November 7, 1991          HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS              Vol. XLI  No. 66


The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): Order, please!

Statements by Ministers

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

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce today that two additional amalgamations affecting six separate incorporated municipalities - are to take place within the Province.

The two new amalgamations include:

1. Centreville, Wareham and Trinity as one municipality; and

2. Badger's Quay - Valleyfield - Pool's Island with Wesleyville and Newtown as one new and enlarged municipality.

The amalgamations will become effective as of January 1, 1992.

In both cases nomination day will be Tuesday, November 19, 1991 and municipal elections for the new and enlarged councils will be held on Tuesday, December 10, 1991.

The new town councils will be enlarged and will be comprised of eight councillors and a mayor. In each of the two amalgamated areas there will be three ward councillors - each ward generally equating with the existing town and the other five councillors and the mayor will be elected at large.

Transition teams comprising senior officials of Municipal and Provincial Affairs have been assembled to work with the new councils and to provide whatever assistance is required to effect the amalgamation in all three areas.

With respect to the two amalgamations it will be up to the new councils to decide if they want to adopt a new name. As of this time they will be known by the combined names of the towns - the Town of Centreville-Wareham-Trinity, and the Town of Badger's Quay-Valleyfield-Pool's Island-Wesleyville-Newtown.

The new Town of Centreville-Wareham-Trinity will have a combined population of 1436. Indian Bay was considered for amalgamation with Centreville-Wareham-Trinity however the council was not in favour and we are respecting the views of the council and the people of Indian Bay.

The new Town of Badger's Quay-Valleyfield-Pool's Island-Wesleyville-Newtown will have a combined population in excess of

3000.

All assets and liabilities of the existing towns will be assumed by the respective new municipalities as of January 1, 1992.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that these amalgamations will result in a more co-ordinated approach to municipal government and in both cases I have requested the new towns to prepare a comprehensive municipal plan which will be compiled in consultation with the officials of my Department.

For the information of Members I will table descriptions of the new boundaries for each of the two new municipalities.

It will be my intention, Mr. Speaker, to continue discussions with remaining groups of communities with a view to bringing about, by co-operation, those ones where there is substantial agreement and where amalgamations can be accommodated.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if hon. members on both sides of the House today consider and realize how important this particular statement is. I am not talking from the point of view of where so many municipalities are going to be amalgamated. I am saying that usually you go from the first, and start coming down on a ministerial statement, or anything, when you come to criticize it or do otherwise; but in this case I will start with the last paragraph.

This is a complete shift, and I hope the Premier sticks to this - the Statement by the Minister. This is something that every municipality in this Province today, and especially the Federation of Municipalities, should be watching and read - just the last paragraph: it will be my intention to continue discussions with the remaining groups or communities with a view to bringing about, by co-operation - very important, Mr. Speaker, those words - where there is substantial agreement, and where amalgamations can be accommodated. The very three subjects that we have been talking about since last June, over a year ago.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the Minister must have gotten through to the Premier and the rest of the Ministers in Cabinet, and finally they are starting to come around. If that is the case, Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the rest of the municipalities that are supposed to be amalgamated in this Province are this evening going to be wiping the sweat off their brow, I can assure you. They are going to be very happy.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: If that is the case, and I notice again on the second page, that the Minister said that Indian Bay did not want to join, were not in favour, and he let them stay out. That is the way it should be done. The concept was always right. The approach was wrong, Mr. Speaker. If this is the case, this is a complete shift from what the Government has been doing up to this point.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Oral Questions

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

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Labour tabled the report of the Workers' Compensation Board Statutory Review Committee. This report suggests some sweeping changes to the way the Workers' Compensation Board is to operate.

The report seems to take particular aim at some of the most vulnerable people in the Province, the injured worker. Since the Minister, in his statement, said yesterday that stakeholders will only have an opportunity to comment on the recommendations in writing, does not give much chance for input. Is it the intention of the Minister to solve the problems of the Workers' Compensation Board by assaulting the injured workers of this Province?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am really a little disappointed, I guess, that the hon. Member, at the conclusion of his question, would even suggest that we would consider doing such a thing.

As I indicated in the statement yesterday, over the next couple of months - he stresses the word 'comment' which was used in my statement - I would remind the hon. Member and all present, that everyone who had an interest in the workers' compensation system was given an extensive and exhaustive opportunity to present his views about everything and anything to do with the workers' compensation system in Newfoundland, through the review committee. The only thing they did not have an opportunity to see, say or do or have discussion involved with it, are the direct specific recommendations in the report; they will be given an opportunity to pass along their comments with relation to how they react and how they consider the specific recommendations arising from that extensive and exhaustive review committee process. So, we do not see any need, and I have no intention of going back and trying by myself to do again what the review committee just spent six months doing.

But we believe it is very important for them to have an opportunity to give us and pass along their opinions as to how they feel about the recommendations and it is by no means the intention of this Government to do anything harmful to the workers involved in this system, but in fact to make sure that the long term viability of the system is maintained so that there can be a continuing benefit for injured workers in Newfoundland and Labrador for the foreseeable future.

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

MR. WINSOR: Let me ask the Minister: how can the committee report be independent when the Chairman was the Deputy Minister of Labour at the time, and furthermore, the minority report that the Minister failed to allude to yesterday, suggests there is some $5 million reserved for health and safety, of which only about $2.5 million was spent. Can the Minister explain why this occurred, why only about half of the allocated money was spent, when safety and labour practices could ultimately reduce the number of claims that come to the Workers' Compensation Board? Why is not the total $5 million spent?

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

MR. GRIMES: Yes. Thank you again, Mr. Speaker.

I can only answer in response to that question that in the term of office of this Administration, what we have been doing is steadily increasing the amount of that money that has been spent on an annual basis and we recognize that it is allocated. When we are confident that we have appropriate programmes to allocate and use all of that funding in a meaningful fashion directed towards safety and prevention in the workplace, then we will have no hesitation to use the monies.

In years previous even less monies from that pot were used on an annual basis by the previous administration.

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

MR. WINSOR: My question is again to the minister. The report also makes reference to the lack of medical expertise, especially specialists. Has the minister any indication of how much the increased cost to the Workers' Compensation Board has been as a result of the inefficient health system that this administration now has in place in this Province?

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

MR. GRIMES: I might point out, Mr. Speaker, in response to the question, that the system currently in place with Workers' Compensation in this Province is not one that was put in place by this administration. We have been continuing on with a system that has been here for a long time. Right now, the very process - the five-year review - was required, and in the last five-year review, I might point out that in 1986, with a review conducted while the previous administration was in office, there were in excess of some thirty recommendations made. The report never was tabled in the House of Assembly, never saw the light of day, and absolutely none of the recommendations were acted upon; because the previous administration knew that the Workers' Compensation system was in some financial difficulty, they chose not to face up to it, they did not make the information public, and they did absolutely nothing about it. We are trying our best by alerting everybody, the workers, the employers, and the people generally, that there is a problem and that we are going to endeavour in every way possible to deal with the problems in a meaningful fashion so that we can save the Workers' Compensation system from further deterioration and difficulty.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. WINSOR: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

This report also recommends a substantial reduction in benefits paid to injured workers. Let me ask the minister this: would these reductions apply across the board also to those who are presently receiving benefits, many of whom are already tied into long-term financial commitments, or would it only apply to those workers injured after the date of the implementation?

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

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, there have been no decisions taken as the hon. member opposite well knows. We will consider all of these items, and we hope, as I mentioned in the statement yesterday, to be in a position to make some firm decisions sometime early in the new year. We do not want to unnecessarily delay the decisions that have to be taken, because the report clearly shows that the Workers' Compensation system is in a serious deficit position and that some action has to be taken. Whether or not the reduction will occur, as indicated in the report, will be decided in due course, and what, in effect, that will do with current claims, whether there will be any retroactivity, and so on, will all be decided at that time.

Everyone, before then, will have an opportunity to suggest to us whether what you just proposed in your question should or should not happen. These suggestions also would give us some indication as to what should happen this time, compared to the changes that were made in 1984. At that time, the previous administration agreed that going from the old disability system to the wage loss system, everyone on claim previous to that be changed over to the new system, even though their benefits had been determined on the old system - one of the things we consider to have been probably a mistake at the time. That was one of the contributing factors to creating the rather large unfunded liability and deficit position within the Workers' Compensation system that exists today.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port au Port.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Social Services. Yesterday, the minister told me that the Social Services' caseload was up by 12 per cent. I would like to thank the minister for giving me that figure. It was obtainable but he was good enough to give it to me. I would just like to ask the minister if he could tell us, in real terms and numbers, how many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians does this represent who are presently on social assistance in the Province? What sort of a situation are we facing?

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

MR. HOGAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will have to take under advisement the question that the hon. member is asking about specific numbers. I will give him the projections he is asking for at a later time.

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

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the minister doesn't have the number, which I think he should have, being the Minister of Social Services. An increase of 12 per cent is a large increase in the social assistance caseload. I ask the minister: in light of the fact that the social assistance caseload is up by 12 per cent, what specifically is the minister planning to do for those people who are on social assistance in this Province? This is a very serious situation. How does he plan to address it?

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

MR. HOGAN: I have advised the member already, Mr. Speaker, that the caseload has increased by an estimated 12 per cent, and I told him I would get the specific information for him at a later time. I apologize that I do not have it for him today, as I had intended.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port au Port.

MR. HODDER: The question was, Mr. Speaker, what is the minister going to do about the estimated 12 per cent, which possibly could be 20 per cent, increase in the caseload in Social Services.

Now, Mr. Speaker, there are still several months left before the Budget comes down and the district offices have been told that funds have all been spent for community development projects. Now, if this is the case, how does the minister intend to deal with those presently on the caseload and those individuals who will shortly become part of the caseload? How does the minister intend to deal with those thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who are going on social assistance and who are looking for work, if the community development projects funding has run out? How does he plan to deal with that?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HOGAN: The community development funding has run out, Mr. Speaker, and the emergency response monies have also come to an end. The department will continue to deliver social assistance services to recipients as they have in the past.

MR. TOBIN: What are you going to do? What are you going to do? That is the question.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank, the Opposition House Leader.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

My question, as well, is for the Minister of Social Services. He just said that the funding for the community development program has run out. I understand a directive has gone to the district offices saying that as of November 4 - in the last few weeks there has been recognition that it is not only those on social assistance who need some help; and the recent community development program provided a little more flexibility and latitude. I just want to ask the minister: what does he intend to do for those people out and about the Province who needed employment under the program, and how does he go about fulfilling their employment needs?

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

MR. HOGAN: Mr. Speaker, the program has indeed run out as indicated and the monies, I guess, that have been spent have been directed at developing some 1500 jobs, so far. So this -

AN HON. MEMBER: $14 million.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HOGAN: Could I have order, Mr. Speaker, please?

The projected number of jobs will be around 1800, and the monies for community development, in this particular case, have been spent and that is all can be done about it.

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think there is more that can be done about it, Mr. Speaker. I would hope that the Minister, by the way, intends to table the list. There were people contacted out and about the Province, promised jobs, told to come to work under the community development program and then were called back and told that they could not come to work because the Department had overcommitted. In some of these cases in some district offices, part of the condition of employment was that the proposed workers or the called workers were supposed to purchase rubbers and other rain gear as a condition of employment, and then were called back a few days afterwards and told there was no job.

So, I would like to ask the Minister what he intends to do in those situations, and would he give serious consideration to having his district offices out and about the Province do a very quick analysis on the numbers of people who were called and promised employment, and see if there is some way he can come up with funding to employ those people who were given hope of employment and later called and told they did not have a job?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HOGAN: I didn't know that any directive went out pertaining to the purchase of rubbers and chain saws and such items as this. It is unknown to me. It did not come from my particular office anyway, Mr. Speaker. There was some lack of communication in the beginning because the target, at which we were addressing the funds for employment, had broadened, and there was a misconception and a misunderstanding out there. There was no directive pertaining the supply of materials or head protection or rubbers or chain saws or anything of that nature.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. MATTHEWS: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

To the President of Treasury Board: In light of The Supplementary Supply Bill that is being debated in the Legislature now, I am wondering if the President of Treasury Board, in consultation with the Minister of Social Services, would give serious consideration to increasing The Supplementary Supply Bill, particularly the allocation to the Department of Social Services for the community development program, by the amount sufficient to take care of those people who were called and told they were going to have jobs and were later called and told, there is no job for you? I am wondering if the President of Treasury Board would give serious consideration to providing enough funding in this Supplementary Supply Bill to take care of those people, as well as those who have already been employed?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is a rather strange question, seeing as The Supplementary Supply Bill has been held up on the basis that they are not satisfied with us spending this money, Mr. Speaker. That is the basis on which they have been holding up the bill. So, it is a rather strange question.

My answer is very simple, Mr. Speaker, that this is not some kind of a game we are playing in this Institution. It is not simply a matter of putting your hand up in the air and plucking an extra $10 million here and an extra $10 million there and putting it here, there and everywhere else. That is not what we are into. This is a very serious situation and a very serious problem that we find ourselves in at this point in our history. So, it is not as simple as all that.

Mr. Speaker, is it any wonder that we are in the mess we are in now, if that was the attitude in the previous Cabinet that ran this Province?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, the hon. the President of Treasury Board might think it is a game but those people on social assistance do not think it is very funny at all.

Let me ask another question to the Minister of Social Services, Mr. Speaker. Is the Minister aware or would he tell us what the policy of the Department is when a person who is on social assistance, who is totally dependent on funding from the Minister's Department for their existence, has a physical problem that justifies, that qualifies him, basically, for special assistance, special funding for special equipment? Would the Minister tell us what the policy is in requiring that person to have a medical certification of that and who would pay for that medical certification?

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

MR. HOGAN: As I understand it, Mr. Speaker, from my knowledge of it, each case is treated specifically and there is no set policy. Where there are specific needs under specific circumstances, the Department is most sympathetic in providing whatever assistance can be provided.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister is accurate on that, but that was not the question. There is indeed funding available for special needs. My question is: How does a person qualify for that funding? Let me tell the Minister that his Department requires a person to have a letter from a doctor saying that: Mrs. Smith needs such and such an item. On the strength of a medical examiner or a doctor's letter, then the social worker does have a fund that he or she can access to provide it. The thing is if that person is on social assistance we all know that they have very basic amounts of money to spend. How does that person find the money to pay for the medical examination that is required by the Department to certify to them that this person needs special assistance?

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

MR. HOGAN: If I am not misunderstanding the hon. Member the particular recipient of social services in consultation with their worker goes to the Department with the specific need for that specific occasion. I do not think there is any set policy to say that because you are such and such you get such and such. I think each case is treated individually on the particular needs of the individual case.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, probably I am not expressing myself well to the Minister. Let me tell the Minister this, if I might, Mr. Speaker, that I am speaking of a specific example of a constituent of mine, obviously I will not use the name, but I would be happy to give the Minister the name in private if he wants to check it out. I have a lady who has some medical problems, well documented that the Department is well aware of, and this lady needs a special bed. She now has a bed that was provided by the Department which is the cheapest that can be bought in Newfoundland, basically. Because of her physical problems she needs a bed that provides much better support. There is no disagreement on it. In order for the social worker to provide the special funding to buy that bed this lady needs a letter from her doctor. Her doctor says pay me $25.00 dollars and I will give you the letter you require. The lady is on social assistance. She is destitute and she does not have $25.00. The Minister's Department does not have a policy of paying the $25.00, and MCP cannot pay it because it is a referral by a third party and the MCP Act clearly says that MCP cannot pay for that medical examination, the results of which go to the Department of Health, who certified to the welfare worker that this medical case qualifies for special consideration. How does this poor lady who is living on a starvation amount of money from social services find the $25.00 to pay her doctor to give her a letter to take to social services so she can get a bed that is fit for her to sleep on?

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

MR. HOGAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would be delighted to talk about the specific case to the Member. Again I would say and reiterate, where there is a specific hardship I am sure there are discretionary powers for either the social worker or the social worker's supervisor to address this particular item.

If the hon. Member is trying to get me to commit myself to him, I will commit myself to him, and I will consult on this particular and specific case. My sympathy would be with the lady - on the information that he has given so far - who has a particular hardship, and we would address it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, one final, very quick supplementary. Let me say that I am not at all being critical of the social worker. The particular social worker in this case has gone out of his way to help this lady. He has no mechanism. My final question to the Minister or to the Government: would you please put in place a policy that allows your social workers to pay the twenty-five dollars so this poor lady can get her bed and two or three other things that she would qualify for? That is all. A very small amount of money.

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

MR. HOGAN: Again, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to the hon. Member that the district office or the supervisor or the social worker or all hands have the discretionary authority to do that already, and probably do not use it.

AN HON. MEMBER: They do not, no.

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

MR. HEARN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is also to the Minister of Social Services. The Minister, in answering the lead question to the Member for Port au Port, said that his special programme funding has now been exhausted. This includes the funding being discussed under interim supply. In fact, the programme has been overspent.

In light of the fact that his own social workers will tell you there are ever-increasing lineups at the doors, that when they arrive in the morning they have a lineup, when they leave at night there are still people waiting, how does the Minister plan to address the needs of this ever-increasing work load for the rest of the year?

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

MR. HOGAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Member is correct, the caseload is increasing gradually. At a much slower pace though then we had anticipated. The works programme that we have in place now, no doubt, will address some of that and probably slow it down even further. But in anticipation of that the Department is preparing to reorganize, or deploy the troops, if you want to call it that, to do more frontline and front office work, or district office work, to address any extra caseload that might come into being.

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

MR. HEARN: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. We have seen an increase of 20 per cent, I believe, from 1989 to 1990, another 12 per cent increase or more this year, in the work load. When the Minister's Department came out as part of the Government programme to address special needs out there in relation to employment, the statement from the Department said they would not only hire people involved with social assistance or in receipt of social assistance, but also those who have run out of UI, those about to run out, those who are in need. What percentage of the people hired under the Minister's new programme is in effect people who are not in receipt, or regularly in receipt, of social assistance?

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

MR. HOGAN: I am advised, Mr. Speaker, that the percentage is rather high. It comes out at about 43 per cent: 18 per cent of those hired are able-bodied single people, the other 25 per cent in theory is married people who have stamps and do not have enough stamps to qualify for UI and various scenarios. But I am told 43 per cent of the people who have been hired to date come in the area of not being social service recipients. But I have some doubts about it. I would rather say it is around 35 per cent.

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

MR. HEARN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister is aware that already a lot of people have been advised they were going to be hired by the programme and have then been told that they would not be hired. Will the Minister tell us, how many people have been employed in his own district on these programmes? How many people were called back and told that they could not be hired on the programmes that were put in place?

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

MR. HOGAN: I do not have those specific figures, Mr. Speaker, but I will endeavour to get them for the hon. Member.

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

MR. A. SNOW: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. The Government, and previous governments, have recognized the high cost of air travel between Labrador and the island portion of the Province. Of course, in 1968 there was a Labrador travel subsidy programme introduced to help in the disparity in this high cost. The Minister is aware of the shortfall in funds budgeted for the programme this year, as a matter of fact the approximate $312,000 allocated for the year has now either been spent or is committed, and yet, half the fiscal year is remaining. Can the Minister assure the people of Labrador that the necessary funds will be made available to assist those affected groups who need this travel assistance?

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

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, as the Member knows, the programme for travel subsidy for sport and culture in Labrador is administered locally in Labrador by a committee responsible, and that committee of course saw fit to spend and allocate all of the monies available in the first half of the fiscal year, and unfortunately, rather than spread it over the entire fiscal year and over a broader range of sport and cultural activities, they saw fit to spend it up front in the first six months, which creates a very difficult problem in that we do not have extra monies available in my department to facilitate the balance of the year and the groups that would like to access this particular programme. We are looking at it, Mr. Speaker, but as of this time, we just do not have extra funding available to add to the programme.

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

MR. A. SNOW: I wonder if the Minister is aware of the number of people affected. It is my understanding that in Happy Valley - Goose Bay as an example, cross country skiing, alpine skiing, judo wrestling, fencing, bowling, swimming and figure skating are going to be affected; these people will not have a subsidy to travel to the Island portion of the Province, while in western Labrador, sports of cross country skiing, alpine skiing, volleyball, basketball, darts, curling, figure skating, swimming, synchronized swimming and broomball will be affected.

Mr. Speaker, it is not a case of the committee not doing their job, but is it not a fact that there was not enough money allocated or budgeted for and, is not the increase in travel cost, not a misappropriation of funds or misdirection of funds as he suggested earlier in the questions, Sir?

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

MR. GULLAGE: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am very aware that we had an increase in travel costs. We identified that and spoke about it in budget discussions last year. I spoke for the fact that it would be difficult to maintain the programme in Labrador, given the restraints and given the cutbacks that had to be taken into account. We did have to accommodate budget restraint and savings were effected. This programme, however, was maintained, and I can only repeat that the committee locally, chose to spend all the dollars available, all of the dollars that I could allocate in the programme, $312,000 was allocated, it has all been expended by groups in the first half of the fiscal year, and as of this time, I am again repeating myself, we have not been able to identify extra funds to add to this programme.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West, has time for one short question.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for - I do not know who is the Minister for Works, Services and Transportation, but I will address the Acting Minister of Works, Services and Transportation.

The former Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, the Minister in abeyance, whatever the title may be, promised the group from the Burin Peninsula sincerely, that he would participate in upgrading the Winterland airstrip. He said that the Provincial Government would accept their responsibility if the Federal Government accepted theirs. It is my understanding the proposal has been made to Ottawa, the Federal Government has accepted and notified the Province that they would accept their responsibility and now the provincial portion is up to the Province.

Can the Minister tell us when they will be agreeing on that, and when will they have tenders called to upgrade the airstrip?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Yes, Mr. Speaker. As far as I know, there is no Federal/Provincial agreement where there is a Federal portion and a Provincial portion, and the Federal Government has announced its Federal portion and now we have to wait for the Provincial portion.

