March 14, 2013                         HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS             Vol. XLVII No. 77


The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Wiseman): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

I am very pleased today to have some special guests in our gallery. We are joined today by forty Level II students from the Botwood Community Youth Network and Botwood Collegiate located in the District of Exploits. The students are accompanied today by the chaperones Heather Brown, Darlene Rice, Gloria Cooper, and Chris Laing.

Welcome.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: We are also joined by Meaghan Barnhill and Andrew Butler, members of the One Billion Rising Committee of St. John's.

I also want to acknowledge an individual in the gallery today, she marks a milestone in the history of one significant organization in our Province, but also a significant movement for the skilled trades and females involved in the skilled trades. Today we are very pleased to welcome Shauna Sutton, who is the first female carpenter hired by the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation.

Welcome.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Statements by Members

MR. SPEAKER: Today, we have members' statements from the Member for the District of Cape St. Francis, the Member for the District of Conception Bay East – Bell Island, the Member for the District of Bonavista South, the Member for the District of St. John's Centre, the Member for the District of Baie Verte – Springdale, and the Member for the District of Port au Port.

The hon. the Member for the District of Cape St. Francis.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. K. PARSONS: Mr. Speaker, I rise in this hon. House today to recognize a wonderful person. Recently, I had the honour of presenting Mrs. Mary Power with the Queen's Jubilee Medal.

Mary Power's passion and dedication truly impresses her peers, community residents and everyone that has the pleasure of knowing her.

Mrs. Power is currently volunteering at Eastern Health where she is a health care auxiliary lifetime member. Mary visits and serves lunch to patients at the Miller Centre, and volunteers at Easter Seals and the Newfoundland and Labrador Heart and Stroke Association. She also visits seniors' homes on a regular basis, the Hoyles Escasoni and North Pond Nursing Home in Torbay, where she brings Communion and leads the Rosary every Friday.

Mary is a Eucharistic Minister at the Holy Trinity Church and a Legion of Mary member. At St. Thomas' Anglican Church, Mrs. Power serves Christmas Day dinner.

Every day Mrs. Power gives time to someone in need, visiting seniors' homes and advocating for the sick and needy. She always has a smile on her face, and the warmth she gives people is unbelievable.

I ask all members in this House to join with me in congratulating Mrs. Power on a lifetime of good work.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay East – Bell Island.

MR. BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand in this House to recognize a community event I attended recently which exemplifies the independence, resourcefulness and camaraderie of rural Newfoundland and Labrador. I talk of the presentation of a $54,000, sixteen-passenger van to the Wabana Boys and Girls Club.

This resource will ensure that the youth of the Island are not hindered from participating in programs offered by the club. This asset will give the 380 members of the club the ability to participate in education, recreation, and sporting events off the Island. This van will add pride and peace of mind for staff, parents, and members who will travel in a safe, comfortable manner.

Through a sixteen-month initiative led by the local senior hockey team and supported by the business community and residents, ticket draws, special tournaments and personal donations were collected from alumni of the club from as far away as Africa. Local club alumni members Bob Basha, Walter King, Terry Yetman and Joe Somerton co-ordinated the campaign. No government money was requested or required for the purchase of this community asset.

I ask all members to congratulate such an independent community.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Bonavista South.

MR. LITTLE: Mr. Speaker, hon. colleagues, I rise today to recognize Katie and Shane Hayes, who were recently bestowed with the Restaurateur of the Year award from the Restaurant Association of Newfoundland and Labrador. This presentation was made at the 2013 Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador Awards.

Katie and Shane are the owners and operators of the Bonavista Social Club, a restaurant and a food production outlet located in Upper Amherst Cove, a small rural community in the District of Bonavista South. They offer a truly unique dining experience, promoting local food and culture, practicing agriculture and animal farming to provide much of the products used in the foods prepared at the Bonavista Social Club. A variety of breads are prepared daily in the only commercial wood-fired bread oven in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Katie is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of Canada and a Red Seal Chef. The couple has incorporated hands-on events such as an annual Garlic Festival and a Harvest Work Weekend, making their business more about a lifestyle and not just a business.

Mr. Speaker, hon. colleagues, please join me in congratulating Katie and Shane Hayes on receiving such an honourable recognition in the short time since they started business in May of 2012.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Member for St. John's Centre.

MS ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to celebrate an historic event in my District of St. John's Centre.

Eve Ensler, the writer of The Vagina Monologues, created One Billion Rising, a global call to action to end violence against women – and a celebration of the work done globally and locally. Eve called 1 billion people to rise up. We sure did in St. John's Centre.

I was proud to sponsor One Billion Rising – St. John's, along with the women of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour, NAPE, CUPE, the FFAW, Marguerite's Place, the CLC, and MUN's Women's Resource Centre.

Together we organized a huge community event that was open to everyone in the public. We had information booths, live music, and dancing. More than forty social action community groups participated.

I want to single out the Multicultural Women's Organization of Newfoundland and Labrador. They played a huge role; their members from all parts of the world cooked food, danced, entertained, sang, and sold crafts.

One Billion Rising – St. John's was an incredible success. Open to everyone in the community, over 1,000 people came to our February 14 celebration at the Knights of Columbus Hall to celebrate and to thank those who do such important work in this area. We did it in style!

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Member for the District of Baie Verte – Springdale.

MR. POLLARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

At the Atlantic Craft Trade Show in Halifax, attracting about 1,200 buyers from across Canada and the Northeastern United States, representing more than 150 craft makers from the Atlantic Region, King's Point Pottery took home the Outstanding Craft Retailer Award.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this hon. House to congratulate owners David Hayashida and Linda Yates for their immense dedication, unmatched hard work, and this recent major achievement.

This award recognizes an individual, organization, or company that demonstrates excellence in display, merchandising and service to the public and, through retailing, represents their Province with quality craft and giftware products.

Elated with capturing top honours, Yates says that this award will "take our shop and gallery from being known mainly as a Newfoundland attraction and turns it into an Atlantic Canadian destination."

Mr. Speaker, I invite all colleagues in this hon. House to join me in applauding King's Point Pottery upon their outstanding accomplishment and wish them every success as they continue to grow their business and promote the arts and craft industry.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Member for the District of Port au Port.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CORNECT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to recognize Danny and Mary McCann for their untiring volunteer work in the community of Port au Port West. They are a dynamic and creative husband-and-wife team that truly exemplifies the heart of what volunteers are. Recently, Danny and Mary each received the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal in recognition of their great community work.

The value of Danny and Mary's contributions to the community over their lifetime are immeasurable. This couple has been involved in several local and provincial committees. They initiated the Gravels Development Group that created a 3.5 kilometre hiking trail, the restoration of Our Lady of Mercy Gym, and the maintaining of Our Lady of Mercy Church as a tourist attraction, and, Mr. Speaker, the list just goes on of their accomplishments.

Volunteering is a selfless act that is motivated by a desire to help and enrich the lives of others.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members to join with me in offering my appreciation and to thank Danny and Mary McCann for their many, many hours of endless volunteer work that has led to the betterment of our community, our region, and our Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Statements by Ministers.

Statements by Ministers

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SHEA: Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to highlight the achievements of an employee of Newfoundland and Labrador Housing.

Shauna Sutton, a native of English Harbour West, is the first female carpenter ever hired by the corporation. What sets Ms Sutton apart is not her gender, but the example she puts forward as a mentor to other young women wishing to pursue a career in the trades here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Ms Sutton's record of achievement began while enrolled at the Carpenters Millwright College in Paradise in 2008, where she won the school's Award of Excellence for education, leadership, and safety skills. In 2009 she became the first female apprentice registered with the Office to Advance Women Apprentices, and the first to find employment with Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation.

Recently, she joined other female tradespersons selected from across North America by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters to take part in a three-day female mentorship program in Las Vegas.

Ms Sutton is a committed mentor, volunteering time to appear at high schools and as a demonstrator for Skills Canada intermediate competitions, and visiting community centres to speak to female youth about her career path. She has also been blessed with terrific mentors in her own life, including family, co-workers, and instructors.

Mr. Speaker, a carpenter of Ms Sutton's experience and skills could likely find employment abroad; however, she has made a conscious choice to stay and contribute to the growth of our Province through affordable housing construction and mentorship to young women pursuing careers in the trades.

Ms Sutton is a shining example of the incredible time of opportunity for women in Newfoundland and Labrador, especially when it comes to opportunities in the skilled trades. In fact, Mr. Speaker, since 2009, the number of women enrolled in skilled trades in the Province has grown by 33 per cent.

Through innovative programs such as our Journeyperson Mentorship Program, we are increasing job opportunities in the skilled trades, particularly for under-represented groups, including women.

I invite my colleagues in this hon. House to join me in congratulating Ms Sutton for her contributions and to wish her all the best on her upcoming journeyperson exam.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burgeo – La Poile.

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

I thank the minister for the last-minute copy of her statement. Congratulations to Shauna Sutton for being the first female carpenter hired by the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation. As an award-winning student and mentor, Newfoundland and Labrador Housing are fortunate for this addition.

I imagine it must be intimidating for women like Shauna, who are making their way through traditionally male-dominated professions. It takes bravery and courage to be a trailblazer for other women. With a labour shortage of 70,000, encouraging women to try the trades, which are well-paying career paths, is a positive step forward for both women and industry.

I would be remiss, Mr. Speaker, if I did not address the 226 EAS job losses this minister instructed, many of whom are also women. All of these workers encourage people to try the trades as well, although they were not given the extension they needed. What seems to be lost on government is the means to this end of labour shortage: EAS agencies.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, congratulations to Ms Sutton on her achievements and on being such a pioneer.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. KIRBY: Thanks to the minister for an advance copy of her statement.

I offer congratulations to Ms Sutton on her achievements. Women still represent only a small proportion of those registered in the trades, so the Journeyperson Mentorship Program may help to change that. It is important to note that according to government's own research, family responsibilities are the primary reason why women do not complete their trades and get their Red Seal.

This research shows that 28 per cent of women in Newfoundland and Labrador quit their training for family reasons, compared to only 8 per cent of men. Addressing the lack of affordable child care in this Province will help us to see more successes like this one.

Again, congratulations.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. the Member for St. John's South have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

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

MR. O'BRIEN: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in this hon. House to provide an update on our milestones and successes as we move forward with the Provincial Solid Waste Management Strategy.

The strategy aims to reduce the amount of materials in provincial landfill sites by 50 per cent and to encourage residents of Newfoundland and Labrador to participate in waste diversion programs such as recycling and composting.

The strategy also aims to reduce the total number of waste disposal sites by 80 per cent, eliminate open burning of waste at disposal sites, and phase out incinerators and unlined landfills.

Mr. Speaker, this is an ambitious strategy, but one that is necessary as we look ahead to a greener future in this Province. We have achieved a number of key milestones in recent months as we move along the process of full implementation of our strategy. In fact, last year we saw the opening of the Central Newfoundland Waste Management Facility at Norris Arm, which represented a total investment of $64.6 million.

We also continue to work closely with our colleagues in the Department of Environment and Conservation and the Multi-Materials Stewardship Board, who are working towards some very important projects that complement this strategy. Examples include the paint recycling program as well as the new illegal dumping surveillance program, which will see municipal enforcement staff from the Town of Conception Bay South training other municipal colleagues across the Province to develop skills and programs to combat illegal dumping.

Mr. Speaker, approximately two-thirds of the Province's population is now disposing of its waste in a lined landfill at either Norris Arm or Robin Hood Bay. Close to 50 per cent of the Province's population also have access to recycling facilities. Throughout the Province, a number of disposal sites have been reduced, with over 140 dumps closed to date, which represents a 58 per cent reduction.

Mr. Speaker, through those many successes, the provincial government continues to promote a modern and environmentally sound approach to waste management. My department will continue these efforts as they work towards full implementation of the Provincial Solid Waste Management Strategy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. JOYCE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for the advance copy. It was a bit late, but thank you in advance anyway for the copy. Protecting our environment is everybody's concern in the Province and everybody in this Legislature, also. It is an aggressive strategy, one that we all hope we can achieve.

Mr. Speaker, I visited the site at Norris Arm last year and it is a very nice site, a very great site. Ed and the group are doing a great job on the site itself. Waste management is something which recycling also is a big part of and illegal dumping is a big part of it. I am just glad that the Bay of Islands was the first area in the Province to actually put surveillance in for illegal dumping, and we did it through Google. Back years and years ago, it was the first one to start it. I am glad that illegal dumping is a big issue.

Mr. Speaker, in Labrador we still have work to do on the strategy in Labrador for waste management. I have to speak about the West Coast strategy for waste management.

One of the first things we have to do with the waste management, in my opinion, is put someone in who is qualified to do the job. I just do not think the defeated PC candidate appointed is good enough to do the job. I do not think he is qualified to do the job. He is making decisions without consultation. That is something that we must as a group, ensure that all of the communities are informed –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. JOYCE: – they are all being respected, and their opinions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

I would also like to thank the minister for the fifteen-minute advance notice of the statement. A couple of things came to mind, Mr. Speaker, when I got the notice. One of the big concerns, of course, is that we have tough Budget times coming up. We know the government has made it an issue by pouring dollars into some of these programs, but we worry. I get phone calls every day talking about the worry about whether these programs are going to be able to continue under the austerity measures that government is probably going to have to carry out. So the question remains about the carrying on of some of these recycling programs.

As well as that, municipal recycling programs, of course, need funding. A lot of the calls I get also deal with municipal funding, and municipal funding, of course, is an integral part of recycling in this Province, Mr. Speaker. A lot of these municipalities need money for that. Municipalities are certainly looking forward to hearing what that new funding arrangement is going to be in the next Budget.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Does the Member for St. John's South have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Oral Questions.

Oral Questions

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well, senior bureaucrats at Nalcor have a similar bonus program to the one just suspended by government. When I asked the Premier about this on Tuesday she completely avoided the question, so I will try it again.

I ask the Premier again: Will you now direct Nalcor, a 100 per cent government-owned corporation by the taxpayers of this Province, to immediately suspend the bonus program?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When we created Nalcor it was created in the image of Statoil and trying to duplicate what had been done so successfully in Norway, Mr. Speaker. A lot of our management component was based on that. Nalcor's bonuses I think were published last year. They were put on the Web site.

One thing I can say to the member opposite, that the CEO of Nalcor, no matter what bonus he may get, no matter what salary he may get, it is a good deal for us, Mr. Speaker, and it is a good deal for the people of this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are not talking about the individuals. What we are talking about is having the salary details, the bonus details, making that readily available to the people who are actually paying their wages. So, Mr. Speaker, we have asked to suspend the programs.

Mr. Speaker, working for government means getting your paycheque from the public purse. Management should expect that remuneration is a matter of public record.

I ask the Premier: Since your government is often hiding behind Bill 29, not releasing the salary and bonus details, will you immediately change and make the salary details, including bonuses, available to the public?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, we have the Leader of the Opposition attacking the members of the public service again today, like he did yesterday with the officials in the Department of Finance.

Mr. Speaker, the deputy ministers in these departments have a very onerous role. They work tremendous hours, Mr. Speaker, in trying to run their departments and assist our government. Mr. Speaker, the salary estimates outline what we pay out in salaries. During the Estimates process you can certainly ask, but they also have a right to privacy.

Mr. Speaker, what we have is a situation where there were a couple of individuals asked about yesterday, we released the details. They provided their consent, but twenty-six to thirty people in the various aspects in government are entitled to this bonus provision that was in place. That has been suspended, Mr. Speaker. That is another step we are taking in line with – as we prepare to deliver the Budget with the hiring freeze, the suspension of hiring, Mr. Speaker, the retirement incentive bonus. These are all steps we are taking to try to address the fiscal situation of the Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BALL: Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe the Minister of Finance really has the gall to stand here today and talk about attacking public sector workers. This government itself, in the last few weeks, has often talked about it. We have seen it with EAS. We have seen it with a number of employees who are looking at going out the door.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. BALL: Mr. Speaker, our choice, as you know, is to repeal Bill 29.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. BALL: This request to amend Bill 29 is only reasonable and necessary. The public deserve accountability from this government. It does not need to be studied to death; it is really common sense.

I ask the Premier: Will you bring forward this amendment immediately?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, this government is highly accountable, unlike our friends opposite. Mr. Speaker, the Liberals introduced the ATIPP, the access to information legislation in this House; they brought it here. We supported it, voted for it, Mr. Speaker, but they did not proclaim it.

Mr. Speaker, it is do as I say, not as I do. They did not want anyone to know the details of any of their transactions with regard to salaries, with regard to the operation of this House of Assembly, or anything that went on within government, Mr. Speaker.

