in the paper, in The Northern Pen, back in January, I believe it was, where, at the time, he said that the economic situation in St. Anthony was one of the best that he has ever seen, very optimistic about the future of the town. Unemployment is practically non-existent in the town, Mr. Speaker. The people who want jobs, have jobs. They have a great water bottling facility going there which, by the way, we are into for about $500,000 on financing, creating jobs and generating products for export markets throughout Canada and the U.S., moving along fairly well.

If you look in St. Anthony at some of the issues, when we look over government - members opposite will remember the parade coming in from St. Anthony, for example, the parade coming in from St. Anthony about the PCB contamination up on the old pine tree site. Did they do anything about it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Nothing.

MR. TAYLOR: Nothing.

I am not sure, but I believe they might have - I stand to be corrected; I might be slightly mistaken - they might have spent $50,000 on a study to see how much contamination was there, and then tried to skirt around that. What did we do?

AN HON. MEMBER: Three million dollars to clean it up.

MR. TAYLOR: A little in excess of $3 million to clean it up, Mr. Speaker. The PCB contamination in St. Anthony is now gone.

There was a stadium issue.

AN HON. MEMBER: Cleaned up by the PCs

MR. TAYLOR: PCBs cleaned up by PCs, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Speaker, what about the arena in St. Anthony, an arena up there forty years old, falling down around their ears? I do not hear anybody up there bawling about the arena now, since, in the middle of the Rex Goudie concert last summer, I announced $4.8 million from the provincial government and then we worked with ACOA to get another $600,000 to go along with the town's gas money, I guess it is, Mr. Speaker, to have a $6 million arena complex developed.

What happened in the Budget this year, Mr. Speaker, the school situation? There was a parade and a pile of correspondence from the -

MS THISTLE: (Inaudible).

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Speaker, ask the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans to contain her enthusiasm. I know she loves to hear me speak, and loves to hear the good news that I have, but just ask her to slow down on the cheerleading just a little bit.

Mr. Speaker, as I said, there was a pile of correspondence looking for the problems with the St. Anthony high school to be dealt with, because it is a regional school, Mr. Speaker, to have that dealt with. What did we announce in the Budget this year? Was it $900,000, I believe? Something like that, anyway, for engineering work and design work of a new K-12 facility to be tied to the arena in St. Anthony, to be started hopefully on construction next year but certainly the design work will be started this year, Mr. Speaker. That is what has been done.

The crab licence, Mr. Speaker - what was it the judge said about the minister's decision, the Member for Twillingate & Fogo? That his decision on the crab licence was patently unreasonable. It was certainly unreasonable, Mr. Speaker. That is not surprising because the Leader of the Opposition, if you listen to his comments here in the House, everybody can understand his unreasonableness anyway. Mr. Speaker, the judge said it was patently unreasonable, that he did not treat the people of St. Anthony and St. Anthony Seafoods in a fair and even-handed manner. He ordered me to reconsider it, and they got their licence which they were promised by Brian Tobin and John Efford years ago.

Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition talks about what I did when I was Minister of Fisheries. Yes, there was lots of controversy. I said, when I walked into it, I would be condemned or criticized for what I tried to do, not what I did not try to do.

Well, I can tell you what the Leader of the Opposition was like as a Minister of Fisheries. God was good to him, that he had a big bully who used to sit in the second or third seat there, I believe it was, Mr. Tulk.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. TAYLOR: He had Mr. Tulk, the old Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development, that he could hide behind. Whenever Gerry got in trouble, you had no worries, there was no trouble to find Beaton. Whenever there was trouble, when the shrimp fishery was tied up and when the crab fishery was on strike, Beaton had to look after him. Beaton would come over: Now listen here, my boy. You just calm down, now, I will look after you. I will nudge you through this.

Old Beaton, the bulldog, managed the Minister of Fisheries for the two-and-a-half years he was there, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I will just say this in closing because I think my time is just about expired. I will just say this in closing to the Leader of Opposition and members opposite: Aldous Huxley, I believe his name was, said that, just because you refuse to acknowledge the facts doesn't mean that they cease to exist.

So, Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition can get up on his rant whenever he likes and he can talk about what is not happening. The evidence, Mr. Speaker, speaks volumes against that. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, there has been a whole lot of economic development done by this government. You need look no further than Cooke Aquaculture, the Barry Group and the aquaculture on the South Coast. Look at Arnold's Cove. Look at Canada ice and what have you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

The hon. the Member for the Bay of Islands.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JOYCE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I guess I will get the same protection as they got today while you are in the Chair, I would assume, Mr. Speaker.

To the Member for The Straights & White Bay North, he was just talking about Beaton Tulk and how he was protecting the Leader of the Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. JOYCE: I guess that is the same Beaton Tulk he was calling down there in a by-election, trying to get him to run for the Liberal Party, the same Beaton Tulk.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. RIDEOUT: I will rise with consent. I think my friend, the Member for the Bay of Islands, has allowed me, and we will not take any time out of his speaking.

Mr. Speaker, it is with a great deal of sadness that I rise and bring to the attention of members of the House, in case they have not heard, the untimely passing of Scott Chafe.

Those of us who have been in this House for a long time, and those who are relatively new, know that Scott Chafe has been an icon here. He has been a member of the press gallery since I have been here, and I have been here since 1975. He has covered every major political event, I guess, that has ever taken place in this Province for many decades, going back to our first Premiers' days.

I understand that this is now public knowledge, and I am sure that all members of the House would want me, on behalf of the government, to ask all members to pass our respects and our condolences to the Chafe family and remember Scott, as we all do, in a way that we would like to remember him, as a good friend, a colleague, a member of the press gallery, who reported the public events of this Province fairly, in an unbiased manner, and somebody who we were all delighted to know and rub shoulders with over the years. It is a great moment of sadness, I think, that we recognize his passing.

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

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I, too, would like to concur with the Government House Leader on the passing of Mr. Scott Chafe tonight. We, on this side of the House, would like to send condolences to his family. Scott will be sadly missed. In fact, for those of us who have been around the House of Assembly for a while, we have already missed him in this sitting of the House of Assembly because I think it is probably the first one that he has not been here in the last, I do not know how long, twenty or thirty years maybe.

I know that I got to know Mr. Chafe when I was first elected in 1996 and, as the Government House Leader said, he was always unbiased, he treated everybody with respect in this House of Assembly, and he had a lot of respect for the institution itself.

I can remember having many conversations with Mr. Chafe outside the Chambers here, and I think that what he liked best was to talk about his fishing experiences, because he did like to fish.

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that we would like to pass along our condolences to his family, and to tell them that Mr. Chafe will be sadly missed by all of us here in the House of Assembly.

Thank you.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: For the benefit of the people at the Table, Mr. Speaker, I just want to ensure that whatever time the Leader of the Opposition and I used would not be deducted from the speaking time of our colleague, the Member for the Bay of Islands.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Bay of Islands.

MR. JOYCE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I was getting back to Mr. Beaton Tulk, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Rural Development, who was trying to run for the Liberal Party. That was after he lost the federal run for the NDP. So, here is a man standing up on a lot of principles for different parties with different philosophies, with different principles. I say to the member -

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development, on a point of order.

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, for the record, Mr. Max Short, on behalf of Mr. Beaton Tulk, picked up the phone after the federal election and called me and asked me if I would run for him, and I said no because I had no interest in the Liberal Party.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

The hon. the Member for the Bay of Islands.

MR. JOYCE: Once again, Mr. Speaker, I was talking about the provincial election, when he was trying to contact Beaton Tulk to run for the Liberal Party provincially, before the federal seat became open. That was after, also, he ran for the NDP, I believe, and he lost for the NDP. Here is a man now standing up on principle, what each party got and what I stand for. It is nice to see, I must say.

The Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development was talking about elections, and what they say about the elections and other things. I remember a phrase when Clyde Wells, back in 1992, I guess it was, November or December 1992, and they were having some problems with the budget and it came about there may be some cuts to the civil service. I know a lot of the ministers after Clyde Wells, election year came up in 2003, were going to get the flak at the polls. I remember I was going out to Gillams on the North Shore of the Bay of Islands. They asked me, as parliamentary assistant, who always spoke pretty frank with Premier Wells at the time: Can you mention it to him and see what he has to say? I mentioned it to the Premier. Premier Wells said to me at the time, in the car: Eddie, I would rather lose with honesty than win with dishonesty. That is what Premier Wells told us.