I understand what happened and, unless it is on my desk now, I have received the information by way of press release. I believe the hon. John Crosbie issued a press release - somebody issued a press release indicating that there is $600,000 out of maybe a $3 million project that was now being approved or was possibly to be approved and it was by way of press release and I have not yet examined or considered a formal request. There is no Federal/Provincial agreement in place on this issue and, Mr. Speaker, something though, that has been worked on for a while and I find it very difficult to understand how the press release process is now being used instead of the negotiating process.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has expired.

Presenting Reports by

Standing and Special Committees

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I want to present the reports of the Public Tender Act exceptions for May, June, July and August, 1991.

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

MR. DICKS: Mr. Speaker, under the Automobile Insurance Act, the minister is required to file with the House the annual reports regarding the operations of the board. I have these to now be tendered.

Orders of the Day

MR. BAKER: First of all, by leave of the House, Mr. Speaker, Motions 3 through 9 could be done together.

MR. SPEAKER: Motions 3 through 9.

MR. BAKER: First readings.

MR. SPEAKER: These are first readings.

Do we have the concurrence of the House for Motions 3 through 9?

MR. SIMMS: You do not need leave.

MR. BAKER: I just want to call them all at the same time rather than individually.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Justice to introduce the following bills:

A bill, "An Act Respecting The Consolidation And Revision Of The Statues Of Newfoundland". (Bill No. 49).

A bill, "An Act Respecting The Application And Effect Of Certain Acts Passed In The Present Session Of The Legislature Upon The Revised Statutes Of Newfoundland, 1990'. (Bill No. 48).

A bill, "An Act To Remove Anomalies And Errors In The Statute Law". (Bill No. 52).

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Health to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Hospitals Act, 1971". (Bill No. 51).

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Education to introduce the following bills:

A bill, "An Act Respecting Colleges of Applied Arts, Technology And Continuing Education". (Bill No. 37).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Memorial University Act". (Bill No. 38).

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Labour Relations Act, 1977 (No.3)". (Bill No. 47).

On motion, Bill Nos. 49, 48, 52, 51, 37, 38, 47 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

MR. BAKER: Motion 2, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. CHAIRMAN (L. Snow): Order, please!

Bill 44. The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Chairman, when we broke off debate on this bill last week, I think we were zeroing in to a larger extent on the requirement for this particular amount of money at this point in time, and I think it goes back to what I said earlier in this debate, that quite frankly this is an amount of money that should have been anticipated. This Government should have known at Budget time. In fact, I think they did know, but I think they - I will not say deliberately, it might be unparliamentary for me to say that they deliberately left this out of the Budget - but I think they should have known if they didn't that they were going to be faced with serious unemployment problems this year. I don't think it was any secret to any of us that we were facing a recession, and that particularly a recession in Central Canada was going to have tremendous negative impact on the economy of Canada generally, and, of course, Newfoundland always seems to suffer worse. I do not agree for a moment with the Premier when he says we may be in a recession but we are not being hurt as much as other parts of Canada. The Premier should get out of Confederation Building, go outside and talk with some of the people we were just talking about.

MR. SIMMS: Where are all the ministers involved in this program?

MR. WINDSOR: The ministers are all here defending their program. But the Premier should get outside and talk to the people and find out exactly what is going on in this Province. He should talk to some of the people who are absolutely destitute out there now, trying to subsist on payments from the Department of Social Services. It is putting more pressure, as we have just heard, on the Department of Social Services budget, to the point where they are, quite honestly, not able to cope with the demands that are being placed on them.

I have had occasion over the past month or two to deal with more problems of persons on social assistance than I have in my sixteen years in this legislature. It is absolutely incredible, the difference that we are seeing out there from the people who are having these problems; not only people on social assistance, but people on unemployment; people seeking social housing, because they are no longer able to afford to provide accommodations for themselves; people who are in grave danger of losing their homes and everything that they have built up over a lifetime, because they have lost their jobs, or because the costs have increased so much that they are no longer able to deal with them.

This Government should have been able to predict that they would need an employment program of this magnitude. I do not think any of us disagree with this amount of money. In fact, I think, as my colleague just asked in Question Period, why can we not find another small amount of money to help even more? Because, obviously, this is too little and too late. So we do not disagree with the money. We do not disagree that these departments are appropriate departments to have programs to administer these funds, to use these funds and create employment. We would like to have the information of what is taking place. I do not personally wish to get into that. Other colleagues of mine will want to address that in some detail, as to how these funds are being spent, how they are being allocated, and to which offices the funds are going. I think there are many questions that need to be answered there. The real question is the management of the economy of this Government. I think it is obvious to all of us that this Government has been a dismal failure in that regard.

The Minister of Finance has shown, time and time again, that he is totally incapable of even predicting what his deficit is going to be. I do not know that we have ever had a variance of the magnitude of the one that we saw last year. I believe the minister predicted a $10 million deficit at the beginning of the year, and ended up with a $120 million or $130 million deficit.

MR. SIMMS: He predicted a small surplus.

MR. WINDSOR: He predicted a small surplus, that is right. It went to a 130 million deficit. Try as he might, he could certainly not justify such a great variance. There are only two answers. One is just grave error in calculation - we want to give them the benefit of the doubt - a grave error in calculation. The second answer is that they very clearly and deliberately misrepresented the facts in their Budget, when they knew that they would have a much greater problem to face, but hoped above hope that sometime during the year, the Hibernia development, or some other development would generate the kinds of revenues that would be necessary for Government to end up at the end of the year with a balanced budget. But when you looked at the Budget, as we did, examining it in detail as we did last year, it was painfully obvious, since we were all forecasting a recessionary year, that one could hardly expect provincial revenues to maintain themselves. One could hardly expect transfer payments to be maintained, since they are based on the state of the economy in Central Canada primarily, in relation to the economy in Newfoundland and other parts of Canada. So this Government should have been able to predict that they would need this type of program.

Here we are today, Mr. Chairman, desperately now trying to create a few jobs in the fall, spending money on programs which have not been properly planned, because they have been very hurriedly put together, many of them without proper engineering study in analysis and design. And, as I indicated the other day in Question Period, many projects have been dusted off. They are old projects that were there for some time, that Government had wanted to do this year and have not been able because they did not get the proper planning done.

So some old programs, old projects that were planned but then set aside as not being high on the priority list, have been dusted off and hurriedly pushed into service so that some of this money can be spent. I suspect we will find, in the end analysis, after this program is over and we study the results of it to see how effective it was, that a lot of this money was spent unwisely. Certainly, when you get into this time of year, trying to do construction projects, in particular, you are being less effective than you should be.

Mr. Chairman, one of the items here is community water services. There is $500,000 here to create a few jobs. Now, here is a prime example, $500,000 is not going to do an awful lot of work in communities. It will create a few short-term jobs but how many more jobs could have been created had this Government moved ahead with its announced water and sewer program for municipalities, its capital program in municipalities this year? The minister stood in his place some time ago and boasted about his early design program, how this Government was taking such an initiative to release the design of water and sewer programs well in advance in anticipation of some funding coming forward in the Budget. He tabled a great list of projects for water and sewer work this year but the projects were not released. They have not been released until the fall. Only within the last month have the projects been released. In other words, all of that construction work that could have been undertaken during the prime construction season, during the summer months when the weather is most favourable, and the cost and efficiency is most desirable, instead of having that work undertaken during that period of time Government has delayed it. The question is why have they delayed calling these tenders? There were thousands of jobs that could have been available over the summer. We would not have needed this $500,000 from Municipal Affairs. There would have been plenty of construction jobs. All of these people that we are trying to fit into small construction jobs now would have enjoyed plenty of employment over the summer months, but instead of that we find that the money is unspent. Now, that will make the total picture look more favourable, that money will not be required to be borrowed by the Province. But then the Province was not borrowing it anyway, was it? It was simply a Government guarantee, simply approval for a municipality to borrow. That is the crazy part about this, Mr. Chairman. If these were monies that Government was going to borrow on its own, spend, and be responsible for repaying, well, you could say, they can justify that by simply cutting back on their expenditure; they are not spending as much. They know they have a problem so they have decided to spend less. Now, that would make some sense. You could live with that. You could say, well, it is not a good year and instead of spending $400 million we are only going to spend $200 million, so we have saved $200 million, but Government has not saved anything here. All they have done is stopped municipalities from borrowing and spending. The President of Treasury Board smiles - he knows, and he knows that I know, that that needs to be qualified. It is a contingent liability on the Province. It appears in the perspective but it is just that, it is a contingent liability. In the event that the municipalities are not able to repay, the Province will have to repay.

There are many, many projects in municipalities that Government knew full well would never come back to Government seeking to have that money repaid. Many of the larger municipalities are fully paying 100 per cent of their debt, so what justification is there, as a hypothetical example - and this is totally hypothetical - what justification would there be in saying to the town of Gander, we are going to delay your program, you are not going to get your money spent this year? Why not let the town of Gander spend the $1 million, knowing that the town of Gander is quite capable of carrying and repaying that debt on their own? That $1 million construction program would have created a lot of economic activity and would have created jobs in the town of Gander. Instead, we now have a $500,000 program to try to create a couple of short-term jobs.

So, what is the rationale, Mr. Chairman, for delaying them? Let me be clear. I did not say that happened in the town of Gander, that was a hypothetical example.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. WINDSOR: I will have another opportunity, Mr. Chairman.

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

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

The first thing I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, is how happy I am to see our colleague for Harbour Main back in the House of Assembly looking so fit, so trim.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MURPHY: I welcome him back, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MURPHY: Just picking up on dollars and cents -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: No, there's no slur, I am being sincere, totally sincere. Picking up on the hon. the Member for Mount Pearl - yesterday, talking money, the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations tabled two reports in this House on Workers' Compensation. The hon. the Member for Fogo was up today asking some questions. And, I suppose if you spent most part of your working life in occupational health and safety, and dealing with and being an employee of the Workmen's Compensation Board for a period of about five years; and then spent the rest of your life associated with occupational health and safety and the now Workers' Compensation Commission; and to see what took place on the appointment of this Commission when we have to look at a minority report presented in this House yesterday, at the taxpayers' expense, Mr. Chairman - having perused this document, seeing exactly what it was and the intent of it, I would like to make some comments, if I might.

First of all, I find the document, I suppose, offensive, to say the least. If you look at the foreword in it, first of all, on page 1, the gentleman concurs with his Committee members. If you move on to page 2 - and this is dealing with the Workers' Compensation Commission, now - he says: `One also wonders if the recommendations of my colleagues are nothing more than an extension of the draconian fiscal policies of the Provincial Government, slash, slash, slash, and a little more concern,' etc. Now, what that has to do with Workers' Compensation certainly leaves me wondering.

He moves on into this report and talks about the historical role of compensation. Well, we can all look at a hundred documents that have been written about that. Then he talks about what the workers are saying. Right in the middle of the first paragraph he says: `Now, employers don't want to pay their fair share....' Well, if employers don't want to pay their fair share, and this gentleman is so adamant about jumping on the employers in this Province and how dramatically they are affecting the compensation situation, then let me remind this hon. House, and that particular gentleman, of what the rate structure is for certain classifications that we find industry involved in today.

Manufacturing: Class 3 in the Workers' Compensation Commission. They are paying $5.78 per $100 of payroll. So, for every $100 of salary that anybody in the manufacturing industry puts out today, they have to pay the Workers' Compensation Commission $5.78. Now, that surely must impact on every single consumer in the Province who has to pay for goods and services. This particular assessment finds its way down into the supermarkets and into whatever.

Just let's look at some of the other areas of high employment. Construction: $5.23 for excavation work. Talking about highways and buildings, $6.05; $5.23 for other areas. If one would consider what the employers throughout this Province are having to pay to Workers' Compensation to cover the tremendous high increase in injury that is taking place in the work place, then one only wonders how long we can continue, how long the Workers' Compensation Commission can continue with employer funds, because never, Mr. Chairman, has any employee in this Province ever, ever, seen on his or her cheque stub a deduction for worker's compensation. Now, if this gentleman had to sit down and stay with the Committee and make some sound recommendations, and look at it realistically, knowing full well the financial circumstances that the Worker's Compensation Commission finds itself in, he might have made some positive suggestions in understanding that. I stand to be corrected here but I would suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, that outside of somebody purchasing disability insurance themselves it is the only form of personal income that anybody can receive that is non-taxable. If you were unfortunate enough to be on social assistance for three months and obtained a job then you would get a T4 slip telling you what your social assistance was, and if you were lucky enough to get enough stamps to be on UI benefit you would also get a T4 slip from the CEIC, but if you are on workers' compensation up to a maximum of $45,000 you receive 90 per cent net of your gross salary less, Mr. Chairman, your deductions for, obviously, your Canada Pension contribution and your UIC, and the rest of your benefit is non-taxable. So, if this gentleman had to make some positive suggestions, knowing the circumstances of the Workers' Compensation Commission, and say that that particular payroll could be income tax and that monies turned back into workers'compensation. He could have made a whole lot of suggestions but what did he do? He took the taxpayer's money and travelled around the Province and put together a document that is totally meaningless, that is so left- wing, that is so socialistic, that it is not fit to be in the House of Assembly. It is incredible. It looks like a document that came from the labour government over in Britain when they put worker's compensation on the bum some twenty year ago.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) government with a social conscience.

MR. MURPHY: That is not a social conscience. That kind of thinking would melt Lenin's statue if you want to call that socialist thinking. What garbage. Now, we do not need to talk about where. The hon. Minister got up today and explained, when questioned by my learned safety officer for the district of Fogo, the Minister responded and talked about what transpired in 1984. I forget who the Government was at the time but I am sure somebody will remind me, what took place when they turned around workers' compensation. Worker's compensation was set up in such a way, it was so healthy, Mr. Chairman, that it funded many of the water and sewer projects throughout this Province, and still does to this day, until they had to get rid of it because they did not have the money to pay the benefits. We talk about occupational health and safety in the workplace. The hon. gentleman who wrote this document knows full well -

MR. TOBIN: You know.

MR. MURPHY: Indeed I do know, but I would not give him the satisfaction to mention his name. There is a set of regulations in the act as good as anywhere in Canada. He calls his document 'Betrayal' and I would agree. It is obviously a good name for this dribble.

AN HON. MEMBER: Did he betray you?

MR. MURPHY: He betrayed more than me, Mr. Chairman. The people he betrayed most were the workers in this Province because he said nothing positive, nothing sincere, or nothing to hang onto, absolutely nothing.

AN HON. MEMBER: You can tell the man is sincere.

MR. MURPHY: I will answer the hon. Member. I do not have any problems. I am not looking for any special funds for St. John's South. I am not looking for anything.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. MURPHY: By leave, to clue up.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Does the hon. Member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave, yes, indeed.

MR. MURPHY: It is betrayal; thank you very much and thank the hon. House.

MR. NOEL: The iron fist from Grand Bank.

MR. MURPHY: It is betrayal. It is betrayal.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Does the hon. Member have leave?

No leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Yes, yes.

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

MR. MURPHY: One minute and like MacArthur said: I will be back. I am certainly not finished with this rubbish, so I will relinquish to the hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West because I am certainly not finished, Mr. Chairman, by any stretch of the imagination.

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, the Member over there, the fellow the Premier said lacked the political maturity to go into Cabinet, should try and mature and get into Cabinet and stop interrupting in the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: He is not even in his seat.

MR. TOBIN: Now, Mr. Speaker, the Member for St. John's South should continue to speak. He said he will be back. Well, I would suggest that he speak, because we do not know when the next election is going to be called and he should try to get in as many speeches as he can because after that, he will not be back.

But in any case, I do not know why the Member for St. John's South has adopted such an attitude towards the gentleman who wrote this report. He has the right to express his views. The Member for St. John's South has the right to express his views and this hon. member should have the right to express his views as well.

He might not share the same political philosophy as the Member for St. John's South - Mr. Chairman, I have never seen in this country anyone with right wing leanings to the extent of Brian Mulroney and the Premier of this Province, and as the Member for St. John's South. He represents a large working constituency and he attacks the working people of this Province as it relates to this.

Let me say to the Member for St. John's South, and to all the members opposite that in terms of workers' compensation, the programme is in place to assist and to help the people who need it, and if there is abuse of the system or anything else, the problem is policed. If there is a problem, put in the necessary people to police it, but the injured, the people who have accidents, lose an arm or a leg, the workers' compensation plan must be there for them, and there is no way you can get to those people by trying to cut corners or do anything else.

The bottom line is that there must be in place a mechanism to ensure that workers' compensation continues and as a matter of fact grows and becomes better. There must also be a mechanism in place to ensure that those who need it have it there for them.

Now, Mr. Chairman, as we get involved today, and we have been in the past couple of days dealing with Supplementary Supply, our position on this last Monday, was that we were ready. Last Friday our House Leader told the Government House Leader that he was prepared to deal with Interim Supply and have it approved.

AN HON. MEMBER: Last Thursday.

MR. TOBIN: -last Thursday, if the Government was prepared to provide a list.

Mr. Chairman, the President of Treasury Board or the Government House Leader has gone about doing everything except provide the House with the list and I would suggest that we could get down to the wire again this evening and there would be no list provided, and if the President of Treasury Board thinks he is going to get Supplementary Supply approved through this House without the list, then, Mr. Chairman, he has another thought coming.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: No, it won't happen! The list will have to be what we are looking for too. Not something like the Minister of Forestry tried to bring in the House the other day. Neither he or anyone in the House knew what he was talking about.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Minister of Social Services.

MR. TOBIN: The Minister of Social Services. He is telling us every day that he has a list. Well then, where is the list the Minister of Social Services is supposed to have? Does he have it in his pocket, in his briefcase? Why isn't it on the Table of the House? The pork barrelling you did in your own district with the community development list, that is the one I want to see. My colleague for St. Mary's - The Capes, covered by the same office, could not get a job in his area. They all went to your district. We have never seen it before. Never the like of it before. That is what we want to see, and that is why we are demanding that the list be laid up on the Table. Particularly the list that the Minister of Social Services has. Yes. Now that is some kind of a list he has there.

The Minister of Forestry -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Table it, boy, table it! Mr. Chairman, can we have the Page pick up the list? Okay, the Page is going to pick it up and I'll take a look at it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: No, the Page is going to pick it up.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Now, Mr. Chairman, we see what is happening. He said he is going to table it, the Page goes to pick it up, and what does he do? Put it back in the drawer. I would too if I did the pork barrelling that he did on that list. It is time that the Government House Leader, the President of Treasury Board, showed leadership in this House. There has been no leadership in this House in this session.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

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

The hon. the Minister of Social Services on a point of order.

MR. HOGAN: All the hon. Member has to do is ask for the list and I will table the list through the normal method. He is the only pork barrel I see around here. There is no pork barrelling (Inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is no point of order.

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I am not speaking to that point of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair has already ruled that there is no point of order.

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Let me say, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister of Social Services that if I continue in the - what do you call it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Nutri-System.

MR. TOBIN: Nutri-System plan, that some day I may be as slim as him.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Having said that, Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Social Services is over there with a list and I am hearing numbers floating around of 100 to 200 jobs.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, listen to the - what is it? The politically immature Member. The Premier said in terms of having a Cabinet Minister from Labrador, this means more than having a Member for Labrador, the Member must have the political maturity. So I would only assume that the Member for Eagle River lacked that maturity, and today he is demonstrating he still does not have the maturity. It probably is good that he is sitting next to the next Cabinet Minister. Probably that is good, because I under -

AN HON. MEMBER: Get some advice.

MR. TOBIN: Get some advice as to how he got into Cabinet.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) only going to be half a Minister.

MR. TOBIN: Well, no, I won't say he will be half a Minister. No, Mr. Chairman, I have nothing negative to say about the Member for Bonavista South, nothing at all. He was a great contributor to my campaigns in the past. In many ways.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who? Hogan was?

MR. MATTHEWS: No, Gover, poll captain. Only poll that was off.

MR. TOBIN: As a matter of fact - no, be kind, boys, be kind. I mean, he is going to be the next Minister of Justice, we have got to show him respect, much to the disappointment of some of the Members opposite, such as the Member for St. John's South. Not the Member for St. John's South, he does not care if he ever goes in Cabinet. The Member for - he is not here today - Mount Scio - Bell Island. And the Member for Bellevue, who are going around telling everyone they will be the next in.

Well, Mr. Chairman, I suggest that neither one of them will be the next in, it will be the Member for Bonavista South. Or Your Honour, Mr. Chairman. If there is anyone in this House in my opinion, on that side of the House, who deserves to be in Cabinet, it is Your Honour. I say that with all sincerity.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: He is one of the greatest people who ever sat in the Chair, and I have nothing but respect for him.

But I want to get back, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister of Social Services.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. TOBIN: By leave.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Does the hon. Member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

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

MR. MURPHY: Thank you very much.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. MURPHY: Isn't that terrible, Mr. Chairman?

MR. TOBIN: A point of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West on a point of order.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I know that it is not appropriate to be shouting in the House in any case, but certainly when you are not in your own seat. I would think that you should advise the Member for Eagle River that shouting from someone else's seat is not in the rules of this Legislature, and someone should either ask him to leave the Chamber or to behave according to the rules.

MR. CHAIRMAN: To the point of order, the hon. Member is correct. There is no provision for any member to speak in the House unless he is recognized, and when he is recognized he has to be seated in his own seat.

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

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

Isn't that shocking now. Imagine, of all the members in this hon. House to chastise somebody else for speaking from a different seat. Boy, isn't that terrible?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. MURPHY: Anyway, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Back to this betrayal - I have to try and rectify some of the things that are totally, totally, totally incorrect submitted by one member of the committee. He calls it betrayal, and betrayal it is at the taxpayers expense. He goes on to talk about a public review should take place to find out why the Occupational, Health and Safety Division only spent half of its available budget in the past year. A meaningless statement. Totally meaningless when the staff is not in place, and the previous administration knows why, and the Minister already explained that we are on our way to intensifying and generating and creating more activity in the Department for Occupational, Health and Safety and training. He talks about reserved funds.