We proclaimed the access to information act. This government is more open than any government in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador, and we are darn proud of it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Official Opposition.

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Now that the Premier is willing to be open and transparent, will you amend Bill 29? Just get up and tell the people of the Province: will you amend Bill 29?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in the words of the commissioner himself, he has stated publicly that there is no more restriction or less access to information by the general public of Newfoundland and Labrador after Bill 29 than there was before Bill 29.

Certain individuals do have a right to privacy, Mr. Speaker, even though they might work for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. It does not matter who those individuals are. We all have a right to privacy. Bill 29 protects that right.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Official Opposition.

MR. BALL: It is interesting to listen to the Premier's comments when just this week the commissioner was saying: Come to me and I will help you go to court. That is what you are suggesting that the people of this Province should do to get the accountability that you are saying your government has.

Mr. Speaker, SNC-Lavalin was given a multi-million dollar contract on Muskrat Falls by this government. Since then, the company has repeatedly been in the news with allegations of improper payments, money laundering, and even corruption. Today, they are in the news again. This time, alleging that senior executives were hiding commission fees.

I ask the Premier: Since the latest scandal involves SNC's hydro power division, have any of those people involved had anything to do with Muskrat Falls that you are aware of?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. Leader of the Opposition indicated that these were matters of allegation, matters under investigation. There is a process that takes place; there is a process of due diligence. We should not be impugning the integrity of certain people, unless that process is completed before the courts.

In this Province, Mr. Speaker, whether you are in this House or in the private sector out there, we expect people to obey our laws and we will enforce our laws. We are not the government for Africa. We are not the government for North Africa. We are the Government for Newfoundland and Labrador. We have laws and we expect the people to obey those laws.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Official Opposition.

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well, the current allegations of hiding commission fees are against the former SNC Executive VP, Patrick Lamarre, who resigned from the company in January. Mr. Lamarre is quoted in a press release from the company announcing their work at Muskrat Falls.

I ask the Premier: Now that you know that there is a direct connection between the former SNC executive and the Muskrat Falls Project, what are you doing to investigate this issue?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, there have been allegations of wrongdoing in Africa, and the Attorney Generals in Africa will look after that. We will look after what is going on in Newfoundland and Labrador.

With respect to that, the contract to SNC-Lavalin was properly awarded, as are all engineering and procurement contracts in the development industry. Nalcor retains full ownership, full oversight, decision making, and financial authority over all contracts that are awarded. We will continue to monitor the situation very closely on behalf of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, as we have done in the past and we will continue to do so.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Official Opposition.

MR. BALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What I am hearing here is not about the individual, what I am hearing here is about the location. So, you are saying it is okay for these executives to do what they want in Africa and that does not apply to Newfoundland and Labrador. Well, it should apply. It is about the individual, the executives, which we are talking about.

Mr. Speaker, with such a serious allegation against SNC, the Premier needs to be fully transparent of her government's involvement with this company.

I ask the Premier: How much money has Nalcor paid SNC to date, and will you release the contracts Nalcor has signed with this company?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, there are legal matters going on in other jurisdictions. The Leader of the Opposition is disgraceful in the way that he is getting up and trying and convicting these people when the trial has not been held yet. Are you the judge, the jury, and the executioner? It is shameful what you are doing here.

There is a process that has to take place, and we are going to respect that process in another country. In this country, anybody doing work for Nalcor is overseen by Nalcor. They are overseen by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. They report to us. We will monitor the situation closely, and we will continue to do so.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Member for Burgeo – La Poile.

MR. A. PARSONS: Mr. Speaker, in a time when people are losing their jobs to make up for this government's out-of-control spending, the Minister of Advanced Education doles out a minister's salary to failed Tory candidate John Noseworthy to determine how best to organize her department and deliver services.

So I ask the minister: Is this not your job?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SHEA: Mr. Speaker, the Department of Advanced Education and Skills was formed following the last General Election in this Province. The department came together, which was the former HRLE Department with the Labour Relations Agency taken out, as well as a division of the former Department of Education, how that stood.

Mr. Speaker, we could have operated the department as silos that came together, but we wanted to make sure we looked at the business transactions, a business transformation project, to ensure that this department was set up to look at how best to help Newfoundlanders and Labradorians attach to the labour market. We are at an unprecedented time in our history and in our economy where people have opportunities. This new department was formed to make sure we could maximize that; in doing so, everything in the department had to be transformed, including how we do our business transactions.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burgeo – La Poile.

MR. A. PARSONS: Mr. Speaker, I guess this explains why you hired him four months after you created the department.

It is now over thirty days since our Access to Information request for John Noseworthy's report was acknowledged, meaning the minister responsible is breaking the ATIPP Act. In the Tory 2003 Blue Book, they committed to releasing every government-commissioned report within thirty days of receiving it.

So I ask the minister: Why are you delaying access to the report, and will you Table it in the House?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SHEA: Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, we are at a point in time in the history of this Province where people have opportunity to participate in our labour market like never before.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SHEA: We wanted this new department established so that people can take advantage of that opportunity, Mr. Speaker. Whether we reviewed the operations before, four months after, or into the future, it did not matter as long as we made sure that as this department is set up, the services that it offers serve the people of Newfoundland and Labrador who truly need those services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burgeo – La Poile.

MR. A. PARSONS: The minister has said the cuts in her department have nothing to do with the report commissioned by her Tory friend.

I ask the minister: How can you make such excessive cuts, laying off so many people, without first considering the $150,000 report?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SHEA: Mr. Speaker, there are two separate processes going on in government today and in the Department of Advanced Education and Skills. As I just outlined, as a new department it is incumbent upon us to ensure that the processes of that department work for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

In a very separate exercise, Mr. Speaker, this government was facing a fiscal situation where they had to deal with a deficit. With or without having formed a new department, the minister of either the former HRLE and Education or the newly formed department would be responsible to do whatever was necessary to streamline functions within that department to ensure that services were maintained, but yet be able to live within the new fiscal situation we have in this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Barbe.

MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, fish plants are dropping like fish flies all over this Province, twelve in the last fifteen months. Last week, the fisheries minister admitted that he has no answers for rural communities losing their fish plants.

So I ask the minister of rural development: Now that you have cleaned out all the RED Boards, what is your plan for rural communities, or is this resettlement by neglect?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DALLEY: Mr. Speaker, the fishing industry is a very important part of the economy in this Province. Our government has provided strong support to the fishing industry in a number of ways, whether it is technology, engineering, development, or marketing, and we have been there to support the workers in the fishery.

In this particular case, Mr. Speaker, with plant closures, private business, some eighty-five years in this Province, have recognized some challenges well beyond anyone's control. In terms of global market competition, market forces, and the challenges with the Canadian dollar – very unfortunately, we have seen some plant closures. As we have in the past, and will continue in the future, we will support the communities, we will support the people who are impacted by this closure, and we will do all we can to ensure communities are –

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for St. Barbe.

MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, nine years ago this government set up the Rural Secretariat for economic development in this Province. Currently, there is a $2 million budget and sixteen people employed.

I ask the minister of rural development: What is your plan for economic development in this Province – because I tried to ask you before, and the other minister answered – or are we witnessing resettlement by neglect?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HUTCHINGS: Mr. Speaker, the plan is very similar to the plan since we came in 2003. It is to build schools, build hospitals, build rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and continue to build and invest billions of dollars in infrastructure, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HUTCHINGS: Now, in regards to the Rural Secretariat, it was not set up as an economic delivery unit. It was set up to basically engage people in rural Newfoundland and Labrador – over a hundred volunteers all throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, on the ground, leaders in the community, volunteers who are dialoguing with government and telling us what we need to know in terms of driving economic and social policy. Sometimes it is not what we want to hear, but we need to hear it, we are hearing it, and we are using it to drive economic and social development in Newfoundland and Labrador, and we are going to continue to do it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I asked questions on the Strait of Belle Isle ferry contract. April 1 is fast approaching and now we hear the Ionian Spirit may be another Orlova saga.

I ask the minister: Will you confirm that this vessel is tied up in legal wrangling with its crew in the Port of Brindisi.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am glad I get a chance to talk about this very important tender because I can tell you that the service to the people of Labrador, to Southern Labrador, Northern Labrador and right around the entire Island of Newfoundland is very important. The ferry services are very important to those people. We have good relations with those people, Mr. Speaker, I say to you and I say to the House. We consult with those people on a regular basis and we are doing that.

With this tender, we have to follow the process. Unlike the member opposite here, who would like for us to run out and throw away the Public Tender Act, would just want to throw it away, and sending out e-mails to people in their district saying disregard the Public Tender Act and disregard process. We are going to follow process, Mr. Speaker, because that is what this government is built on. It is built on principle, it is built on process, and it is built on following the law, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In all the talk about process, maybe the minister does not even know what the wrangling is that is going on over there with regard to this ship because he is certainly not telling us.

Mr. Speaker, the Public Tender Act is one thing. It is another thing when government is contemplating giving a contract to a company that has a ship they are intending to put on the service that is tied up in legal wrangling, Mr. Speaker, for one thing; and secondly, that is not meeting Transport Canada's requirements to be operational in this Province.

I ask the minister today – we are only days away from wanting to have this ferry back in operation. I ask the minister: What he is going to do to serve the needs of the people in that region of the Province?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell you what we are not going to do. We are not going to race out and buy another Nonia like they did over there. That is what we are not going to do.

We are going to follow the process. We are going to get all the information, because that is what we are required to do. We have an act to follow, we have a tender process that we have to follow, and we are going to do that.

Unlike the member opposite who can be out and advocating for the highest bidder – for her friend, the highest bidder – instead of doing that, what we are going to do, Mr. Speaker, is we are going to follow the process. We will get all the information, we will properly assess all the information, and then we will make our decision to move forward.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Third Party.

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

On Monday, the Premier talked about –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS MICHAEL: – phase one and phase two of her core mandate review.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Speaker has recognized the Leader of the Third Party.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Premier talked about phase one and phase two of her core mandate review and the fact that these phases had been completed. She said that they had talked about this plan last fall, but this plan must exist in the Premier's head, Mr. Speaker, since we cannot find anything of substance in writing.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

This is Question Period. Important questions are being asked. I ask members to respect those asking those questions, and provide time for the member to respond.

I recognize the Leader of the Third Party, and ask her now to conclude her question.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask the Premier: Will she please reveal the details –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Speaker is quite serious when he brings attention to the fact that there is disorder in the House. I expect members to respect the direction of the Chair, and I have already acknowledged the Leader of the Third Party to ask her question. I ask members to listen in silence until she poses that question.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask the Premier: Will she please reveal the details of what exactly were the two phases that she says have been finished?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What this core mandate review involves is a review of each department, all aspects of the department, the jobs that are done in the department, and the programs that are offered by each department. It has gone through all sixteen departments in government and some of the agencies, Mr. Speaker.

It is, basically, the deputy ministers are instructed to go along with their assistant deputy minister right through their department to determine: Is there anything here that we do not need to do any more? Is there duplication of effort? Is there duplication of jobs? Are we spending money that we do not need to spend?

Mr. Speaker, that is the process that has been ongoing. If she does not like the term review core mandate, it is simply a review of the processes of each department in the extent to ensure that there is efficient and effective delivery of services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Third Party.

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

That is the closest to a plan that I have heard an answer from the other side. I am glad the Minister of Finance could give some kind of an answer to me, but, Mr. Speaker, all of these plans do not seem to be on paper.

So I am wondering, since we cannot get these plans, if the Premier can tell this House which phase in her plan includes steps to reach a stable revenue stream for the Province so government can avoid creating another fiscal mess like the current one that they have put us in.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell her what my plan does not include. My plan does not include shutting down development in Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: It does not include shutting down projects like Muskrat Falls, Mr. Speaker. It does not mean going out and imploding a tax on offshore agreements that have already been negotiated and settled. It is not a plan against firming up our oil reserves in Western Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, this Province is in the best economic shape it has been since Confederation, and that is due in large part to the work of this government. It is something we are very proud of and something we are going to continue.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Leader of the Third Party.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you.

The plan obviously involves spending billions of dollars on that project that she is talking about – billions of dollars belonging to the people of the Province.

I have been asking the Premier about her many plans for the past few days of this sitting of the House. She has repeatedly told me to wait for the Budget when all will be revealed – a mantra that is also being used by the Finance Minister. This government has shown they cannot properly budget the dental program that they announced a year ago, let alone give us a balanced budget.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Premier: How can she expect the people of this Province to trust them on big-ticket economic issues when they cannot even accurately assess a small program like the dental program?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it all depends on what day of the week you tune in to the House of Assembly to listen to what criticism is coming from the other side. Routinely, we are criticized for all of our strategies, Mr. Speaker, like our Poverty Reduction Strategy, which is lauded from one end of this country to the other, to our rural development strategy, from our aquaculture strategy, for our infrastructure strategy.

We have increased the revenue of this Province by billions of dollars, Mr. Speaker. We have done negotiations around Hebron. We have strengthened the Vale Inco contract.

Mr. Speaker, this is a great place to be, there are more opportunities in this place than ever before, and that is due to this Progressive Conservative government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Third Party.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Premier has repeatedly talked about their ten-year plan to reduce the debt. In actual fact, she has talked about it many times over the past month and told us it exists; but, other than a few references to bringing down the per capita debt to some undefined national average, we can find no plan.

Mr. Speaker, a very simple question: Could we please see this plan in writing?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Now, Mr. Speaker, earlier in the week we heard from the Leader of the NDP that she did not know that there was going to be a deficit in 2013-2014. She did not know, Mr. Speaker, because she did not read the Budget documents. On page 12 of last year's Budget, there is a prediction of a $400 million deficit for 2013-2014.

Mr. Speaker, she continues her long history of not doing the proper research when she comes to this House to ask questions. Last year, we talked about a ten-year plan to reduce our debt. That was to take one-third of our surpluses and apply to the debt – applauded by our bond rating agent.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Member for The Straits – White Bay North.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Mr. Speaker, closure of Bayview Collegiate would mean up to 1.5 hours on a bus for students from L'Anse aux Meadows over a dead zone highway. These students will pass by another K-6 school that is part of their town, able to accommodate them. A reasonable decision one would have one K-9 or K-12 school retained in the community.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister why he operates his department and a board that he controls like a dictatorship, which ignores the voice of the people and denies presentations at public meetings.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, I am starting to get at wit's end. I think many of the staff are getting at wit's end with the questions that are coming from the Member for The Straits and the Member for St. Barbe.

You see a news release that came out this morning that says that he has the final say on the final decision – absolutely false, Mr. Speaker. It is absolutely false. I will not say that they are lying, but they are playing politics. They are playing politics with a situation here. Consultations were held – and an investment of $18.4 million in a new state-of-the-art school that offers an array of programs, through a consultation process. The board has made their decision, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Member for The Straits – White Bay North.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Mr. Speaker, the Western School District has said it never develops an implementation plan in advance for closures. It downloads this responsibility on local administrators, so no programming is in place. A 2008 document included the option of alternative busing being provided. Years later, still no plan.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I ask the Minister of Education: Why would Bayview students trust the board for after-hour buses for extracurricular activities when other communities like Ship Cove, Raleigh, Goose Bay and Great Brehat were never offered such service?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Education.

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, the closure of a school is a very emotional thing. We have said that on several occasions here.

Mr. Speaker, if you look at the results in the education system in this Province, not too long ago Newfoundland and Labrador had the highest dropout rate in Canada. Today, Mr. Speaker, we are the second highest in retaining students. We have a 92 per cent graduation rate.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, our system is working.

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

MR. KIRBY: Mr. Speaker, three years ago the Auditor General identified significant problems with the escalating costs of the Protective Intervention Program which places children in alternative living arrangements. He also identified an increased risk of harm to children due to long stays and uncertain standards of care. Last month, government finally released a Request for Proposals for staff residential placement resources with a commitment to best practices.

Why did this government drag its heels and wait three years to finally act on this issue?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SHEA: Mr. Speaker, let me first acknowledge that this government did not wait three years to move on issues in the area of child protection. This government started the new Department of Child, Youth and Family Services to respond to some very serious issues that were pervasive within the system. Systemic issues, Mr. Speaker.

I also want to indicate as we look at these issues and there were concerns about the placement of children, part of the plan was to ensure that children had the appropriate environments. Mr. Speaker, in November of this year – and as many people who are watching today or in this House of Assembly understand that there is a campaign underway to attract and to be able to have new foster homes in this Province. To date, it has been a very successful campaign and it will continue because the health and safety of children and the protection intervention services has always been a priority of this government, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The time for Question Period has expired.