You go back to 2003. Of course, we all went through the 2003 election and, sure, the people spoke and I have no problem with the people speaking. I have absolutely no problem whatsoever when they said: Okay, fine, Liberals, we want you guys out. We want another group coming in. We have no problem.

Then, I remember the promises. I remember out in Corner Brook and I remember the Stephenville mill. The Premier met with all of the union people and said it will not close under my watch. You have my personal guarantee. You have my personal guarantee that it will not close.

The people out in that area said: Okay, we have a man who is going to stand up for us. We have a man here, we have his personal commitment, he has a good chance of being the Premier so we are going to stick with him.

Where did that promise get us? The mill is closed. He went back in October or November of last year - the year before, sorry - talking about the expropriation of the mill. He sat down with seven or eight of the union executive. They asked him about expropriation. They got their ministers, about eight or nine of them there, and he said: You have my personal commitment. I will expropriate the assets of the mill for this area.

Take a guess. It never happened. I can go on and on. I look at the Metis commitment that they made before the election, the commitment to the Metis people - broken, gone - just to get elected. Then you talk here about how we have to stand up for commitments and things you believe in. Look at Harbour Breton, and what they did in Harbour Breton: standing shoulder to shoulder, we are going to Ottawa. They will not close. We are going to make sure that Ottawa comes through. Guess what? It never happened.

Look down in Bonavista, FPI, when they were going to build a new crab plant. I wonder, is it started this year, Mr. Speaker? The commitment made in this House of Assembly that the new crab plant was going to start, FPI, guess what? It has not started. I cannot see anybody opposite up here saying that, oh, no, it is a broken commitment, that the government now should do what is within their power under the FPI Act to fulfill their commitment.

I know in the Bay of Islands again - and I go back to just a few small things in the Bay of Islands - when the Premier and Mike Monaghan, the potential candidate now, walked in at the time and promised a new fire truck. Guess what? They got no fire truck. I walked in after and said: You cannot even apply for the truck. It is not even old enough to apply. It has to be within twenty years before they even look at it. There is no fire truck. Out in Cox's Cove, just a small pump that the Premier promised, guess what? They never, ever got the two pumps.

Here we are going through a Budget, and I look out in Corner Brook at the exhibition centre. I still have it. The Member for Humber East had it right in his brochure: 2003, the completion of the exhibition centre. Guess what? It is out there now with $300,000 of water and sewer in the ground. It is a parking lot, the most expensive parking lot in Corner Brook.

The Member for Humber East, the Minister of Finance now, why don't you stand up now and tell the people out there: I broke a commitment to you. That is what you did. We have the brochure out there. You can stand up and say: Oh, well, we could not do it at the time - but now you can. So, here we are putting the money into The Rooms, which is a great project - there is no problem with the project - but here is a fine arts exhibition out in Corner Brook and we have to bring it into St. John's. There is a School of Fine Arts, of Memorial, out in Corner Brook, and the people have to find a place to show off their exhibits. Here is the member, at the time when he was running, put it in his brochure: We are going to finish the exhibition centre.

Where is the $60 million for the Centre of Excellence that was committed in 2003? You were going to have it done in four years. Where is the long-term care facility that was committed?

AN HON. MEMBER: Gone to Montreal.

MR. JOYCE: People out in Corner Brook are phoning me because they have to send their application up to Montreal, to work at the long-term care facility in Corner Brook.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why?

MR. JOYCE: Because the contract went to a company in Quebec.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why (inaudible)?

MR. JOYCE: That is what we have been trying to find out.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. JOYCE: Then again, Mr. Speaker, we asked - and, I mean, we need the long-term care facility. There is absolutely no doubt, we need the long-term care facility.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. JOYCE: We need it. There is absolutely no doubt that we need the long-term care facility, but the commitment was made to commit the funds in 2003 and have it built in 2007. Guess what? It is not built.

The former Minister of Health, when he was in the Estimates, said it is going to be 2010 or 2011 before it is built.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. JOYCE: Mr. Speaker, can you please control them like you did today, please? I am sure you are willing to do it now. If you cannot keep them quiet, can you please just ask them to take it outside? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I hear the Member for Exploits talking about how he is going around the district and talking about how everybody is so proud of the Budget. Then again, I have to ask: If everybody is so happy with the Budget, and if you are such a man standing up for the people, why didn't you present a petition in the House of Assembly, that the people asked you to do, about the closing of the maintenance depot in your district? If you are such a man, going to stand up for your people, everything is so fine, why are they now giving you petitions that the roads are unsafe because the maintenance place is closed, the maintenance depot? How come you never presented it? If you are going to stand up for the people in your area, and all of a sudden everything is so great, why are you getting a petition if everything is so great in your district? Why are you getting -

MR. FORSEY: A point of order.

MR. JOYCE: Here we go, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. FORSEY: For the information of the Member for Bay of Islands, and all due respect to him, I was asked to make sure that I presented it to the Minister of Transport, which I did.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask members for their co-operation.

There is no point of order.

The hon. the Member for the Bay of Islands.

MR. JOYCE: The Member for Exploits just said we do what the people ask. Well, why don't you do what the petition asks and vote against the government unless you get the depot open? Let's see how much guts you have, because you will not do it. You haven't got the guts to do it. If you are going to stand up and present a petition in the House of Assembly, which you should do, vote against the Budget. You will not vote against the Budget.

I say, Mr. Speaker -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. JOYCE: I will just let the Speaker know that is the fourth time that I have been interrupted.

We will go on again. I heard the Member for Mount Pearl today talking about how we never asked any questions about the Budget, because it is such a great Budget. To hear him today over there going on, that we would not - when we ask questions about health care, is that about the Budget, I wonder? With the problems happening now in Eastern Health Care, when we were asking questions about the Budget, is there enough funding in the Budget for the positions, is that concerning the Budget, because it is such a great Budget?

We asked questions in the House of Assembly about unsafe highways and snow clearing, taking it off at 9:30 at night and putting it on again at 5:00 a.m. or 6:00 a.m. Is that about the Budget, where there is not enough money in Transportation and Works for safety?

Even the Member for Exploits - I say the Member for Mount Pearl was contradicting you when he was presenting a petition to the minister about the closing of the depots.

When you stand in this House of Assembly and say that the Budget is so good that we do not even want to ask questions about it, it is absolutely, categorically, false.

Then we turn around and we ask questions to the Minister of Business about: How much money in grants did you give out to the businesses around? How much money? The minister here, in the Estimates, said: Not one business. We never gave one grant subsidy loan to one business in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador last year.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) not true.

MR. JOYCE: Not true.

I couldn't believe it. I said: Well, name me a job that the Department of Business created. He looked at me - and I have to give him credit, he was honest - and he said: Not one.

The minister was so honest, I felt kind of bad for him, so I said to him: There has to be some mistake here, Minister. Tell us. The Department of Business has been on the go now for almost four years. You are spending millions and millions and millions of dollars. We see you are hiring another fifteen or sixteen people this year. You are hiring another ADM. You spent $1.1 million on this new pitcher plant, the fly-eating plant or the mushroom, whatever you want to call it. You are spending another $900,000 this year.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. JOYCE: I said: Name one job you are after creating. He could not name one, Mr. Speaker. He could not name one position. You wonder why, then, you are going to vote against the Budget. You wonder why.

Here they are in the 2004 Budget, we turn around, $27 million in fee increases. Everything, every fee possible, some that were not even dreamed of, and they raised about $27 million. This year, they brought it down $3.4 million and we are supposed to go and vote for the Budget?

I ask the Member for Topsail - I have to give her a bit of credit. When the Premier went off and gave that $150,000 to VON to stop the golf tournament over on the West Coast and she knew nothing about it, and knew it was just going for wages, and it broke every financial administration act, she knew that. I wonder, I ask the Member for Topsail, what do you think of the $15 million given out untendered? What do you think?

MR. REID: Without a tender.

MR. JOYCE: Without a tender, given to their friends. You have all of the e-mails there saying we will give them the money and we will work out the details later.