Now the Member for St. John's East, the authority on Workers' Compensation just arrived in his place. Now, Mr. Chairman, let me advise that hon. Member that he will have an opportunity to stand up and talk about Workers' Compensation until he is blue in the face, and we will give him an opportunity to talk about the act, we will give him an opportunity to talk about assessment and rate structure, Occupational, Health and Safety Division, appeal, appeal tribunal, remuneration for doing things. The hon. Member will have lots of time to talk.

AN HON. MEMBER: Arbitrations.

MR. MURPHY: Arbitrations. We will give him all the time he needs to talk about Workers' Compensation.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Now, now. We will give the hon. Member lots of time to talk.

AN HON. MEMBER: He is allowed to talk. He is allowed to have his say.

MR. MURPHY: Mr. Chairman, this minority report - I look at my colleague from Placentia and the hon Member and myself are after forgetting more about Occupational, Health and Safety than the hon. Member for St. John's East and the author of this document would ever know. As a matter of fact, what they both know, obviously, you could put on a stamp.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. MURPHY: You could put it on the back of a postage stamp and still have room for the Dead Sea Scrolls!

Recommendations, compensation services, innuendo, words that have been said many times. I remember when the hon. Member for Harbour Main was over there - a total gentleman when he was Minister of Labour, you could approach him. He had the good sense to put this hon. Member on his advisory committee.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. MURPHY: There is nothing new in this document. It is nothing more than a left wing approach, and then he closes off, Mr. Chairman, with: injured workers must not be betrayed. Well, there is the key statement. There is the only statement, or one of the few statements, in the whole document that I will totally agree with.

Mr. Speaker, he talks about the lack of training - occupational health and safety training - that is not going on in the Province. We have the department with a full division in occupational health and safety training, going throughout the Province offering courses. We have some 800-odd, Mr. Minister, I think, occupational health and safety committees established throughout the workplace in the Province, made up of union and management members. We have other agencies, the Newfoundland Safety Council and other such agencies, traipsing around from Labrador West to St. John's and all points in between, offering constant and continual occupational health and safety training.

The hon. Member for St. John's East I think yesterday smugly appreciated this Minority Report. Now the hon. Member last year, and I do not mind, I tried to help him with some questions he had when he asked the former Minister of Employment and Labour Relations about occupational health and safety problems out in Hibernia. There is the man asking occupational health and safety questions about Hibernia, and he sat in Ottawa with the people who voted against Hibernia. They did not want to give us five cents for the development of Hibernia, and still and all, last year he was up and down asking questions to the former Minister on occupational health and safety. So, somewhere, Mr. Chairman, you have to divide partisan politics and the reality of what has been done. This Department is only continuing to expand what was done by the previous administration. Occupational health and safety is an extremely important issue. It is not one to be toyed and played with, with this kind of a Minority Report, by a man who should know better, but could not refuse to play partisan politics.

MR. TOBIN: Answer the question, boy.

MR. MURPHY: Well, you know, Mr. Speaker, what is two and two? I will tell you, he knows the answer. The Member for St. John's East knows the answer to two and two, but I doubt if he knows the answer to three plus one. I really do.

Mr. Chairman, again let me say that if we are ever going to be able to afford, in this Province, to give injured workers funding, or compensation while they are off work, the only way we have done it, over the years, has been to assess the employer. If we keep on driving up the assessment because of workplace injuries, and/or as the Member for Burin - Placentia West said - I did not say this, abuse. He is the man who said it, abuse, and he may be very well right. There may be abuse, and there may be lots of it. There may be lots of it, but this Province and the industry in this Province, can no longer afford to continue with this one-sided show to fund what is taking place with accidents and injuries. We just do not have it.

If you look at the health care system, and what has taken place in the health care system over the last ten years - the Minister of Health is there, and he knows full well that nearly 5 per cent of the total health care budget in this Province goes out in compensation costs. If you take approximately $900 million I think, and the Minister can correct me if I am wrong, you are looking at $45 million that goes out in this small Province in compensation costs. If you know anything about occupational health and safety, that is only the tip of the iceberg, the direct cost of accidents. You can multiply that by six, and when you pick up the Workers' Compensation Board's Annual Report and you look at the assessments, last year was $94 million in direct assessments, $79 million, and self-insurers, $5 million, and then vested income that they had, for a total income revenue of $94 million. Now, put the iceberg analogy on that - and my hon. friend from Placentia knows only too well what I am talking about- and we are conservative, I would suggest, when we say multiply that by six. That is what it costs this Province for accidents in the workplace and/or associated illnesses, $600 million. Now, how can a Province the size of Newfoundland possibly afford that kind of money associated with injuries.

I am not trying to diminish the suffering and/or the fatalities and illnesses that take place in the workplace. That should be first and foremost. We all witnessed the horrendous tragedy of the Ocean Ranger and the impact that it had on all of us. It is only yesterday we heard a report on television and on the radio about an industrial sawmill accident that took place in Central Newfoundland, and it goes on and on and on. That should be our first and prime concern. But in saying that, we need to understand, all of us, what the cost associated with Government and industry is, and the cost of accidents associated with that in doing business in this Province. If we would pay attention to that end of it, then obviously we could accomplish the accident prevention programming that is desired to reduce the carnage, the injury and the suffering.

Sometimes it is difficult for safety professionals to walk into the CEO and talk to him about the accidents and the suffering, because the CEO sometimes looks at the balance sheet. But if we can convince him to look at the balance sheet, then surely heavens that would show itself in the reduction of accidents. But to come to this House and to turn over to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations this partisan document, is disgraceful and nothing less than disgraceful.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Member's time is up.

MR. MURPHY: I, again, will be speaking further on this subject, you can be sure.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

MR. HOGAN: By leave, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Does the hon. the Minister of Social Services have leave of the House?

MR. MATTHEWS: We would like to grant leave for the Minister to table the list from his Department that we have been asking for, as long as the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes gets recognized afterwards and it is not taken away from his time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair has already recognized the hon. the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes and, by leave of the House, I recognize the hon. the Minister of Social Services to present a statement. Then the House will revert back to the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes.

MR. HOGAN: Thank you, hon. colleagues.

I wish to table this information, Mr. Chairman. It is an up-to-date November 5 information spread sheet showing the breakdown of the jobs that were found through the Emergency Response Program, and it is broken down by region of the Province and by district office.

Also accompanying this, for the information of members opposite, it is the same spread sheet showing the regular CD Program which was carried on up until the funds were depleted.

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

MR. HEARN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We will certainly look forward to analyzing the list the Minister has just tabled.

I listened with some interest to the former speaker and, although I do not think this is the proper forum for the member to get up talking about the minority report, realizing that the member probably is unfamiliar with that area and does not have too much more to offer, I respect his right to speak in the House. It is a money bill. I think the member has been basically told by his boss to get up and try to defend the indefensible, and to take the flack for the report that was tabled yesterday.

The one thing I would suggest - and I want to move off it to get into the meat of the bill itself - is that, it is hard to argue with the member when he says that we must start curtailing costs. But do you throw out the baby with the bathwater? Are we trying to solve all our problems by penalizing those who cannot afford to be penalized, instead of addressing the abuses within the system? So maybe the Member better rethink some of his philosophies.

Moving to Bill 44, Mr. Chairman, which really has nothing to do directly or indirectly to any great degree with the Compensation Report, but with the state of unemployment that presently exists in the Province. When you represent a district like St. John's South that has been hit pretty hard, I would think that the Member should zero in on some of the problems he is facing in his area and admit that the solution proposed here by Government is certainly not going to even put a band-aid on some of the wounds that are out there.

If we look at the Bill itself - with the exception of the first heading, Constitutional Affairs, which is going to cost $185,000 above and beyond what was projected; and that is understandable in light of the work that has to be done to keep the country together - the rest of the headings all deal with money being provided to create jobs in the Province. Now when we started debating this Bill we asked the different departments to tell us what jobs they have created. The money has been spent, apparently, in most divisions. What jobs have been created, where, how many people have been employed, what effect is this really going to have on the unemployment picture, and what change is this over what has occurred in other years?

During Question Period today we heard questions being posed to the Minister of Social Services. We did not hear too many answers forthcoming but the Minister did admit that the caseload of his Department is up significantly over last year. When one realizes that last year was up significantly over previous years, then we can picture the state of the economy. Many Members I am sure have talked, to local social service offices, as I have. The workers there, who are working day and night, will tell you that they have never seen so many before looking for assistance. People are desperate. In all the years I have been involved in politics - and we have had some tough years in the past - I have never seen as -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: Mr. Chairman, I cannot even hear myself. They have conversations all over the place.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. HEARN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was saying, in my many years in politics I have never seen as many people hurting around the Province as there are presently. A number of reasons: the downturn in the economy, the failure of the fishery in many areas, the failure of this Government to provide any work worthwhile, the cutbacks in the amount spent on construction, the manipulation of the funds so that tenders would not be called, and so on, to balance the Budget. All is leading to the fact that a lot of people are unemployed in the Province. Many of them are not used to it. There are always some people who have trouble finding employment, especially in certain areas of the Province, and they depend upon make work programmes, whatever, to help them.

These programmes do. They not only help individuals, quite often they also help put some infrastructure in our communities. Many communities around the Province have facilities they would not have unless we had, as we have had in the past, the different types of make work programmes. In fact, throughout, or at least in some areas of the Province, many worthwhile pieces of infrastructure, from stadiums to fire halls to playgrounds to libraries, would not be there without the assistance of these programmes.

But the Federal Government also cannot go without blame here. We cannot put all the blame on the Provincial Government. The Federal Government manipulated or changed their programmes a couple of years ago, and no longer were they going to have those short term employment programmes, because they were not doing anything to help the people. They were going to bring in all kinds of fancy retraining programmes. Send people off to schools and colleges. Train them for what? Because the jobs are not there, and the people are going off, in some cases receiving some training, coming back to find themselves home with a certificate of some kind or other but no job. So they are no better off, there is no bread and butter on the table.

We also find that many of the dollars that were taken out of the work programmes went directly into the pockets of individuals by being channelled into different types of training programs; who really benefited? Quite often, the educational institutions. Many of them have become extremely wealthy, developing a programme for one project and then taking on a similar project, only to charge for developing the same programme again, so it is a complete and utter rip off of training funds. Then we have programmes like ACOA that were supposed to create so many jobs around the Province and when the small individual goes in with a proposal, the first thing he has to do is have a $100,000 study done which usually ends up telling him that it cannot work. You have your consultants getting richer and richer and the working class around the Province getting poorer and poorer.

So maybe it is time we looked at putting dollars directly into the pockets of individuals and getting something done at the local level, and if that means going back to the old time make-work programmes, at least it will put bread and butter on the table where there is none, and put facilities around the communities where presently we do not see any under construction. So, Mr. Chairman, we are in a dilemma around rural Newfoundland in particular and certainly the effects have rippled through the larger centres.

There are people in many communities, more than half the population, who so far this year have not even qualified to draw unemployment insurance. Fisheries Response Programmes came out and you had CEIC playing their little games, sticking strictly to regulations, refusing to bend or consider local circumstances.

How, in Labrador for instance, on the coast of Labrador, how can you get twelve weeks in the fishery if you are a first time entrant in the workforce, when you do not have any fish? How can you get three weeks stamps in the fishery if the fish do not show up, where, in areas plants could not open because of the failure of the caplin fishery or the complete failure of the inshore fishery, or where they opened for two or three weeks, how can you get six weeks employment?

It is impossible, and these factors must be considered, but they are not, consequently people are going from day to day wondering: are rules going to be bent in order to qualify? What complicates things even more was when CEIC went out and consolidated their offices in St. John's. I do not know whether anybody else is affected, but they made a real schemozzle of trying to help the system. Everything has been tremendously slowed down, complicated, the workers down there are overworked and frustrated and you cannot get hold of anybody to address problems anymore. All of this is just adding to the burden of the average person out in the field trying to survive.

I do not know what the answer is unless we revert to what was supposed to be a short-term, make-work effort, because, when there is nothing in sight for the long-term, when the short-term efforts we are making are in the wrong direction, then if it worked, at least let us go back to it because it did keep bread and butter on the table. Here we see a drop in the bucket in relation to addressing the problem.

In the social services section, we see $4.5 million, $4 million really, we understand, which has already been spent. It is not even going to address the extra case loads in social services, not to say the other people in the Province who are on the borderline, who have run out of UI or who are just about to run out without any prospects of employment. Then it is bad enough to see not enough money being put in, but when we see it manipulated by the department to make sure that their own areas are looked after, then we wonder about the fairness and balance of this Government.

Mr. Chairman, the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador right now is in a crisis state that it has never been in before, where we have people who were always used to working, used to be able to provide for their families, unable to do so anymore because of the state of the general economy. What is the Government doing? Throwing 8.7, less than that -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. HEARN: - $8 million at a problem that will cost ten times that, even to put a dent in it. I will get back to it a little later, Mr. Chairman.

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

MR. FLIGHT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just take a couple seconds to announce the projects that were funded by the Department of Forestry and Agriculture on the -

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the hon. Member for (Technical malfunction) talking across the floor. And -

AN HON. MEMBER: Couldn't hear you.

MR. FLIGHT: Couldn't hear me? Is there something wrong with the system, Mr. Chairman?

AN HON. MEMBER: Speak up!

MR. FLIGHT: See? Mr. Chairman, I would request that you check out and see if the sound system is working.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I have no difficulty in hearing the hon. Member.

MR. FLIGHT: Can the hon. Members opposite hear me now?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Chairman, in that case I would want to take a minute to proudly table the list of projects that have been put in place, funded under the Employment Initiatives Programme. And what is -

AN HON. MEMBER: Is this your district?

MR. FLIGHT: No, this is all of Newfoundland, all across Newfoundland and Labrador. Out of $2 million, Mr. Chairman, that was allocated to the Department of Forestry and Agriculture, I am proud to indicate to the House that I have committed $1.865 millions up to this point in time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FLIGHT: Which means that a little more than $100,000 is yet to be committed. And what makes this programme from a Forestry perspective interesting is this: that by far most of these projects had already been identified by my officials as being necessary anyway. If we would have had the money in our regular Forestry budget these are the kind of projects that we would have done. So it is all the more important, Mr. Chairman, and it makes all the more sense, that when we create employment creation programmes that we fund projects that have long term benefits to the Province.

So not only will these projects create a lot of jobs - I do not have the number of specific jobs here but I will - a lot of jobs -

AN HON. MEMBER: The numbers are what we wanted.

MR. FLIGHT: Well, do some research yourself. You have those facilities.

MR. TOBIN: Oh, is this what the President of Treasury Board wants done? (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: So, Mr. Chairman, the name of the association, the place and the amount are listed here. So at $400 a week, it is very simple, very quick, to figure out how many jobs. What is listed here - my officials have done this - is the name of the development association, the place and the amount. What should also be pointed out, is that not only will this have the effect of creating the short term benefit, it will be the creation of good, meaningful productive jobs for the people who are employed in areas all over Newfoundland. But the long term benefit is that it enhances our forestry, and the Province will reap benefits from this particular programme forty or fifty years from now. It gives me great pleasure.

AN HON. MEMBER: Forty or fifty years?

MR. FLIGHT: Yes. Silviculture programmes, thinning, planting, site reclamation.

AN HON. MEMBER: You'll be gone. We'll all still be here.

MR. FLIGHT: You'll be gone. So, Mr. Chairman, it gives me great pleasure. I tell you, the things that will grow from these programmes will be a lot more enduring than any of the cucumbers we ever tried to grow in this Province. They will be growing forever. As a matter of fact there is planting going on right now. We would expect to harvest the trees that are being planted right now in about sixty to seventy years from now.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: Long before. Mr. Chairman, I would compare that kind of production with the kind of production we saw from certain facilities that were established in this Province for growing certain vegetables these past two or three years.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: So, Mr. Chairman, it is with great pleasure that I table the list. Excellent programme, wise expenditure of dollars.

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I would like to have a few words based on what the Minister of Forestry just said. If I -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

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

I hate to interrupt the hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West, but because of the conversations to my right, I am having difficulty hearing the hon. Member. I ask hon. Members to refrain.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, yes, I have difficulty in hearing too but I am quite capable of hearing the Minister of Forestry whistling when I was speaking.

Let me say, Mr. Chairman, that the President of Treasury Board and the Government House Leader told us that there would be a list provided, based on the information that our House Leader asked for, in terms of the numbers of jobs that were created through these projects, the number of positions that were created, and all that. I think that our House Leader asked for that, and he was assured that it would come. Now it is our understanding, and I have not been able to see it - could we just have a quick look at that for a second? My understanding, Mr. Chairman, is that the list that has been tabled by the Minister of Forestry does not tell us anything about the numbers of jobs - just a lump sum payment.

MR. FLIGHT: Every project is designated by (inaudible) the place and the amount.

(Inaudible) and Mr. Chairman, the Member is just being picky, and not telling the truth.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, there is nothing there that tells us how many jobs were created by that department.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: When did you become the whiz?

There is nothing there, Mr. Chairman. I want to say to the Government House Leader, Mr. Chairman, who made the commitment on behalf of Government for the information that we requested, that it has not been provided. It has not been provided, Mr. Chairman. Absolutely nothing has been provided. There it indicates the value of the project. That is all it is; it does not tell us how many jobs. It does not even tell us, Mr. Chairman, if it is all used for labour. The question that I would like to ask here, is this all being used for labour?

MR. FLIGHT: Yes, every cent.

MR. TOBIN: Every cent is for labour?

MR. WINSOR: No, it is not. Chain saw rental, Graham.

MR. TOBIN: Now, Mr. Chairman we have to get this straight. Now, the Government House Leader, I would like for him to listen to this, because I am being serious. What we have here is a list that does not indicate how many jobs were created; it just gives the location and the dollar value. Now the Minister of Forestry says that every cent of this is for labour?

AN HON. MEMBER: He does not know.

MR. TOBIN: Was every cent of this for labour?

AN HON. MEMBER: He does not know. No, it was not.

MR. TOBIN: Were equipment and rentals not put in place?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. FLIGHT: On a point of order,

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture on a point of order.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Chairman, if it is so important to the hon. Member, and as I said, I think he is just being picky, Mr. Chairman, and wasting time in the House, but what is contained in that list is every project that was identified, the delivery mechanism, whether it was a town council or a rural development association; the place the programme is, and the total amount of dollars. Now, Mr. Chairman, there is $1 million, eight hundred and something thousand dollars committed, at $400 per work week, I think it is, Mr. Chairman. That is public knowledge, $400 per work week. All the hon. Member has to do is divide $400 into $1.8 million and he will have the total number of jobs created.

MR. TOBIN: That will only give you the number of work weeks. (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: That is the number of work weeks. However, Mr. Chairman, if it is so important that the Member would want it, I will call back to my officials; I will leave the floor of the House right now, and call back to my officials, ask them the number of jobs created, and indicate to the House as soon as I have that information. I have provided all the information that should be necessary, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the President of the Council.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Chairman, to the point of order which had to do with the Opposition request, we are not responding to the Opposition request, obviously. We are doing what is right, and tabling in the House, as soon as we can, as soon as is possible, the list of projects, locations, and amounts of money. As Your Honour knows, the local groups that are doing these projects have some flexibility in terms of numbers; obviously we provide them with the money, and they go and do the forestry projects as agents of Government in most cases, so this is the process. What I would really like to say to this point of order, Mr. Chairman, is that I spent four years sitting over in Opposition, and on that one sheet of paper is more information about projects, on that one sheet of paper, than I received from the previous Government in four full years, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, come off it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just want to respond to the point of order that has been raised here and say that the only reason we are getting any information in this House is because we requested it. The Government House Leader knows full well, that we requested a list of location, amount of money and the number of jobs. That is what we were told would be tabled in this legislature. The ministers are playing games with it. I am sure the Government House Leader was specific in his request to the ministers, and either the ministers are not competent enough to bring the information to the legislature, or they are trying to play games so that we really cannot get the answers.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are playing games, yourself!

MR. MATTHEWS: No, I am not playing games. We want the information and it should not be too difficult to get, I say to the minister. That is all we request, Mr. Chairman. With regard to the Government House Leader going on about information, it is nice to talk back four or five years and what you got and or you did not. Who remembers now what you were given or you did not get? So I say to him, he is just playing games with all this nonsense. When we were the government, the Opposition did not have to come to the legislature and fight to get information, it was given to them readily.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

There is no point of order. The hon. members are engaging in debate, using the rules of the House and the point of order. I suggest, we are in a ten-minute exchange across the House, and that hon. members use regular debate rather than abuse the rules of the House by bringing up what they know are not points of order.

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I think providing that list to the House - which was not what we requested - was a blatant attempt by the Minister of Forestry to cover up for his incompetence. Then the Government House Leader, who should have known better, was on his feet. And he knows what he promised better than anybody. He talked to our House Leader, and I spoke to him about it, as well. On both occasions, he promised he would give the information, which included the number of jobs. Now the Government House Leader is either going to earn the trust of the Opposition or lose it, and he is very quickly on a course of losing it. Because if one does not honour his word, nothing is worth talking about.

The bottom line is that we have not received from the Minister of Forestry the information that was requested. I have not seen what the Minister of Social Services gave us.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: No, I will not say it. I suspect that the Minister of Social Services has given us the number of jobs.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Yes, the Minister of Social Services says he has given us the number of jobs. Now, if the Minister of Social Services can do that, why can't the Minister of Forestry do it? After all, he is Cabinet three or four years. The Minister of Social Services is only there a few months. He had the ability to do what was asked of him. I think, instead of the Premier giving two portfolios to the Minister of Forestry, he should strip him of both. Now, what we have here is a whole problem with attitude that I think is fairly prevalent. I think - the list, `Sam'. It is very prevalent from that list that we have just seen right here.