During Question Period, while the Leader of the Official Opposition was posing a question to the hon. Minister of Natural Resources, in his response – I call upon the Minister of Natural Resources to apologize for his unparliamentary comment when he accused the Member for Humber Valley of being disgraceful.

I ask the member to apologize for his comment.

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, if I have attacked the –

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, I apologize unreservedly.

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

MS JONES: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of privilege. I am just looking for the section because I lost it while I was getting up.

Mr. Speaker I am raising on a point of privilege based on a comment that was made by the Minister of Transportation and Works during Question Period. I asked a very legitimate question on behalf of my constituents and other people in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador who use a ferry service in this Province. I was carrying out my duties as an MHA and as a member of the Official Opposition.

I expected, Mr. Speaker, a response from the minister that would be appropriate of a Minister of the Crown. However, the minister in question went on to make commentary about where I spend my time outside of this House of Assembly, where I may have been, accusingly saying I was in a certain place on a Saturday evening. Mr. Speaker, that only leads me to believe that the minister in question, or someone within the government, is keeping tabs now on where Opposition MHAs may be –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Hear, hear!

MS JONES: – and implying impropriety on the part of the MHA.

Mr. Speaker, I know the member opposite, in his previous life, was an RNC officer –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is a point of privilege being raised. Breaches of privilege in this House are a serious matter and I would ask members to recognize the member who is on her feet raising a point of privilege, which is important for all of us to appreciate the significance of a point of privilege in this House.

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I cannot say unequivocally that there has been anybody following me. I do not know. I do not know if there are squad cars driving past my house. I do not know.

What I do know, Mr. Speaker, is that the minister today made a statement implying where I spent my time and in doing so indicated impropriety of some sort on my part. In fact, Mr. Speaker, it was a breach of privacy because what I do in my private life is of no concern to the minister or to other members in the House of Assembly when being posed a question here.

I feel, Mr. Speaker, that the remarks of the minister were obstructive, they were interfering, and they were intimidating, in causing me to carry out the responsibilities of my constituents and that of my job as a member of the Opposition office.

I would ask that the member, Mr. Speaker, would withdraw the comments and I ask that he would apologize for making such references in the House of Assembly in responding to a question in Question Period.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader, to the point of privilege.

MR. KING: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the points made by the member opposite and I would first urge you to consider checking Hansard as to exactly what was said and what was not.

In considering a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I think the rules that guide our Parliament here in the House of Assembly are very clear that a point of privilege would be raised on a basis where a member's ability to perform his or her functions as a member of this House has been some way blocked, inhibited, or prohibited. I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that has not happened.

Mr. Speaker, further to that, I do believe in raising the point of privilege that the member opposite has called into question the integrity of the position of the Minister of Transportation and Works in this House, and in a broader context, the member has raised the question of whether this government as a whole has engaged in some secretive service or other to be following the member or doing something that many would consider untoward.

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest for your consideration that in raising the point of privilege she may actually have brought on another point of privilege against the government as a whole, and the Minister of Transportation and Works in particular.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader, to the point of privilege.

MS JONES: Yes, Mr. Speaker. While I appreciate the input that anyone would like to have into this matter, I think it is very clear for the record what the minister said; it could be heard all throughout the House of Assembly, absolutely no doubt about that.

Any time, Mr. Speaker, that there is a commentary made on the floor of the House in response to me doing my job asking a question that is referring to something I may or may not do on a Saturday night in my personal life, in my mind is an implication, it is intimidation, and it is done primarily to influence how I do my job. I take extreme offence to that, Mr. Speaker. It does affect my ability to do my job. I ask for a ruling on this particular issue, because I do believe it is indeed a breach of privilege, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader, to the point of privilege.

MR. KING: Yes, Mr. Speaker, and thank you.

With greatest respect to the point being raised, it is my role as Government House Leader to argue the same points on behalf of the Government of Newfoundland. I am not challenging or suggesting that there was anything untoward or not with respect to how the member received what was said, but I do believe, on behalf of the government, in my capacity as House Leader, that I have a responsibility to argue the point.

On a point of privilege, I believe it is very clear that the matter of privilege here was not violated. Whatever may or may not have been said or intimated, there was no infringement on the ability of a member to carry out their particular function. I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, as it is stated in the House of Commons Procedure and Practice, that what we have here is no doubt a disagreement between two members, but that is the extent to what we have here.

MR. SPEAKER: The House will take a brief recess while the Speaker reviews the tape of the proceedings that the member references. We will recall the House when I have had a chance to listen to the tape.

Recess

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Speaker has had an opportunity to review the tape from the Question Period today, and there is nothing in the tape that speaks to any valid point of privilege. There is a lot of background noise, and there is a lot of chatter that is obviously taking place, but it is not a part of the official proceedings of the House, and I am unable to distinguish the individuals who may be speaking. Nor am I able to distinguish the comments that are being made.

It does, I believe, and it is an important point, and it is timely to raise it: one of the challenges we have in this House is recognizing that only those individuals who have been recognized by the Chair are permitted to speak in the House. During Question Period, for example, today, on several occasions we had to stop proceedings because individuals who were not recognized were continuing to contribute to the conversation.

When we are in Question Period or when we are in debate, if members in addition to those who have been recognized by the Chair continue to make comment and continue to contribute to the debate while not being recognized, they do have an influence on what takes place on the floor of the House but it is not captured in Hansard; it does not form a part of the official transcript, but members, as they speak, react and respond to it.

The issue that we saw unfold here this afternoon that gave rise to the point of order is a good example of what happens when members of the House do not abide by the rules of the House, and very specifically that rule which states that only those members who are recognized by the Chair can stand in their place and speak, and address the Assembly. When they do that, all others are to remain in silence and listen to the comments being made.

Whenever we have multiple people not recognized in the debate contributing to the conversation, it tends to be personal and it tends to be emotional and detracting from the main focus of the debate, and we end up with disorder in the House.

Inasmuch as there is no point of privilege with the issue being raised by the Opposition House Leader, there is a valuable lesson for all members in what we witness unfolding.

I ask members to be guided by my comments.

Thank you.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

Tabling of Documents

MR. SPEAKER: In accordance with Section 19(5) (a) of the House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act, I hereby table minutes of the House of Assembly Management Commission meeting held on December 4 and December 5, 2012.

Notices of Motion.

Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Barbe.

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

WHEREAS there has been an agreement between the Federation of Newfoundland Indians and the Government of Canada to recognize the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Band; and

WHEREAS persons submitted applications with the required documents for registration from the Band up to the application deadline of November 30, 2012; and

WHEREAS the reported number of applications received by the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Band are in excess of 100,000; and

WHEREAS the reported number of applicants now registered as members is approximately 22,000; and

WHEREAS the agreement between the Federation of Newfoundland Indians and the Government of Canada for recognition of the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Band is scheduled to end on March 31, 2013; and

WHEREAS the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Band Chief has requested but not received an extension to the agreement to process the remaining applications; and

WHEREAS to date there is no decision on how to deal with the remaining applications.

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House of Assembly to urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to work with the Newfoundland Federation of Indians and the Government of Canada to provide a fair and equal review of all applications.

As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very important social issue across a large part of our Province, particularly more so in Western Newfoundland, all up through the Northern Peninsula, and to a large number of people in my district.

Mr. Speaker, for many years these individuals have worked towards recognition, recognition as native status, and over the course of time they have put together a substantial body of evidence, information, genealogical records, and historical data. It was a tremendous amount of work and many, many people who are of native ancestry had no idea they even were of native ancestry until they were advised of their eligibility for native status.

Based on the agreement between the Federation of Newfoundland Indians and the Qalipu First Nation Band, there is a possibility to have this as a recognized Band in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. In addition to recognizing people's ancestry, their genealogical background, there are significant social advantages to be obtained by people.

The Government of Canada is responsible under the Indian Act for people of Indian status. Consequently, it is to the advantage of all residents of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, including our government, to press this matter and to ensure that whatever benefits should accrue to these residents actually does accrue to them. This petition is on their behalf.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Member for St. John's Centre.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

WHEREAS with the passage of Bill 29, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy (Amendment) Act, the Government of Newfoundland has weakened citizens' access to information and has reduced government transparency; and

WHEREAS the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has moved towards greater secrecy and less openness; and

WHEREAS the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is breaking its own commitment for greater transparency, accountability, and freedom of information, which it said at one time was the hallmark of its government;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House of Assembly to urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to repeal the passage of Bill 29.

As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to stand in the House today to present this petition on behalf of the citizens who have signed it. Again, one keeps wondering – and I have been presenting this petition for a number of months now. People are asking: In whose interest was the amendment to Bill 29? In whose interest was that? Is it in the best interest of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador?

When we see the great human outcry on behalf of the people, people are wondering why, Mr. Speaker. Why the particular amendments that happened in Bill 29 that appear to so limit access to information, that appear to affect government transparency, and that appear to make it even more difficult to get information.

We have seen time again when people have asked for access to information, documents coming back with sometimes not only some of the information blackened out, but all of the information blackened out. Does this limit access to information? One cannot wonder, perhaps it does. That is the perception. That is the unfortunate perception that we have seen out in the public.

The people of Newfoundland and Labrador are not happy about this amendment. They are not happy with what they perceive as their right to access to information. What I think has happened here, particularly at the timing of introducing this amendment, is that it has weakened the people's trust and confidence in the government, which does not make for a healthy citizenship in terms of their understanding of the democracy that is their right.

I again would urge the government to reconsider this –

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Your time has expired.

The Member for The Straits – White Bay North.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MITCHELMORE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

WHEREAS the Western School District is considering a multi-year plan to close Bayview Regional Collegiate at St. Lunaire – Griquet in June 2013; and

WHEREAS it has been proven from students that have graduated from Bayview Regional Collegiate, they have excelled in their studies to prepare them to move ahead and achieve their career choices; and

WHEREAS teachers and staff at Bayview Regional Collegiate are qualified and continue to provide a strong academic program with a full curriculum to all students attending; and

WHEREAS Bayview Regional Collegiate has developed a playground, library, drama club, Kids Eat Smart Lunch Program, school council, and other activities with exceptional community support; and

WHERAS Bayview Regional Collegiate housed a K-12 school in the past with 200-plus students who have access to science labs, cafeteria, art room, computer lab, gymnasium, and extra-curricular activities; and

WHEREAS the parents, business operators, social groups, concerned citizens, and students of the Municipality of St. Lunaire – Griquet request to rescind this proposal;

Since Bayview Regional Collegiate has met and exceeded all aspects set forth for a viable school, we, the undersigned, petition the House of Assembly to urge the government to ensure that the Western School District is provided with sufficient funding to keep Bayview Regional Collegiate at St. Lunaire – Griquet open.

As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, this petition is put forward by constituents in my district from Straitsview, as well from Noddy Bay, Quirpon, and Griquet. These are students that will have to travel quite a far distance with the closure of this school. It is important to recognize that there are two schools in this community. One can be closed; the other can easily house a K-12 school. It would be the common sense solution, Mr. Speaker, in doing so.

If we look at the public accounts, the public accounts state that the departments of government, as well as boards such as the health boards and the school boards, are controlled by and accountable for government. Ultimately, we recognize, Mr. Speaker, that there are a lot of small rural schools, K-9s, K-12s, with less than a hundred students. This decision does not make sense.

There are going to be a lot of concerned parents all across Newfoundland and Labrador in this situation where they are going to be worried, is the Badger school next? Is there another school less because there is a school closer where we can bus students an hour-and-a-half and get them there? This is going to be a real problem.

Many members across this House, who sit on this side and the other side, are very concerned about this situation. So, we need to work together. We need to urge and work towards change here, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Barbe.

MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, a petition to the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS there is no cellphone service in the Towns of St. Pauls, Cow Head, Sally's Cove or Trout River, all of which are enclave communities of Gros Morne National Park; and

WHEREAS there is either very poor service or no cellphone service in most of Gros Morne National Park; and

WHEREAS visitors to Gros Morne National Park, more than 100,000 annually, expect to use cellphones when they visit the park; and

WHEREAS cellphone service is an important safety feature for numerous travellers, hikers and others in the park; and

WHEREAS cellphone service is necessary to modern business development;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House of Assembly to urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to partner with the private sector to extend cellphone coverage throughout Gros Morne National Park, and enclave communities within the park.

Mr. Speaker, one might wonder, how do people come to sign a petition such as this? Clearly, it is a prayer to the House of Assembly to impress on government, to urge government to partner with the private sector, as the petition says.

You can see that typically, this type of petition would be left at a local business. I can see by reading the names, many of whom I know, primarily people from Cow Head, some from St. Pauls, a few from Parson's Pond, Three Mile Rock, even Norris Point. They would have been going through, would have read the petition and felt they supported it and wanted to sign the petition.

Mr. Speaker, this type of service, cellphone service, is no longer seen as a luxury. In many places in Canada, individuals are no longer using hard lines. Their traditional telephone they have abandoned, because they do not see the need to have a cellphone plus the hard line service. A cellphone is instant accessibility, as all of us know in this House of Assembly.

Even today in your observations about using BlackBerrys, all members of the House of Assembly are issued these. They are communication devices. The BlackBerry also features the telephone, as well as being able to send e-mails. All these people are asking for is the same type of communication. Members of the House of Assembly feel that these taxpayers should pay for us to do our business for them.

The House of Assembly should impress on the government the importance that everybody would like to have cellphone service, and start moving forward maybe with a feasibility study, maybe with discussion, maybe with a 3P partnership. Clearly, something needs to be done and that is the reason for this petition.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. MURPHY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

WHEREAS Tordon 101 contains the chemicals 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and Picloram; and

WHEREAS the chemical Picloram is a known cancer causing carcinogen; and

WHEREAS the provincial government has banned the cosmetic use of the pesticide 2,4-D; and

WHEREAS safer alternatives are available to the provincial government for brush clearance such as manual labour, alternative competitive seating methods and/or mechanical removal of brush; and

WHEREAS the provincial government is responsible for ensuring the safety and well-being of its citizens;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House of Assembly to urge government to cease the use of chemicals covered under its own cosmetic pesticide ban and begin using safer methods of brush clearance that will not place its citizens in harms way.

And as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, we are still going on with this petition. This petition is from some residents of St. John's, from down around the St. Phillips area as well as to the West Coast; Benoit's Cove and the Corner Brook area, as well as Deer Lake.

At this time of the year now we are looking at the snow starting to melt and spring is coming upon us. It is that time of the year where we are going to have to seriously look at how we are going to be using pesticides on our roadsides again.

The options are there for competitive growing methods. The options are there to keep people at work at the same time by using safe cutting methods, cutting brush back mechanically. We know of course that every year this time of the year the conversation continues as well with the type of pesticides whenever they get into water supplies and knowing that they can do some serious harm to some people, if not youth particularly.

Mr. Speaker, we do hope that government gives this the utmost consideration. We know that it is going to be a tough Budget and we know that they are going to have some austerity programming. Certainly we hope this programming is not going to be affected, the roadside brush clearing programs, but at the same time we do hope that government saves money on pesticides by cutting out the pesticide use itself. That is one way for government to save themselves a few dollars if they want to do it.

Mr. Speaker, again, it gives me some pleasure to present this as part of a voice for the citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador who are concerned with pesticide use in this Province.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Before I call Orders of the Day, I want to provide a response to a point of order that was raised on Monday, March 11. This point of order was raised by the Leader of the Third Party who stood in her place after Question Period to state that the Premier had used unparliamentary language in response to a question posed by the Leader of the Third Party.

Any statements made during debate must be considered within the context in which they were made and the manner and tone in which they were delivered. Any term in isolation is not necessarily unparliamentary. As stated in O'Brien and Bosc on page 618, "…the Speaker must rule on the basis of the context in which the language was used…". Also, on page 619, "…the Speaker takes into account the tone, the manner and intention of the Member speaking…".

Narrowly construing a word or a list of words as always being unparliamentary would not serve to promote the debate of issues in the House of Assembly. Members cannot be totally constrained by such a convention. Consequently, there is no point of order; it is simply a heated exchange between two members.

Orders of the Day.

Orders of the Day

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

MR. KING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I call from the Order Paper, number 2, Committee of Supply, Resolution and Bill No. 62 Respecting the Granting of Interim Supply to Her Majesty.

MR. SPEAKER: It has been moved and seconded that the House do resolve itself into Committee of the Whole and that I do now leave the Chair.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

Motion carried.

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

Committee of the Whole

CHAIR (Littlejohn): Order, please!