MR. REID: The previous Auditor General.

MR. JOYCE: As the previous Auditor General, as someone who stood her ground on $150,000 for a golf tournament out in Corner Brook, what do you think of that $200,000 feel-good campaign the Premier gave to the vice-president of M5 Marketing, I think it was, $200,000 untendered? What do you think of that?

We have to vote for that tonight, or some time soon. We have to vote for that. That is the kind of things we have to vote for. You expect me to go out and vote for that, when their own Member for Topsail stood her ground on $150,000 and now you are going to vote for $15 million going to Dean MacDonald?

Then we have the Minister of Health and Community Services. My colleague, the Member for Humber Valley, asked him if they would help out with this lady, Ms Wheeler, over in Summerside on the North Shore of the Bay of Islands, with transportation. I read Hansard after, and I spoke to the family, and the minister was going on with this enhanced travel program that the government put in, how we improved this great program and you could avail of it, and it was just totally, absolutely, false, the perception that was given out there. This lady is not eligible, and the department will not look at her for a travel subsidy, and you want me to vote for this Budget, to vote for the Budget where, here is a family out there saying: Okay, you cannot help us with the treatment but help us with the travel. The minister is out giving the impression that there is a big travel subsidy program here that you can avail of, if you want to, if you want to come into St. John's for this type of treatment. It is just absolutely false. If I went out to Summerside now and I told those people that I voted for that Budget, and voted for that false perception given out, they would not talk to me any more. They would not talk to me, Mr. Speaker. Now, of course, I wouldn't blame them, such false perception being given out there.

Mr. Speaker, I will just go through some of the funds here that were given out. I mentioned the VON, the $150,000. The Member for Topsail resigned, or was kicked out, I don't know. She never, ever, said what she did. It cost the deputy minister her job - $150,000 for the feel-good by M5 Marketing.

If you want to talk about government supposed to be open and accountable, and the things we have to vote for in this Budget because the Premier says it is all right to do, how many of us remember Griffiths Guitar Works, when the Minister of Finance, and I think it was the former Minister of Industry, Trade and Rural Development, went and turned it down, $300,000? The Premier walked in on his own and gave them $300,000 to set up shop in China. That is what Griffiths Guitar Works is doing, and they are going to ship them over to a plant in New Jersey. The two ministers, the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development and the Minister of Finance, said no. The Premier, for some reason - I guess John Risley was on the board, so I guess John Risley may have a bit of pull with the Premier, I do not know, so the Public Accounts looked into it. We called, and we wrote, actually, the Deputy Minister of Finance. Then we also wrote Cathy Duke, one of them, now, one of the good guys, the Government of Newfoundland, Industry, Trade and Rural Development.

Here is what they told us, now, the Public Accounts of this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador: As a compromise, we will strongly recommend that the Public Accounts Committee consider accepting any documents or information that the department is permitted to release pursuant to the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act as it relates to Griffiths Guitars. This information can be quickly made available and would not, in our opinion, prejudice the company or the Province.

Can you imagine, the Public Accounts of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador cannot get any information from the Department of Finance, the Department of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development, because the Premier made a decision to put in $300,000 and they will not release the information? There are four people over there on the Public Accounts, and I bet you when we get to the next meeting and I bring this up, do you know what they are going to do? We are not going to look at that.

I am willing to bet my last bottom dollar that the four of them, when I say, let's have hearings on this here, they will not do it. I am willing to bet that four of them will not do it. The public accounts of this Province - you want me to go out and vote for this and you cannot even find out. You cannot even find it. It is just absolutely amazing.

Mr. Speaker, we all heard about Joan Cleary and her increase of $40,000, or severance of $40,000. Then, she got her $100,000 -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. JOYCE: That is in the Budget. It had to be in the Budget. It was paid this year, I would assume. It was paid this year, so I am assuming it had to be in this year's Budget. We have to vote for that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. JOYCE: Paid in last year's Budget, the minister said. So, you paid it before she even got laid off, did you? You had money in the Budget last year, did you, I say to the minister?

Here we are, Mr. Speaker, we have a back load of money that the Premier personally wanted spent. We have fees increases, that they are giving the impression that they are dropping, which they have not dropped. We have $15 million given out, for which there was no public tendering done in this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. We have highway depots closed that even members opposite are sneaking in letters to the ministers; they do not have guts to stand up on their own. We have snow clearing in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador shut down from 9:30 at night until 5:30 in the morning, and we have to go out and vote for that?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. Member for the Bay of Islands that his speaking time has lapsed.

MR. JOYCE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will gladly sit down, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, after listening to the Member for Bellevue and the Member for Bay of Islands, I would like to now talk about Budget 07, not go back to the 1960s and 1980s and 1990s and talk about what was. Let's talk about what is, and let's talk about what is to come, because I think that is what the people of the Province want to hear about. They want to hear about what we are doing today and what we are going to do about tomorrow, because what has gone past is past us; we cannot change it. They want to hear about what we are doing for today's needs and what we are going to be doing about tomorrow's needs.

Mr. Speaker, the Budget is certainly about - people who vote for it are voting for choices, there is no doubt about that. When you are a government, you have to make choices. You have to see the needs that people bring to your attention, and you have to come up with solutions for each of those needs that have been identified. That is what we have done. We have put together a package of choices that we refer to as our Budget, and those are the choices that this government made in responding to the needs of the people of the Province and responding to the issues of the Province that were brought forward to us.

Mr. Speaker, I could, I guess, have brought in all of the clippings, but I did not do that. I will just give you a little overview of the groups and individuals who have responded favourably. We have the Canadian Federation of Business; we have the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour; we have the President of Memorial University; we have the St. John's Board of Trade; we have the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Municipalities, all speaking in favour of the Budget that was brought down, all saying that they believe it was well-balanced, well-thought-out, and a very good Budget for the people of this Province.

So, whether or not the people opposite want to vote for that is entirely their choice. To be perfectly blunt, we did not bring in a Budget for those people. We brought in a Budget for the people of the Province, the people who I just named, who have told us that they think it is a good Budget. If those members want to get up and speak against that, and vote against that, that is certainly their option to do so. I respect the option to do that, but I have to say that we are getting, from the people of this Province, from the groups in this Province, the organizations in this Province that we respond to, a lot of positive feedback and a lot of positive comments. So, we feel it is a good Budget and we will be voting for the Budget because it is a Budget that was created by this government based upon the needs that were presented by the people and the organizations that I just represented.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SKINNER: Those are some of the individuals and groups who helped us craft the Budget and helped us create the Budget.

Now, the members opposite speak to the fact that the money that was spent on education was nothing to crow about; the money that was spent on health was just the normal year-over-year increase. Well, Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is that we, as a government, have to make sure that we are able to put the money into the Budget to be able to respond to -

MR. JOYCE: (Inaudible).

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, if I could, I am having difficulty hearing myself with the Member for Bay of Islands.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SKINNER: I do not know what it is about him, but when you get up and you start talking about something he wants to have a go at you for some reason. I don't know why. We listened to him quietly.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) the mushrooms.

MR. SKINNER: It is the mushrooms, my colleagues are telling me. He mentioned something about mushrooms earlier. I am not sure what it was.

Mr. Speaker, my point is, budgets are about bringing more and more resources to the people of the Province. We have more resources available to us in terms of financial resources, and we are using those to invest in our people, to invest in our infrastructure and, more importantly, I believe, Mr. Speaker, the people of the Province realize that we are creating stability and sustainability in the systems of the Province.

It is one thing to say that you have money, and throw money at things to try and create solutions, but throwing money is not the answer. Having all kinds of money available to you does not mean that things are going to be right. It does not mean that, because we have a lot of money and we pump it into the health care system, we can solve all the problems of the health care system. It does not work like that. You have to be strategic about how you invest your money. You have to make sure that you have sustainability in your systems, and you have to make sure that you have stability in your systems. The people of the Province have reviewed the document that we brought forward and have resoundingly said to us that they believe it is a well-balanced, good document. They like it a lot.

In terms of some of the things that we have done in this Budget, I just want to highlight a few. I will not go through them all because, if I do go through them all, I will be getting up a lot more than once tonight, I can guarantee you that. I will just speak to a couple of things that I am particularly pleased about that we were able to do, as a government, in this Budget.