I would like to get back - and I am sure one of our colleagues will get back - to where all of these projects were approved. I had a quick glance at that, and I did not see very much for any members on this side of the House. As a matter of fact - probably I stand to be corrected - Sam, two?

MR. WINSOR: What's that?

MR. TOBIN: For us.

MR. WINSOR: No, it is about 20 per cent.

MR. TOBIN: Oh, there you go, Mr. Chairman, we got about 10 per cent or 15 per cent.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: That is what we got out of these projects, around 15 per cent.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: Yes, Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Education should pound his desk. After the pounding he has given the education system in this Province he has nothing else left to pound.

What we have here is a Government that has again pork barrelled with the Department of Forestry in terms of the allocations of funds. This is not how they got elected to government, by making these promises. They never got on the stage throughout this Province and said, we are going to look after all the people who voted Liberal. The Premier's words were `fairness and balance'. Well, I would like to know what has happened to `fairness and balance', Mr. Chairman.

The President of Treasury Board, who should be showing leadership in this House, is doing anything but that. No wonder this Government is falling apart. No wonder there are Cabinet Ministers resigning left, right and centre. No wonder in six months there have been five Cabinet Ministers either quit or fired out of Cabinet. No wonder, Mr. Chairman, the Premier has to keep around such incompetence as the Minister of Forestry, because of the people who are resigning. Why doesn't the Premier look around at his back bench. He doesn't have much, it is true, but he does have some members who could be put into Cabinet to replace the Minister of Forestry. The Member for St. John's South points at himself, and I would say he is right, he could replace him. I would say he is right. And the Member for Carbonear could be in Cabinet. But the Minister of Forestry should not be in Cabinet. The Premier should kick him out as he has done with others - and others have quit for various reasons. The bottom line is that the Government of this Province is falling apart. There is no direction, no leadership, either from the Premier, Mr. Chairman, or from the Government House Leader. There is no leadership, either inside or outside the House. I think it is very obvious when you look at the resignations and the firing from that Cabinet in six months.

There are some questions that the public want asked and some answers that they deserve regarding what is taking place. I tell you, Mr. Chairman, it will soon be time for someone to give the answers to what is taking place. For example, today I asked a question of the President of Treasury Board, the acting Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, and the other minister or whatever, the former minister, was trying to answer it. Now is he a minister or is he not a minister? That is the question that has to be asked.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) You are not mad.

MR. TOBIN: I am mad, Mr. Chairman, at the abuse that is taking place in this House, and everybody in the Province is mad at what is taking place in this House of Assembly, with this Government, and they have a right to be angry. There are three or four Government departments right now of which no one knows who the minister is, whether there is an acting minister, whether there is a minister waiting to resign. Let me tell you right now, I respect the right of ministers to resign from Cabinet and do what they want for personal or other reasons.

Mr. Chairman, I have every respect for a man or woman who, for some personal reason, wants to resign, and I will never make any reference to it except to say that I support any person who comes to that conclusion. I will not mention any names, but I think everyone knows who I am talking about. I support a person who reaches the conclusion that he would rather not continue to serve in Cabinet and wants to be a private member. He has that right, Mr. Chairman, and I respect him for it.

Apart from that instance, the Premier cannot half fire a minister. A minister is either fired or not fired. There is either an acting minister, a minister of the Crown, or there is not. That is what we need, and that is what has to be determined.

For example, when the Member for Port de Grave was no longer a minister, the Minister of Social Services became a full-time minister, and that is the way it should be. But what do you have now, Mr. Chairman? How often is the Premier of this Province going to have ministers who are put aside for a little while?

MR. MATTHEWS: They are half in and half out.

MR. TOBIN: Yes, half in or half out. You cannot be there, Mr. Chairman. And it is time that leadership is shown in this Province. We do not know from one day to the next, who is minister of what in this Government, and you have half the backbenchers over there going around trying to get in Cabinet, so the ones who are on the front bench should be very wary of the ones in the back benches.

MR. MATTHEWS: Trying to break in.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I say to the Minister of Forestry that I have been recognized by the Chair and the Chair will decide whether or not what I am saying is in order.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member wants to hear it, I will say it again. I said you cannot be half in Cabinet or out of Cabinet. When the Member for Port de Grave left Cabinet, the Member for Placentia took his place. But that is not what is happening in other portfolios here. There are ministers who are half in and half out, that is what I said. If the Member for Port de Grave does not like it, Mr. Chairman, I say it is too bad. I couldn't care less what the Member for Port de Grave likes or dislikes.

MR. EFFORD: You had better be careful.

MR. TOBIN: I will be careful, Mr. Chairman. The Member for Port de Grave can tell me to be careful and he can issue all the threats he likes, but it does not affect me, Mr. Chairman. If the member wants to come over here he can, but I am not going to stop talking. Let him make up his mind. I am not going to stop debating the issues while he is trying to make up his mind.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Now, the last person who should talk about crossing the floor and joining our party is the only one who was ever kicked out of the Conservative Party.

MR. WINSOR: He took the files with him.

MR. TOBIN: I am sure we saw him on television a few months ago saying, `I am taking my files and going,' whey they kicked him out of the Tory Party. And, I understand, now, they are trying to find another candidate for St. John's Centre. They are trying to kick him out of the Liberal Party as well, so my friend for St. John's East may have a colleague, sooner or later.

AN HON. MEMBER: His time will soon be up.

MR. MATTHEWS: You should get your answers, never mind about the time.

MR. TOBIN: He should not worry about my time being up because he recognizes his own time is up.

If we are going to deal with the issues facing this Province in terms of the unemployment that exists from one end of the Province to the other - and I can speak about my own district.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. TOBIN: By leave, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It is 4:00, Thursday afternoon, and before I announce the questions for the Late Show, I remind hon. members in this House that it is unparliamentary for members to sit on a desk with their backs to the House. I ask hon. members, in future, to refrain from doing that.

The questions for the Late Show: The first one is, `I am not satisfied with the response of the Premier and the Minster of Forestry and Agriculture to my question about the closure of the Western swine breeding station.' That is from the hon. the Member for Humber East. The second question: `I am not satisfied with the answer to my question to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, re the Labrador travel subsidy.' and that is from the hon. the Member for Menihek. The third question is, `I am not satisfied with the answer from the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation regarding the Winterland airstrip.' That is from the hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

The hon. the Member for Eagle River.

MR. DUMARESQUE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to take a few minutes this afternoon to say something about the order of the day. First of all, I cannot help but pay respects to, and acknowledge the Member for Burin - Placentia West. As you know, while the House was closed there was some reorganization in the Tory Party, and I think it is time that the House passed on its congratulations to the Deputy, Deputy, Deputy, Deputy House Leader opposite, Mr. Chairman. I found it strange, because I didn't know how you would be able to move from a Deputy, Deputy, Deputy House Leader to other more prominent positions in the party hierarchy opposite, but one of the hon. members over here pointed out to me the real reason that the appointment did not go further was because the Leader of the day doesn't smoke cigars. That is it, Mr. Chairman, because if he had smoked cigars I am sure he would have been able to bring back his old ability to `flick the bic', as one member said, and light up those old cigars, as he was used to doing before to previous leaders. I am sure that is what kept him from moving over to the other seat, closer to the Leader of the Opposition.

Now, the Member for Burin - Placentia West, certainly has what it takes to fit that position, and we should all be satisfied that he is there doing what needs to be done.

But what really amazed me, coming from the hon. member, earlier, was his holding forth about, you know, `This Government cannot go on making promises; they cannot go on saying they are going to do something in election campaigns and not do it. He said, `What happens to the fairness and balance, Mr. Chairman?'

Well, of all members to say this particular type of thing, at all times, is the Member for Burin - Placentia West. Only a couple of days ago, the hon. the Minister of Development went down to some place in this Province, stood up with the cameras of CBC over his shoulder, and signed a deal, one of the greatest, biggest industrial developments in this Province.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: Now then, is this a promise or is this reality? Is this 500 jobs or is this 200 jobs? Is this 300 jobs, indirectly, or is it not? Is this $21 million dollars of money back to the Government or out to Mount Pearl? Is that where it is, Mr. Chairman? Is this the economic strategy of this Government, saying that we are going to do something and going out there and getting $21 million back to the taxpayers of this Province, so that we can produce long-term, meaningful employment for people, and for the people on the South Coast of Newfoundland not because they have elected the Member for Burin - Placentia West, but I would say, in spite of the fact that they have elected the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

What we are seeing here is a Government committed to fairness for all people in this Province. That is why, I am sure, the Minister of Development was so proud, and I cannot believe that at the first opportune time, that member would not be on his feet saying thank you, thank you, bowing down and saying, Please do that kind of stuff, as we all want you to do; so I can see people coming back from Ontario and other places to work in the shipyard, and so on. How come, the mentality of the Opposition is always so negative? How come they cannot stand up and acknowledge the virtues of the people over here? How come they always have to be so critical for the sake of it? One would have to question why they are over there, I suppose, but after all, it is things like this that puts people in Opposition and, I submit, will keep them there for a long time to come.

So, Mr. Chairman, we are seeing what he says: When is the leadership going to come to this party? Well, I mean, I was on "Straight Talk" the other day with the Member for Green Bay, and with his head almost down to his navel, he was saying: `We have a new Leader, now.' He could not keep a straight face, let alone have a straight talk. And, Mr. Chairman, there is no new Leader. Sure, the same fellow we saw over there for the last couple of years is still there.

AN HON. MEMBER: They recycled him.

MR. DUMARESQUE: Yes, and he has a couple of Deputy, Deputy, Deputy people closer to him, but that is where he is. What we are seeing here now, is leadership personified, in this Province. Canada is saying this is where leadership is, not in British Columbia, not in Ontario, not in Quebec, it is in Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Chairman. And I know it is very hard to take when you are struggling to get up over 10 per cent in the opinion polls; I know it is very hard when you are trying to get over the GST and popular opinion; it is very hard knowing that if an election were called today, not one of them would be left over there. They would all be wiped out, and nobody wants that - well, one, is there? Maybe the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes would be back. He has performed impeccably, Mr. Chairman, since he has come here, and, certainly, I know his constituents would have to think twice about not returning that member. But I do not think there is going to be any doubt about Burin - Placentia West, the next time around, Mr. Chairman, I can tell you that.

Mr. Chairman, we cannot help but take this opportunity to say to the members opposite that it is not comfortable, we all know it is not comfortable when you are in that position, when the lone member of the NDP has now jumped ahead of all seventeen over there; it is not easy, and that is when he is getting coaching from the gallery, Mr. Chairman. Imagine if he had his leader in here - I suppose he would be firmly in second place.

So, Mr. Chairman, we will continue as we are doing, providing the leadership that we have been renowned for all across Canada. We will continue to pursue the kinds of meaningful projects that we have just delivered to the member's district, Mr. Chairman. We will continue to show the people of this Province strong, accountable, honest leadership, and be able to put in place the kind of economic activity that I know hurts, but, Mr. Chairman, has to be done. We are going to take over the finances of this Province as they have not been before, when there was not intellectual honesty, vision for this country and this Province, and the hon. members got kicked out.

We are going to put in place now, Mr. Chairman, as we have shown up to this point, good, solid, meaningful vision for this Province. Indeed, Mr. Chairman, it will be a hard pill to swallow, I know, if they are not all back here the next time around, but that is the way things go. And the Member for Burin - Placentia West, maybe, if he gets back, and he is the only one back, may move on up to be the Leader of the Opposition, next time, Mr. Chairman.

I am going to conclude with that for today, Mr. Chairman, and maybe in the next day or so I will talk about some more of the substantial policy of this Government now that we are moving to finally put some sense back into this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

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

MR. HEARN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. After listening to that speech, I can see why the Premier says the member is not mature enough to put in Cabinet.

While we have the Minister of Justice, and the minister responsible for Consumer Affairs with us, I understand, I think it may be time to look at the expenditure under the heading of Justice. Criminal Law, Professional Services, an extra $315,000, and it may be worth his while to explain where that is going. I wonder if he will tell us if any of it is going to help offset some extra costs that the Constabulary have run into in relation to the towing away of cars. That is an issue that everyone seems to be ducking, but it is the understanding from people who have been affected, who have had their vehicles towed away, that some of them have had to pay through the nose, others have been told not to worry about it, that the cops will pick up the tab. So, if that is the case, I wonder how much money is being spent by Government, because somebody, Government, I presume, goofed up in calling tenders. Now, I will just rehash for those who are not familiar with the problem.

I was driving down the street a few days ago, when a wrecker passed me, and on the side was `Official Police Tow-Away Vehicle'. I understand that the Government, the Department of Justice, undoubtedly, sanctioning a tender call from the Constabulary, or maybe called them directly, called for tenders for towing away cars that had been involved in accidents, or for any other reason the police would want them removed. You just cannot pick up a phone now and call the nearest garage and say, `Can you come and remove this car?' You must go to somebody who has bid on the job. In the round of bidding, I understand, many of the operators came in with reasonable charges, whether it be twenty, or twenty-five, or thirty dollars; but these bids didn't get anywhere, because some individuals came in bidding one dollar fifty, one dollar, ninety-nine cents, to tow away cars. If you bid on a job, well, that is what you should get ninety-nine cents. However, what is happening is that when the cars are towed to a compound, when the owner goes to get the car he does not have to pay the tow charges he always had in the past, the ninety-nine cents, he has to pay for storage, care and everything else. People have paid, I understand up to $400 to get cars back where they are only suppose to pay the towing charge. Now, somebody has made an awful mistake and the person who is paying the price is the consumer. If it is in the tender that the guy who tows away your car can charge what he likes well then he is only doing what he is legally allowed to do. If he bid on the removal of vehicles realizing that the people who owned the cars always in the past, winter towing, or whatever, when you went down to pick up your car you had to pay the towing charges. Now people are paying through the nose for a ninety-nine cent tow job. You could have fun with that, but that is exactly what is happening. On some occasions, at least, individuals who have protested that they should only pay the ninety-nine cents, which is what the company, whatever, I do not even know who has the job so I am not trying to nail anybody here, I am just talking about principles, they were told, well, pay your ninety-nine cents and the cops will pay the rest. I wonder if the Minister will tell us if the Newfoundland Constabulary or the Department of Justice has been paying extra because the companies who tow away the vehicles are only charging ninety-nine cents for the job, because if that is what they bid that is what they should get? If they bid ninety-nine cents to tow away a car then they should get ninety-nine cents for the job, but what they are doing, of course, is collecting the ninety-nine cents from the Department of Justice, or the constabulary, whoever, the same money, and charging the owners onerous fees in some cases at least, for having the vehicle towed away and impounded. It is extremely unfair and unless the tenders are tightened up then it certainly leaves the thing wide open to abuse and the people who are affected are, of course, the individuals who have their cars towed away.

Mr. Chairman, there is one other area I would like to touch upon while we have a few minutes, and that is on Municipal and Provincial Affairs water services funding. We have this year, once again because of a lack of funding in that area, several communities which are in dire straits in relation to the provision of water and sewer facilities. The Minister so far, I do not think, has made his - I do not think we have a list from the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs of the projects approved. Whether or not the Minister is doing the same thing as the other Ministers in setting up his own areas we will have to wait and see. I was told the day before the Minister made his announcement that the Member for Bellevue was out announcing that people were going to go to work on a water project because they were getting money out of the new programme. Now, if that is happening then it seems that all of this was earmarked before the money was even released. We are looking forward also to getting the list from the Minister of Municipal Affairs to see what jobs he created and what areas were served, when we know that other areas have on record for quite some time requests for funding where they are in extreme need. Everybody has been told there is no such thing as emergency funding: We cannot give you emergency funding anymore. We find out now that the money that used to be there when communities ran into trouble is being siphoned off to create jobs in areas where it benefits the Members most. Mr. Chairman, hopefully we will get some response to this but I certainly would be interested in the Justice Minister explaining the situation in relation to car towing because it is becoming quite a contentious issue. As I say I am not trying to nail anybody, I am not aware of the individuals involved, I am just aware of facts that were brought to me by people who were directly affected and who feel they have been ripped off.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to take a few minutes in this debate in committee, if I could, to provide some additional information to the House relative to the Emergency Employment Response Programme. Since a good bit of the money involved in this bill is to fund projects under that programme I would just like to begin by summarizing and indicating that in the short-term aspects of the programme, which were delivered through the Department of Social Services, the Department of Provincial and Municipal Affairs, the Department of Forestry and Agriculture, the Department of Environment and Lands, and the Department of Employment and Labour Relations, in the monies that were allocated in that area, some $9.5 million or so, you have had an indication already from the Minister of Social Services as to the most accurate breakdown that is available up to today.

Many of those projects are in a state of flux and are changing a little from day to day. The numbers in terms of people impacted and the number of persons who will benefit will continue to change because of the very nature of the short-term projects, in that as a person basically receives enough work to qualify for unemployment insurance benefits throughout the rest of the year, they are expected to leave the projects and other individuals are expected to move into the projects to also allow them to qualify for assistance for the rest of the Winter. The $4.5 million has been allocated in social services. The Minister is monitoring the projects on a daily basis and the indications as were provided from him in the information tabled is that there is the expectation of 1888 jobs, that there would be 18,880 work weeks and that really the whole amount basically has been pretty well allocated and will be re-allocated if there is any kind of return or slippage in any parts of the projects.

I would just like to mention for a second that in my own Department of Employment and Labour Relations to date we have in Labrador $150,000 allocated to some ten or eleven different projects - if they were not tabled they can probably be tabled very soon - in the different communities in Labrador, in the districts of Eagle River, Naskaupi, and Torngat Mountains. I do not believe there were any projects of the ones from my Department in the district of Menihek, but in the other three there were. If that is not already tabled before the House we will make that available very soon because those projects are up and running. In the Department of Employment and Labour Relations as well as in the Department of Provincial and Municipal Affairs we did make a special conscious effort to allocate monies immediately and directly for the communities in Labrador because of the need to start the work early due to weather conditions and the like, as everybody understands. I am sure, Mr. Chairman, that all hon. Members of the House will agree. There was $150,000 in the Department of Employment and Labour Relations and $150,000 from the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs that the Minister tabled last week to get early starts on projects in the Labrador part of the Province. Those projects, in most cases, are up and running. The people are already at work and already receiving the direct benefit intended from this type of make-work project.

Within the Department of Employment and Labour Relations as well we have just gotten final word that a joint project we were working on with the Federal Government through CEIC, they have co-operated with us extremely well and we are funding to the tune of $100,000 a literacy project to be delivered throughout the communities of Labrador by the Labrador Community College. We have just gotten the indication in the last day or so that the Federal Government will manage to stretch their guidelines to allow the people that attend this literacy program to have their benefits accrue and to have them accepted as unemployment insurable benefits. Previously people in those projects would get the money but they did not count for unemployment insurance. They are going to stretch and bend the regulations and rules because of the special needs in Labrador. We will be spending $100,000 immediately through the community college to train some forty tutors and those forty tutors will involve as many people as possible, as can be funded through CEIC funding, in a literacy programme in just about all the communities on the coast of Labrador throughout the winter. As they attend the literacy project the earnings that they derive will enable them to future entitlements under the Unemployment Insurance scheme as well. So we are very pleased with the level of co-operation that we received from the Federal Government on that initiative.

In the Department of Employment and Labour Relations as well, Mr. Chairman, we also allocated $100,000 to school boards in the Province for other education related initiatives. We found that a number of boards wanted to do repairs to their facilities and also to the grounds, and they wanted to take inventory of the materials and equipment that they had in the different schools in their districts, and I will be in a position in a day or so to table again the final list of which school boards, which schools, how many projects, how many jobs were actually created, and how many people are involved in educational initiatives through the boards.

The Department of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr. Chairman, also set aside $100,000 for projects that were of an environmental nature because the Minister of Environment and Lands, in the monies that we had allocated to him, could not meet anywhere close to the full need, and recognizing the general acceptance publicly and by all members in the House of initiatives that have an environmental impact and can have a positive long lasting environmental impact into the future, that we allocated an additional $100,000 in the Department of Employment and Labour Relations towards projects that were identified for us by the Department of Environment and Lands.

We expect tonight and tomorrow morning that myself and the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs will be in a position to do allocations for the final amounts of money in the Department of Employment and Labour Relations. There is some $550,000 remaining for allocation for short-term make-work projects. The expectation now is that we will be able to fund some nineteen projects from that money and put the additional numbers of people to work.

To date under short-term there have been 225 projects approved under the short-term programme in the departments that I named earlier. There is a total of 24,310 weeks of employment that have been created and generated through those 225 projects, Mr. Chairman, and there are 2,616 persons working to date. We expect that number to increase, as I indicated before, by the very nature of the projects whereby some people will satisfy their requirement for unemployment insurance and move off the projects, and others will move into the projects.

Of the 24,310 work weeks already assigned we expect to be able to impact significantly more than the 2,616 people to date, and we have expanded and allocated very close to $7.5 million so far. As I indicated, there will be another, just over half a million dollars allocated, probably ready for announcement tomorrow in the Department of Employment and Labour Relations, and there is some $850,000 in the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, which we are in the final stages of allocating, and that will be split in some way on pretty close to a 50/50 basis: about half of it for recreation type projects in that department, and the other half of it or thereabouts for local service district projects relating to water improvements in communities that do not have councils, and other projects that they have identified and have on file as requests in the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

So I am fully hoping, and I speak on behalf of the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, he is hoping that he will be in a position tomorrow to inform Members of the House of the allocations so that those projects can get into swing probably as early as next week, and we hope to be able to add significantly, Mr. Chairman, to the numbers that are indicated. For purpose of the record I will probably take this opportunity to table this summary list of the 225 projects. There is no listing of them, but just so you would have a capsulized form of the information to date: 225 projects approved, 24,310 weeks of employment, 2,616 persons impacted to date, and $7,462,000.50 allocated out of the total.