Prior to beginning debate, I have a ruling on a point of order, on March 14. I wish to rule on a point of order that was raised on Monday of this week. The point of order was raised by the Government House Leader, who stood in his place during Committee of the Whole to state that the Member for St. John's North had used unparliamentary language during debate.

As it has been stated by the Speaker of this House in an earlier ruling today, any statements made during debate must be considered within the context in which they are made and the manner and tone in which they are delivered.

Any term in isolation is not necessarily unparliamentary. As found in O'Brien and Bosc on page 618, the Speaker must rule on the basis of the context in which the language is used. On page 619, the Speaker takes into account the tone, manner, and intention of the member speaking.

Again, as stated earlier today by the Speaker, narrowly construing a word or a list of words as always being unparliamentary would not serve to promote debate of issues in this House. Members cannot be totally constrained by such a convention.

The Speaker of the House of Commons on December 19, 1980 said the characteristics of parliamentary language are good temper and moderation. Members must always conduct themselves reasonably during debate. Good temper and moderation are of the greatest importance.

There is no point of order. Again, this was simply a heated exchange between two hon. members in the course of debate.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DINN: Mr. Chair, I am glad to have an opportunity to have a few words here today. I had missed an opportunity before Christmas to have my say and my opinion on Muskrat Falls so I am going to start off just giving you my opinion on the rationale that I use to explain to people about approving Muskrat Falls.

As you all know, it is no secret that I totally support Muskrat Falls, but I can tell you this: I can justify building Muskrat Falls simply as a replacement for Holyrood, and I will explain to you.

We all know that the Holyrood Generating Station produces electricity by burning oil. This oil we do not get for nothing. Oil that we use at Holyrood has to be bought at today's prices. Mr. Chair, when Muskrat Falls is used at full capacity – and there are days when it has to be – it burns 18,000 barrels of oil a day. At $100 a barrel, that is $1.8 million for one day's use.

AN HON. MEMBER: Holyrood, not Muskrat Falls.

MR. DINN: Oh, Holyrood I meant. I am sorry; I got the two of them mixed up.

Anyway, Holyrood Generating Station has to have oil. As long as Holyrood Generating Station is in use, it will burn oil. Unless someone comes up with some harebrained scheme to convert it to wood burning or something like that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Clam shells.

MR. DINN: Or clam shells or something, yes.

Anyway, as it is now, as it exists, it burns oil. We do not get oil for nothing. So what I am going to do, I am going state a number as a reference point. In 2011 – this is a known fact, now; this is not something coming out of my head. This has been stated lots of times, and we have all had wheelbarrows full of information about Muskrat Falls over the last two years. I have heard all kinds of information about it; everybody else has. Here is a simple little exercise, a simple little rationale that I use with people who I talk to about Muskrat Falls.

In 2011, $135 million was spent for oil for Holyrood – $135 million. Now, this is money we are spending every year. This is not money that comes out of the Budget, or we have to budget for. This is part of the operating costs for Holyrood Generating Station.

Does everybody have a pen and paper there? Just take a pen now – especially the NDP people. Do me a little favour. I am not playing with your minds or anything, or belittling you in any way, but just do this. Take $135 million and multiply it by ten – $135 million that was spent for oil for Holyrood in 2011 and times it by ten.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are not allowed to bring a calculator into the House.

MR. DINN: I know, but that is only not hard to do.

That will give you $1,350,000,000 for oil for Holyrood for ten years. Now, take $135 million and multiply it by twenty and you will come up with $2,700,000,000. Do the same –

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DINN: Okay, I will give you a bit of time. That is a two, a seven and so many knots. Okay, do you have your homework done yet? We carry on with that assignment. You can do the same for thirty years, forty years –

AN HON. MEMBER: Thirty years?

MR. DINN: You do not have to. I said you can do it after, and do it for fifty years. I will tell you this when you can work it out – if you do not believe my number, you can work it out yourself.

One hundred and thirty-five million dollars in 2011 was spent for oil. Times it by fifty and you have $6.750 billion that would be spent for oil for Holyrood in fifty years. Guess what? That is money we are going to spend anyway. That is money in order to keep that facility producing electricity. That is based on 2011 prices. If the price of oil goes down, it will be a bit less; if it goes up, it will be more.

What I am getting at is this: If we keep Holyrood going for fifty more years burning oil, we will use $6 billion or $7 billion for oil. Guess what we have when it is all over? Nothing. It is like someone deciding I am not going to buy a car, but I am going to get a taxi for the rest of my life. I am going to spend thirty years or forty years using taxis. When the time is up, you have nothing to show for it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Greenhouse gases.

MR. DINN: That is right.

I am not even talking about the fact that Holyrood Generating Station is going to need to have refurbishing. I am not talking about the operation and the maintenance costs for that facility. I am not talking about anything else. Mr. Chair, $6.75 billion will be spent for oil for Holyrood for fifty years and you will have nothing to show for it. Folks, the money is going to be spent anyway.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DINN: Do not go saying that we are going to affect our debt; we are going to affect our deficits. The fact of the matter is that money has to be spent to keep that facility going because we need it.

AN HON. MEMBER: What is it going to do for the atmosphere?

MR. DINN: I will get to that.

I have had people come to me over the last number of months talking about Muskrat Falls, people who did not think we should go ahead with it. I sat them down with a piece of paper just like I asked you to do. I used those numbers, and something said it is sensible. It is like taking an old car and you keep pouring money into it. It does not make sense.

To say that we are going to affect our deficit or we are going to affect the debt of this Province by building that, it is not true. We will have to borrow in the beginning because it is an investment, but when it is all over it will be paid for. You are going to pay for it anyway.

Build Muskrat Falls, replace Holyrood, and this Province will be one of the greenest energy producing places on earth.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DINN: Granted, there could be a greater cost than what we are saying. That can happen any time. No matter what project you do today, the estimated cost can go up.

I have yet, in the last ten or twelve years, seen contract prices come in lower. Although at one time they did, today they do not. They do not come in lower. Do not forget, if it takes another $500 million or $1 billion, add ten more years to it and that is going to be paid for.

So, to say this is a bad project is foolishness. I do not even consider selling the energy. If we sell energy from that, that is gravy. It will be paid for over time just on the cost of the oil that we will have to buy for Holyrood, so it is a no-brainer. It is a good investment.

If I decide tomorrow to have an investment, I will say I am going to build another house somewhere in the Goulds or anywhere. I will go and get a mortgage for it. I pay for this. I will probably put two apartments in it, rent the two apartments. I take some of the money that I take in as revenue and I pay my mortgage bill. I can put the rest aside or part of the rest aside, and I have money left. We are doing the same thing, only on a larger scale.

I had to have my say about Muskrat Falls. I have said it to people individually. I firmly, firmly believe this is a good decision, without a doubt. When the future comes we will have it as a revenue source. Remember, we are not building a wagon train factory. We are going to be building a facility that is going to produce electricity, a commodity that will be in demand.

Talking about need or anything else, some people say we do not need it. The fact of the matter is we are using Holyrood now. Do we need Holyrood now? We do.

CHAIR: Order, please!

I have to remind the hon. member his time is up.

MR. DINN: That quick? I had another four pages to go.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

MR. EDMUNDS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, before I begin, I would like to take this opportunity – this is the first opportunity I have had – to offer my condolences to the Member for Lewisporte, and to commend him on his member's statement. It was certainly very moving, and I can appreciate how difficult it must have been for him.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. EDMUNDS: Mr. Chair, also to the Member for Cape St. Francis; I am very sorry for their loss, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, I have had the opportunity to sit and listen to some of the comments. I have been battling the flu over the last week, so it will impact.

On Interim Supply, Mr. Chair, there are a lot of issues out there. I would like to focus a little bit, if I may, on essential services. I will get to some of the others later.

I have heard a lot of comments on education and busing, but I would like to bring up something that is totally new. I would ask the Minister of Education, the Minister of Labrador Affairs, and the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs to pay close attention, Mr. Chair. Regulations in our Province state that students who live outside of 1.6 kilometres require busing. There are also regulations around temperatures and weather conditions. Certainly, my district is no stranger to that.

I would like to point out that in the community of Nain, which is a small isolated community, it is growing. The community of Hopedale is growing. Mr. Chair, right now the furthest house from the school in the community of Nain is right around 1.6 kilometres.

Mr. Chair, when you are looking at extreme temperatures, I think on the North Coast it is minus forty-five, or in Labrador it is minus forty-five. A student does not have to stand and wait for a school bus at minus forty-five because it is too cold. Well, in the community of Nain, Mr. Chair, if it is minus forty-four a kindergarten student is obligated to walk to school under those same conditions, a one degree difference. I have been approached by members of the community of Nain to look at transportation. They follow the media, Mr. Chair, they realize the situation.

I know in Upper Lake Melville this past winter, Mr. Chair, there were conditions that were so cold that the buses failed to start. I understand it was the same in some cases in Labrador West. Mr. Chair, some of these kindergarten students are wearing substandard clothing. It is because of provincial regulations that have not been adapted that they have to walk to school.

Mr. Chair, if you have a wind chill of minus 50 with a temperature of minus 30, and you are walking against the wind, it can get bitterly cold. Even in my own young years growing up, many of us have frozen our face walking to school, but it was normal; it was considered normal, but by the standards of this Province, Mr. Chair, that is not normal. I think this is something that certainly has to be looked at, because it is an essential service. It is one that is offered throughout this Province. I know that there are issues with schools closing and students having to be bused farther away, but as long as they are 1.6 kilometres from a school, they do not have to walk.

So that is just one issue that I bring up, because it is new. Certainly, if the commitment from this government on the education system is what they say it is, then I look forward to this being taken into consideration and the standards being applied to all parts of this Province.

I fully realize that we live in the North and we are probably a little bit tougher when it comes to extreme temperatures, but, Mr. Chair, when it comes to kindergarten and elementary students, we must set the standard for everybody and we must make allowances. This is not to say that there should be extra cost given. This is the simple fact that we have young kids walking over 1.5 kilometres to school, Mr. Chair, in dangerous temperatures. I am sure the Minister for Labrador Affairs can well attest to it, because the temperatures in Labrador West are similar.

Mr. Chair, having said that, I would like to move on in the little bit of time I have to talk about the ferries. I realize the commitment that this government has said they have made, Mr. Chair, but we have to face the cold, hard facts, and that is that our ferry system is in total disarray. I heard my hon. colleague the Member for Cartwright – L'Anse au Clair talking about a timeline and no ferry in place yet.

Mr. Chair, two years ago the government across the way came up with a wonderful plan to improve the services on the North Coast of Labrador, the district which I represent. Now, what we have gone to since then is what we had prior to two years ago, Mr. Chair; this government, in their plan to change it, has brought us back to the same thing that was not good enough.

Mr. Chair, you cannot come out and tell me that the Northern Ranger and the Astron are a salvation when two years ago the very government across the way made plans to improve it. I will not go into the Dutch Runner, because that is a memory none of us ever want to ever experience again.

Mr. Chair, the Northern Ranger, she broke down last fall and left us without a ferry. Mr. Chair, the thing is that there was not even a contingency plan other than an airplane. Now, the Northern Ranger can take seventy-five, eighty passengers; a twin otter can take eighteen passengers with no luggage. It was not a replacement. There was no replacement vessel, Mr. Chair.

In the last four or five years, Mr. Chair, the Northern Ranger, when she comes in service, has been plagued with troubles. The reason for this, Mr. Chair, is because anything that is mechanical up to a point serves well, but it is like a car or a snowmobile or anything that gets old: it breaks down and will continue to break down.

I was glad to hear the minister last year, Mr. Chair, point out that in 2016 they are hoping to have a roll-on/roll-off vessel that will service the needs of the people.

If you look around this Province, Mr. Chair – Fogo Island, Bell Island, The Straits – at every turn there is trouble with the ferries. This government over the last ten years has had ample time and ample revenue to look at this problem and certainly not to bring us to the level we are now.

Mr. Chair, I would just like to move on. I am very pushed for time. I would like to talk a little bit about housing, Mr. Chair. Housing has always been an issue in Labrador and I do not just mean Northern Labrador. We are starting to see problems in Labrador West, and we have already heard all about it. Now we are starting to hear of problems in Upper Lake Melville.

I would like to make reference to an ad that came out just recently. Mr. Chair, I will just read it off very quickly. It advertised for a two-bedroom apartment available to rent to contractors for $3,000 a month; $4,000 if you want the cleaning done.

Mr. Chair, that level may be affordable for someone who is coming in and working, let us say at the Muskrat Falls Project. Mr. Chair, it does nothing for the residents of Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Some of them – I have already been following the social media – are thinking of relocating to the Island because they cannot afford the rent.

In the communities of Nain and Hopedale, it is an ongoing problem with housing. I would like to thank the government for the third announcement on affordable housing in the community of Hopedale, Mr. Chair. Just this fall was the third announcement on the very same housing project. I am looking forward to the fourth announcement.

In closing, I would just like to say, Mr. Chair, that I commemorate the government for their involvement. The only thing, Mr. Chair, when announcements are made in Northern Labrador, a lot of times it is bilateral agreements of which the Province is a part of, and not delivery of programs and services on the whole. We have three levels of government up there. We will take one-third, one-third, one-third, Mr. Chair. We will take it any way we can.

Thank you.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte – Springdale.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. POLLARD: First of all, Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the people of my district again, the Baie Verte – Springdale district, for placing me here in this House of Assembly. It is a real pleasure, a treat and a privilege to get up on Interim Supply and have a few words to say. I also would like to thank the ministers, my colleagues, and the Premier for their support and their mentorship in the past three or four years or so since I have been here. It has been a great team support, and I thank them so much for that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. POLLARD: On a more personal level, Mr. Chair, I hope I do not embarrass her, but it is a privilege as well to serve under our Premier's sound, solid leadership. I would like to speak about her unmatched capacity to not only govern the Province but to reach on a one-on-one basis when an individual is going through some heartache, or pain or whatever, something in life – we all get sick sometimes, and we need that tender word and we need that encouraging word.

She has that capacity and that compassion to get from up here and get down on my level or your level and say those caring words. It comes from a caring and compassionate heart. I just had to say that, Mr. Chair, because I have seen that in action on a number of occasions.

Mr. Chair, I have been listening all week intently to what is happening in the House here. One thing that bubbled up through discussion, and what the Opposition was trying to say, was that we have mismanaged the public funds because we spent it on infrastructure. I would just like to dwell on that for a moment, and I want to go back in 2003, or prior to 2003, just for a moment when we were nearly bankrupt, not much money to pay our own way, sluggish economic activity, decrepit, dilapidating, aging infrastructure, and pretty stagnant economy activity. People were sort of depressed, with not much hope.

When we assumed governance in 2003, we put a plan in place and some of these features of that plan were to reduce debt. I am happy to say, roughly, we reduced it from $12 billion and took it down to $8 billion, with a $4 billion reduction, over 35 per cent. That put funds in our coffers so that we could invest in education, social programs, or health.

Another feature of that plan, Mr. Chair, was to reduce taxes, so much so that about a half a billion dollars reduction, and that put money back in people's pockets again and they had money to spend. Another feature, the third feature, Mr. Chair, was an aggressive, robust infrastructure spending plan so we could deal with the dilapidated infrastructure.

Mr. Chair, we were lauded and we were applauded by none other than the man of the year and the Governor of Canada at the time, Mark Carney, so much so that he said that other parts of the country would do well to follow Newfoundland and Labrador's example. If you listen to Dr. Warren Jestin, Scotiabank's senior vice-president and chief economist. It is the same thing. They lauded and applauded our fiscal management.

Again, bond rating agencies, chief economists, and others, Standard & Poor's, gave us a resounding A+ on our report card. They endorsed us because of our fiscal management. They are independent people. They are independent agencies. They have nothing political at stake. They are people who know finances. They are people who understand fiscal responsibility.

So, over the last nine or ten years, we did make great strides. We made tremendous strides, outstanding gains, in fact. I am here to say, and proudly say, that the last few years or so we did change the face of this Province because of unprecedented spending in public infrastructure. We laid a foundation. We spent an unprecedented $5 billion in infrastructure: roads, bridges, ferries, schools, water and sewer projects, water bombers, long-term care facilities, fire and emergency services, vehicles, whatever, and we can go on. That had a positive impact upon our Province, Mr. Chair.

The point I am trying to get at, Mr. Chair – I was listening intently all week. I was totally shocked, appalled, and flabbergasted, I suppose, to hear that the Opposition and the Third Party would say, or insinuate, or imply that: well, that infrastructure spending was sort of frivolous, mismanagement, and a waste of money. I thought roads, hospitals, schools, bridges, ferries, water bombers – what a legacy to leave behind. That is not a waste of money to my mind, Mr. Chair.