Mr. Speaker, I represent the District of St. John's Centre, and the District of St. John's Centre has many hundreds of Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation housing units contained within the boundaries of the district. Myself and, I have to say, my colleague here, Mr. Ridgley, from the District of St. John's North, myself and my colleague from that district spent many, many days, when we were first elected, sitting down trying to address the concerns that were being brought forth to us from our constituents about the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation. They felt that they, as residents in those houses, had been neglected for many, many years. They felt that they were not getting the type of service and the level of service they should have gotten, and they asked us to try and advocate on their behalf.

We have been doing that for the last three years, three-plus years. I am happy to say that in this Budget that was brought down there is $24 million that this government has put into the Provincial Home Repair Program - some people refer to it as the RAP program - over the next six years. Now, the Provincial Home Repair Program allows people to stay within their own houses, first of all. People who want to stay within their own homes and do up their homes can apply to Housing for grants up to $5,000 to allow them to do some work. It might be windows that are drafty. It might be doors that are drafty. It might be a roof that needs to be replaced. It might be electrical upgrading. It could be all kinds of things, but it allows people to have some comfort in their home and to be able to stay in their homes longer because they are able to enjoy themselves more in there.

Besides the Provincial Home Repair Program, we have also put $27.5 million into what we call the Modernization and Improvement Program, the M&I Program, over the next five years, $27.5 million. So, we will invest into the stock that we have, or the inventory that we have, as a government. We will invest in those units throughout the Province in terms of doing things that need to be done to make those houses better for the people who are living in them.

We will be putting new windows in. We will be putting new doors in. We will be putting weather stripping. We will be putting roofing. We will be painting units. We will be putting cupboards. We will be doing electrical, plumbing. There are all kinds of things that will be done.

Some of those homes are the oldest public housing units that are in Canada. They are fifty and sixty years old. You will not go anywhere else in this country and find some of those public housing units that are any older than the ones that we have right here in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, sixty years of age, and they have been neglected over the years. They have not gotten the investment and the money pumped into them that they should, but this government made the decision to invest the money to sustain those units, to keep the value in the units, because it is an asset for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, and to create sustainability so that people could stay in those homes and enjoy living in those homes.

A little bit further along with the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing, Mr. Speaker, we have a little initiative in there for the seniors who reside in our units, with something called rent-geared-to-income or the RGI factor. We basically used to charge 30 per cent of a person's income for a senior, up to 30 per cent, to stay in one of our units. This year, Mr. Speaker, to try and give seniors a little bit more money, we have lowered that down to 25 per cent. So, 5 per cent has been taken off the rent that we would charge to a senior so they can put that in their pocket and use that as their own disposable income to do what they want to do with that. Anybody who is being charged the maximum RGI will now be reduced down to 25 per cent. They will have 5 per cent more of their own money that they can use to do what they want to do with it.

We have talked about the Provincial Home Repair Program for people who want to do some things to their own homes. We have talked about the M&I Program for people who are in the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing units. We have talked about seniors who getting a reduction in income.

Let's talk about the Poverty Reduction Strategy, Mr. Speaker. This year alone an extra $29 million has been put into the Poverty Reduction Strategy. The total annualized budget now of the Poverty Reduction Strategy is over $91 million per year. Mr. Speaker, the lady to my right here, the Member for St. George's-Stephenville East, is the lady who brought that program to fruition for us. I want to thank her for doing that because I think it has benefitted a lot of people in this Province. I think it has done a lot of good for the people of this Province, and it is a living document, it is a living strategy, one that we will continue to move forward with, one that we will continue to improve upon, one that we will continue to work with the community groups and the people in the Province who we work with on a regular basis to find out what else can be done to ensure that the Poverty Reduction Strategy is achieving the goal that was set out, which is to go from the Province with the highest level of poverty to the Province with the lowest level of poverty in ten years. We are moving towards that.

As recently as last Thursday, Mr. Speaker, one of the staff in the Department of Human Resources, Labour and Employment, who was instrumental in developing and rolling out that Poverty Reduction Strategy, was asked to go to Ottawa to present on our Poverty Reduction Strategy for people all over Canada. Ottawa made a request to our department that we would let her go. They paid for her expenses. We gave her some time to go up, and she made a presentation in Ottawa, at a federal-provincial committee, to people all over the country on the Poverty Reduction Strategy that we have developed as a government here in this Province. It seemed to be a leader across the country, across all of North America.

As well, Mr. Speaker, we have a number of community centres in this Province that do a lot of good work. Our community centres are supports to the communities that surround them. They do things like homework programs. They provide activities for our seniors. They provide activities for our youth. They provide activities like healthy baby programs, after-school programs, tutoring programs, homework clubs, recreational activities, wellness programs. The list goes on and on.

What did this Budget do for community centres? Well, first of all, it gave all of the community centres currently in the Province an extra allotment of funding so they could expand their services and create more services for the people that they are serving. We recognize there are seven community centres out there that are doing good work and we have put an extra pot of money together for those community centres to be able to go and serve their constituency better than they have been serving them because we feel it is money well spent. We feel that we are getting all kinds of good service from those community centres in terms of what they are providing to the communities around them.

We have also created one new community centre. We have an area of the Province where we felt there was a need for one. There is a criteria that is established, we applied the criteria to this particular geographic area and we now have an eighth community centre in the Province that will continue to do the kind of work that I just alluded to a few minutes ago.

In terms of the new mothers - let's talk about new mothers for a minute. What did this Budget do for new mothers? Well, one of the things it did was it created monies for a home visiting program. What does a home visiting program do? It allows our staff and others to go visit vulnerable children to support their parents in early childhood development and parenting skills. It allows us to go out, through Eastern Health and through other health boards throughout the Province, and visit people who need some help with parenting and parenting skills, to make sure that the children they just brought into the world are brought up as best as they can be brought up. That is something that is needed to be done. Formative years of children are very, very important. We recognize as a government, and we were told through our Poverty Reduction Strategy, that was something which needed to be looked at and we certainly looked at it and put some resources into it.

Again, it goes back to making sure, when we put the resources into it, that we are stabilizing the system and we are bringing sustainability to the system. The Poverty Reduction Strategy is stability and sustainability. We wanted to make sure that this was something we could continue to do on a go-forward basis. Every year we will make sure we are able to put more money into that to enhance the kinds of things that we are doing with the Poverty Reduction Strategy to ensure that we go, as I said, from the goal of being the Province with the highest level of poverty to the Province with the lowest level of poverty within ten years.

Mr. Speaker, if I could, I would like to, just for a minute, refer to a document that was brought up a little bit earlier this evening before we took our supper break and it had to do with the Opposition House Leader referring to some capital projects that were being done, money being spent in the Province. He was basically saying: How do you guys take credit for this? Well, we are not. I think you missed the point. We are not taking credit for this. We are highlighting some of the investments that other groups and individuals are making in this Province, using their money mainly, some of it is involved with government money but the vast majority of it is private investment.

The purpose of listing that, Mr. Speaker, is to show to the people of the Province that we have an investment community and a business community in this Province that supports the direction of government. They support the kinds of rules and regulations that we have for them to be able to do their businesses. They support the kinds of decision making that we, as a government, are doing. They support the kinds of rules and regulations that we have developed for businesses to follow. They are investing millions and millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars into our Province. Why are we highlighting that, Mr. Speaker? Because it creates economic wealth. It creates employment. It shows the people all across the Province that there are people out there who believe in what we are doing here. That is the difference. If you believe in it and if you think it is right, you will put your money where your mouth is, and that is what those individuals and those businesses did.

When we talk about the new Ford dealership in Gander, or we talk about what is happening down in Placentia or those kinds of things, it is not meant to be about that one development. It is meant to be about the pages and pages of accomplishments that are here. These are business accomplishments. These are businessmen and businesswomen who have taken their hard-earned money and said we are going to invest in this Province because we believe this government is on the right path. They are supporting the direction of government. They see what we are doing and they feel it is the right thing to be doing, so they are supporting us in that. That is the purpose of highlighting those things in our economy. We are showing the direction that this government has taken, the decisions that this government is making and the budget that this government has brought down is instilling confidence into our business leaders so that they will spend money in our Province, so that all of our residents will benefit. There will be employment for people. There will be spinoff industries. There will be other investments that will come from that. It is a cycle that just keeps on growing and growing. It is a cycle that keeps on feeding itself. We have a small part to play in that, but we are happy to list their accomplishments there - not our accomplishments, their accomplishments, but we stand by them because we believe that we are both investing in this Province and believing in what we are doing here as a Province.