At another point I might have an opportunity, Mr. Chairman, to give an update on the long-range programmes that we have discussed in terms of employment generation, linkages, and employer based training. So I would like to at this time table this information for purpose of the House, and hope to be in a position very soon to give the rest of the information as required, to make sure that everybody understands where the funds are allocated to date.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Chairman, I guess we only have a minute or so before we enter into the Late Show. Perhaps, with the permission of the Government House Leader, we can go directly into the Late Show. It is only thirty seconds or so, I guess. It would probably be just as well if we went straight into the Late Show now, it being Thursday. I can talk about the Supplementary Supply bill, if you want, for thirty seconds or so.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Are we going to pass it? Oh, I don't think so, because you didn't give us the answers we wanted. We wanted the jobs and so on, like the Minister of Social Services did. We have his list here, which is pretty detailed. We can look at it and see the jobs, each region, each district office, the jobs that were approved and the monies that were allocated. There were some positions approved and not yet hired. We can look at his very quickly and determine that his list is pretty complete. As well, we can determine from the list of the Minister of Social Services' list that Placentia, his home turf, was by far, the big winner, such a big winner, in fact, that they even got more money than St. John's West and St. John's Centre, which was a very interesting fact. Of course, that is why we wanted to see the list, Mr. Chairman, to see exactly where monies were allocated about the Province, how much, and the number of jobs.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

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

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): The hon. the Member for Trinity - Baie de Verde.

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

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

Debate on the Adjournment

[Late Show]

MR. SPEAKER: It now being 4:30, and having the motion before the House to adjourn, I call on the Member for Humber East to state and debate her dissatisfaction with an answer.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to speak about the Government's mistaken decision to close the Western Swine Breeding Station at Pynns Brook. By way of background, last summer, in July 1991, the Government shut down the Swine Breeding Station at Pynns Brook and moved the animals and equipment from there to the Central Swine Breeding Station near St. John's. The Government had announced its intention to do this in the Budget Speech on March 7. Now, just three weeks prior to Budget Day on February 14, the Hulan Task Force on Agri-Foods, which had been appointed by this administration, gave the Government their report.

In the report, which I have here, Mr. Speaker, the Hulan Task Force specifically recommended that the Government continue to operate the Western Swine Breeding Station at Pynns Brook. In the report, the Task Force members praised the achievements of the Swine Breeding Station in the Humber Valley and wrote about the potential for a new business.

The Hulan Task Force on Agri-Foods noted that Newfoundland has had remarkable success in producing swine breeding stock of superior genetic quality, and said that Newfoundland has the distinction of being one of the few areas, if not the only area, of the whole world with disease-free swine status. The Task Force identified the business opportunity of Newfoundland exporting breeding stock, exporting superior swine which have been bred and can be produced here, taking advantage of our past achievements and our disease-free environment.

Now, yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I asked the minister responsible for agriculture, and then, the Premier, why the Government made this move. Why did the Government close down the Western Swine Breeding Station? Why did the Government do the exact opposite of what the Hulan Task Force on Agri-Foods recommended? And why did the Premier renege on one of his election campaign promises - yet another promise - in this case, the promise to decentralize the Provincial Government?

Now, Mr. Speaker, in their responses, the minister and the Premier said the basic reason for the decision is that the Government could afford to operate only one swine breeding station, and since -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I want to interrupt the hon. member, because there are a couple of things going on which I have ruled on previously. I have told hon. members in the past not to turn their back on the Chair or on the House, and I have noticed that going on. Now please, for the sake order and decorum, I do not want to repeat that again. In the past, we did not have to do that, because we did not have rotating chairs. We now have rotating chairs, but it is a fundamental rule of Parliament that a member not turn his/her back on the House and by implication of that, that they not turn their back to the Speaker.

The hon. member may continue. I am sorry.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I was saying, in their answers to my questions yesterday, the minister responsible for agriculture and the Premier said that the Government closed the Western Swine Breeding Station and consolidated that operation at the Central Station near St. John's because the commercial swine farmers are all on the Avalon or in the central region of Newfoundland, and they implied that it is sensible to have the Government swine breeding operation as close as possible to commercial operators.

Now, Mr. Speaker, on the surface, that sounds plausible; however, in reality, from the research I have done, I have determined that it is, in fact, advantageous to have the swine breeding operation away from other swine farms. By having the swine breeding unit some distance from other swine operations, there is much less risk of contamination, and there is a much greater likelihood of maintaining the unique disease-free status.

Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, provision of the superior breeding stock produced, to commercial farmers in Newfoundland, is but one of the opportunities for the Government's swine breeding unit. The other opportunity is the business opportunity cited by the Hulan Task Force, namely, the chance to sell to the mainland and, indeed, to other nations, the opportunity to export -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

I have considered my interruption and have given additional time.

MS. VERGE: Mr. Speaker, could I just finish my thought?

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, come on!

MS. VERGE: Just to round it off, Mr. Speaker -

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

MR. SPEAKER: No leave, I am sorry. The Chair cannot grant it when hon. members are not gracious about it.

The hon. the Minister of Forestry.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, what hogwash!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FLIGHT: What drivel! What hogwash coming from the hon. Member!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: Yes. As the hon. Speaker will know, and certainly as the hon. Member for the Straights will know, there is a well-known passage in the Bible, `Cast not your pearls before swine, for they will trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you.'

Now, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member might well be casting pearls before swine. In the early '70s, the swine breeding station on the West Coast was established in the belief that the hog industry in Newfoundland was going to grow and expand. It did not happen. By the '80s, there was only one hog-producing facility west of the Avalon Peninsula: Lewisporte. Newfoundland Farm Products shut down their pork-producing line in the Western Swine Breeding Station.

Now, as the Premier indicated to the hon. member - she talks about centralization - What does she want us to do? - Shut down the thirteen producers on the Avalon Peninsula? - Or take the thirteen producers on the Avalon Peninsula and move them to Corner Brook? - Or close down a two-man facility in Corner Brook? And here is the kicker, listen to this. I am looking to see - there is one, but he was not there long enough, I suppose, so therefore I would understand. For the ten years prior to this administration taking office, the officials of the Department of Agriculture advised the ministers of that department to close down the Western Swine Breeding Station - that it was a waste, and to close it down.

Officials from the department - and where was the Minister? She was a Member of Cabinet. I will leave it to the House to decide why they did not take that advice. What would the hon. member say if I told her that I have unquestionable evidence from professionals from outside of Newfoundland that the genetic progress may have been retarded as a result of the Swine Breeding Station in Corner Brook?

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: What would she say if I told her that maintaining the swine breeding station in Corner Brook may have had a detrimental effect on the entire swine production in Newfoundland? What would she say to that?

AN HON. MEMBER: She doesn't know the difference, boy.

MR. FLIGHT: What would the hon. ex-Minister of Agriculture say to it?

MR. WOODFORD: Who's doing that? People from outside the Province!

MR. FLIGHT: People who know, Mr. Speaker. Now, the fact of the matter is simple. The same functions that were going on at the Western Swine Breeding Station are continuing in - nothing is being put to risk. The disease-free status of our hogs is being maintained at the Central Swine Breeding Station to the same extent that it was maintained in Corner Brook. Nothing has changed, other than that the function is now in the Central Swine Breeding Station.

AN HON. MEMBER: Old rubber boot gang.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, if she and her colleagues had followed the advice of their officials in Agriculture, the Western Swine Breeding Station would have been closed years ago and the function moved to the Central Swine Breeding Station. She shakes her head. She wasn't aware of the advice that was coming from the officials in Agriculture. Well, she should check it. Because the only thing that government paid attention to in Agriculture was the production of cucumbers. Everything else was forgotten!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FLIGHT: The swine breeding station, the hog industry, Newfoundland Farm Products - all forgotten. In the first two or three years of Sprung, to talk, was to talk about nothing but the greatness of Sprung; in the last month or two, it was to prop up the present Member for Humber Valley, to say what a great job he was doing. And you know, he is talking to Kenny Rogers, now.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave, by leave!

MR. FLIGHT: Any time at all, now, Kenny Rogers is going to come in and take over.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Menihek.

MR. A. SNOW: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not satisfied with the answer to the question that I posed to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. The question was concerning the Labrador travel subsidy program, and the fact that there has been $312,000, I believe, allocated for that particular program this year. We find that we are just a little over halfway through the year and all the funds have either been spent or committed, thus excluding practically all of the winter sports. Mr. Speaker, I am not satisfied - whether the Minister attempted.... I notice he is not ready to give the answers to the question that I posed. I am assuming that somebody else will.

He suggested in his answer today, and I quote from Hansard, that the "travel subsidy for sport and culture in Labrador is administered locally in Labrador by a committee responsible and that committee of course saw fit to spend and allocate all of the monies available in the first half of the fiscal year...." Mr. Speaker, undoubtedly other Members are aware, and the Minister should be aware, there is no such committee. There is no committee on the allocation of funds. Now the Minister of Finance is questioning whether or not that is true. Well, the fact is, I do not know if the Minister deliberately attempted to mislead the House, or he just did not know the facts. But the officials of the Department are the people who make the decision with regard to allocation of funds. They are supposed to make every effort to ensure that the funds are given out in an equitable manner. In this particular case they did not.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: Mr. Speaker, could I have order please?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member has asked for order and I ask hon. Members to please grant the request.

The hon. the Member for Menihek.

MR. A. SNOW: Mr. Speaker, maybe the people on the other side - most of them are from the island portion of the Province - do not think this is very important. But let me tell you that the hundreds of athletes who cannot afford to come out here to the island portion of the Province and participate in sporting events, or cultural groups that want to travel to the island portion of the Province, think this is important. Now you may not think this is important, and the hon. Minister of Finance can laugh and chuckle all he wants. But it is important to the people of Labrador! They do not appreciate this manner of attack that this Government has placed upon them.

Now, I want the Minister responsible for Municipal and Provincial Affairs to be honest with this House and the people of Labrador who are affected by this grant. The people who are associated in all the winter sports are going to be affected because the Department did not make a 17 per cent adjustment in their budget allocation. The officials gave out the funds, not a committee as the Minister suggested. The Department officials. The Minister is responsible for the action of the officials in his Department so he is ultimately responsible for the spending of the funds. Not a committee in Labrador.

I would ask that the Minister be forthright and honest and fair with the people of Labrador and make a decision to allocate extra funds so that the winter sports can be treated in a fair and equitable manner, and they can participate in the winter sports and attend cultural events and annual meetings here on the island portion of the Province, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

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

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, I apologize that my colleague is not here to respond to the question in the Late Show. He had previous commitments and meetings. But I would refer the hon. Member to the Hansard of today. I think that the Minister gave a satisfactory answer. If that does not meet with the hon. Member's requirements - I would ask him tomorrow to bring forward more questions in Question Period.

AN HON. MEMBER: All we want is the truth!

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I've -

MR. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible) find money (Inaudible) every year. Ever since the programme brought in they had to get enough money for it. Every year they have had to get more money, every year.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Yes, Mr. Speaker -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I have recognized the hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I have a question. If the Minister of Forestry has no more to contribute to this Legislature than he contributed today he is better off leaving it. Now my question is to the acting Minister of Works, Services and Transportation. I had the opportunity to briefly ask the question today regarding the Winterland air strip. For some years now the Winterland air strip -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I think they should move the hog industry to the closest place the Minister is going. For some time now I have been involved in the Winterland air strip.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Yes, it would be good potential, Mr. Speaker. For some years now I have been involved in the Winterland air strip and I have asked various Ministers, particularly the former Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, to see what could be done. In fairness to that Minister I have to say that he really demonstrated a sincere effort to try to have something done for improvements to be made to the Winterland air strip.

As I understand it there were meetings that took place between the former Minister of Transportation and the former Federal Minister of Transportation, Mr. Lewis, when he was Minister, and again with Mr. Corbeil, since he became Minister, as well as - yes and with Miss Martin because I spoke to her as well.

I have had the opportunity as well to discuss with, not Mr. Lewis, the other Minister, and people from his staff; Mr. Crosbie has been involved in it and from the meeting that took place between the Province and the Federal Minister, there was a submission made out as I understand it as to the responsibilities basically of both governments and the federal Minister of Transportation took it back to Ottawa and said that he would look at it and see if he could find the federal funding for the - that was identified, that was submitted obviously by the officials of the Provincial department.

And again, as I understand it from my discussions with the various people, the Federal Department of Transport has now approved $676,000 under an agreement called the Local Commercial Airports Agreement; the Local Commercial Airports Agreement has the $676,000 and have now notified the Province, the Provincial Department of Transportation: we have accepted our responsibilities to the tune of $676,000 and they have written to the Provincial Department of Transportation. I have a copy of the letter they have, Mr. Speaker, which said: we have identified - and they then listed off the areas in which they were going to be involved and be responsible for and they have now said to the Province: here is our portion of the money and basically when your portion is put in place or on the information we have, you can proceed and call tenders.

My question to the Minister is: now that it has gone that far, there is a desperate need for the Winterland airstrip because of the developments as it relates to Cow Head and hopefully, the role that we will play in the offshore oil and the fact that there is a provincial carrier, ready to start flying commercially into the Winterland airstrip. All of that, Mr. Speaker, was talked about, debated and put in place I might add, when we were the Government that approved the Cow Head expansion and did things such as that, and I think that this Government has lived up to that commitment; I have to say that in terms of the airstrip in Winterland.

But now that the Federal Government has said: here is the federal portion of the money; when can we expect the Province to call tenders for the entire project which would include their portion of the money? We need it, Mr. Speaker, we need the answers. There is three-quarters of a million dollars there waiting to be taken, provided by the Federal Government. I do not know what the Province's contribution is. Maybe they are reviewing or looking up (Inaudible) -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I will just clue up. To the Minister, the question I guess is: when can we expect tenders to be called for the entire project?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board and various other portfolios.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is quite a bit to comment on and answer there. First of all let me assure the Member for Burin - Placentia West that the commitment is still there in terms of the Winterland airport. There is no doubt about that at all. An amount was recently announced from a 100 per cent - it was a Federal programme that is in existence and some money was in it and there is 100 per cent Federal funding, and some money was announced from that programme. Discussions are still ongoing in terms of the rest of the money, which involves essentially a choice between either constructing a brand new road or doing some work on an existing road that is much longer. Our view is it is better perhaps to go in straight. But anyway, that is something that has yet to be settled. So I would just like to assure him of our commitment to that particular project.

I would like to remind him that we have now hopefully solved for all time the problem of the Marystown Shipyard and we are very proud of that. We did not simply ignore that because the Member opposite was the Member for that district. As a matter of fact, I believe that according to the newspaper, the Minister of Development had both Members for the Burin Peninsula with him when the announcement was made, and they were part of the process. What I would like to point out is, that in the four years that I sat in Opposition never once did that happen. Never once was I notified ahead of time of any project in my district or anything like that. So things have changed.

I just want to point out to the hon. Member that things have changed and the Provincial Government has been pretty darn good to that part of the Province recently, and will continue to be. Our commitment to the airport remains. At the point in time where we are sure of what is going to be done to the rest of it, I will notify the hon. Member so he can make his announcement. That is all I can say and let's hope it does not take a long time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that this House do now adjourn. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against the motion, please say 'nay'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

MR. SPEAKER: I declare the motion lost. I ask hon. Members to join me here this evening at 7:00 p.m.


 

November 7, 1991         HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS           Vol. XLI  No. 66A


The House resumed at 7:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): Order, please!

On motion, that the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole on Supply, to consider a resolution of the bill related thereto, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to have a few words to say on this bill and what is happening, and what has been happening over the last little while in the process. First of all I want to bring your minds back to what happened last week when, during the course of debate, as I understand it, the Opposition House Leader had discussions with the Government House Leader, and at that time we were told of the necessity to have the Supplementary Supply Bill passed last Thursday - emergency - needed the monies. Then the debate throughout the course of the day was centred on attacking the opposition, threatening the opposition; if you do not let this go through you are going to be responsible for holding up projects and all of this kind of -

AN HON. MEMBER: Not true.

MR. SIMMS: Well that is what members opposite were saying.

AN HON. MEMBER: Check Hansard.

MR. TOBIN: I was there when you told (inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Chairman, hopefully the Government House Leader will give me a chance to have my say. Then he can get up and say what he wishes. I can only tell him that there were threats from members opposite -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: It is all a big joke, I guess, Mr. Chairman. It is pretty easy to see that the Premier is not here. All those who want to be too smart - they can carry on, Mr. Chairman. It does not really make much difference.

Nevertheless there were threats then, of course, that if we did not let the Supplementary Supply Bill pass, what was going to happen is that we would be responsible for holding up projects creating jobs. Then there was an adjournment, and to come back later that night at 7:00 p.m. because the Government decided to defeat the motion to adjourn. That is all fine and dandy. Then we found out, when we came back, prior to arrival, they did not need the money. There was no urgency. There was no emergency. Of course, an arrangement was made, an agreement made, well if that is the case there is no need to keep members here all night long if that is the situation. There was a motion to adjourn immediately, and it was carried.

Now, Mr. Chairman, we see something similar developing again here today. Presumably, although we have not been told now that there is an emergency - there has been no indication of a requirement for emergency - what they still do is decide to have a night sitting. That is fine. There is no problem with night sittings, either. There is nothing wrong with that, but the Government House Leader did not indicate to us any kind of an emergency. So I do not know what kind of a charade is going on, what kind of a game is being played by the Government opposite, by the members opposite, but let me tell them right off the bat, right at the outset, that this kind of shenanigan will not force us -

AN HON. MEMBER: If you cannot stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!

AN HON. MEMBER: What did he have for supper?

MR. SIMMS: - will not force us, Mr. Chairman, to cave in, to give in, under those kinds of silly games and threats.

Now the Government House Leader will have his say when his turn comes, and we will debate it throughout the evening; we will debate it tomorrow morning; we will debate it tomorrow afternoon if necessary, and we will debate it next Tuesday and next Wednesday, or whenever.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: We will.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh yes, we will.

MR. SIMMS: We will, unless the Government House Leader wants to bring in closure. If that is what he wants to do, that is fine. Let him do it, but I will tell him, if he is going to do it, he will not do it tomorrow.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why?

MR. SIMMS: - because he cannot do it tomorrow.

So I want to make that point, and I want to make sure that members opposite understand what is going on here. Again the Government House Leader has lost control, has not been able to properly manage the affairs of the Government in the Legislature, because there is absolutely no need of this. The reason there is no need is that we asked, last week, last Thursday, the Opposition House Leader asked the Government House Leader to have the ministers responsible provide information to us with respect to the projects that were going to be covered under the emergency program that was announced. A simple request. In fact, the Government House Leader himself felt that it was pretty simple because he said he would get it.

Now, Mr. Chairman, here we are the following Wednesday or Thursday a week later. We have one minister this afternoon again playing their little games, getting up and making an announcement for forestry projects, most of which, by the way as an aside, are all in Liberal districts, but that is not the interesting thing.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: I would say to the Minister of Finance, not 95 per cent of them. He can make all the jokes he wants. That is another issue. It does not bother us. But, Mr. Chairman, here is the game they are playing: the projects were announced by member after member over on that side eight or ten days ago - eight or ten days ago. Now we have a Premier over here who says his word is his bond, and he says we will get the information, we will not withhold information, we will not hold anything back, we will provide it to the Legislature. And what do we have? Members over there announcing all these little projects eight or nine days ago, which is fine, but then we ask for the information on a sheet to be tabled in the House, and we get it nine days later. Now you try to tell me that is not trying to stall, not trying to hold back or keep information from the people.

AN HON. MEMBER: Sleazy!

MR. SIMMS: Of course it is, Mr. Chairman. Of course it is. It is silly, tricky little games, and I intend to ask the Premier about it at an appropriate time too in the future to see if he supports this kind of nonsense.

AN HON. MEMBER: What did you do?

MR. SIMMS: Now the other thing, Mr. Chairman - what I did is nothing. It is not relevant. It is not relevant.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: If the Government House Leader wants to keep going back to the past, that is fine, but they are the ones who are proclaiming themselves to be the lily white knights, lily clean. That is what he is saying. That is what they have been saying as a Government -

AN HON. MEMBER: Continue with the lies, boy.

MR. SIMMS: - so they can continue with all the games, all the lies and all the rest of it that they want to, Mr. Chairman, but the people, in the end, will see through. Mark my words. The people, in the end will see through the games and the foolishness that they are playing.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the other thing I want to mention in my first ten minute segment is the report of the Minister of Environment and Lands. We have not seen a list being tabled by the Minister of Environment of Lands for his projects that he has approved as the acting minister. We cannot get that list tabled in this House, yet once again on October 25 Walter Noel announces an environmental project. That was twelve days ago on October 25.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: Here is some more for you now, you can applaud some more. Art Reid announced one on October 25 for Carbonear.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: Come on. Let's hear some more. You want to hear some more.

AN HON. MEMBER: Go back to the hospital and get at the front of the line.

MR. SIMMS: The hon. Bill Hogan announced one on behalf of the acting Minister of Environment on October 25, a project, a $20,000 grant to the town council of Placentia under the environmental program.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes I did that.

AN HON. MEMBER: If you are Bill Hogan you did.

MR. SIMMS: You had the minister himself announcing one on behalf of Mr. Dicks for the community of Steady Brook: $20,000 on October 25.

MS. VERGE: Not the MHA for the district.

MR. SIMMS: Not the MHA for the district.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the point I am trying to make is this, and members opposite can joke, they can laugh, and they can cajole, they can make all the fun that they want, and if that is the kind of game they want to play, then I say let them play it. But if they think we are going to play the same game, then I am telling you, Mr. Chairman, they have a lot more thinking to do. We are not going to play that game and we are going to take the Premier at his word.