Needless to say, I was totally shocked, appalled, and quite frankly dismayed. I ask everybody a question, Mr. Chair: whose report will we believe? Will we believe the report of the Opposition or will we believe the report of outstanding experts like Mark Carney, chief economist, or what have you?

What they are also saying, then, is that – if I could rely upon my district for some examples – over the last six or seven years, over $100 million that was invested into the District of Bay Verte – Springdale, for example, was all frivolous, a waste of money. That is what they are saying.

Mr. Chair, under no circumstances – I repeat, under no circumstances – will I apologize to the people of the Baie Verte – Springdale district for spending $16.7 million dollars on the state-of-the-art K-12 school in Baie Verte.

We attended the opening ceremony, Mr. Chair: the Premier, the Minister of Education, the school board trustees, Nova Central School District Director, Charlie McCormack, students, parents, and teachers – about 600 people packed in that gymnasium, beaming with pride. You tell me that is mismanagement. That is not mismanagement. That is a wise, wise investment, Mr. Chair, of the public funds.

Under no circumstances will I stand here today and apologize to the people of Baie Verte – Springdale District for investing millions – I say millions – in road upgrades, asphalt, or pavement in places such as King's Point, Springdale, Silverdale, Harry's Harbour, Jackson's Cove, Westport, Brent's Cove, Fleur de Lys, La Scie Highway, or, yes, even $1 million on an upgrade for the gravel road to get to Nipper's Harbour so that children, at least when they are traveling on the school bus, get a good gravel road to go over – $1 million on a gravel road.

How about this one, Mr. Chair; how about the $6 million Springdale received in the past few years for municipal capital works? Is that frivolous spending? How about the $2 million we have put aside for a municipal complex for Baie Verte; is that frivolous spending, Mr. Chair? How about the $500,000 that was committed to the Green Bay Health Care facility, and more to come – would that be frivolous spending, Mr. Chair, on health care? Other examples: two brand-new ferries, the Grace Sparkes and Hazel McIssac – is that mismanagement? Is that frivolous spending, Mr. Chair? I guess not – not at all.

How about the free textbooks and the student aid packages? We can go on and on, Mr. Chair. We are going to continue to support economic growth and create jobs through investments in infrastructure. We are not going to stop because they said so. We have a glowing report card, Mr. Chair. We will continue to improve access to vital health care services. We will continue to invest in education. For example, nine brand-new schools since 2004; is that frivolous spending? Is that mismanagement of public funds? I guess not, Mr. Chair.

We are going to continue to make responsible investments for a sustainable future. We will continue to support apprentices and foster a thriving skilled labour force, Mr. Chair. We will continue to fuel business and economic growth through innovation and a progressive tax regime. We will continue to invest in strong social programs such as the Poverty Reduction Strategy, which was a model right across this great nation of ours.

Because of these investments, Mr. Chair, we have become masters of our own destiny. We are standing on our own two feet. We are paying our own way. In fact, just listen to this, Mr. Chair: 80 per cent of total revenues are now being generated from provincial sources; back in 2002, it was the other way around, Mr. Chair.

We will stay the course so we can have a sustainable, bright, secure future for years to come.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. KIRBY: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to take this opportunity before I get started to extend my condolences to the Member for Lewisporte and to congratulate him on his courageousness, and also to the Member for the District of Cape St. Francis on the loss of his father.

Last night, Mr. Chair, I had the good pleasure of being with my constituents at Kelly's Brook Apartments, and we had quite a time. We had the St. Pat's Dancers and the Buccaneers and a lot of St. Patrick's Day entertainment. It is a privilege for me to represent the District of St. John's North, which is more or less just across the road from the Confederation Building. I have a great privilege in being able to participate in district events because I reside within the city and it is close proximity to me.

Having said that, Mr. Chair, I want to pick up where I left off the last time I was speaking in debate on this motion. Of course, as we heard quite correctly yesterday from the Member for the District of Bay of Islands, everyone from esteemed MUN economist Dr. Wade Locke, to former Auditor General Mr. Noseworthy, to the former Minister of Finance, to the Premier herself, everyone is in agreement that this government has spent the funds, the revenues that have come in recent years in an unsustained manner. This fiscal mismanagement and the absence of any clear plan whatsoever has put us in the situation that we are in today.

We do hear occasionally that there are plans, like the secret John Noseworthy review of the Department of Advanced Education and Skills, like the secret $5 billion infrastructure strategy. Those documents have not come to light. So neither the public nor members of the Opposition parties have any opportunity to really scrutinize any plan because it is certainly not apparent that this government has one.

It is unfortunate, Mr. Chair, because this is truly a situation in our history where we have a government that is on the ropes, a government that is on the ropes and in a state of disarray. I will give you an example, Mr. Chair, and everybody who is listening will be acutely interested in this. Sometimes things happen and you are not fully able to comprehend the gravity of the situation because you are not as privileged as members of the House of Assembly are in receiving information.

Just after 5:00 o'clock yesterday evening the Department of Justice, the Minister Responsible for Labour Relations Agency, sent out a press release basically bashing the Leader of the New Democratic Party for our position on Muskrat Falls. Then before the hour was out, Mr. Chair, there was another press release with the math corrected in it. I thought to myself, that gigantic gag calculator I used to see across the way there that used to be brandished by members across the way – of course, that is gone.

MR. MURPHY: That is gone now, with the cutbacks.

MR. KIRBY: No, no, that is not where it is gone. That is gone because Dr. Wade Locke has borrowed that, I think, to try and calculate the equally massive deficit that we have and to try to figure out a way to use a proper multiplication to dig us out of the hole that we have been burrowed down into. Hopefully, Dr. Wade Locke, when he gets it all figured out he can give the gigantic gag calculator back to the government so that at least the Minister Responsible for the Labour Relations Agency can do the proper times tables.

I have to say, the Member for Kilbride should have been around 5:00 o'clock yesterday to try to get some of that math straight. Hopefully, the Minister Responsible for the Labour Relations Agency was watching, was paying attention to the member when he was speaking and wrote down some of that arithmetic that the member over there clearly understands better than the minister does.

I just want to go on to talk a little bit about this situation where we have gone from our have status to what I would refer to as had status in the Dominion of Canada. One of the things, of course, that we have heard a lot about, and I am certainly hearing a lot about from constituents and from people who contact my office, is the cuts to Employment Assistance Services Providers.

I know that the Y Enterprise, the Northeast Avalon YMCA Employment Enterprise Services, they have lost twenty positions. Twenty people lost their jobs in one fell swoop. Then there are five community centres around the City of St. John's, including the Rabbittown Community Centre, that have also lost jobs; five of them. That is twenty-five jobs gone there.

I have to say, the Minister Responsible for Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation was down in my district, down with Harper's new senator – I cannot remember the gentleman's name. I think he was an assistant to Mr. Wells. Yes, the new senator was an assistant I believe, to Mr. Hearn, is it?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. KIRBY: You have to say, anybody who has done service to Stephen Harper is certainly making out quite well, I have to say, right. Of course, for the rest of the people in the Province it is not so bright.

The minister was down in my district, down in the Rabbittown Community Centre, just a week before these cuts, so you would think he would have had the courtesy to inform the executive director there, and the young woman who is going to lose her job now at the end of the June, that this was coming down. I would say maybe the minister might want to do a little bit of advance the next time before he goes down to Rabbittown Community Centre.

One of the things about this is these community centres serve hard-to-serve populations, people who have chronic employment issues, and people who have difficulty, once they get employment, maintaining that employment and keeping a job. They have relationships with people in the community. People know –people who have low literacy skills through no fault of their own and people who have limited computer skills through no fault of their own – that they can go, approach these people, and get the sort of help they need to get a job and keep a job. That is all going to go away now and that is really unfortunate.

People with substance abuse problems, people with mental health issues, and people with complex issues – these agencies all across the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador were uniquely staffed to provide services to a diverse group of job seekers in the Province. Unfortunately now that is all going to go away. I think it is very unfortunate.

I just wanted to point out that I have received quite a number of letters, e-mails, and phone calls about this. Somebody contacted me just on Wednesday and personally this person said: I fear the direction that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has taken. This person said they feel the direction this government is going in is a detriment to Newfoundland and Labrador as a whole. That is what this person says. I will not identify them. It would be unparliamentary.

Another person said to me – and this is a town in rural Newfoundland; someone from the town e-mailed me and said: We believe this decision will have a devastating, negative impact on the Province, particularly rural areas of Newfoundland and Labrador. This Province has many small municipalities with populations of less than 1,000 and less than 500, many communities of that size. These small communities do not have the resources to hire the necessary expertise to assist with career development and job-searching skills. This is a letter from somebody who works for a town in rural Newfoundland.

I have to say, I could go on; I could go on and on because I have received so much correspondence about this. The only thing that comes close to the amount of correspondence that I have had from people all across this Province on the closure of these Employment Assistance Services providers is last fall when the Eastern School District was proposing to shut down schools.

Of course, we know now that they did succeed in closing Whitbourne Elementary, or at least they are hoping they are going to succeed in that and they also are planning to shut down Epiphany as well. That was the only time since I have been a member of this House of Assembly that I have seen the sort of public outcry that I have seen in the last two weeks.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Bonavista North.

AN HON. MEMBER: South.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LITTLE: Bonavista South it is, Mr. Chair, and thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak in this hon. House today.

I would like to take this opportunity as well to thank the constituents from the beautiful District of Bonavista South for giving me the opportunity to be your voice in this great House of Assembly that I am in today.

After listening to some of the comments across the way from the Third Party, I have to disagree with some comments; unlike the comments made from the Member for St. John's North – the doom and gloom and all of the negativity – we are a government who definitely practice and certainly put the positive out there and continue to make this Province grow in every part of this beautiful Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

If you happen to take time to come to the beautiful District of Bonavista South, you would see first hand that rural Newfoundland is not dying. Rural Newfoundland is growing – a wonderful tourism industry; people are working together. We have all kinds of development people who are out there working hand in hand with community councils, the local service districts, working with this government.

People of the world come to this beautiful Province and love to come back again and visit Newfoundland and Labrador, and it is all because of the type of people we are. I intend, every opportunity that I get a chance to speak, to speak about the positive and how this government is working on behalf of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LITTLE: We definitely take a balanced approach. We have to pay off the deficit. We have to deal with the debt. We have to deal with where we are going in the future and we as a Province have a plan, a vision, and it is highlighted. It has been highlighted and it is sustainable.

Muskrat Falls Project – I have no problem standing in this House today supporting that project. I will continue to support it. It is a wonderful investment for the future of our children and their children, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LITTLE: As I speak about the project, Muskrat Falls, without a plan for the future, when the oil developments dry up and some of our mineral resources dry up, we have to invest in projects like Muskrat Falls, a major project that is very renewable, takes us into the future and is certainly going to help pay for some of our infrastructure forever that our Opposition and our Third Party continuously talks about.

Talking about the negativity: Where is the money going to come from for the future to spend on different projects and so forth? I hear the Opposition and I hear, in particular, the Third Party talking about spend, spend, and spend. I hear it time after time, but we take a balanced approach, Mr. Chair. I have no problem in saying that and I have no problem in backing up this government in relation to the initiatives that we put forward. Also, I have no problem in relation to the Minister of Finance when he puts forward a plan to take care of our budgetary problems.

We definitely will, on this side of the House, work together in a positive manner to make sure that the future of this Province is kept intact so our children and their children can have a very positive future as well.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LITTLE: I can back up with fact what we are doing. Look at how we treated our public employees. I used to be a public employee and look how the last round of negotiations went: eight, four, four, four; $500 million –

AN HON. MEMBER: A year.

MR. LITTLE: – a year, a half a billion dollars a year increase.

Listen, this government recognizes the importance of our public employees. We appreciate and value the work that our public employees do, on this side of the House, Mr. Chair, and we will continue to do that.

We, as a government, have proven with a strong track record that we will be good fiscal managers of this Province in the past, today, and in the future because we do have a vision. Right now, we are in a transition. We are in a little bit of a transition. I can tell you right now that the future is going to be bright, prosperous, and it is going to be bright and prosperous because of what this Province has planned for the future, Mr. Chair. We are going to continue on as a good, fiscal management government and that is what we are.

I would definitely like to take the opportunity to commend the minister who represents Gander. He definitely puts infrastructure right throughout this Province, funding, to help the towns, to help communities in Newfoundland and Labrador and, in particular, rural parts of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LITTLE: Also, when it comes to the Minister of Fisheries, as far as I am concerned he is very involved in what is happening out there. We are all concerned about the future of the fishery. A big part of my district is in the fishery. It is still the number one place where job opportunities are occurring and so forth.

I have been in consultation talks with the minister on numerous occasions talking about the future of the fishery. I would like for some of the Opposition to come out to the District of Bonavista South and look how vibrant things are happening in the fishery out there today.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LITTLE: In light of the negativity that comes from the Opposition, I will tell you one thing: Come to the Town of Bonavista where a regional plant is, where OCI, Ocean Choice International, is investing millions of dollars into the future of the fishery creating employment – actually created employment there last year, 100-plus jobs. I can tell you right now that is positive. We are working with different companies, different groups, and making sure that our economy continues to grow in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LITTLE: If you look at some of the comments made about reckless spending, fiscal mismanagement, it is all coming from the Opposition, the Third Party. As far as I am concerned, it is utterly ridiculous in my opinion. It is unfounded, there are no facts, and it is just comments.

We are not going to take this serious. We are going to continue on the road we are on; the road to prosperity is where we are going. We are going to show the people of this Province that we are good leaders and we are going to continue to be good leaders on their behalf.

We do have a vision; we do have a long-term plan. We do have a strategy, and the strategy is outlined. It is not hidden; it is there for everybody to see. I can guarantee you one thing that this government on this side will continue to make this Province grow.

There are all kinds of development. If you look at Labrador West where some of the people from my district go to work and you look at Bull Arm, some of the sites in Long Harbour and so forth. I have people from my district every other day helping these major projects. I am sure some of the people in my district will work on the Muskrat Falls Project, which is a major development that is going to occur. I will tell you this is very beneficial, not only to St. John's, the capital city, this is very beneficial for all the Province, and in particular rural Newfoundland and Labrador.

My son is a university student, and I am proud. He will be graduating within a short time. The tuition fees that helped me out as a family member and my son, and is going to give everybody else opportunities, are the lowest tuition fees in the country. This government has made that happen, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LITTLE: This government certainly is looking at other initiatives within the educational system. I am very proud to be able to stand in this House today and speak on those issues. Those are the facts, Mr. Chair. These are the hard facts about what this government has continued to do, and we continue to deliver on behalf of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The rural parts of this Province, in my opinion, and the district that I come from are not dying. It is growing. The tourism industry is very vibrant. The fishing industry is balanced out and we are moving forward. We are going to continue to grow. We have people out there, entrepreneurs, who are involved in business.

What I see is positivity, and I am going to continue with every opportunity that I get to speak in this wonderful House to highlight the very positive type of ventures that are happening out in the rural parts of Newfoundland and Labrador. That is my job. I was elected to that, and I will continue to do it.

Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for St. Barbe.

MR. BENNETT: Yes, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I would like to thank some of the hon. members opposite. I would like to thank the member who just spoke from Bonavista South, for coming down to his district and helping me save the school in Catalina. I was down to Catalina. He said he wished members opposite would come to his district.

Well, I did go to his district. I did not see a lot of it because it was after dark, but a meeting with the parents in Catalina and then a public meeting in Bonavista. The member was good enough to come to his own district and help me save his school from his colleague, the Minister of Education, who was going to order the school board to close it down. I really appreciated him doing that.

I understand the experience he received in protesting against the government was an experience he picked up in 2004 as Deputy Mayor of Bonavista when he was protesting against this government for cuts they were making in his town. He acquired this experience objecting to the work or non-work of this government when he was Deputy Mayor of Bonavista, so he has experience there.

I would also like to thank the Minister of Finance for the hon. mention yesterday. He gave me hon. mention when he was referring to the fact that I have been outlining some of the waste and mismanagement of this government. I appreciate him noticing my efforts, because I was afraid it might go unnoticed. When you bring it to the attention of the Minister of Finance of what a terrible job they are doing, it is good that he notes it. That should not go without comment.

I would also like to take a little while now and help the Minister of Education with some of his press releases because he got one wrong yesterday. It was yesterday, March 13, he said, "The latest claim is that our students' performance on a particular international assessment, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), has declined… In fact, our results have been consistently high – and there is no statistical difference in the scores recorded by the sampling of students tested in 2003, 2006 and 2009."