Mr. Speaker, the other thing that I would like to talk about for just a second is we invested, as a government - in particular, I want to reference again an organization with my own District of St. John's Centre, the Vera Perlin Society. The Vera Perlin Society has been around for, I would say, at least fifty years. I am not sure exactly how many, but certainly for at least fifty years. It provides a host of services for mentally challenged people within our city, and within our Northeast Avalon area and it has been doing it for, as I said, I believe it is over fifty years. I am not sure of the exact number. They want to expand their services. They want to be able to reach out to more people. They want to be able to do more than what they are doing. We have committed to them - because of their ask to us - $500,000 for a new facility that they are going to build. The facility itself, I believe, is somewhere around $2.75 million. They have come after us, they will go after the municipal council, the federal government, and they have committed to raising, I believe, $750,000 themselves. So, because of the investment they are making in their project, we decided to support them as well.

As the member representing the District of St. John's Centre, I am happy to be able to stand and say that the Budget we brought down recognizes fifty years of service to this community, fifty years of service to the mentally challenged people of this Province, and I am glad to see that they are continuing to do their work. Not only are they continuing to do it, but they are going to expand upon the kind of work they did. So, we are happy to be able to do that. That is the kind of choices that were made in this Budget.

As I said earlier, it is about choices. It is about: What is it that we, as a government, feel need to be done? How do we get the information to make those decisions? We sit amongst ourselves and we talk. Yes, no doubt about it. We talk, as a Cabinet, about the things that need to be done. Each and every member here, sitting on this side of this House, spends time in their districts. When the House closes on Thursday they go back into their districts. When the House is not open a lot of them are in their districts; going through the various communities and the various neighbourhoods that are in their districts. They are talking to the people who are in all of those communities and neighbourhoods and they are asking them: What are the needs? They are asking them: What are the things that need to be done? They are asking them: What is it that has not been done that you think needs to be done in the future? All of that information comes back.

We have a very cohesive caucus on this side of the House, Mr. Speaker. This caucus has a lot of meetings. We share a lot of information. We challenge each other. We talk to each other about issues and all of that information comes back from caucus, but it also comes back from the community groups. It also comes back from the partnerships that we have developed in our communities. Each and everyone of us have a number of community-based organizations that bring information to us. A good example of that, as I referenced earlier, was the Poverty Reduction Strategy. That strategy was developed on the ground and brought up. It was not developed at the Cabinet Table and forced down through the system. It was developed at the ground level and was brought up to the Cabinet Table for ratification, and it was there that it was resourced and there that it was supported.

So those are the kinds of things that we do as a government. When we get up and talk about the Budget, those are the kinds of things we are talking about. Now, we are not going to solve all the problems with any one budget. Anybody who thinks it is a black and white issue, or an issue that you can or you cannot, I think you are missing the point.

The point that I want to make here, Mr. Speaker, by way of conclusion, is that we have to make choices. We also have to understand that there will be tomorrow, and things will happen tomorrow that we can plan for and things will happen tomorrow that we cannot plan for, but either way, you have to look forward to tomorrow, you have to move towards tomorrow. You have to have the confidence in yourself and the confidence in your community that you are going to face whatever challenges there are, whatever they may be, and that is what we are going to be doing. We, as a government, have recognized that we may not have all the answers today but we recognize there are things that are going to come up tomorrow that we will deal with. We have put together a plan. We have put together a budget that the people support in this Province and we have put together a number of initiatives that the people say they support.

We will continue to do good work on behalf of the people of this Province, Mr. Speaker. Those people, I hope, will remember that come October, and we will be back here after then putting together another budget with another group of good initiatives for the people of the Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans.

MS THISTLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I guess the minister who just finished would be typical of the Open Line host, Mr. Randy Simms, who would say that he drank the Kool-Aid. But, thank you for the lead in, because you made reference to two speakers who had talked about several years in the past and related it to today, but do you know something? I am not going to speak about the past. I am going to speak about the present and the future. You are going to be surprised at what I am going to say.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS THISTLE: I can see that the Member for Mount Pearl is getting wound up over there. As soon as I step up to speak, he is generally a part of the cheerleading group over there.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the present and the future. The Budget that has been given here in this House is all about getting through the next election. The Budget that was delivered in this House is all about getting through the next election. In the government's own material, I will tell you and give you the evidence to back that up.

The Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment said that things have never looked brighter. Well, I would like to refer the minister to his own publication called The Economy 07 and it is entitled: Vision. Action. The government, themselves, are saying - and they have, this year, the best GDP rate in all of Canada, 8.5 per cent. The government, in their own publication, is saying beyond 2007 it is a different story for this government and this Province. Beyond 2007, this government - unless there is a change - will have the worst economic growth in the whole country of Canada. The very worst. It will slip from 8.5 per cent down to less than 1 per cent in growth next year. Now that is a frightening prospect. The reason that is going to happen is because Hibernia is starting to decrease its production. The medium term outlook would be improved by a higher than projected oil production and/or the development of Hebron-Ben Nevis, the Lower Churchill, or other large scale projects.

What government is admitting is the fact that there is no large scale project in the wings. What we are seeing here today, and since this Budget was delivered April 26, is that there is a lot of money in circulation today. There is a lot of money in circulation from this Budget. In fact, there is $261 million left to spend in this year that has not been earmarked yet by this government. I would be willing to bet that most of that money will be spent once the House of Assembly closes and leads up to the election of October 9.

The government, by their own admission, is saying that housing starts this year are going to decline by over 2,000 units. That is significant, when you have had a building boom in this Province simply because there have been large projects, oil related and mineral related, such as Voisey's Bay and three offshore oil projects. As of now, there is neither project in the wings that is about to happen. As a result of that - the previous speaker, the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment talked about the confidence that investors are showing in this government and that is the reason they are going to be able to build car dealerships and so on in this Province, and going to take on large projects. Like, Memorial Stadium has now been turned into a Sobeys supermarket, but what he neglected and failed to mention was the fact that capital investment next year is going to decrease by almost 8 per cent.

Government, in their own publication, is saying that capital investment - the stuff that private investors invest in, like Sobeys supermarkets, pharmacies, car dealerships, building supplies, whatever - is going to reduce by almost 8 per cent, and the government is telling us that. The government is also telling us that there will be 2,000 less housing starts next year. They are also telling us that newsprint shipments are going to be decreased by 7 per cent or 595,000 tons.

This Budget that was just brought down, with lots of money in it, is sort of like a flash in the pan. It is a flash in the pan budget. Government has lots of money this year and they are able to sit down with a cheque book with no credit limit. The sky is the limit. They can write out a cheque for every need there is; except, all that will change next year unless there is a major project in the wings for this government. Right now, there is no project. In fact, the Premier, by his own admission last week, was so desperate for a project to announce that he announced one himself. He wanted to hire 1,000 civil servants, because his own ministers in economic development failed to produce.

Often in the past, since the Budget, I have gotten up and talked about the fact that economic development in rural Newfoundland and Labrador is zero. Absolutely zero. In fact, the Minister of Business - and I said this before - this year has $25 million as a development fund that he can work with and create jobs. Do you know what he said in his business book for this year? By 2011, four years out, the Department of Business will have facilitated the attraction of major businesses in this Province. Well, that is a scandalous statement. This is a scandalous statement for a Minister of Business to talk about, in four years time having a plan developed.

Then we have the Minister of Rural Development with a book here of twenty-five strategies to develop business in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and out of those twenty-five strategies not one is in the operational stages. This is a minister now with a staff of 254 people, over $1 million in salaries just for Rural Secretariat, one section of it - a staff of 254 and there is not one thing in his book. He is the minister with a blank book. No plans.