Now if the members opposite do not want to take the Premier at his word, then that is fine and dandy, they can explain that to the Premier. They can explain to the Premier why individual members over there have been announcing projects ten days ago, and we cannot get the information in the people's House on behalf of the people when we are asking why projects are being done in certain areas, how much money has been spent, how many jobs have been created? Where is the taxpayers money going? Those are the questions we are asking and those are the questions we will continue to ask, no matter how frequently members opposite get up, make jokes, make fun, play politics, they can do it all they want, we will continue to ask the questions, Mr. Chairman, that we want to ask.

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I want to continue to discuss this very same issue that our Leader just brought to the floor and that is, Mr. Chairman, if the word of the Premier of this Province is worth anything -

AN HON. MEMBER: Well you know it is not.

MR. TOBIN: - there are people who doubt whether or not it is worth anything, but if it is worth anything, when are his caucus members and his Cabinet members going to have some meaning towards it? We have members and ministers going around this Province and the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, in my opinion, is the biggest culprit of them all. He thinks it is smart to be deceptive, to be the master of conception like his Leader -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: You said conception (inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: That is what I said. As a matter of fact, Mr. Chairman, that might be appropriate too, as it comes to dealing with these projects, but let me say that there are people in this Province who deserve the right to know what is happening. I ask the President of Treasury Board, if he will provide the House with the list that he promised. Our House Leader-

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I do not know. I know our House Leader came to us and told us that the Government House Leader promised he would provide the list to us as it relates to what was happening, but it is not right to deceive the people all the time. Deception is not right, let me say to the Member for Exploits, and should not always be practised. But I believe that if the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations can sit down with his colleague for Bonavista South, and can go through the list and show him what is approved for his district and then can get one of his colleagues, I believe it was the Member for Fortune - Hermitage, to come up and sit down with him and go through the list as to what projects were approved for their districts, then I do not know why, he cannot do the same for me or for the Member for Grand Bank -

MR. REID: You had more money in your district from social -

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

MR. REID: - services than anyone else had (inaudible).

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

MR. TOBIN: Maybe I have. Okay, assume that I have, but do I not have the right, the same rights in this Legislature as the Member for Carbonear? If he has the right to be - I do not.

MR. SIMMS: The Member for Carbonear will get his comeuppance, do not worry about it.

MR. TOBIN: I do not have the same rights -

MR. REID: No, I did not say that.

MR. SIMMS: Do not even think about it, ignore him. Do not pay any attention to him. People in Carbonear are ignoring him.

MR. TOBIN: - but what I am saying is that if the Member for Bonavista South can get a list of what is approved for his district, why can I not have a list of what is approved for my district? Why can I not have the same list? Why does the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations just give it to his own colleagues ?

I always had respect for the Government House Leader, but in the last few days I am finding that the word of the Government House Leader is not worth very much. It is not worth very much. He made a commitment to our House leader. He made a commitment to our leader. He made a commitment to the House, and he has gone back on every single word of it. When you look at the problems of unemployment in this Province, they are not just unique to districts represented by Liberals. There are unemployment problems by members represented here. I am sure my friend from Harbour Main, or Humber Valley, or any place else can talk about it. I know, for example, in the Member for Grand Bank's district, today there was a protest by the people of Lawn -

AN HON. MEMBER: Why?

MR. TOBIN: - because of the way that the -

AN HON. MEMBER: About their member.

MR. TOBIN: No, not about their member, their member is defending them, that is more than what is happening over there.

- but about the way they have been treated with these programs that are under way.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: They were in Lawn today (inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: I am really weak in Lawn. I only get 85 per cent.

MR. TOBIN: Yes, and that is probably one of the problems. That is probably one of the problems, the fact that Lawn does vote 85 per cent for my colleague from Grand Bank. That is why this Government has decided to punish the people of Lawn, and other places that voted for the Conservative party. That is probably the reason why there are no projects of any significance being approved in these districts. Why should the people of any part of Newfoundland and Labrador that is represented by members on this side not know about it? Why should they not have the right to have employment projects and projects created for employment in their districts? I have not been told of one single job for my district. I have not been told of one single job for my district - not one.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, let me say to the Member for Carbonear that while it is approved for the Marystown office, and I would suspect you are talking about social services because there is nothing else there, the social services office covers a lot more than the district of Burin - Placentia West. As a matter of fact the social services office takes in and covers now, the Fortune Bay area. It takes in Bay L'Argent. Since this Government closed the social services office in Bay L'Argent, since this Government eliminated the social services office in Bay L'Argent, since they took the administration for social services in Bay L'Argent and moved it to Marystown, the Marystown office now covers the Bay L'Argent office. It also -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Yes, it may be there - oh now they are trying to say that - the bottom line is that this Government has fired district managers throughout this Province, have eliminated their positions, have done a hogwash job, and now you have Marystown office with the same amount of workers, responsible for Bay L'Argent, Marystown, up in my colleague's district as far as Lawn, all of Burin, but there was no increase in the workers. The same thing happened in St. Mary's. The district manager's position was eliminated; the position is gone. Now the Placentia office has it, but they never supplied any additional staff to the Placentia office to handle the workload in St. Mary's. I would suspect, and I am sure the minister will address it, but I would suspect that part of the job projects for the Placentia office was also part of the St. Mary's office.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, it was all (inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Yes it was. The minister says it was. The same thing happens elsewhere. So that is what is happening in this Province. That is what is happening in this Province. The Minister of Employment, in particular, I have to be fair to the Minister of Social Services -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: No, he is not playing the games. He is not. I will be serious. He is not playing the games - the little, small, cheap, stupid, petty games that the Minister of Employment is playing - he is not playing them. I hope he does not play them, either.

The Minister of Forestry is not playing those games because he wants to, he is doing it because he does not know the difference. That is the problem with the Minister of Forestry. He is responsible for two departments. He gave us a mess for one and he gave us nothing for the other one. It is not because he does not want to, it is because he does not know the difference. I am convinced of that. I am convinced as well that the Minister of Employment is doing it because he thinks it is smart, he thinks it is big, he thinks it is something that will get everybody to laugh at him because he can do things like that. You have always played these games. He played it with the teachers of the Province when he was president of the NTA. We should not expect any better from (Inaudible) him in here.

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

The hon. Member's time is up.

The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

MR. EFFORD: Mr. Chairman, I cannot believe that I just heard the hon. Member for Grand Bank get up and make that statement. What a gall! Or is it, what a sook? What a sook! I mean, we are not sitting in this House tonight from seven o'clock to ten, eleven or twelve o'clock, asking for jobs to be put into a district. That is already done. The jobs are allocated and the projects are allocated. Why we are here is because the hon. member wants the right to go up to his district and announce a project. How childish!

I remember in 1985 sitting in the Opposition -

AN HON. MEMBER: How many did you announce?

MR. EFFORD: How many did I announce? Not only how many did I announce, but how many jobs did I get in my district. Do you know, from 1985 until 1989, there was a total of $85,000 spent in capital works, pavement and water and sewerage, in my district, from 1985 to 1989.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Shame! Shame!

MR. EFFORD: And that was promised previous to my election. The agreement was made with the Town of Brigus. Other than that, there was absolutely nothing.

Eleven women came in and took over the Office of the then Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs to try to get some drinking water, and the then Minister looked at them and said they did not have $10,000 to give them.

AN HON. MEMBER: How much?

MR. EFFORD: They were broke, they did not have $10,000.

Now, we hang up this House tonight because the hon. member wants to be able to go up to his district over the long weekend and announce the fact that a number of projects were given by him to the people on social services. The only difference that I see here, if I were there you would have Bay Roberts, Bonavista, Clarenville, Harbour Grace, Heart's Content, Placentia, and Whitbourne, but you would not have Grand Bank, St. Mary's, Bay L'Argent, or Marystown, because that is the way we were treated. If it was that Government that was doing this list, then the communities that I just spoke about would not be on this sheet of paper.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is there anything left up there to do, though?

MR. EFFORD: Well, there is. They are creating new communities up around the back roads. It is absolutely unbelievable!

I do not mind getting up and debating back and forth if there is something legitimate to debate. I do not mind standing up here for ten or fifteen minutes, or two or three hours, if you really want something for your district, you want a fish plant reopened or you want new roads or you want something. But when you keep this House open in the evening just to announce projects, knowing full well that for seventeen years there wasn't one project given to a Liberal District. If you got down on your hands and knees and begged forever and ever, it was Tory, Tory, Tory, Tory. If you were a Liberal District, you were cut out.

What was it the hon. Member for Harbour Grace, the former Minister of Public Works, asked, when anybody would come looking for something when they were sick or looking for a job? The first question was, "Are you a Liberal? If you are not Tory, do not talk to me." He actually said that publicly. He said that in the House of Assembly. On numerous occasions he said that in the House of Assembly.

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. EFFORD: What do you mean no? That is a fact, it is Hansard. It is there for everybody to see.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: You are right, pay you back for seventeen years of mismanagement and mistreatment. You are right, I would, and I would do it again if I had the opportunity, make no mistake about it. And that will be in Hansard, you can copy that anytime. Do not be hypocrites. Be men about it, stand up and own up to what you did for seventeen years. My goodness!

To look at a paper like this, I cannot believe my colleagues would do this. What fairness! My God, what balance!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. EFFORD: Oh, my! Oh, my! Oh, my! It is not my style of politics, I can assure you, but I have to support it because it is fair to the people of the Province. You should be proud. Go out tomorrow and photocopy it and bring it around and put it in all the post offices and all the clubs and everywhere so that people can read it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible), John?

MR. EFFORD: Oh, yes. 'Bony Sam' got this one. The hon. Member from Fogo can go back the weekend, $27,248. Let us go down: Glovertown; Harbour Breton - no, that is Liberal, is it not? Yes.

I have to say this. I have to congratulate and I have to welcome the hon. Member for Baie Verte - White Bay. He has been in here two days and he has $22,000 for his district. What a member!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. EFFORD: Now, 'Old Pinochle' from Springdale - my goodness! - $13,632. I mean, I thought the former Premier of the Province had everything in Springdale so well organized that there was no such thing as social services.

AN HON. MEMBER: Rabbit trails and everything.

MR. EFFORD: Oh, that was to put out some snares.

Anyway, let's get back to the main issue. Lets's be reasonable and cut out the nonsense. When you get a list like this - and the whole list is right here - and each and every district is treated fairly, nobody can argue. To waste the taxpayers' money just to pay the light bill here tonight, is absolutely ridiculous, to keep it open just for a list.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: But it is here, it is given to you, it is announced. What are you looking for? You have the money, you have the jobs better than was ever done in the last twenty years in this Province. Here it is. And you are looking now for what? What are you looking for? Do you want the hon. the Minister of Social Services and the hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations to spend a whole weekend up there with you going around announcing it. Do you want some dinners on Saturday night? I will be your guest speaker Saturday night, I will go up and announce it for you. No problems there. I would love the opportunity to go up and talk some good politics in your district.

Mr. Chairman, it is absolutely nonsense, and I think the hon. members, in all the years of playing games and politics in this House, know full well that the people of this Province are not listening and that fairness and balance is on this paper. You may not all agree with it but, nevertheless, Mr. Chairman, it is there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

It seems strange that in this Legislation most times when I speak in debate, particularly in the night sessions, I follow the Member for Port de Grave.

I just want to say a few things, Mr. Chairman. I say to the hon. member that I can understand why he wants to go out around the Province trying to get some dinner engagements for Saturday nights because from what I understand he did not even stay out with his own crowd last Saturday night for dinner in Gander, so I can understand why he would want to go to some other areas of the Province to try and have a Saturday night dinner with some friendly people.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: He could not take it out there so he came out of it. But I want to say to the hon. member and to others, I mean this whole debate has taken on a bit of a charade. We came back here last Thursday night because the members on the opposite side voted against the motion to adjourn the House at 5:00 p.m. Voted against the motion to adjourn the House at 5:00 p.m. last Thursday. I was back in my office for about between ten and fifteen minutes when I get a call from the Government House Leader saying: well, it really was not that urgent that we come back at 7:00 because he had found out some things that he did not know when they left the House at 5:00, that the money really was not an emergency.

Members opposite came back here last Thursday at 7:00 thinking full well that they were here until 10:00. They did not have a clue what was going on.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: That is right. But I am telling you now what went on.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) of the hospital.

MR. MATTHEWS: But don't go trying to play games. Just be upfront and honest with each other. We left here last Thursday at 5:00 - I did anyway - having (inaudible) the minister in the morning saying that you wanted the $500,000 for the environment projects for clean up, and I made an honest attempt to get that taken care of. We did not finish it by 5:00, we came back at 7:00, and in the interim we found out that it really was not an emergency to have the Supplementary Supply Bill passed last Thursday. As we know, we are still talking about it today.

The other thing was that we were supposed to have the answer supplied if we wanted this Supplementary Supply Bill passed. That is an undertaking that I took, as House Leader on this side, with the Government House Leader, and I still am prepared to keep that agreement, by the way, that if we get the list as we were told we would, then we would pass the Supplementary Supply Bill.

I want to say to the Member for Port de Grave, by the way -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: I was not here seventeen years ago. If I was here seventeen years ago I would not be here today, I tell the hon. member. I would probably be down in Florida somewhere with my feet cocked up rubbing Panama Jack all over myself, so do not blame me for what happened seventeen years ago. I am willing to take blame while I was here. While I was here I would take blame for whatever, but do not blame it on me.

AN HON. MEMBER: Blame it on Panama Jack.

MR. MATTHEWS: Blame it on Panama Jack and others.

AN HON. MEMBER: A pair of rubbers.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, and I want to say to the Member for Burin - Placentia West when he accused the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations about being the master of conception, I wondered if then we had gone back to the conversation earlier today when I asked the Minister of Social Services about the funding and so on: was he aware that people had to make a commitment that they had to purchase rubbers and other rain gear in order to take part in the employment programs, and I was serious when I asked the minister that today because I had been told that in some district offices about the Province -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: No, seriously, they said in order to be considered for employment on the brush clearing projects, which we all understand they have to work in rainy weather, that they had to commit to the district office that they would at least purchase this particular rain gear to be able to work on the program. So then they got called back and said: look, you cannot come now. You cannot come and work on the program. Now we know the answer. The department and the Government over committed by $400,000, and that is why I ask the question today.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: What was that again?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: There are still people out and about the Province, I say to members opposite and to ministers, who were called to come to work and were later rejects. All I am asking, and I think it is very reasonable, and the minister can very quickly find out what district offices called people to come to work and later called them back and said: I am sorry we cannot hire you because the department over committed. You could put a dollar figure on that, and all I am asking is can you accommodate those people since they were called and asked to come to work. I think that is a very reasonable request. I have people in my own area who were contacted accordingly. I am sure Members opposite have the same.

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. MATTHEWS: No. They are all taken care of. Well, we have problems. Some on this side have problems. I understand the Member for Lewisporte has problems. He is probably talking to the President of Treasury Board about it now. But there are problems out there where people were committed work and now they cannot come to work. A very reasonable request, I say to the President of Treasury Board. It is the President of Treasury Board, the Government House Leader, who wants the supplementary supply Bill, just a simple consideration: is it possible to accommodate those people who were contacted? Even though there are many more out and about the Province who need employment, can you accommodate those people who were contacted by the district offices and told to come to work? That is all I ask.

Now I want to say again to the Member for Port de Grave when he talked about the list. I must say it is a pretty detailed and extensive list that the Minister of Social Services has provided for us. I commend and thank him for it. Because this is what we asked for. We asked for the location, the amount of money and the jobs. Certainly with the kind of department that that Minister has to run - as the Member for Port de Grave would know, having been there as Minister - is not an easy department to run. It is a difficult department.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: It's not. I think it is. It would be difficult for me to run but then, most things would be difficult for me to run. I would think that the Department of Social Services is difficult to run. I say that very sincerely. As a matter of fact if a premier called me into his office and offered me the Department of Social Services I do not know if I would say yes, to be very honest with you. I do not know if I would. I say that sincerely. A very difficult portfolio with a lot of problems. But for that Minister to be able to deliver this list in that period of time tells me that every other Minister who has been requested for similar documents should be able to provide it quicker than it has been done.

So that is what we are asking for, Mr. Chairman. I say to the Government House Leader, who now is getting up for a little stretch and a little strut, that if he is sincere, if he seriously and sincerely needs the Supplementary Supply Bill that is before the Legislature that we are debating now, get on to his ministers who have not provided the information. The Premier said last - on October 31, when was that? Last Wednesday or Thursday? He said in Hansard: there is no trouble giving any information that is available. I do not have to direct ministers. He gave his commitment to the House that this information would be coming. But it still has not come. So that's -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, I know you had your list last Thursday and I appreciate that. I knew that when we came back last Thursday at 7:00 p.m. that you had your list. But I can tell you this, that we had an agreement, "we" being the Government House Leader and myself. The deal that we had made, as a result of him contacting me that this money was not urgent and he did not need it last Thursday, was that he would adjourn the House at 7:00 p.m., which he did. If it was not for that, if we had come back for a regular evening session and started at 7:00 p.m. till 10:00 p.m., you would have tabled your list and we would have debated it. But there was an agreement between two House Leaders. Because he called me to say it was not necessary that that bill be passed last Thursday, and that is exactly what happened.

Now the Government House Leader is not here and he got a little bit annoyed with me because I said that, but that is the truth. No one should get annoyed with the truth. That is exactly what happened, and we are back here now tonight again continuing the debate. Because as I said I want to keep the commitment to the House Leader that if we are provided with the information that we require then the supplementary supply Bill will be passed here. That is all we are asking. I do not think it is unreasonable. It is the deal we made. I am sure that the President of Treasury Board can get on to the couple of ministers who have not provided us with the information that we are requesting, and then we will take care of this matter as we should in a very reasonable manner.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Opposition House Leader gets up and rambles on about information and so on as if there was not a little game going on here, as if he was not playing a little game. The game is pretty obvious. There was a list given, I believe today for the first time. It contained a list of projects, places amounts of money, and everything else, and compared with what we use to get, Mr. Chairman, that was, as I indicated, a wealth of information, a veritable flood, an avalanche of information. That piece of paper contained an avalanche of information compared with what we were used to when we were sitting in Opposition. As a matter if you were to do a little bit of calculation, a little bit of mathematics, and it is easy to do in just a few seconds. You can deduce that if there is $400 or $500 going into a particular place that is one week's work and you can easy do your calculations to find out how many week's work is there. The number of jobs do not mean a great deal. Some people might only need two or three weeks, and some people may need ten weeks, so the number of people is not as important as the number of work weeks that are provided, and that can easily be calculated. Mr. Chairman, we gave all this information and what response did we get? Where is the list? You are not giving information. There is no information. That is what we got. Now, that is the kind of game that is being played, and we saw tonight, for the first time, the real reason for all this. It was pointed out by the Member for Port de Grave. It was not that the information was not given, because the information was given. Everybody knows that. If you were to read Hansard the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations read out a whole list of things. He did not have a list with him but he went over project by project the amounts and so on and nobody even listened. They did not even bother to read Hansard to find out what it was all about, Mr. Chairman. Tonight we find the real reason. All of a sudden their little noses are out of joint. All of a sudden it was noticed that a couple of members announced a couple of projects and they are all upset. Now, this is so different from what used to happen in this Province in the past. I remember I used to get lists and lists of projects from one previous Minister of Forestry of all kinds of good works that were going to go on in my district. Not only that, he would say to me, you go out and announce those now before I do. Mr. Chairman, that is what used to happen. If you listened to them you would swear that is what used to happen previously. Mr. Chairman, we have given information, we have given a lot of information, and if we were to bring a Household Movers truck up here with a full truckload of information it is obvious the pattern has now been established and they would find something that was not in it and say, where is the information? You are giving us no information. Mr. Chairman, this is a totally useless exercise. I say to members opposite that every bit of information we can give will be given, and has been given, and if it is not exactly in the right size of print, or not exactly the numbers they want, then that is just too bad. We are giving the numbers, and we will indicate where the money is spent. We have indicated where the money is spent. In the Social Services thing we passed out there was over $5 million identified even though there is only $4.5 million there to be spent. Now, that could cause us some problems but we gave them the whole thing, all the details, and all we get, Mr. Chairman, are complaints, they did not get a chance to announce them. That opportunity has passed. We cannot go back, reverse back and change the time, so the only conclusion, especially from what the Leader of the Opposition said earlier tonight, the only conclusion is that they are going to stonewall this one again. There are too few dollars for some make-work projects around the Province so they are going to stonewall this one and they are going to force us to the limit on this one. Now, that is the game that is being played there.

I know that there is not enough money there. I know that there are people who desperately need jobs in some of these areas. There is simply not enough money. I understand that. But what money there is allocated and is now starting to be spent must be supplied. That is the purpose of this Bill, a Supplementary Supply Bill. As I indicated to members opposite last week, I was told there was a very serious problem in one department. Not with the rest of - in one department, to the tune of $500,000, where I needed the supplementary supply last Thursday. The supply in that one item would have been good enough. So we needed that. The House was going to come back at night and I discovered that they had come up, during that afternoon, a couple of hundred thousand dollars that could be transferred as long as it was readily available to be transferred back again.

Now that is what this whole program is operating on now. It is operating on money that was not voted, has not yet been voted because we have not passed this supply bill, and yet money is transferred to be replenished when the supply bill is passed. So we do need the supply bill. It was a week ago when I thought there was an emergency in one department and tried to move to handle it. But then I was very quick. Within minutes of discovering that while the emergency did not really exist that day and that money had been found to keep it going a while longer, I contacted the Opposition and told them exactly. Very open, very straightforward and very honest. That is why we are here today.

So, Mr. Chairman, the Government will get this supply bill one way or the other. We need the supplementary supply; one way or another we do intend to get it.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to try to get this matter straightened out if I can. For the benefit of the Government House Leader. Because I think he misunderstands what is going on here.