The minister probably did not get around to reading a document that was put together in conjunction with Human Resources Skills Development, Statistics Canada, and of course the Council of Education Ministers of Canada. The Council of Education Ministers of Canada produced a report on the OECD PISA studies. In spite of the minister claiming in a press release that there was no statistical difference, in fact the report of which the Education Ministers of Canada helped sponsor says there is a statistical difference in the scores. In fact, they have declined. I suppose first we should talk about statistical significance.

If this was Sesame Street, this would be brought to you by the letter S and the minister could be the Count. "Statistical significance is a statistical assessment" – I would happy to table this document; it comes from Wikipedia – "of whether observations reflect a pattern rather than just chance. When used in statistics, the word significant does not mean important or meaningful, as it does in everyday speech; with sufficient data, a statistically significant result may be very small in magnitude."

I have not done a stats course since the 1970s, but when I read in the report that the Ministers of Education of Canada helped put out – dealing with the PISA scores from 2003, 2006 and 2009. It might come to the attention of hon. members that the tests have already been completed for 2012 and the results will come some time in 2013. On math, this Province had an average score, in 2003 when this government took office, of 517. The Canadian average is 532, so we were fifteen points off the Canadian average.

By 2006, our math scores for fifteen-year-old students had declined from 517 to 507, so we had a ten-point drop. The rest of Canada dropped from 532 to 527, so the rest of Canada dropped by five points and this Province dropped by ten points. By 2009, we had dropped to 503 and the rest of Canada dropped to 527. We were off the Canadian average by fifteen points in 2003; by the time this government had education under their oversight, we had dropped – for six years –by twenty-four points. It says in the document: statistically significant differences compared to the piece of 2003.

The minister issues a press release and says that the information that I am putting forth is not accurate, and the information I am putting forth comes from a report that was put out by the education ministers of Canada. Presumably, we are still a Province, and presumably, he is an education minister, so how can his press release contradict the documents that he is a part of?

That was just in math. Our scores also declined in reading and our scores also declined in science. You see, it is very difficult to engage in a meaningful debate when you cannot agree on the facts. If the minister's facts keep moving around, how can the critic – when you rely on the facts that the minister has relied on – put forth a release and put forth an argument, only to have the minister come back and say: you have the facts wrong. Well, in fact, minister, they are your facts. They are your unfortunate facts. They are your sad facts. They are your facts that say that education has declined, and continues to decline under this government.

Earlier today when I placed a call to deal with the lack of a school closing policy in this Province, I was not off the telephone for more than ten minutes and I received a telephone call. The person asked me to identify myself and he said: I am calling about your comments on Open Line. I am sure all of us have experienced it; when someone calls you to comment on your comments on Open Line, it is not always going to be a happy discussion. In fact, this was a prominent educator who has had thirty-five years in the field, and said: your comments are absolutely spot-on.

What this government is doing is investing in infrastructure, taking great credit for it, taking oil wealth, fixing up schools and building some new ones, and they are not investing in human capital. They have overlooked the human capital. They no longer recognize teachers for achievement. They are no longer hands-on in education. They put up buildings and they close buildings; they put up buildings and they close buildings. They fix some buildings and they let other buildings run down, and they think that is going to get them a result in education. It does not get them a result in education, at least not a positive result; it gets them a negative result.

So, in this Province, education has declined substantially over the tenure of this government. The number of students has declined; the per-capita percentage of our budget has shrunk from 2002, under Grimes, the Grimes Administration, when it was near to 15 per cent, to less than 11 per cent today of the total Budget. So when we had very little money, when we were absolutely strapped, when we could not afford very much, we could afford to educate the kids. Today, when we have practically money to burn, we have money we cannot even account for, and we have money that this government has been throwing away like mad; it is not going into education. It is going into buildings, it is going into structures; it is not going into education, and the results are clear.

So, I would encourage the minister to go back and do a supplementary, take a remedial course in the stats of OECD, review the materials put out in conjunction with the Department of Education of his own Province, our Province, as well the other provinces of Canada, and read this tale of the outcome of these years of neglect of our education system. After he has done that then he may be able to come back and issue a corrected release and say: we acknowledge that things have slid under our tenure, and here is the plan that we have to go forward. If we have a plan to go forward, we know we have the means to do it, but we do not have the will to do it.

We know that the minister means well; we know that he knows what to do, but he does not know how to do it. He needs to be hands on, on the ground. Issuing programs like baby blanket programs simply is not cutting it in a modern, 21st-century field of education. He must do better, because all of us depend on it, not just us today: the young people whom we are educating; the people we want to attract to our Province; the human capital that can only be improved upon by continuing to invest not just money, but time and interest; and to reward genuine achievement, to reward – as well as the students – teachers and administrators, and not just financial rewards. I am not saying that they need more money. I am saying they need more recognition, they need more supports, they need more co-operation and they need more encouragement.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR (Verge): Order, please!

I recognize the hon. the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. F. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, it is a pleasure today to be able to rise and offer some comments on Interim Supply. I apologize for my voice; I am not in top shape. Hopefully, I can handle ten minutes.

Mr. Chair, it is good to be back in the House again, to see all of the crowd and to take part in this discussion. It is a great discussion leading up to the Budget. It focuses everybody's attention. It leads up to the Budget, and it is going to be an interesting couple of weeks and an interesting session of this House. We have run into two filibusters in a row and hopefully will not have a third one. You never know what they might come up with on the other side. They will find something to filibuster.

Mr. Chair, we are currently going through a situation in this Province where we are preparing a Budget and getting our fiscal house in order. In a sense, the position that we are in demonstrates the volatile position that you are in when you base your economy on a non-renewable resource-based economy. That is what makes the debate on Muskrat Falls so important in the last session of this House. Those of us in this side of the House were so proud to be able to stand in support of that project, and look forward to the legacy that it will bring to our children, our grandchildren. The project is already in progress and we look forward to the benefits that will accrue therefrom.

Mr. Chair, to get back to our fiscal position, we are currently in a position of pulling back. We have had a number of good years of spending. We have had some good revenues; we have spent quite a bit of money. We are pulling back, as we should, as we have to.

The Opposition, in their attempts to try to make brownie points, will suggest that this is reckless and frivolous spending. Yes, Mr. Chair, we spent a lot of money. We took in a lot of money and we spent a lot of money. The Minister of Finance summed it up well I think yesterday. He said: We had to rebuild this Province – we had to rebuild it. When your House starts to fall down, needs repairs, you have to rebuild it, repair it. We had to rebuild this Province.

As the minister has also said our economy is driven by private capital investment. That is what drives the economy. In order to get that private capital investment, Mr. Chair, we had to invest heavily ourselves to build up our own infrastructure in this Province so we could attract that private capital investment. That is what we did.

We did not hear the Opposition members complaining when there were projects approved during those years for their districts. We did not hear them complain if a school was built in their district, or roads were paved in their district. They were all fine and good then, but now it is all reckless and frivolous spending.

Mr. Chair, the members of this House have mentioned several times in the last few days: Where would they suggest that we cut out some of this spending? What suggestion did they make? What is their plan? What would they have done? What projects would they not have funded? I am not going to go through that; several members on this side of the House have already done that.

Mr. Chair, what we did was we spent money. Now the Opposition people may say: Well, we did not have the money to spend. Well, that is fair. That is fair enough. We had money; they did not. That does not belie the fact that we had to spend it. We had to spend it because of the mess we were in and because of the sad state of our infrastructure.

Our roads were impassable. Our municipal infrastructure, those municipalities that had them, and water and sewer systems were in desperate shape. Our schools were falling down. We had to invest. We had to rebuild this Province. I cannot say it often enough. We had to rebuild this Province because we do not get capital investment into this Province until we get our own infrastructure up to scratch in order to entice that investment in and that is what we did. We are showing the results of that today, Mr. Chair, by having an economy that is growing and driven by capital investment.

Mr. Chair, I want to just spend a few minutes in the short time I have talking about my own district. My district now, in one part of my district, the Long Harbour, Placentia, and Whitbourne area, which I call the golden triangle of my district – a former Premier used to refer to Placentia Bay as the golden triangle. That is the golden triangle of my district. Now, there are other parts of my district as well that I do not want to neglect, but I want to talk about that particular area.

In order to attract investment that we have in that area, Mr. Chair, we have put millions and millions and millions of dollars into the infrastructure of that part of the district. We have done the roads going into Long Harbour. We have done the roads going into Placentia. We put a new school in Placentia. We have put water and sewer, with $2 million already earmarked for Long Harbour water and sewer development. It has to be put there because there was a lot of capital investment put in the Town of Long Harbour. There are millions going into the Town of Placentia. They have to have it. Argentia and Long Harbour are the industrial hub of that part of the Province.

Whitbourne is the third part of that triangle. We have put millions of dollars into Whitbourne and Whitbourne is a half-hour from Long Harbour. It is three-quarters of an hour from Bull Arm. It is a half-hour from Argentia. It is three-quarters of an hour from St. John's. It is perfectly located, Mr. Chair, to benefit from all that new economy. So we have put money into these communities in order for them to benefit from that new economy.

We do not apologize for that. I cannot apologize. My colleague for Baie Verte could not apologize for the money that went into his district and I am certainly not going to apologize for money that went into mine because it was necessary to attract new investment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. F. COLLINS: That was money that had to be invested, and now it is bringing the returns. I will make an investment of that any day, Mr. Chair, if I can get the returns that we are getting on that. We are getting the returns now in that area, in capital investment. It is a hub now, not only benefiting the people in that area but benefiting the whole Province.

As I mentioned, Mr. Chair, that is the golden triangle of my district. I do not have time today to mention areas like the Cape Shore and St. Mary's Bay. I just want to talk about the money that is invested in this area because it is money that was invested to rebuild the area. It had to be rebuilt.

I remember when I went out to Placentia and set up a law practice out there in the late 1990s. You could count the cars on one hand that were going by at nighttime. You certainly did not need one hand to count the potholes in the road or the number of boarded up windows. It is a different ballgame out there now because we put money into it, millions of dollars into it. Not only in Placentia, every member here on this side of the House and on that side of the House, can talk about investments going in their area that gives this Province the future that it has.

We talk about a booming economy; the booming economy comes as a result and in harmony with those investments that we made, and we had to make them. We had to make them. So, do not talk to me about frivolous and wasteful spending. That is not the case. We built her back up because we had to. We built her back up. It is so important, Mr. Chair.

Now, I could take another twenty minutes just on this part of my district alone, but it is an example, I think a good example of where money was invested. I did not mention the bridge. I did not mention my famous bridge.

MR. S. COLLINS: I mentioned it yesterday for you, Minister.

MR. F. COLLINS: Somebody mentioned the bridge; several people mentioned the bridge. In excess of $40 million going into the lift bridge in Placentia.

AN HON. MEMBER: How much?

MR. F. COLLINS: $40 million.

Thirteen million dollars is going into a new high school in Placentia; $16 million went into roads going into Placentia and Long Harbour. I could go on and on.

By the way, that bridge is the catalyst that drives that whole Placentia area. Without that bridge, there is no Placentia. It is a part of Route 100. It is necessary to develop that new economy out there. It is necessary. It has to be there. It is a lot of money, but it has to be spent.

Mr. Chair, I had the pleasure, two weeks ago, attending with my colleague, the Minister of IBRD – I never can remember the words, so I remember the letters – in St. Joseph's, St. Mary's Bay, where we announced the extension of broadband services in St. Mary's Bay.

AN HON. MEMBER: Another great investment.

MR. F. COLLINS: A great investment, a great investment. Now, it does not get to all the unserviced areas –

AN HON. MEMBER: We are getting there.

MR. F. COLLINS: We are getting there, absolutely. With the development of new technologies and whatnot in the future, this stuff will come more quickly. I am convinced before I pass away that we will have all that done. By passing away, I mean passing away from here. I am not insinuating we will wait that long to get it done.

Mr. Chair, it is hard to appreciate an area today that does not have access to Internet. I hear the Member for The Straits – White Bay North speaking several times about that. I understand, it is difficult to appreciate not having access to Internet services. For those of us who use it every day it is almost impossible to appreciate how people cannot use it, do not have it, but we are getting there. This government is committed to getting there.

I was proud last week to be able to say that several more homes in St. Mary's Bay receive Internet services. It will go a long way, Mr. Chair, to improving the quality of life in our rural communities. If you knocked on a door ten years ago campaigning for politics, you did not hear people complaining about communication services.

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. F. COLLINS: It is a different story today. It was a great announcement, and having people out there. There will be more to come.

CHAIR: Order, please!

I remind the member his time for speaking has elapsed.

MR. F. COLLINS: Mr. Chair, I come into this House today and I hold my head high.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JOYCE: A point of order.

CHAIR: Order, please!

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

MR. JOYCE: Yes. The Member for Placentia – St. Mary's was talking about how good Whitbourne is; it is the hub of the area. I have to ask him one question: why are you allowing your government to shut down the school if it is such a hub in your area?

CHAIR: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

I recognize the hon. the Member for The Straits – White Bay North.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before I begin, I would like to pass along condolences to the Member for Lewisporte and the Member for Cape St. Francis on their recent losses.

The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs in speaking to the Interim Supply bill, as well as many other ministers here, have talked about and have asked us, the New Democratic Party, for our plan. What is our plan? The minister had said the same thing.

I have to say, Mr. Chair, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and all of the other ministers are managers of their departments, they have their employees. It is their jobs to produce the plans. They have failed to be putting forward with these plans. If they want our plans, they can hand over government to the New Democratic Party, Mr. Chair, and we will produce our plans.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. MITCHELMORE: Speaking on the Interim Supply and the money –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for The Straits – White Bay North, to continue.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will talk about the gross mismanagement from the Progressive Conservatives on the other side. Newfoundland and Labrador's per capita spending increased rapidly between 2006 and 2010. Per capita spending averaged 50 per cent higher than all other provinces in Canada in the last three years, according to APEC.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. MITCHELMORE: Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Chair, the oil royalties will come in well below –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

Again, I ask all members for their co-operation.

The hon. the Member for The Straits – White Bay North.

MR. MITCHELMORE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I know the truth hurts sometimes, but I would appreciate if the members opposite would listen to the harsh realities of our fiscal situation. We are going to be well below budget in 2012-2013 in our oil royalties – no Atlantic Accord payments; this is going to intensify Newfoundland and Labrador to really curtail spending now because of lack of planning.

In the 2012 fiscal year, there was a $436 million reduction in oil royalties. Mineral taxes dropped $114 million. Corporate tax revenue, which was in the Budget of increasing $200 million, dropped $47 million. The only thing that actually was really, really good last year was there was a $92 million increase in personal income tax revenue. Do you know why that is? It is primarily because of a commuter economy. Where is that going to head in the future with all of the layoffs government are doing right now? We are not going to have the personal income tax; that is not going to be coming in, not at that level.

So, you have to be really careful when you are planning and doing a Budget. I ran a business, Mr. Chair. I know about making plans.

Oil prices are set to decline by 6 per cent in 2013 and net debt, Mr. Chair, well, the former Minister of Finance had talked quite a bit about net debt. I want to say for everybody out there that net debt is the short- and long-term debt minus the cash and cash equivalents.

If you are doing such a good job at managing the Province, we look at the fiscal position. The actual position for 2011-2012, every man, woman and child, net debt, dollars per capita: $15,257. Where are we forecasted this year: $17,329. Where are we going to be forecast the year after: $18,867. What about the year after: $19,497. That is being real fiscally responsible right there, taking on all that debt. Taking on more debt to build Muskrat Falls is going to increase borrowing and that is going to carry a lot of debt on a lot of carrying cost for taxation and interest there.

We talked about the members opposite talking about: we cannot build an economy on volatility, you know – and that is exactly what they are doing. That is exactly what they are doing. They are risking it and it is looking at volatility.

If we look at where we could go with this, Prince Edward Island, for example, tabled multi-year, three-year Budgets; where is this government going? We have no idea; we really do not, because they do not table any type of long-term plan.

They say they have a Northern Strategic Plan for Labrador; we do not know what is being spent from year to year and how it is being balanced. It is not out there. It is not listed. There is no timeline. What about in the Transportation and Works Department, where they have capital spending for paving roads and things like that? We have no idea from one year to the next which area of the Province is going to get paving, and if it is an absolute need, and the things like that.

The Nova Scotia government has a five-year plan. They have listed every road that is going to be getting paving and bridges. It is directly there; it is publicly available. Can the Minister of Transportation and Works stand up and say: well, we have a plan available. It is public. It is available. This government is not very transparent and not very accountable to the people who elected them.