I was talking the other day, when I was up, of the issue of our population here and that is a frightening prospect. Do you know that the seniors in this Province - if you look around this House of Assembly, and I think the people in this House of Assembly are probably representative of the people who are out in the general population, because when you look around this House of Assembly you see that most of the people here are over fifty years old. The majority of people in this House of Assembly here tonight, forty-eight members, the majority of them are over fifty years old. There are a lot of people starting to move around in their seats because the majority of people here in this House of Assembly are over fifty years old. In our Province, 35 per cent of our population are over fifty; 180,000 people are over fifty years old. How many of them are going to be looking for a job? Not too many. Out of a population of 514,000, 287,000 are over fifty. What do we have to contribute to the labour force? Very little.

I want to talk about an item that I just saw today. When this present government were in Opposition, there was a critic for the environment and that particular critic for the environment is now the Minister of Justice. He made a name for himself over here on this side when he was in Opposition and he was the critic for the environment. He said that if he was ever part of the government he was going to develop a plan to use recycled tires. That was his plan. He was going to develop a plan for recycled tires. He would never have a pile up of tires here. He would create a secondary industry so those tires could be used somewhere in the Province for making a new industry.

I opened up the book today, the report of Public Tender Act exceptions. Government is required to publish this booklet every month. It is whenever they decide to give business to a company without going to tender. I noticed in this book there were four companies outside our Province that did not go to tender. Their focus was to pick up our used tires, the ones - when we take them off our cars we pay $3 a tire to have them recycled somewhere. They have been stockpiled all over the Province. What has happened now - this did not even go to tender. What happened? They sent out the tires that were piled up everywhere; there was a bunch in Stephenville. So a company from Quebec came down and actually put them aboard their trucks and trucked them up to Quebec. That cost $800,000. That is the ones that were in Stephenville.

Then another company from Quebec trucked the tires from Goose Bay and Wabush to Quebec. That cost $45,000. Then another company brought them from Happy Valley to Goose Bay and then on to Quebec, for a cost of $11,000. Then another company came in and brought them from the rest of Labrador, southern Labrador and so on, all to Quebec for another $12,000. It cost the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador $836,000 to get four companies from Quebec to come in, load up their trucks, take out our tires and dispose of them in the Province of Quebec.

This government that said they were going to create a secondary industry from recycled tires did not do it. Four years on the job, after consumers around our Province paying $3 a tire to have them recycled with the thought that there was going to be a secondary industry created, they did not do it. They gave this contract, without going to tender, to a Quebec business. Four different locations in our Province, in the Island portion and in Labrador, companies came in, filled up the trucks, brought them out and they were disposed of somewhere in Quebec. Is this the plan that this government has for recycling? What is going to happen in the future? We are going to pay $3 a tire forever and a day.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MADAM SPEAKER (Osborne): Order, please!

MS THISTLE: This government, when they get too big of a stockpile in Stephenville and throughout Labrador, will, again, not go to tender and ask a truck from Quebec to come in, fill it up with tires, bring it out and dump it in Quebec; no secondary industry. Is that a plan? Is that a plan for rural Newfoundland?

I started off talking about seniors. We have to take the matter of seniors quite serious in our Province seeing that we have 286,000 people over fifty years old. For the most part, 93 per cent of our seniors actually live in their own communities. As of right now, there are only about 2,500 a month, we will say, on the average living in public homes, like the Hoyles-Escasoni home, or public funded homes and about another 1,900 live in personal care homes. If we, as a Province, and you, as the government, do not look after rural Newfoundland and Labrador, where are these seniors going to end up? Their families are going to Alberta. They are chasing the jobs.

We have communities in rural Newfoundland and Labrador that cannot afford to borrow to pave their streets, or put in new water and sewer, or put in new street lights, or even turn them on. In fact, I have a couple of communities in my own district that cannot afford to borrow to take out any capital works projects this year and they will not for the foreseeable future. What is going to happen to their streets when their streets start to deteriorate and they need upgrades in their water and sewer and their fire departments and so on? This is where this government is failing. You are not addressing the infrastructure needs in those communities. As a result, seniors cannot stay there. They will gravitate to the bigger centres, like the Avalon Peninsula and the bigger urban centres, or else they will follow their children out of the Province.

I had a call a few days ago from a woman who wanted to pay her driver's licence - and this is how you have been unfair to seniors. The Minister of Government Services announced a 10 per cent discount if she paid, or seniors paid, or anybody paid, their motor vehicle licence on-line. This woman said to me: How can I do that? I do not have a computer. I am not hooked into the Internet and I do not even have a credit card. So, as a result, she will have to pay the $180, whereas everybody else is going to pay $162 who can pay on-line. That still does not bring it back to what it should be, $140 when we were the government.

Then there is the issue of health care. We have been alarmed in the past week to find that we actually have a crisis in our health care system in this Province. I think what was very telling was the way the issue came out on the breast screening in our Province. The fact that it was two years ago this month since the Eastern Health Care Corporation found out that they needed to retest the hormone receptor tests that were done for women who had breast cancer in the past. It is two years this month.

We found out this morning when we went to a briefing that there was one single patient who started that move to have the retesting done. Doctors, pathologists had their doubts about one particular patient, and as a result of that, two years ago they said: Well, I think we better go and check into it. They told us this morning they brought in experts from all over Canada and experts from the U.S. to view and look at the reports that were done and see if there was anything that could be found to confirm the fact that there was false testing being done. As a result of that, they started double testing in August, 2005, to see if there were any changes in the 1,000 tests they had done previously. To their surprise, they found out that a lot of the tests, hundreds of the tests they had done previously were completely false. As a result of that, they discontinued the testing at Eastern Health and sent out all of those tissue samples that were done after that to the Mount Sinai Hospital as a precaution.

The group who did the briefing this morning told us they made that situation known in the fall of 2005. That situation was made known through the panel of experts who had looked at the testing and so on. That situation was made known to government and so on, but we are finding out that the only communication that came out from government and the Eastern Health Care Board was in December of 2006 and again one week ago through an affidavit that was filed in a class-action suit. So, there has been a withholding of information to the cancer patients. This is what we want the judicial inquiry to find out: What happened that the breast cancer patients themselves and their families and their physicians were not told about this situation? Because it is two years ago today and, judging from the Open Line shows over the weekend, many women are just finding out since this media broke last week. As a result, there are a lot of unanswered questions.

Today we learned that the health care system at the Burin Peninsula Health Care Centre has 6,000 reports done on 3,500 patients that they need to go back and review again.

MADAM SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that her speaking time has expired.

MS THISTLE: May I have a moment's leave?

MADAM SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave to clue up?

MR. RIDEOUT: By leave.

MS THISTLE: Thank you to the Government House Leader. Thank you very much.

I was talking about the crisis in our health care system, and the fact that the general population really do not - their confidence is shattered after what has happened over the past week. If I were a patient on the Burin Peninsula and I had gotten a test of some sort done over the past year, I would be worried at this point because the radiologist has now been relieved of his duties. The 6,000 tests need to be done again and they need to be reviewed, and 3,500 patients - I do not want to be an alarmist, but that is a lot of testing, 6,000 tests, before an error was found, and it has been found that those tests need to be done again. What condition or what situation are these patients in, who had the tests done?

So, there are two major incidents that happened over the past week in our health care system, and this is a situation where money was not the obstacle. Money was not the obstacle in this case because government signed, three years ago, a federal-provincial agreement for $38 million extra a year to go into new equipment and reducing wait times. This was a federal-provincial agreement that was signed by all the provinces in Canada. Even today we have a $261 million surplus, so the mistakes that happened in our health care system were not because there was a lack of money to hire or train people. Money is not the issue today, although we have people in our midst who are going blind because government will not agree to look after those with macular degenerative disease. Money is not the issue as we speak, but there are a lot of concerns around this Province that have come to light. I am talking about the present, and where you go in the future, but I will have another opportunity to get up again.

I thank you for the extra leave that you have given me tonight.

Thank you.

MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few minutes to have a few words to say on the non-confidence motion as proposed by the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Speaker, I have sat here now all day and I have - well, actually, I have listened to every speaker, except the Leader of the Opposition.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: Does somebody want something?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: Oh, Madam Speaker.