As I understand it, in his conversation with the Opposition House Leader last week when he called him to explain the difficulty - or the difficulty that he thought he had, the need for the money for the Environment and Lands projects - the Opposition House Leader said: I will attempt to get the caucus to agree to let this go through if this is the case, if you would provide him - on behalf of our caucus - with a list of the projects, the number of jobs created, the amount of money and the location.

Now I believe that is fair. That is what the Opposition House Leader asked the Government House Leader. Now let's assume that is accurate, that that is the fact. Because we understand that is the fact. Let's assume it is. We then came into the House and had difficulty getting any of the lists tabled from the ministers. You will recall we had to continue to debate and argue it, and finally the Minister of Forestry, I think, was going to table some list. But he did not do it until today, November 7. This is a week later. He tabled his Forestry list. The Minister of Social Services tabled this afternoon his Social Services list. Okay? Now, this is after two days of debate, Tuesday and Thursday only. That was all we had, two days of debate. Then we were trying to get some information from the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

But the Government House Leader just got up and lectured us and said: we have given you all the information. But I say to the Government House Leader: can he tell me will he provide us right this moment - if I could get his attention just for a second - with the list of projects approved from the Department of Environment and Lands? We do not have the list yet from the Department of Environment and Lands.

So do not stand up here and pontificate and preach and say: we have given you all the information. Because you have not. The acting Minister of Environment and Lands has not provided the House through the Opposition, as per our request, with a list of the projects and the amount of money spent in each area, and the number of jobs created. That is all the information we ask for. Where the Member for Port de Grave gets off talking about: all we want to do is announce the - we could not care less. We are not interested. As he pointed out himself correctly, they are all announced anyway. So that is not the point. That is not the issue. If we were provided with the information that the Government House Leader promised the Opposition House Leader that he would provide him with, then this would be over, but it is like pulling hens' teeth. We still have not got the list from the Department of Environment and Lands stating the project, the amount of money, the location, and the number of jobs created.

You are spending $14 million dollars of taxpayers' money to create jobs in the short term. We commend you for that. We commend you for it. It is badly needed. We all know that. We face it every day out there. We hear it from our constituents. All we are asking, on behalf of the taxpayers, is where did you spend the money, and how many jobs did you create? That is not a very difficult question to answer, I do not think. Lo and behold, to use the Premier's own words himself, in Hansard of October 31, again a week ago, he says, when we asked him would he ask his ministers, direct his ministers, to give this information, the Premier says: There is no trouble giving any information that is available. I do not have to direct ministers to do that.

Well then, where is the information on the projects for the Department of Environment and Lands? Do not tell us the information is not available, because we have all the press releases that went out on NIS October 25, thirteen days ago, from different members.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: No, we do not have them all. We have some examples. We have some examples of press releases which we picked up this evening at supper time when we checked our offices up there.

It is a fairly simple request. Now he can get up and say, oh, you have press releases and everything like that, but we have asked the Government to provide the House with the information - quite a simple request. If the Government House Leader can fulfil his commitment and his promise to the Opposition House Leader, because he did promise to get it for him -

AN HON. MEMBER: We gave you the (inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: The forestry list - we said it does not identify -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: No. Mr. Chairman, if the minister would just relax for a moment, he promised the Opposition House Leader that he would get the information. The information he asked for was the project, the location, the amount of money spent, and how many jobs created. That is what he asked for.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) divide $400 into that (inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Well, not necessarily. We do not know that, Mr. Chairman. We do not know that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: What is so difficult about the minister having his staff tell us - Lourdes Development Association - the project was at Sheaves Cove, $50,000; how many jobs were created in that project?

AN HON. MEMBER: I can tell you the work weeks (inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Well that is all we are trying to find out, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: I already explained it to you.

MR. SIMMS: But you have not shown it on the list. Why did the minister not show it?

MR. BAKER: Because a lot of those are being done by development associations and so on. We do not know how many individuals will actually be involved. All we can tell you is the number of work weeks. If there are 100 work weeks, that could be one individual working 100 weeks, or 100 individuals working one week.

MR. SIMMS: But that is not there.

MR. BAKER: Divide by 400 and you will get the number of weeks.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Chairman, let's get serious! Get serious!

MR. BAKER: If you cannot do that, then there is something wrong.

MR. SIMMS: Get serious! Telling the House to divide it by - how silly are you? Why do you not just direct the ministers to show it on the list. Show it on their list - fairly simple.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) you have rental equipment.

MR. BAKER: (Inaudible) divide it by four.

MR. SIMMS: Is it all for staff? Is there anything there for rental of equipment, or anything of that nature? Who knows? A fairly simple request; but more directly, where is the list for Environment and Lands? We have not even seen that one yet, so we do not know what is on it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Pardon me?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Oh, that is a rather weak argument. Anyway, we can only just keep making the same argument. What I am doing is calling on the minister to fulfil his commitment, to keep his word. That is all we are asking, and to keep the Premier's word. He said: We will provide the information that is available.

We have not yet received anything with respect to the projects approved for the Environment and Lands Department. Let us see that. Then we will determine.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Development.

MR. FUREY: Mr. Chairman, what a great tragedy we are witnessing here tonight. The great Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador reduced to that. The great Party of Peckford and Moores, and the great leaders and previous leaders, Ottenheimer and others, what a great Party it was. What great confidence the people of the Province had - reduced to that. He is running away, he does not even want to hear it. It is a real shame that this Party did not have a proper convention with a proper leadership. Because the hon. Member for Mount Pearl -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FUREY: Because I will tell you something. The hon. Member for Mount Pearl, whom I know personally, is a vigourous debater and as partisan as they come, and as fierce as they come. But at the end of the day, Mr. Chairman, he brings a great deal of common sense to his argument.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FUREY: Mr. Chairman, the Member for Humber Valley, we share twin districts. He is a great debater and a great thinker, and a partisan, tough debater, and fiercely loyal to his Party. But at the end of the day he brings a sense of common sense to debate.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FUREY: Mr. Chairman, what we are witnessing here tonight is a classic case of political schizophrenia. What we are seeing here are people who just three weeks ago were flapping their jaws all over the Province, the Tories were, saying: give us jobs! We need jobs and the people must have jobs! They've got to have the jobs! They badgered us, they provoked us, they prodded us, and so we said: they are making good sense. They are making common sense. So we reached way down in to the coffers and pulled out $14 million for the people.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FUREY: Now, Mr. Chairman, we brought that $14 million to this Legislature. Bear in mind that three weeks before the Legislature opened the Member for Grand Bank asked for jobs; the Member for Harbour Main - wherever he was - asked for jobs; the Member for Humber Valley begged us for jobs; and indeed the Leader, the Leader who won the leadership without a contest, asked for jobs in this Province.

So we brought to this Legislature $14 million to create thousands of jobs. Now where is the political schizophrenia? Where did they flip? They flipped out, or they flipped over, or flipped off, or something flipped out. Because you cannot say three weeks ago: give us jobs. And when you bring to the Legislature the bills and the required legislative documents for appropriation, say: no, you can't have it! It does not work that way.

What is it they are saying that we cannot have? Here is what they are saying we cannot have. They are saying that the people in (Inaudible), in that good Conservative district of Port au Port, cannot have the $50,000 that they need in Sheaves Cove for those jobs. They are saying we cannot have it. They are saying that the people at the Southern Shore Development Association in the great Tory district of Ferryland cannot have the $30,000. Can't have it!

They are saying that the people in the great Tory district of Terra Nova cannot have the $80,000 to put the hundreds of people to work in the district of Terra Nova. And in Green Bay, and the Member for Green Bay is constantly after this Government. The former Peckford neophyte, the former executive assistant to Mr. Peckford, badgering us, after us for tourism dollars, after us for rural development dollars, after us to make jobs - we have $60,000 for him! And he doesn't want it! He does not want it.

Why doesn't he want it? Because the sheep are lining up behind the Leader who really did not win anything. And they are bleating out: me too! Don't give it to him! Have you ever seen anything so infantile, so childish, so ridiculous, in all of your life? Never. Give us the jobs! We give them the jobs: we don't want them. Give us the lists, give us the lists! But we gave you the lists. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jobs in forestry and agriculture, and the minister stands today and gives them the list of $5 million. And, what do we see? Fermeuse, in the great district of Ferryland $40,000, Corner Brook, the Member for Humber East $209,490, the Member for Humber Valley and Deer Lake $102,400, the Member for Grand Bank, the Opposition House Leader $135,945, the Member for St. Mary's $63,000, the Member for Marystown, whatever that dribble was that he got on with for ten minutes, $159,000, the Member for Grand Falls the great Leader who won the leadership without winning anything $140,000, Springdale $13,000. Mr. Chairman, then we move over to the next page, $7.6 million. Fermeuse again, the Tory district, $337,000, Corner Brook $155,000, Deer Lake again, the Member for Humber Valley - how can he be against this? $120,000, fifty-five jobs, people going to work. Piccadilly and Port au Port $266,000, Grand Bank again, seventy-two people hired, $186,000, St. Mary's $37,000, Marystown another $200,000, Davis Inlet in the great Tory district, for now, of Torngat, Wabush, and over we go to Fogo, the one term Member for Fogo $49,000, sixteen jobs in the great Liberal district of Fogo that fell off the rails for one term. Grand Falls again, the great Leader who won the Leadership without winning anything, $231,000, in Springdale $45,000. Mr. Chairman, we rest our case. We have a classic case tonight in this Province, and let the word go out to every single Tory district, that the Tories were against this. They were against the millions of dollars we want to pump into their districts, the hundreds of jobs for their districts, and it is all because they want to play petty, little, narrow-minded, xenophobic little partisan games. Can you believe that? I cannot believe it. People out there, quite seriously, are hungry. We are in a tough economy. We are in very tough times. We can cast blame back or we can cast blame forward but the truth of the matter is, Mr. Chairman, that this is a very temporary solution and we are just building a bridge to carry people through Christmas. That is what we are trying to do. It is just as simple as that, putting food on people's tables, giving them a modicum of dignity, and allowing them to go through Christmas with their heads held high. And, what are we doing at 8 o'clock on a Thursday night? We are playing games in debate about who had what list, when, where and why. We know what the Supplementary Bill says. It says give us the dollars to create the jobs. We agree with the Opposition. There has to be money put in place to build that bridge across so we put $14 million on the table to create thousands of jobs, albeit temporarily, to get them through until the economy lifts a little, till the fog lifts a little and we get a healthy economy. Many of those jobs, Mr. Chairman, are in Tory districts. I remember sitting where the Member for Fogo sits now, in the old Assembly, a member sitting there is Opposition, as the Member for Port de Grave rightly pointed out. I sat there for four years and in those four years, you talk about small and petty, I think they gave the District of St. Barbe which covers 200 kilometres of coastline, some of the most rugged coastline in the Province, which encompasses thirty-five small settlements stretched along like a necklace along that coast, they gave that area $200,000 over four years. Now, that is scandalous. It really is scandalous. There are no other words for it.

MR. MURPHY: It is shameful and disgraceful.

MR. FUREY: - but scandalous. We know what they gave Stephenville and we remember what they gave Twillingate -

MR. MURPHY: And the Strait of Belle Isle.

MR. FUREY: - and we remember what they gave the Strait of Belle Isle -

AN HON. MEMBER: And Eagle River had two.

MR. FUREY: - and Eagle River and all that.

MR. MURPHY: In one year they spent (inaudible).

MR. FUREY: - but we came to power in the spirit of fairness and balance and when we recited these numbers tonight, we wished we could give those districts even more than that and if we had the power and capacity and the fiscal capacity to do so, we would; we would, because we recognize how important it is. It is not a long-term solution.

The Member for Grand Bank should be rising in his place and saying "thank you very much" to the Government. " Thank you for putting that money in Grand Bank, thank you, and I am ashamed of myself that I am trying to stop it from going in Grand Bank". All he can do is sit there. Sit there as the young freshman opposition - you should read the Standing Orders or Beauchesne or something. Do not let me distract you, learn about the rules and stuff, learn some of the rules because the reality is he is easily distracted, but the truth of the matter is that Marystown, Grand Bank, those areas on the Burin Peninsula, you have to face those people the next time, and you have to tell them why you held up Supplementary Supply. You have to tell them that -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) you took bread off the table.

MR. FUREY: That is right, you have to come clean on that. I will tell you one thing though that the hon. member was for, and that he did campaign for in 1984, because I recall it. I was just getting ready to run myself in St. Barbe. I will never forget it. He and Brian Peckford and some of the others who are sitting there campaigned across this Province in a bus called "The Crusade for Prosperity", sign the Free Trade Agreement. They campaigned with Brian Mulroney to sign the Free Trade Agreement, they signed away hundreds of thousands of jobs to the US.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that the bus (inaudible)?

MR. FUREY: Yes, that is right, that is the bus and I will tell you something else that you will notice, they will get redder as we go. You will get redder as we go. I will tell you something else for which he campaigned, Mr. Chairman. Those members - you remember that, the hon. Member for Stephenville, the great bus, 'The Crusade for Prosperity, Free Trade? What a sell-out! What a magnificent, horrendous, monstrous sell-out of our birthright in this country.

I will tell you something else for which they campaigned -

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. FUREY: The Goods and Services Tax.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. FUREY: The GST.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who did?

MR. FUREY: The GST? They did. They cannot divorce themselves from Brian Mulroney, that is it. Len and Brian are in this together. GST, they ran on the GST label, they ran on the Free Trade label. They were for Meech Lake, just imagine, they sold out the country on Free Trade and then wanted to keep it on Meech Lake. I mean, what would have been left of the country and the last thing that they are for that we notice is, I have not heard one peep, not one iota, not one squeak from the opposition benches about what Ottawa has done to our equalization and transfer payments. That disastrous butchering of our right to have equal transfer payments, not one peep. I guess, Mr. Chairman, a Tory is always a Tory, and it is just as simple as that.

But I would urge hon. members to wake up and smarten up and let this bill through. There are too many jobs here and there are too many decent Tories on the other side with a modicum of common sense -

MR. MURPHY: Ah give us the bill boys, go in and have a talk.

MR. FUREY: - to keep holding this up. There are too many people out there, Mr. Chairman, depending -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It makes me nervous to hear the hon. Member. I did not appreciate these comments about divorce either, I might say to my colleagues. But they say: beware of Greeks bearing gifts. I thank the hon. member for his comments but they make me very nervous coming from that hon. gentleman, let me say.

The member indicated quite correctly the Opposition has indeed called for jobs on a regular basis, on a continual basis. We called for them during the Budget and prior to the Budget and begged this Government to put job creation programs in the Budget, to put programs in the Budget to generate economic activity. To put programs in the Budget to stimulate private enterprise and investment from within and from outside of the Province. We did not see that. All we got instead was a payroll tax which is driving businesses into bankruptcy.

Indeed we do want jobs. We want to know where the jobs are. It is our responsibility as an Opposition to find out what the Government is doing with this money. I spent some time this afternoon explaining why I think it is far too little and far too late. I will not go through that again. But I think we do have a responsibility and we do want to know where the jobs are. I say to the Minister of Development, I would like to know where all of the jobs are in this Province. Where are the 400 jobs that were in the Marystown Shipyard when he became minister? Where are those jobs today? How many jobs are there now after two years under the minister's position as a Minister of Development? Where are those jobs?

Where are the jobs that were at ERCO in Long Harbour when the minister took office? We would like to know where those jobs are gone. Where are the people who were working there? Are these the people whom the minister is trying to create a few jobs for down in Placentia? There are a lot of jobs that been created in Placentia, I hear, the last couple of weeks. Are these the same people? Where are the jobs from Daniel's Harbour? We would like to know where they are. Where are they now? Where are the jobs that were in Baie Verte? What happened to all of those? Those are the jobs we would like to know about. Where are those jobs?

Where are all the jobs that have been lost in Labrador West over recent months? Why are we losing all of those jobs? Where are the 3,000 jobs that this Government has cut from the public sector? Over $100 million taken out of the economy at a time when our economy is suffering more than we have ever seen it in recent history. Is that this Government's solution to the economic recession? Put another $110 million out of the economy, put 3,000 more people on unemployment or social assistance. Is that the minister's economic program? Is that his job incentive program? Is that the best he can come up with?

AN HON. MEMBER: Talk about your Federal transfer payments (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Yes, talk about Federal transfer payments. Who is saying: well, Mr. Mulroney has no choice, he has to balance the books? The Premier of the Province! He is the biggest advocator of the Mulroney economic program. He is the one who is talking about cuts. Not because he is a great admirer of Brian Mulroney, Mr. Chairman; because he is trying to hide behind him and piggyback on him. Have you heard him criticize GST lately? The hon. member talked about GST. Where has this Government been? They say we have not talked about it. This Government has not talked about GST.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Where are the jobs in the fishing industry, Mr. Chairman? We would like to know where they are gone? What has this Government done to help the fishing industry? A miserable $2 million. Fishery response program. The Minister is spending that doing new offices for himself across the street. He can only come up with $2 million. We are into a crisis in the fishing industry. Where are those jobs? Never mind these few, paltry make-work jobs to try to keep people from the starvation line all winter.

How about some real economic activity? How about some incentives for business and industry? The payroll tax, is that an incentive for business and industry? I ask the Minister of Development to stand in his place and name me one new program, one initiative, that this Government has come up with to help business and industry - one initiative that was not there before. Name one.

AN HON. MEMBER: Logo manufacturing.

MR. WINDSOR: A logo. That was something that I had in place years ago, too. I will be sitting down, and the minister can get up in my place. How is that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: The minister will have his turn, Mr. Chairman. I only have ten minutes. It is up and down on this. There is no need to give leave. I may not last ten minutes, because I have the flu. My voice is going.

Mr. Chairman, where are all the jobs in the tourism industry? The minister has made an honest effort to try to support the tourism industry, but he has not put any money behind it. A few dollars have come from Ottawa on Federal/Provincial tourism agreements. The minister cannot take credit for that. It is simply renewal of existing agreements. Where are the new incentives? Where are the new programs and the new ideas? I ask the minister, name for me a program that was not on the books before. In fact, he would be hard-pressed to find one that has not been cut - one of the existing programs that have been there for years. Where is the Newfoundland Stock Savings Plan? Where is the Venture Capital Program?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: This Government did not like those. That is borrowing money at too low an interest rate. It is okay to go to Japan and borrow it. They do not mind having those monies invested outside of Newfoundland. They just do not want investment in Newfoundland - a vehicle that private enterprise applauded loudly because it gave individuals and companies an opportunity to invest right here in Newfoundland. The facts show that there is $400 million a year going out of this Province, in investment going to other parts of Canada. We put in place a vehicle to keep some of that in Newfoundland, to allow people to invest their money in Newfoundland business and industry instead of having to give it to a trust company to invest in Toronto, and this Government eliminated it. This Government eliminated it. So where are the incentives? Where are those jobs, I ask the Minister of Development? Where are the jobs that have been lost since he has come into office? In a while he is telling us, that maybe he will tell us where these few paltry jobs are being created.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: It is not the issue here at all of where these couple of jobs are. There is some politics into it, because politics is being played, unfortunately. I would really like to know what this Government proposes to do to turn around the economy of this Province, and to give private enterprise an opportunity to thrive again in this Province, because everything that they have done so far has choked private enterprise, private initiative, and driven investment clearly out of this Province.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: There is the pettiness of it, Mr. Chairman. There is the pettiness. When they do not have an intellectual rebuttal, they come up with the petty little cat calls across the House, because they do not have the answers. They cannot find one decent initiative. You go through the Budget documents and find something that created jobs in the Budget documents, the three Budgets, I believe it is, that this Government brought down.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) created in seventeen years (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I created thousands of jobs.

AN HON. MEMBER: Tell us about it.

MR. WINDSOR: Thousands of jobs, and we saved thousands of jobs. We did not let them all close down like the industries I just talked about. We saved Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Mill by bringing Kruger in. We reactivated the oil refinery at Come by Chance. We saved the 400 jobs in Baie Verte for years. We saved the 400 jobs in Marystown for years. We saved the jobs in St. Lawrence Mines for years, under far more difficult circumstances than this Government is faced with today - far more difficult circumstances. This Province is bankrupt, Mr. Chairman, but not as bankrupt as this Government is of ideas.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Eagle River.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: Mr. Chairman, I must rise here again this evening to respond to the undue criticism that the member opposite is levelling at this side of the House, and on a number of fronts. Because as one who takes a great interest in parliamentary democracy, and one who takes a great interest in the institution of Parliament, I cannot help but be ashamed of people on the other side of the House who are using this House for just petty politics.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: That is what is happening in this Province today. This is the same Government that was over there. They are talking about this administration not being in a position today to give people the answers to some of their questions.

That was the mentality of those over there who did not believe in the institution of government, did not believe that it should function, that it should be open. The House of Assembly was not supposed to be opened for two years. That was the kind of mentality over there, and when they did open, they opened with twenty-four or twenty-five Cabinet Ministers on the payroll; they had everybody paid off so that they could control the House of Assembly. That was the attitude they had towards parliamentary democracy, the institution of government and the people's business, and talk about what they were going to be doing for the people of the day. What the people of this Province know right now is that even though their numbers are diminished, their colours have not changed. Their spots are still there. They are coming in here today to use this institution and this House of Assembly for their own partisan purposes.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: To the people of Piccadilly, as the minister, the hon. the member for St. Barbe, pointed out earlier, they are saying to all of those people out there - what, some 100, 200, 300, 400? - no, to the 3,000 people who are going to be affected directly and indirectly by the funding that has been provided, the $13.5 million that has been provided in times of dire economic straits. This Government has gone out and spent when there was nothing left. We had to put $550 million on the table just to pay off the debt of the last seventeen years -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: - the interest on the debt. How many jobs could that provide? - $525 million to interest on the debt. That is what we have to deal with in trying to provide good government to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The former minister of, I think it was Economic Development, in the last government, asks, Can you show me one job, one real job? Does he think that after he tells the big lie so often it is going to be true, that all of a sudden the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are going to say, obviously it has to be true, because the big lie has been told?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. DUMARESQUE: Where is Bull Arm?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. DUMARESQUE: What about the 1,000 jobs that are out there, good, solid, meaningful jobs, that our tradespeople are working at?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: Out in Cow Head, down on the Southern Shore, the $21 million that we got back for the taxpayers just a few days ago that is going to see 500 to 600 long-term meaningful jobs in Marystown? That is real!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: What about on the West Coast of this Province? Did we lie back and roll over and say no, we are not going to do anything - not going to even think about doing anything for people like the Member for Stephenville is doing for the people of Stephenville? Did we do that? No. One hundred and fifty long-term, meaningful jobs are there in the housing industry. That is what we delivered for that area of the Province.