I spoke to a constituent and they wrote and they said to me: the government really needs to look at trying to find how we can move from making our renewable resources prosper, really have to focus on those renewable resources, because we see how mining, we see how oil, which is the bulk of our economy –

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MITCHELMORE: Muskrat Falls – I am glad you are saying that, somebody across the floor – $20 billion in revenues; well, what is the borrowing cost?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. MITCHELMORE: What are the labour costs? Look at the expenditures that it is going to take over that time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. MITCHELMORE: Material cost, inflation – all of these things are going to have an impact on what is going to be the actual return. This is all at the risk of the ratepayers of this Province.

Instead of looking at things, Mr. Chair – our renewable economy, like the fishery, as I spoke about in the first one; the Fisheries Minister is certainly managing the decline of the fishery. In 2003, when the Tories came into power, it was worth a billion dollars in seafood exports. In a decade, it is at its lowest amount: $740 million – no ideas, no plans, nothing structurally put into place.

The same thing with the forestry; it is in absolute disarray. You talk about putting in investment. You put investment in my district, in Roddickton, in a pellet plant, but you did not go far enough with that. The Department of Innovation, Business and Rural Development, in planning that they put forward, when they recommended funding it was outlined there; it said, it absolutely said that there is going to be problems with transportation. It is going to be problematic, but they said, no, we will loan this money anyway, with all the other funders, without having a plan to make sure that this industry is going to be sustainable, that there are going to be personal income taxes coming from the forestry, that there will be corporate income taxes coming from the forestry, and that the Department of Natural Resources is going to get royalties from the logs that are actually being cut down.

You have to really have a balanced portfolio when you go to the bank. You do not just buy stocks. You would not go and buy 100 per cent stocks in Google because Google might go down next year. You really want to have a diversified portfolio, and the Province is not really focusing on that. They put all of their eggs in that Muskrat Falls basket. They are not focusing on – they are actually working very hard to erode rural Newfoundland and Labrador by their lack of vision and their lack of investment.

I certainly challenge the Minister of IBRD to get up on his feet and actually put forward that plan, because there is none. It does not exist. It really does not. It is very painful to see that the Ministers of IBRD and Natural Resources will not get together and actually make the industry on the Northern Peninsula, the forest industry, work.

It can work for people. It can be millions and millions of dollars for the Treasury here. You are going to let it die and you are going to let those people go to Alberta and elsewhere. If we keep sending everyone away and sending our youth away, we are going to continue to have unsustainable health care, unsustainable, unprecedented spending, and there will be no way to turn around.

Muskrat Falls will not save this Province, Mr. Chair. It really will not. This will not do it. It is not fiscally responsible and we need to see better; we expect better. The people expect better from their government. They really do, and people are getting sick and tired of hearing the same old rhetoric, the same old spin, and saying we have a plan when you really do not have a plan. If you are not prepared to govern and you are not willing to do it, then you are going to have to turn the reins over to somebody else who is willing to do it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

I recognize the Member for Humber West.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRANTER: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

With all due respect, Mr. Chair, I just happened to sit and listen to the Member for The Straits – White Bay North, and I do not think there was anything he said with regard to his projections in the last ten minutes that this government does not already know. I will tell you this, and I do know this. This government is not afraid to invest $6 billion in the Muskrat Falls development so we return $20 billion to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRANTER: This government, I say to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, negotiated contracts with offshore oil and companies, and the NDP, I say to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, would tear those contracts up and drive companies away. That is what they will do, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Shame.

MR. GRANTER: It is shameful, I will say, Mr. Chair. We know what we have done, we will stand on our record, Mr. Chair, and we will stand on the record for the last number of years. That is the purpose of my standing today to speak to the Interim Supply bill.

I want to take some time in the next seven or eight minutes to talk about investments – investments in good times and investments in the times that are not so good. Mr. Chair, investments for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, that is what this government is all about – investing for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, in rural parts of the Province, and in urban parts of the Province, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, you know, and I know, and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador know that when we took government in 2003, we inherited a Province, as the Minister of Finance said on the floor of this House, and as the people of Newfoundland and Labrador know, we inherited a Province that was nearly bankrupt.

Mr. Chair, we can all recall when the former Premier went on Province-wide television and showed the people of Newfoundland and Labrador the books of the Province. We know exactly what the Province was like – but we have carried this Province, Mr. Chair, with solid investments for the last number of years to this very day, and we will continue to carry the Province for a long time to come, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRANTER: Mr. Chair, we inherited a significant infrastructure deficit. I know, Mr. Chair, I was a public servant, I was an educator, and I know what the deficits were in education. I will talk about those in a few minutes, Mr. Chair. We had a $12 billion debt – $12 billion debt – with crumbling schools, crumbling hospitals, crumbling roads.

Mr. Chair, you talk about layoffs. I was laid off as an educator in this Province – 2,000 teachers from 1989 to 2003, and I was one of those who was laid off by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. Shameful, I say to that – 2,000. That is the record, and the record speaks for itself. We turned this Province around, Mr. Chair.

Recently, Mr. Chair, some have questioned the investments, especially from the other side of the House. Some have called these investments reckless – reckless investments. I come from a background in education. Let me just, for a few moments, talk about the real sense of how far we have come in my time as an educator.

I remember a time, Mr. Chair, in my career where physical education teachers were going to garage sales in the summertime to purchase second- third- and fourth-hand equipment to take to their gymnasiums in September of the school year. That is what it was like in education. That is the kind of perspective I will talk about with the remaining seven or eight minutes that I have.

I recall, Mr. Chair, my very first role as a vice principal in Corner Brook in a school called G.A. Mercer, which no longer exists in today's system. I recall at 7:00 o'clock in the morning, when the rain came in the night, going into that school and moving the buckets out of the corridor and cleaning up the water on the floor so students would not slip when they came in at 8:00 o'clock or 8:30 o'clock in the morning, Mr. Chair. That was the condition of infrastructure in this Province.

Today, Mr. Chair, I can tell you that schools have never been more equipped than they are today. Technology, funding for physical education equipment, funding for fitness equipment and so on, Mr. Chair, and we are not done yet. We will continue to fund schools in this Province, Mr. Chair. The days of garage sales for equipment and programs are over.

Just a reminder to the parents of the Province, school fees, locker fees, and a time when they had to pay for textbooks every September, hundreds and hundreds of dollars out of the pockets of parents. We changed that, Mr. Chair. One of the best days I ever had as an administrator when the news came down that parents would not have to pay for textbooks any more, Mr. Chair.

Millions of dollars invested to move forward with a range of initiatives, Mr. Chair, in early childhood education; millions of dollars under the 21st Century Learning Strategy to purchase additional computers and interactive whiteboards for schools.

Mr. Chair, I was a part of a redevelopment in Corner Brook that saw an investment for the students of Corner Brook, $18 million. In actual fact, I believe it went to about $20 million or $21 million at the end of the day. I feel that they are good investments. The people of Corner Brook know it was a good investment, Mr. Chair. A school that is modern, well-equipped, and where there is a great sense of pride and forward thinking.

Mr. Chair, this government is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the K to 12 infrastructure development. Mr. Chair, this government believes in its young and its impact that youth of this Province will have today, not only today but in the future as well.

Mr. Chair, I can talk on and on and on with regard to the investments. I want to specifically talk about some of the investments in Corner Brook in the last number of years. I want to ask everyone in my district and in Corner Brook, were these necessary or were these unnecessary investments? Were these reckless?

I would also say to some of the naysayers that this government has delivered on the promises it has made to the West Coast. This government has delivered on the promises that it has made to the people of Corner Brook – and hold on. I would also ask the naysayers to reflect on the history of our region and ask this question, what government has delivered more for the people of the West Coast, Corner Brook than this government? Our record speaks for itself. We promised; we delivered. A promise made, a promise kept. I say again, hang on, hang on, and hang on.

Mr. Chair, contact with ministers on a daily basis. Minister Marshall, myself, and the Minister of Finance working a number of files through for the people of Corner Brook and the region. Do we want to go back to the leaky roofs, the broken steps, to the days of crumbling walls and leaky ceilings, go back to the days of water pipes leaking, go back to the days of mould infested walls and windows? No, Mr. Chair, we are not going back to those days.

The millions of dollars invested in a new academic building for the Grenfell Campus on University Drive, was that reckless spending, Mr Chair? Should we not have invested in students? Not our leaders of tomorrow, but as I always say the leaders of today. Should the naysayers today say take back that money we gave to Grenfell Campus of Memorial University and say no, no, no, we do not want it?

The millions of dollars invested in the new 200-bed residence under construction, was that reckless spending, Mr Chair? I would ask the people, go up and have a look at the new residence. It is very impressive, Mr. Chair.

Were the millions of dollars invested in the new long-term health care centre reckless spending, Mr. Chair? I would say not. The people of Corner Brook say not, with the expansion of the new beds there, the fourteen beds that are opening up this year. There is no turning back to the times of the past, Mr. Chair. We only look to a bright, hopeful, energetic and positive future.

In the last minute I have, Mr. Chair, I want to list: the long-term care facility, dementia unit in Corner Brook, $20 million in the Herdman development, highway doubling outside of Corner Brook, pavement, a new courthouse, a new residence at Grenfell Campus, Summit Place, new Arts and Science Building at the Grenfell Campus, new labs currently under construction, Newfoundland and Labrador Housing building treatment and addictions centre, just to name a few, Mr. Chair.

To the member opposite, Mr. Chair, all I have to say with regard to the hospital in Corner Brook: stay tuned, stay tuned, stay tuned, because we will all be happy with that.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: Order, please!

I recognize the Member for St. John's South.

MR. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, on Thursday I spoke a little bit about Interim Supply, and I talked about the fact that government had known for years that in 2011-2012 the Atlantic Accord funding would run out. I talked a little bit about the fact that when we become a have Province, we knew that the federal transfers were going to run out. That was no surprise to anybody. That was no surprise to anybody in the House. I talked a little bit about the fact that government knew that in 2011 oil production was going to go down a little. Again, in 2012, we would see a reduction in oil production and so on. The next real bump in oil production is going to be in 2017.

Anybody looking at the books, anybody reading the Budget or understanding the financial forecast of the Province would know that there were going to be some reductions. It did not come as a surprise to anybody, or should not have come as a surprise to anybody in this House that there was going to be a reduction in provincial revenues.

Because of the higher than expected oil prices – because government did forecast a number of deficits from the course of 2003 to 2012, Mr. Chair; there were a number of deficits projected. Because of higher than anticipated oil prices, because of higher oil production, government enjoyed the benefit of surpluses – huge surpluses – for a number of years.

Yet, Mr. Chair, over the course of ten years, we saw the provincial Budget increase from $4 billion to $8 billion. When you increase the Budget – that is doubled in four years. It took us from 1949, essentially, to 2003 to have a Budget at approximately $4 billion and it took us from 2003 to 2012 to have a Budget of $8 billion. We have doubled the Budget in ten years.

I know what members on the government side would say when they look over at members on the Opposition side: What would you have not put money in the budget for? Tell us what you would not fund? Point it out – point out what you would not put money into. That is what they say. That is unfair. We all know that is a little bit political. We all know the reason that they ask that question. It is to make it a little bit political.

Mr. Chair, the reality is it is a lot harder to say in hindsight well, we would not put money into this, or we would not fund that than it would be to make wiser decisions in the first place and say well, you know, yes, the family needs a new car; are we going to purchase a $50,000 car that is going to cause us to have to tighten the budget and tighten our belts a little, or are we going to buy a $30,000 car that we know we can afford? That is the reality and that is what we are looking at.

Mr. Chair, it is unfair to say: Well, what would you not have put money into? We can look at everything that was funded in the Budget in that increase, the annual increase of $4 billion a year to $8 billion year; we can look at everything in that Budget and say, yes, good idea. In fact, government say fairly regularly, yes, we get requests for drugs to be added for the drug formulary all the time and we agree it would be nice to fund that drug or provide that drug to the patients who need it, but we just cannot afford it. We hear that. Or, yes, we would love to be able to increase the rates of Income Support so that people living on Income Support do not have to try to decide whether they are going to turn the lights on or put food in the fridge, but we cannot increase it to the levels people are asking because we just cannot afford it. So government make those decisions all the time.

Now, the question is: In increasing the Budget from $4 billion to $8 billion, along that road, and knowing that when government budgeted to spend the Atlantic Accord money it was receiving in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, that in the 2011-2012 year that money was going to disappear, yet it was budgeted to be spent; do we now look back and say maybe we should not have budgeted to spend that on a sustainable basis year after year? Maybe we should have looked at that more as a windfall than to budget to spend it and add it to a Budget that would balloon to $8 billion a year, knowing at some point we are going to have to make cuts. Wouldn't that have been the wise thing to do? Perhaps put it into a heritage fund, like other jurisdictions in the world such as Alberta have done. So when you face decreased oil production or a decrease in oil rates in the cost of a barrel of oil, you are not stuck with having to cut.

In this year's Budget – I am going to make a little prediction here now, something not off the wall, because we all know it is going to happen. Every member of this House knows it is going to happen; the general public knows it is going to happen. We are going to have some cuts in this year's Budget.

When we have cuts in this year's Budget, is government saying we never needed that in the first place?

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. OSBORNE: No. No, I bet you they are not going to say that. They are probably going to say: you know what? We would love to be able to keep it, but we need to tighten the belt, trim the fat, so we had to make these cuts; would not normally have made it, but we just do not have the revenues coming in, so we need to trim the fat in these areas. We need to tailor the spending to fit the Budget. That is what is going to happen.

Back it up four or five years. Should we not have tailored the spending to fit the projected Budgets of 2012, 2013, 2014 so we would not have had to make these cuts, and tuck a little bit of money away for a rainy day for when the oil production does go down? Proper planning would say yes, that would have been a great idea.

That is what the political pundits are saying. That is what the Opposition are saying. That is what some journalists are saying, that maybe the proper planning was not done. Maybe the Province did not plan for the future. They spent for today without looking at the effects it would have in the future.

We have had some layoffs in the past two or three weeks. Did anybody in government say, well, these people, we did not need them in the first place? No, of course not; that was never said. It was said: well, we need to trim the Budget. We need to trim the spending, tailor the spending to fit the Budget, trim some fat because we cannot afford to keep these individuals on.

The public service, Mr. Chair, had increased by 23 per cent since 2003. Did anybody on government side, anybody planning for the future look at it and say: you know what? Come 2011, 2012, 2013, we will not be able to afford to keep a 23 per cent increase in the public service. We will not be able to afford the 100 per cent increase in the Budget from $4 billion to $8 billion a year.

That is where proper planning comes in, Mr. Chair. That is where a government that was providing governance not only for today, but for future generations, would say: maybe we need a bank account, a trust fund, a heritage fund to put some money into so that when leaner times happen we do not have to cut as many people who we probably should not have added in the first place, or we do not have to cut spending to a program that we should have increased the spending on, but not by as much as we did, perhaps. That is where proper planning comes in and that did not take place over the past ten years.

If it had, Mr. Chair, they would have looked and said the Atlantic Accord funding is going to run out, because we all knew it was going to; the transfer payments were going to be cut, because we are going to be a have Province; oil production is going down, because we have known that for years, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Order, please!

I remind the member his time for speaking has elapsed.

MR. OSBORNE: Mr. Chair, I have a lot more to say. I appreciate the time. Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Service Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MCGRATH: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am pleased to stand here today and speak to the Interim Supply bill. I have been listening intently to the different comments that have been made here on both sides of the House. I listened closely to the Member for St. John's South speak and talk about putting money away for a rainy day and putting money away from the Atlantic Accord.

I think what this government has done has prepared for those rainy days; rather than taking the money and putting it away because you thought you were going to have a deficit or a forecasted deficit, what we have done is invested the money back into the Province. We have invested the money into education and into our schools; we have invested the money into our infrastructure and roadways; and we have invested our money into health care, our hospitals and our clinics.

If we did not make those investments then it would cost us that much more. I can put it into comparison. If you were to take your house and you spend $250,000 for a house fifteen years ago – in 2006, I built a new home, a 3,000-square-foot home. Fifteen years go by and I pay on a mortgage, but I do not invest in the property; I take the money and I put all of the money away, but I do not invest in the property. I do not change the shingles on the house; when they break, I do not repair them. I do not stain the clapboard siding on the house. I do not repair the cracked sidewalk. I leave it all alone, but I take the money and I put it in the bank, because I might have a rainy day.