I have listened over the last several days to every speaker, except the Leader of the Opposition, speak on the main motion. So, all of the Opposition have spoken on the main motion except the Leader of the Opposition. I have listened to all the concurrence debates. I have listened to the debate in Committee of the Whole which is, for all practical purposes, to carry on with the Budget Debate. Today and tonight I have listened to the debate on the non-confidence motion, since the non-confidence motion was put down, and I feel confident, Madam Speaker, that I can say, without fear of contradiction, if one were to cast one's mind back over the annals of parliamentary time, that never in the annals of parliamentary democracy would you find so many saying so much about so little. That, Madam Speaker, I believe, sums up in the minutest detail what we have heard in this debate so far.

Tonight, the Member for Grand Falls-Windsor talked a lot about most of us being over fifty. Yes, I suppose, indeed we are; but, Madam Speaker, I was twenty-six years old when I arrived here in this place and I am now well over fifty, there is no question about that, but I have seen a lot of give and take. I have seen a lot of debate take place in this Chamber over those thirty-something years. I have seen a lot of budgets. I have helped craft a lot of budgets. I have sat around the Cabinet table when we had to make some very, very difficult decisions in crafting budgets. It was down so bad that you had to make decisions as to whether or not you were going to put eyeglasses on old folks eyes, or whether you were going to replace dentures in their mouth. That is the kind of rough decisions that governments, over the years, have had to make in this Province.

Madam Speaker, I do not know how long it will last - I hope it will last forever - but, thank God, we have reached a stage in our history where we do not have to make those gut-wrenching decisions any more. We do not have to make them any more.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: It is because of prudence; that is why.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: Oh, you can call it good luck. If you want to just pawn something off as good luck, you can call it good luck. Well, I always have said in my political career that luck is where preparation and opportunity meet, and preparation and opportunity have been created by this government. Preparation and opportunity have been created by the tenacity and the fortitude and the good will and the hard work of this Premier, as leader of this government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: So, yes, Madam Speaker, I expect the Opposition to do their job and oppose. That is what they are elected to do. I do not expect them to jump up and be all euphoric about the Budget, but I expect them to be realistic. I expect them to understand that this Province has made, in four short years, quantum leaps forward. I expect that to be acknowledged. Why? I expect it to be acknowledged because you can go to any bay or cove or tickle or peninsula in this Province and you will find people who will tell you that this Province is a better place four years hence than it was four years ago.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: You will find even Liberals, who are the most pessimistic people in our society, you will find even Liberals who will have to search deep in their soul but they will admit it because they have no other choice.

It is a fact, Madam Speaker. You can go -

MS JONES: I haven't heard (inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: Pardon?

MS JONES: I haven't heard it (inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: No, I would not expect the hon. Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair to have heard it, because she would close her ears and be dumfounded if she heard it. She would not know what it is. Good news has a way of passing over those who do not want to hear it.

Madam Speaker, for those who want to hear the good news, there is good news, there is optimism, and there is room to be optimistic in this Province. That is why we are so enthused, on this side of the House, to be able to finally, after fifty-odd years of scratching, clawing, misery and heartache, after four years of prudence in government, we are finally, Madam Speaker, able, with pride, able, with a great deal of enthusiasm, to carve a new path, to do new things, to bring new hope, to create new opportunity - yes, to create vision, which the people on the opposite side of the House talked about, laughed about and scoffed about in their remarks here today. It is so good to be able to do something positive in this Province for a change. It is so good to have the wherewithal.

We know that this did not just happen. It just did not fall on our plate. It was not manna from heaven that just descended on us because we were good on our knees. It took strategy and it took standing up. It took standing up, Madam Speaker, and saying to the people of this country that we have a dream in this Province. We dream in this Province that we are as good - no better, we are no better, but we dream in this Province, Madam Speaker, that we are as good - as anybody anywhere else in this country.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: We have the audacity, Madam Speaker, to dream that the little boy or little girl from Little Burnt Bay is equal to the little boy or little girl from Chetwynd, British Columbia. We dream that, Madam Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: We have the audacity to dream that the young man or woman from Fleur de Lys should have the same equal opportunity as the young man or woman from Chicoutimi, Quebec. Is that wrong to dream in this country?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Is there something wrong with that vision? Is there something wrong with that dream? Is there something wrong with a dreamer who is prepared to dream, I say, Madam Speaker? Nothing wrong with it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: There is nothing wrong with it. It is that kind of dream and that kind of vision and that kind of fortitude that built this Province. It was that kind of dream and that kind of fortitude that drove our forefathers, that drove our parents and our ancestors to cling to the rock holes, to cling to this place out in the middle of the North Atlantic that nobody wanted anything to do with, to fight to make it great. We have an opportunity, and, Madam Speaker, we are not going to blow that opportunity.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: We are not going to blow that opportunity, Madam Speaker, because it would be wrong. It would be binding into economic slavery generations who are not yet born, because there is a great future in this Province; there is an absolute great future in this Province.

When we talk about rural Newfoundland and Labrador, I do not profess to have all of the answers for rural Newfoundland and Labrador. I never did and I never will. None of us on this side of the House ever will, but don't anybody, anywhere in this Province, in this House or outside, stand up and tell me I know nothing about rural Newfoundland and Labrador. I came from there. I cut my eye teeth there. I had the opportunity if I wanted to present myself as a candidate in urban centres of this Province, and I said: No, I am from rural Newfoundland. My heart and soul is in rural Newfoundland and I want to represent rural Newfoundland and Labrador in this House. I will and I shall, as long as the people of this Province elect me.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Nothing against the cities, nothing against the urban centres, nothing against the metropolitan centres, but you will not find my name on a ballot in an urban centre in Newfoundland and Labrador. I haven't got it in me. I do not have the passion for it. I do not understand it and I do not make any bones about not understanding it, but by golly, Madam Speaker, put me on the head of the wharf in Ming's Bight and I know where I am.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Or put me on an aquaculture farm down on the South Coast and I know where I am, or put me on a wood's truck going in from Loon Bay and I know where I am. I know where I am when I am in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, Madam Speaker. No more so than others in this House. I do not say that in any boastful way or take anything away from anybody else. There are lots of people here whose rural credentials are as good as mine, and probably some - no, there would be none any better. No, I cannot go that far. There would be none any better because there is no more rural than Fleur de Lys in White Bay. There is no more rural in this Province than that. There are more isolated, the North Coast of Labrador and the isolated communities on the South Coast.

Madam Speaker, I was the one who wrote out the sign in 1967 when Premier Smallwood came to Fleur de Lys to cut the ribbon to open the road saying: Fleur de Lys welcomes Premier Smallwood. That broke the back of the isolation of that community. So do not talk to me about isolation; do not talk to me about not having an opportunity in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. There is tremendous opportunity in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. It was there in the 1960s. It was there in the 1970s. It was there in 1980s, the 1990s and it is there today, and it will be there forever.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: The face of rural Newfoundland and Labrador is changing, Madam Speaker, make no bones about it. Just as the face of the rural world is changing, rural Canada is changing, rural China is changing, rural everywhere is changing, but while people talk about pessimism and the lack of growth in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, I say to you, Madam Speaker, there is a lot of prosperity still, there is a lot of entrepreneurship still, there is a lot of reason for optimism still in the rural parts of this Province. I do not see that dying. That is going to continue and this government is going to make sure it continues.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: I wanted to have a few works as well, Madam Speaker, on the Vision document that the Opposition House Leader talked about today. There is no doubt about it, it is a tremendous Vision document. The Economy07 is what the hon. gentleman was quoting from. He left the impression that somehow this was a - what is the best way I can put it in a parliamentary term? - there was something wrong with this document anyway, that this document was trying to hoodwink people. That this document was in some way or another a fabrication. That this document somehow or another was the government trying to take credit for federal spending and private spending and spending by foreign countries and all of that kind of thing. He used to quote the Vision. All of that is there, because what is this? This document talks about the economy, economic growth in Newfoundland and Labrador, what is happening in reality out there around this Province. It does not take credit for it all as a government - no, no, not on your life, Madam Speaker. Not on your life does it take credit for it all as a government, but it points it out as the things that are happening out there in Newfoundland and Labrador, in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, in aquaculture, in mining, in farming, in dairy production, in clearing land, in all of those 1001 things that are happening out there in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Now the real question, Madam Speaker, having heard that discourse by the hon. gentleman, is this a new document? Is this a new thing? Is this something that we dreamed up on the eve of an election? Is it, Madam Speaker?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes, says the hon. gentleman.