Fifteen years after I put all that money away, I realize that the money that I put away over the fifteen years now cannot pay for the repairs that I have to make, and the repairs have put me in such disrepair that I have no choice.

What this government has done over the last ten years, it has made the investments. When we had good years – I was not here, but I certainly followed closely – I saw this government invest the money back into the Province to build the infrastructure. In the long run, that will save money. Yes, now we are into a period where we feel that there is going to be a deficit; we see that forecasted deficit.

One of the comments that was made was there was a 23 per cent increase in the public service. I think that increase was necessary at the time. That 23 per cent increase was necessary to try to bring the Province back to where it needed to be. It could not be done with the public service that we had.

One of the other things that I have noticed that no one has commented on yet, and I am really surprised with, is in the last decade we have seen rural Newfoundland and Labrador become more urbanized. We have seen the rural areas in Newfoundland and Labrador have become more urbanized. When I say that we have taken away – in the last decade, we have seen a lot of the isolation that Newfoundland and Labrador was famous for, a lot of that isolation has been dissipated, and it is being done because of the investments in the infrastructure.

Now, I only have six minutes left and I want to get into Labrador, and I think a great segue there is the Trans-Labrador Highway. Back in 1986, the Trans-Labrador Highway was only a dream. I can remember, in Labrador West, you could drive twenty-seven kilometres to Fermont, Quebec, and that is as far as you could drive. On a Sunday afternoon, you drove to Fermont, Quebec, twenty-seven kilometres, you had a lunch and then you came back to Labrador West. That was as far as you could go.

Today, you can leave Labrador West and you can drive directly to the Island portion of this Province or you can get in your vehicle and you can drive to anywhere else in Canada or North America. We are no longer isolated now in Labrador, and that is because the Trans-Labrador Highway has been developed. We have seen already $350 million put into that road. To me, that is money that is very well invested.

I heard the Member for The Straits – White Bay North talk about the Northern Strategic Plan. He talked about he does not understand where there were any investments in the Northern Strategic Plan. I would like for him to pick up the report that I just put out about a month-and-a-half ago. I will have him know that when the Northern Strategic Plan came in there were 145 commitments in that plan and there were $250 million that was allocated to reach the 145 commitments.

Today, we have made the Northern Strategic Plan what we call a living document. We feel it has been successful. It has outlived what it was supposed to be, but we have made it a living document. We are going to continue with the Northern Strategic Plan because the Northern Strategic Plan started out with 145 commitments and $250 million; to date, it has 245 commitments completed with a budget of $750 million. To me, that is money well invested in Labrador.

I want to talk about some of the other things we have invested in Labrador because if there is one thing this government cannot be accused of, it is showing favouritism to its own members. This government cannot be accused of showing favouritism to its own members. I am going to focus on Labrador because I am going to give you some examples. I am not going to touch my district in Labrador West. I know the government has invested in my district in Labrador West and I hope they will continue to invest in Labrador West. I am not going to talk about the Lake Melville district. I know the government has invested in Lake Melville. I want to give some examples of what this government has done in the Opposition districts, how we invested in them.

Do you know what? This government is about taking care of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, all of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, not just the ones we feel voted for us.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MCGRATH: We are here to take care of all of Newfoundland and Labrador.

In the Natural Resources department, in 2009 the provincial government provided $500,000 to conduct an alternative energy study and an energy efficiency community pilot project in coastal Labrador communities. Now, both of those districts are in the Opposition, but we made that commitment. We spent that money to try to see how we could improve on the energy efficiency in coastal Labrador – $500,000.

In 2007, this same government invested $1.6 million annually – $1.6 million annually – to introduce an energy rebate and reduce the cost of basic electricity on the Labrador Straits and the Coast of Labrador. Again, Opposition districts, but we are taking care of all the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

In Tourism, Culture and Recreation, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador contributed $1.5 million since 2004 for the Labrador Winter Games. Now, I was in Labrador, in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, for the Labrador Winter Games. I was very proud to be asked on behalf of the Premier to officially open the Games. I have to give credit to the Liberals – and listen carefully, because I am not going to do it often, but I will do it when it is deserved. I saw the Member for Cartwright – L'Anse au Clair, I saw the member from up in the northern District of Torngat Mountains, and I saw the Opposition Leader, the Official Opposition Leader –

AN HON. MEMBER: Penashue is gone.

MR. MCGRATH: Is he?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. MCGRATH: I saw the Opposition Leader in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, and they were very, very involved in the Labrador Winter Games. They put all politics aside and they enjoyed and celebrated with the people of Labrador, the thirty-two communities. They celebrated with the people of Labrador in celebrating and taking part in the Labrador Winter Games – and yes, I did see the Member for St. John's Centre in Labrador for the Labrador Winter Games, and I did see the Leader of the Third Party in Labrador for the Winter Games, but I did not see you participate. You were too busy going around, while this good news story was happening in Labrador, you were too busy going around to the institutions and checking with all of your friends down there, looking for something to complain about, which you talked about here in this House. You did not participate in the Labrador Winter Games. What were you there for? You had a good news story, and what did you do? You had to go in –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. MCGRATH: You had to go in and you had to look for something wrong, right?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: Order, please!

I am sorry to inform the minister that his time has expired.

The hon. the Member for Burgeo – La Poile.

MR. A. PARSONS: Mr. Chair, it is an honour to get up, but if the Minister of Service NL wants to interrupt me on a point of order and continue on, he is fine to do that. I have no problem listening to him.

Anyway, it is a pleasure to stand here in my place and speak to Interim Supply, and I have had an opportunity to hear members from all sides speak to this important bill. One thing I would say, I did think it was very nice that the minister acknowledged the involvement of all the parties and members from all sides in the Labrador Winter Games. I can say that I have been to Labrador, but I have not been to the Winter Games yet. I look forward to it, because just the press coverage alone looked pretty interesting. I know that the members of our party, I believe, had a wonderful time. I look forward to doing that in the future.

I just want to have a chat about some of the issues that I have heard raised here today. I know I am being a bit facetious here, Mr. Chair, when I say that it is the Member for Humber West; when he talked about the infrastructure and everything that has been done for Corner Brook, he used the term: hang on; hang on; hang on. That is what the people are being told now when it comes to the hospital in Corner Brook, Mr. Chair. They are being told: hang on; hang on; hang on. It has been six years and we are still in the pre-design stage.

I do not need to spend too much time speaking about the Corner Brook hospital – because I know I have the Member for the Bay of Islands, who has been doing that very well – and about the lack of action that we have seen when it comes to that important piece of infrastructure. When you talk about infrastructure, when it comes to hospitals, it does not really get any more important than that.

Besides the people who work in the hospital, the hospital itself, what we have in Corner Brook – and the Member for St. Barbe knows what I am talking about. It is ancient, it is aging, it is not in good shape, and it definitely needs replacement, which has been acknowledged. So far, all we have up there right now is the best driving range in Newfoundland with the pre-design work. That is all we have seen there is a nice big parking lot. Hopefully we will see something done in the near future.

That is just one thing that I wanted to talk about amongst many. There is obviously a lot we can talk about. Depending on who is talking, the government talks about infrastructure and sustainability. We get up and remind them of some of the things that have put us in the situation that we are in right now, which some would say is a desperate situation. Just last week we heard about a lot of the cuts that are coming and that happened, and unfortunately of more cuts that are coming in the future.

We are anxiously awaiting Budget day. We know the feds have just announced when they are going to be doing their Budget, which I believe is next week. I know that we are going to be having our Budget sometime after that, Mr. Chair.

I am hearing a lot of action on both sides here. I know everybody is riveted with the commentary that I am providing here. They should be, because it is an important issue in this Province when we talk about the situation that we are facing come Budget day when we are being told we are going to have a sustainability plan. Unfortunately, I think a big part of that sustainability plan is going to be a number of layoffs, a number of cuts coming in all kinds of different departments in this government. That is really concerning.

One of the things I want to go back to is the topic that I have unfortunately had to speak about on numerous occasions here just in this last week of the House, and that is the cuts in the Department of Advanced Education and Skills, of which there has been a significant number. We have to start back when this department was created.

Again, just the answers I heard here in Question period today when we asked about, why haven't we seen the report that we paid so handsomely for? A report that was only commissioned four months after the department was created. It is sort of a cart before the horse situation. We create this department, we cobble it together, duct tape it together, and then we bring in this very high priced consultant who just happened to run for the Party. He was not successful, but he still made out pretty well I would say.

We get this report that we still have not seen. We still have not seen it. The minister is saying, well, the decision she has made had nothing to do with the budget. Apparently they had nothing to do with this report, because it is not finalized. It is not complete yet, but it was enough for her to go out and cut over 200 people in every area of this Province; people who are doing one of the primary goals of this government, when we hear about the attachment to the labour market. It is a nice term but let's break it down to what it really is.

We are trying to get people working. We are trying to put people in jobs for which there are huge, huge shortages coming up, especially when it comes to the megaprojects that we have heard so much about.

There are some EAS offices that received a one-year reprieve. That is what it is, it is a reprieve. It is something that might not last very long. We will see where they are next year. Hopefully, they are spared getting the axe on them as well.

What I would say is some of these other EAS centres that were cut, were they not helping attach people, including women? We celebrated a woman today, our first female carpenter hired by Newfoundland and Labrador Housing. Were these EAS centres not putting people in these jobs, not helping them attach to the market? Then we cut it right across. We cut it without any planning, without looking at Noseworthy's report, and not attached to the budget.

These people are upset, because comments by the minister indicate a lack of understanding of what they do. These people, no matter who they are dealing with, in some cases they are dealing with people who have significant disadvantages.

I was at a meeting with them just a couple of nights ago where they talked about what it is they do. They talked about the challenges they face when people come in, people who have challenges holding a job, and people who might be going back and forth, going in and out of jobs. They have challenges that prevent them from keeping full-time, long-term jobs. These people help them. As employment counsellors they help them to stay in those positions.

It is one thing to get the job, but the second part is staying in the job. It is like the old Seinfeld episode, it is one thing to take the reservation than it is to hold the reservation. Well, in this case it is to apply for the job, which they help them do, and then it is to get the job and keep that job.

We have tons of shortages here. We just heard, I think it is our current Ambassador to Ireland, who just came over here, said: We need to bring the Irish in to fill positions; we need to bring the Irish in. Here we are we have people in this Province who could be working. They might just need a hand, but that has been taken away from them. That has been eliminated from them. We have significant issue with that, and we are going to keep raising that issue because it needs to be raised.

They have until June, which is a good thing because it means this government has until June to realize the error they have made, to realize the folly of their ways and to make the right move here. That right move would be to work with these groups and address the issues that are outstanding. We all know there is a financial crunch we are in.

I would encourage all members opposite, because these people are all in your districts, all in our districts, let's work together to address the shortcomings, address the problems, address the duplication that may be occurring, but it is certainly not occurring everywhere. I guarantee you there is no duplication down in Ramea where they just fired this young employment counsellor.

They are saying everybody down there, many people who may have worked the plant most of their adult lives now, they have educational barriers. They are unemployed, and they are saying: well, that is all right, you can get in your car and get on the ferry, get on the Gallipoli, take that hour-and-a-half boat ride and then drive up the Burgeo Highway, which does not have cell coverage, and then drive into Stephenville and get these tools.

I have heard somebody say, no, you could do this training over the phone. You could do this on the Internet. Some of these people do not even have the Internet. They do not have the computer skills that we should probably help them with so that they can get meaningful, long-term employment.

No, no, you are unemployed, that is fine. You are having a tough time but, yes, you can get in your car and get on the boat, take the three hours to get in here. That is just one way. Then they have to go three hours back. Well, no problem, if there is a weather issue that is fine. You can just go and stay at the hotel in Stephenville. Again, you have plenty of money to do that considering you are unemployed.

The process itself takes a long period of time. This is just not a one stop thing. This is taking a long period of time. We are working with these people. We are not going to fix this situation all at once at the snap our fingers. We need to work with these people to address this problem and we have to do it in the communities, in the regions they are living in.

I say to you, Mr. Chair, I am hoping that government will hear what we are saying, hear what these people are saying. They formed a committee. They want to work with government. They do not want to work against them; they want to work with them. Let's figure out the situation and make the right choice here. It is going to help us down the road because that labour shortage is here now. We have that labour shortage. Let's help attach people to that labour market. We have parliamentary secretaries who have been hired to work with this. They just did round tables across the Province. Let's work together to make this happen.

It looks like it is the last bit of time for this one sitting. I am sure I am going to have plenty of opportunity to speak again. I appreciate the opportunity, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

I recognize the hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DALLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is a pleasure to be back in this House and have an opportunity to share in some of the discussion. Mr. Chair, as time goes on, I look forward to the opportunity to stand up and talk about the fishing industry, the aquaculture industry in this Province, and what it means.

Today, Mr. Chair, I only have a few minutes. I would like to take an opportunity to reflect on what we have seen this week in the House. It is great to be back. It is an important time for the people of the Province as we talk about Interim Supply, but more importantly the Budget that is coming down the road. Mr. Chair, what I would like to talk about in terms of this week is just kind of reflect on what we have seen from the Opposition and from our own party as well.

Mr. Chair, we came into this House – and for those who do not know the NDP did not want the House to open.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. DALLEY: There is nothing important enough to talk about. That was what we launched into earlier last week, Mr. Chair. We get in here and we start to talk about Interim Supply and debate issues around the Budget and what is happening.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. DALLEY: One of the main items that we have seen this week, Mr. Chair, from the other side – because we hear: Okay, what would you do? What would you have done? Would you have spent the money? Would you do this? Mr. Chair, they are often reluctant to jump in on that debate. We sit here and we listen to try to figure out what would they do.

Some of the messages this week from the NDP side, Mr. Chair, has been clearly they have a problem with the economic development in this Province. They do not agree with Muskrat Falls, Mr. Chair, thousands of jobs, revenues, and opportunities in this Province.

Mr. Chair, other opportunities on the West Coast like oil development – they are clearly opposed to the oil development on the West Coast, Mr. Chair. Is that a part of their platform, Mr. Chair? Is that what they want to lead this Province with? Those messages came through very clear, Mr. Chair.

Within all of that discussion, our Premier and our Minister of Finance gave a few lessons this week. They talked about Muskrat Falls and the significant development, but all we heard from the NDP is it was going to contribute to our deficit. That is why we are in the mess we are in. That is the deficit. That is the message.

Mr. Chair, it has been explained time and time again, Muskrat Falls does not contribute to the deficit. We heard comments: Well, are you going to continue to pretend that you do not know the difference? Mr. Chair, I guess it begs the question that after this week maybe you do not know the difference. Maybe it is too complicated and you do not know. I do not know.

Mr. Chair, we heard more comments. We heard comments about our debt. The NDP are saying we would not have paid down our debt. We would not have done it that way. We would not be concerned about debt. Mr. Chair, debt costs money. We have to pay money to satisfy our debt. That is money we could reinvest.

On the Liberal side, we heard issues about our education system, condemning and ridiculing teachers, students, and achievement in our school system. These are the kinds of things that are important to our government and investments that we made.

If you listened to our side this week – and I do want to make a comment. Our Finance Minister and Premier have stood on their feet, Mr. Chair, and clearly have demonstrated our steadfast determination. They have demonstrated our vision and our confidence that the people of the Province showed us back in 2003, in 2007, and again in 2011.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DALLEY: Mr. Chair, our vision and our confidence is what the people entrusted to us to get the Province to where we are. This week our Finance Minister, our Premier, and other members clearly indicated that we will deliver a sustainable plan. We will be able to carry this Province into the future. We will continue to lead the economy in this country, a very bright future indeed for us. I look forward to talking more about it in the days to come.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Deputy Government House Leader.

MR. HUTCHINGS: Mr. Chair, I move the Committee rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again.

CHAIR: The motion is that the Committee rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

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

MR. SPEAKER (Wiseman): Order, please!

The hon. the Member for the District of Lewisporte.

MR. VERGE: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of Supply have considered the matters to them referred and have directed me to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair of the Committee of the Whole reports that the Committee have considered the matters to them referred and have directed him to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

When shall the report be received?

MR. HUTCHINGS: Now, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Now.

When shall the Committee have leave to sit again?

MR. HUTCHINGS: Tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

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

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

MR. HUTCHINGS: Mr. Speaker, I moved, seconded by the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, that the House now adjourn.

MR. SPEAKER: It has been moved and seconded that this House do now adjourn.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

Motion carried.

Monday being a civic holiday, this House now stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday; but I remind members of the swearing-in ceremony, at 10:00 o'clock on Tuesday morning, of the new Lieutenant-Governor.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, at 1:30 p.m.