Well, I have them here going back to 2001. This one said: Investing in our youth, investing in our future - 2001. Who was in government then?

AN HON. MEMBER: They were.

MR. RIDEOUT: I have them here going back to - look, you can tell who was in government. Look at the colour of this one, Madam Speaker. There is no trouble to know who was in government in 2002. The Economy 2002, it says. I only went and got three of them. I am sure you can get them for fourteen years if you wished.

There is another one here talking about the economy in 2003. Now what is in these documents? What are these economic documents all about? Are they any different than this one? Not on your life.

Let's have a look at 2001 and see some of the things that the government of the day talked about. Environmental cleanup in Argentia, $81 million from the government of the day.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: No, every red copper of it because it was a red book in those days. Every red copper of it from the Government of Canada. Of course, when we included something in here that was financed by the Government of Canada there was something wrong with that. I mean, you are being less than above board, you are being less than honest, you are trying to concoct a story or you are trying to do something to hoodwink the people of the Province.

What about private enterprise, Madam Speaker? In forestry they refer to a hydro-electric construction and refurbishing project, $65 million. An investment by Hydro which would be at least guaranteed by the government of the day? No, Madam Speaker. An investment by a private enterprise company called Abitibi Consolidated appearing in the government economic document of 2001.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. RIDEOUT: Madam Speaker, what else did they crow about in 2001? Because they were a great crowd at crowing. They cockled and they crowed.

Another major project listed -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: I am doing this for the benefit of Mr. Simms down in Burgeo because his member got up here today, Madam Speaker, with this document and made us believe that this document was a brand new thing created by this government, never known before, to take advantage and to spin - spin was the word used by the Opposition House Leader. The spin was that this was something new concocted and created by this government to gain political favour. That was the spin from the hon. gentleman opposite, Madam Speaker. So for the benefit of Mr. Simms, and I forget the other name, but for the benefit of Mr. Simms and anybody else, those documents go with the Budget all the time. They are part of The Economy -

MADAM SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. gentleman that his speaking time has expired.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. gentleman has leave.

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I thank my colleagues. I will not take advantage too long.

AN HON. MEMBER: This is only chapter one.

MR. RIDEOUT: This is only chapter one. I have three more chapters here. Actually, I have fourteen chapters.

Anyway, let me see now. There was an investment in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, one of the major projects that was identified in The Economy in 2001.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) was it?

MR. RIDEOUT: No, it was $7 million or $8 million. Happy Valley-Goose Bay, investment by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Madam Speaker?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No!

MR. RIDEOUT: Investment by the Government of Canada?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Yes.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No!

MR. RIDEOUT: No.

Investment by the Government of Italy?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. RIDEOUT: In the Liberal document that accompanied their Budget in 2001, an investment by the Government of Italy, in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, in infrastructure that they were using for their air force, I assume. On and on it goes.

Like I said, in 2002 - I have to mention this one - in 2002, Madam Speaker, in the economic outlook in capital projects, the love of my life appeared in the budget documents of 2002: Purity crackers.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. RIDEOUT: Hard bread - it is the ingredient for fish and brewis - Purity syrup, kisses, Purity kisses from Purity Factories. I am one of those loveable people; I love kisses.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Candy kisses, chocolate Purity kisses.

They made the Liberal budget, the red cover budget, the red budget of 2002, the kisses from Purity Factories, the syrup from Purity Factories, the hard bread from Purity Factories, everything except the fish made the Liberal document in 2002.

Myles-Leger and a $4 million to $5 million development in St. John's - private enterprise or government, I wonder? - made the government document. Wal-Mart, imagine, $20 million, Wal-Mart construction. This is it, Madam Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: That is right. Not a relative, I hope.

Madam Speaker, look at this. On page 36 of the Liberal document in 2002 it says, "Wal-Mart Stores Inc. - construction of a new Wal-Mart outlet. (Mount Pearl)". That made the Liberal red book economic document of 2002.

Madam Speaker, this hon. crowd opposite, they are too smart by half. They are too cute by half, to get up and suggest to poor old Mr. Simms down in Burgeo that somehow or another this document by this crafty, dirty old Tory government was something new, that this vision document, this action document, this document that just recapitulated what is happening in the economy in Newfoundland and Labrador, that this had somehow been dreamed up and fostered and spun into something that was supposed to be good stuff that we were supposed to get - the hemlock we were supposed to get people to drink on the eve of an election never happened before in the annals of parliamentary democracy in Newfoundland and Labrador before. I do not know if it goes back to 1949, I cannot say, but I am having the Parliamentary Library check it for me. I do know this: it goes back eons before this government came to office. It is standard budgetary parliamentary practice that a document called The Economy, the outlook for the economy, what is happening in the economy in terms of government investment, federal investment, private sector investment, foreign government investment, if you are lucky enough to get it, any kind of investment that has been happening in the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I saw some quotes from the Member for Grand Falls-Windsor the other day talking about Aur Resources, and how impressed she was - saw all those. Anyway, the bottom line is that year after year, every year, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Speaker - I will get it right once - the bottom line is that every year at Budget time the government tables a number of documents as part of the Budget. There is the Budget Speech itself. There is the Departmental Salary Details themselves. There is the Estimates. There is a book, The Economy, and it is quite normal that this happens every year during Budget time. It is quite normal that the government - not taking any credit for it and, I must admit, I am not suggesting that the hon. members opposite tried to take any credit for it when they were the government either. I am not suggesting that. I am just saying that it is a normal budgetary procedure that all of the things, or a lot of the things, not all of the things, but it is broken down into various sectors. They talk about the fishery, they talk about tourism, it talks about residential investment, municipal infrastructure, health care, industrial, education, environmental, fishery, forestry, all of those things that make the economy tick along. It is quite normal that every year the government of the day will table this document along with the Budget. It is nothing new. It is not a spin-doctoring effect. It is not trying to spin doctor ourselves out of our skin and into something that we are not. It is just laying out the reality of what is happening with the economy in the Province at that particular time, just as it was in 2001, in 2002 and in 2003, and I would expect that the research in the Parliamentary Library will show that this is something that has been going on perhaps even back to 1949.

Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I want to say this.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: I know I am on leave, and I appreciate it, but I do want to say this because I may or may not have another opportunity to say it.

Somehow or another the spin from the Opposition is that this government crafted this Budget from a tax perspective to suit our own pockets, to somehow or another benefit ourselves, and that somehow or another it is wrong that when times were tough and governments - many of them were Administrations led by people opposite when they had to bring in additional burdensome taxes because they had no choice, and tax the rich more because they had no choice. Well, when you start to take off taxes, who is going to benefit by that? It is going to be people who are in higher income brackets, because they were the people who paid when you had to add it on and pile it on in order to make ends meet, in order to keep the glasses on people's eyes, to keep the dentures in their mouths and so on. These were the people who had to pay.

We tried to balance that with our poverty initiatives, initiatives that are lauded all across the country. We tried to balance that. So, to suggest that people on this side of the House crafted this Budget to suit our own pocket and our own needs is not being too cute by half; it is being facetious to the nth degree. Personally, I think it is below all of us to suggest that, because there are people on the other side of the House - the Leader of the Opposition was the first one to suggest this. Well, the Leader of the Opposition - and Mr. Simms in Burgeo should know this - makes exactly the same pay as I make. Not one dollar more, not one dollar less. As Leader of the Opposition, he is paid as a minister. He gets the same as I get, the same as you get, Mr. Speaker, the same as any minister over here gets. The only one who makes more, a few dollars more, if he were drawing it, would be the Premier. All the rest of us make the same as ministers. Therefore, whatever is sauce for this goose is sauce for that gander as well.

On that note, I am prepared to suggest that the House rise until tomorrow, Wednesday, at 2:00 o'clock.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER (Hodder): Order, please!

The motion before the House is that we will now adjourn until tomorrow at 2:00 o'clock, it being Private Members' Day.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

This House now stands adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, at 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon.

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