I cannot believe the member opposite saying: What happened to the couple of hundred jobs that are right now in jeopardy in Labrador City - Wabush? I was in Labrador City - Wabush in 1981, 1982, and 1983 when Mr. Dinn came down and said: Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to have to dislocate some 2,000 units here in Labrador City - Wabush. He said: I am very, very sad to say that there are going to have to be some 2,000 units displaced down here.

AN HON. MEMBER: Peckford's speech in 1984.

MR. DUMARESQUE: Of course, the order of the day was, you are here in Labrador West, these units have to be displaced.

AN HON. MEMBER: What units?

MR. DUMARESQUE: These were the units that Gerry Dinn - he was the person who said, 'These units have to be displaced.' That was the kind of mentality that was there. So don't tell me about the jobs created that year in that place. I know what was there - I was there.

That was, of course, masterminded by the 'Great One,' the fellow who said: 'I am not afraid to inflict prosperity on Newfoundland and Labrador', the 'Great One', himself, the hon. Brian Mulroney, Chairman of the Board, CEO of the Iron Ore Company of Canada. He said: 'Don't wait too long, either, because I have to go to Schefferville' - another town closed down because of that, just on the other side of our border.

So I tell you, as a Member for Eagle River district, as a Member of the Liberal Government, I can stand here with pride, because I know that I have a Government, a Leader and a Cabinet behind me, working as no government have before, producing long-term, meaningful jobs for the people of this Province as we were duly elected to do. To think that I would have to be here today, with the situation that exists in our Province! There are in my riding hundreds of people who, for the first time in their lives, will have to go to welfare or some other form of income support because of a drastic downturn in the inshore fishery. These are the people out there we are determined to help, the people for whom we went to the wall to get the $13.5 million when there was no money around.

Now we have this obstructionist, stubborn, obstinate Opposition who 'can't get the list'. Do they want the jobs, do they want those people to have work and income, or do they want a list? - that is the question. These are purely political partisan manoeuvres and it will not go unnoticed by the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: So, to the people from Bay Roberts, Bonavista, Clarenville, Grand Bank, Harbour Grace, Heart's Content, Placentia, Whitbourne, St. Mary's, Cartwright, Davis Inlet, Happy Valley, Bonne Bay, Burgeo, Springdale, Baie Verte, Twillingate, Grand Falls, I say to all of them: Don't despair! This Government is here with a vision, with a commitment, and this Government will see the people first. The people's business will go through in spite of the obstruction of the people opposite, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: The people, Mr. Chairman, elected us to do a job, they elected us to provide real change. It is tough, as people found out, having in the last two to three years $500 million in transfer payments from Ottawa, cut away from us, that we have to provide for health and education in this Province. Then having the GST on top of that, that great motivator of economic growth. What! It was Mr. Bullock, I think, who was recently pronouncing the kinds of things this GST has done. What an impetus to growth! It has caused jobs to come out faster than the cucumbers came out of Mount Pearl!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: It is unbelievable, the stimulus that has been to the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador. That is the kind of policy this Government just cannot be close to, the kind of thing the Opposition has been parading, and that is why, probably tonight or tomorrow night, they will be down huggie-huggie with the hon. Brian Mulroney, at $500 a plate, that is why they will be down there.

MR. MURPHY: Somebody has to pay for the car.

MR. DUMARESQUE: The hon. John C. Crosbie will be down there. He will be down there, I tell you, extolling the virtues of fisheries policy and the other great economic policies of today. But as I said just a couple of minutes ago, the people of this Province need not despair. We have a vision -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. DUMARESQUE: - we have a commitment and we will produce, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I don't know what the Government members had in their two-hour break, but the Minister of Social Services came back full of fire and brimstone, invigorated and all enthused about jumping into the debate, the first time in a number of days. And then the Minister of Development put on the greatest show of his life. He would win an Oscar for it, the only thing is, there were no television cameras. It is just too bad it was only the recorded voice but, Mr. Chairman, he was so good that he would even win an award on the intonation of his voice, and if they could only see his hands going back and his twirling around looking at his colleagues, seeking their admiration and applause. The President of Treasury Board joined the debate. Even the President of Treasury Board, for the first time, got into the debate, and then the Member for Eagle River attempted to follow the lead set by the Minister of Development.

Now, Mr. Chairman, it is not very hard to figure out why the Government is so sensitive about releasing this information. I just did a rough calculation. The Minister of Development went through all the projects that had been approved but what he failed to mention was, some $200,000 out of $1.9 million, about 10 per cent -

MR. WINDSOR: That is 10 per cent more than he gave us.

MR. WINSOR: Is that the fairness and balance that the Premier talks about? Is that the fairness and balance, 10 per cent more? We have one-third of the members sitting on this side, so if fairness and balance is to be the equation, then we should also have one-third of the funding, but no, Mr. Chairman, that did not occur. The only one that the Minister of Development forgot was the one - and I will even give him the benefit of the doubt, because he left out $40,000 that went to the Gander Bay - Hamilton Sound project, and while it does not sit in the geographic district of Fogo, the people who are working on it are from my district, and the minister, obviously, was not aware of it. I think the geographics might place it in the district of the Member for Gander, but the actual workers come from my district. The area is on the Gander Bay Road, Mr. Chairman, and the workers are from my district.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: I don't think so. Georges Brook is not mine - past Georges Brook. The boundary is there.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Yes, that is yours.

Now, Mr. Chairman, an interesting one that no one has mentioned yet tonight, is the community water services, $500,000. They wanted the money to be approved and on October 9, the projects had to be in. Now, Mr. Chairman, this is November 7, one month. The minister's official said: 'We have to have community water services approved today or tomorrow, because we have to get on with the work.' 'You cannot go digging ditches,' he said, 'in the month of October.' It is now November and moving towards December and there has still been no approval. As a matter of fact, the Mayor of the largest town in my district phoned the minister's office on Monday, I think it was, and asked the minister's officials the status of a project they had applied for some time ago, and the response was, 'Listen to your radio for the next two or three days.' Now, there must be a better method of communication than to 'listen to the radio for the next two or three days'. We had the Minister of Social Services not even being aware of the press release that was put out. He said he did not know anything about it, it was news to him - the one on the environment. People who live in many communities in rural Newfoundland do not have access to Newfoundland Information Services, they do not know that it comes out over the wire, so it looks like you can have a project approved under this regime and not even know it is approved.

Now, I suspect the real reason why the Minister of Environment and Lands has yet to release the figures, is because, just as the forestry list was somewhat skewed towards Liberal districts, the environment one is even worse. Because the Member for Eagle River, I think maybe on a late night program - I am not sure if it was the Pumphrey show or not, but I heard it on the really late night news, anyway - announced about $300,000 for Labrador, the coastal region, many of the projects, environmental ones. They did not say the amounts, but if they were $1.00 each, the member announced enough that night to take care of the rest of the $500,000. And perhaps they are a little ashamed to release the figures.

MR. CRANE: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Yes, the Member for Harbour Grace, I think, announced one, too, for his district, on behalf of the Minister of Environment and Lands, and maybe was not aware of it either.

MR. CRANE: We have no environment problems.

MR. WINSOR: No environment problems out there. The Member for Carbonear had one in Salmon Cove, I think, did he not?

MR. REID: In Victoria.

MR. WINSOR: In Victoria? Yes, I thought I saw it come out over the wire.

Mr. Chairman, the reason this is held up is quite simple, the Government has not been forthcoming in giving its information. The only one who did supply information is the Minister of Social Services. The Minister of Development, when he got up, obviously did not read very closely, because if he had he would have noticed on the first page, programs under the Emergency Response, and on the next page, the regular ones. And, if he had cared to check the two totals, he would have found they came to somewhere in the range of $14 million, not $5 million, because there were two different programs. The minister, when he got up - you may not have been here - read out all the funding that had been approved under the Emergency Response Program, but it was the ones in the regular program that he read. He did not choose to read very carefully what you had actually tabled this afternoon.

What has been interesting today, though, has been watching Santa Claus. Santa Claus is the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, because he has a list of something, and every backbencher is over there on his knees, sitting on the seat, seeing what the minister has on his list. I saw the Member for Fortune - Hermitage there awhile ago, and the Member for Lewisporte, and a variety of them have been around all day.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about the Member for St. John's South?

MR. WINSOR: I didn't see the Member for St. John's South there, but I have seen most of the members. They have been around all day, and he has this big sheet of paper with all kinds of blue and yellow marks through it indicating certain projects.

AN HON. MEMBER: No blue marks, red marks.

MR. WINSOR: No blue marks, no Tory ones, all red Liberal ones are the ones I see. So, Mr. Chairman, it is obvious that the minister has a fairly detailed breakdown of all the jobs, an accounting for practically every job.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Yes, quite a bit, but the minister chooses not to table it. Now, Mr. Chairman, the question is why? Why is the minister - one department, the Department of Social Services, which the minister was willing to table last week. It is obvious why the Minister of Forestry did not want to table this. This had to be reluctantly dragged out of him - reluctantly. It is obvious why he will not table the one on Environment.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: It is coming now. Well, okay.

AN HON. MEMBER: Christmas is coming.

MR. WINSOR: Yes, Christmas is coming, too. Look, the Minister of Labour is going through his sheet again to see what other ones he can find.

Mr. Chairman, if you look at this bill - I wish the Minister of Municipal Affairs were here tonight because I would like for him to tell us what kind of community water services he is going to start on November 7, I wonder what kinds of programs you can implement if you are thinking labour-intensive on November 7. This is the time when contractors who have the best, most up-to-date equipment available give up work because the season is gone. Now, they are going to start labour projects involving pick and shovel. What are you going to have, people in the ditches bailing water? Is that the program? Is that what community water services is going to be: dig a hole in the ground, get a bucket and bail it out? That is the only kind of program you could have.

I had occasion in the last couple of weeks to be in the country, Mr. Chairman, and there is more water in the ground than I have ever seen there. Now, I don't know what kind of community water services are going to be put in. They are not going to buy a chlorination unit because that wouldn't create one job.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) flood the ice surfaces.

MR. WINSOR: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I have spent many, many days flooding the ice surfaces, but you will not see many days - that is a subject of debate to follow about the six regional recreational facilities being built, the one that got into Port au Choix, and the two others that have been announced, and the swimming pools; we are going to have some debate on that, Mr. Chairman, and the people -

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

MR. WINSOR: By leave, Mr. Chairman?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WINSOR: No leave.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Chairman, throughout the evening, and also earlier this afternoon and for a while on Thursday past, as we have sat here in the Legislature, the hon. members opposite have been asking for details, information and so on. As everybody understands from answers in Question Period over the last couple of sessions, lest we cause any confusion, we are hesitant to provide partial lists and those kinds of things. Because it was clear that the group opposite had some difficulty fully understanding what the Minister of Social Services tabled for them, and we don't want to create any confusion. We have undertaken that when we are in positions to provide accurate information, we want everybody to know, because this is good news. I mean, why would we not provide information about creating work for thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who are out there crying out for the jobs, need the work and are very appreciative of the fact that we found some way to come to a decision to actually try to meet at least part of the need that is out there.

We have been providing the information as best we could. All of it is still not in its final form, and we have been showing some hesitancy providing it other than in its final form because of the very fact that we would not want members opposite to be up, as they have been in the House, suggesting that people were offered jobs, or thought they had work, and then found they did not have work and so on. So rather than contribute in any way, shape or form to any kind of confusion, we have been asking the officials in the departments, who have done a great job in a very short period of time in putting together a rather massive undertaking, to see if they could get us the most accurate information possible that we could provide to the Legislature, to all hon. members, and to the public generally.

The Minister of Forestry and Agriculture, this afternoon, supplied a list but, as the hon. the President of Treasury Board and the Government House Leader pointed out, because of the fact that some members opposite chose not to do a very simple division by 400, which is what the officials would normally do, and decide how many weeks of works were there, they felt that information was not sufficient. I have been spending some time - there have been references to the fact that I have had lists, and members have been looking at them, and so on. Actually, earlier this evening, before coming into this Legislature and standing in the debate, I have spent some time, as I did earlier today, trying to draw together more detailed information that we might be able to release to all hon. members.

Mr. Chairman, I might just again summarize, before I provide for all hon. members a detailed list for Environment and Lands, as accurate as we can be, still with the proviso that everyone should understand that there may, in effect, even be a change or two in this list. But, up to today, this is the most accurate information we have in terms of the projects that have been approved; the locations of those projects by community; the sponsoring organization - which development association and so on it might be; the total amount of the project in terms of dollars; the number of jobs it is intended to create. Again, we want to point out that jobs is not the important part in these projects, as everybody would understand, it is the number of weeks of work available. Because we are very confident, and the evidence in the early projects has already shown, and will continue to show, that the number of weeks of work will be distributed amongst as many people as possible to guarantee that they place themselves in a position to qualify for unemployment insurance benefits throughout the remainder of the year.

I indicated earlier today when I addressed the Assembly briefly that we had, in fact, in Social Services, as the minister had indicated, in excess of 1,800 jobs which would be provided, close to 19,000 work weeks and $4.5 million. In Forestry and Agriculture there is $1.5 million allocated that will create again, and it is already creating, 2,645 weeks of work. In Environment and Lands - I will go through a list in just a minute or two of some group of projects in Environment and Lands - a total of eighteen projects, creating 130 jobs with 1,174 weeks of work, with an allocation of $481,600. In Employment and Labour Relations - I will be tabling the information shortly so the member could get the exact number for Environment and Lands - we are looking at a total of $1 million, some $400,000 of which has already been allocated for the literacy project I talked about earlier today. The early projects that had to start in Labrador were announced a couple of weeks ago. Also, there are some projects related to school boards and getting work done that the school boards require to be done throughout the rest of the fall season.

I must take a minute or so to mention on behalf of my colleague, the hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, as I indicated this afternoon, we are finalizing the list. With responsibility for coordinating the program, I asked the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs to delay final allocation of his projects as I did with the ones in the Department of Employment and Labour Relations so that we could, in fact, fill in the gaps in terms of places geographically located within the Province where we had not managed to place a project through one of the other departments, because there are certain places where you can properly put a projects related to forestry, and there are places where you cannot. So once the forestry ones were allocated, the agricultural ones were allocated, the environment and lands were allocated, the ones in Labrador were allocated, we wanted to have a look at which geographic locations we may not have covered through that process. I asked the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs to assist in that by taking the million dollars and holding it until we could assess where all of the rest had been done. We are in the final stages of doing that now, hoping to be in a position probably tomorrow to finish the allocations and have people in a position to know definitely tomorrow, over the weekend, and early next week, where the rest of the projects would be. So we are getting very close to an initial allocation of the total amounts that we talked of at the very beginning of the program.

In environment and lands, I might point out one last thing on Municipal and Provincial Affairs. I did indicate today, as well, that because of the very nature of the projects in local service districts with community water supplies that the hon. the Member for Fogo just addressed, we are also considering maybe taking more of that money and moving it into recreation projects rather than doing water supply work. In any event, it will provide as much of a labour-intensive program in the communities, just as much needed. Probably, in many cases, people would say, please do the water work for us before you do the recreation programs, but in a quality of life, many people have always argued with us that both are as important and that, if we can at all deliver any one of the projects, they would like to have the work done through this fall.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: Just let me have a couple of minutes, Mr. Chairman, if I could, to go through the Environment and Lands projects, and I will table this information for the House in just a couple of minutes.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. GRIMES: Burin - Placentia West, a project sponsored by the Burin - Placentia West Development Association located in Rushoon, a $24,000 project, sixty weeks of work.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: Carbonear, sponsored by the Town of Victoria, a project for $16,000 to create forty weeks of work.

Conception Bay South, the Manuels River Heritage Association in Manuels, $32,000 to create eighty weeks of work on that project.

In the district of Exploits - I don't know how that one got on the list - the Exploits Valley Development Association in Bishop's Falls, $10,000 to create forty weeks of work.

In the district of Gander, the Newfoundland Lumber Producers Association are sponsoring a project out of Glovertown, $80,000 - 200 weeks of work.

In the district of Grand Bank, the Lamaline Town Council is sponsoring an environmental project in the Town of Lamaline, $9,600 - twenty-four weeks of work.

In the district of Grand Falls, three different projects, two sponsored by the Exploits Valley Development Association for a total of forty weeks of work - twenty each - forty between the two. Also, in the district of Grand Falls, the Environmental Resource Management Association, which has been doing a great deal of work on the salmon resource in the Exploits River, $60,000 for 150 weeks of work.

In the district of Humber East, the community of Steady Brook is sponsoring an environmental project, $20,000 - ten weeks of work.

In the district of Lewisporte, again the Development Association is sponsoring a project for $40,000 - 100 weeks of work.

In the district of Placentia, the Town Council of Placentia is sponsoring a project for ten weeks of work.

In St. Barbe, the Development Association for St. Barbe is sponsoring a project for $24,000 for an environmental cleanup - sixty weeks of work.

In the district of St. George's, the St. George's Area Development Association situated in the Codroy Valley is sponsoring an environmental project for $40,000 - 100 weeks of work.

In St. John's East, the Salmon Association of Eastern Newfoundland is sponsoring a project, $16,000 for forty weeks of work.

In the district of Terra Nova, the Eastport Peninsula Development Association in Eastport is sponsoring a project, $40,000, with 100 weeks of work.

In the district of Twillingate, the Twillingate New World Island Development Association is sponsoring a project in Twillingate, $40,000 - 100 weeks of work.

In the district of Windsor - Buchans, the Exploits Valley Development Association is sponsoring a project located in the Town of Badger, $10,000 for twenty weeks of work.

The totals, then, which I will table, for Environment and Lands - and the minister responsible and acting would have tabled these had he been here a little earlier this evening, made them available to me for tabling - there are eighteen projects approved, 130 jobs created, for a total of 1,174 weeks. The total allocation committed, most of these actually on the ground, working and operating at the present time, $481,600 already forwarded.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: The minister assures me and would assure all members of the House that if there is any slippage, as sometimes happens in these programs, that they will be dealt with immediately. The total amount allocated in that department of $500,000 will provide much needed work in very valuable environmental cleanup projects scattered in districts throughout the whole of the Province, for a total of $500,000, with almost 1,200 work weeks that people are availing of immediately. I provide this list with the details, recognizing that if you find some things on the list that may not seem, at this point in time, to completely jibe, if you try to do some calculation, by all means check with the minister. Because these were done in some haste at our request and there may be some clerical errors in them. But the basic information presented here represents what, in fact, has occurred, much to the credit of the leadership of the acting Minister of Environment and Lands, and the great support that he got from his staff in delivering this program so quickly.

I would like to present these and table them, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: Question!

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I think some members opposite are asking the operative question - because there are a lot of questions. But I must thank the minister for -

MR. SIMMS: It took thirteen days.

MR. MATTHEWS: - providing us with the list, and we will have a chance to have a look at it. I say - and I thank him - I am really relieved that he took on the responsibility to provide the list to the House. Because if we had to count on the Minister of Forestry -

MR. FLIGHT: And Agriculture.

MR. MATTHEWS: And Agriculture, and other related duties, is it? - yes, swine and other things - that we would have been a while. So we have had a good performance today, I must say, from two of the ministers, the Ministers of Social Services and Employment and Labour Relations, a marvellous job. Consequently, I think we are making -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. MATTHEWS: No, we cannot count on that.

- substantial progress here, which is very pleasing. But I was half suspicious while I was listening to the minister. It almost seems to me that - and I do not believe he would do this, because I do not know of anyone who would do it, any of the current or former ministers - that they would be holding off on the list because they were notifying their own members about the projects so they could notify their associations and make their - I know the minister did not do that; I don't know of anybody who would do such a thing, to notify their own members first so they could -

MR. SIMMS: The Environment ones were announced thirteen days ago.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, so they could have some lead time and get some publicity on the issue.

MR. SIMMS: The Environment ones were announced thirteen days ago.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thirteen days ago the Environment ones were announced.

MR. SIMMS: So that wasn't the reason.

MR. MATTHEWS: But, as I said, I thank the minister for taking it upon himself to get - who is the acting Minister of Environment, by the way?

MR. SIMMS: The Minister of Forestry.

MR. MATTHEWS: Oh! Well, then, I really thank the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Frenchman's Cove.

MR. MATTHEWS: Pardon? No, I hope that not the only thing he does as acting Minister of Environment, is put that incinerator and dump site in Frenchman's Cove, because that will cause a lot of problems. What we will have then, I say to the minister, is all the garbage from Burin and so on coming over into the Frenchman's Cove area. That will be most unfortunate. As the minister is aware -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, of course, I understand that. I understand the dump site has been chased from three or four sites in his district. Now he is trying to chase it anywhere on the Burin Peninsula that will take it as long as it is not within the boundaries of Burin - Placentia West. I am sure the people of Frenchman's Cove will have a lot to say about that.

MR. TOBIN: The minister cannot make up his mind, that is the problem.

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Chairman, I listened very attentively to the Member for Eagle River and his speech. He is not here right now. Oh yes, he is somewhere up - I must say about the Member for Eagle River, that in the last few days he has been coming awfully close to the Member for Bonavista South. He is getting awfully close. I think he is trying to find out if the Member for Bonavista South has been up on the eighth floor for a little chat.

Did he get the call, Aubrey? You know you are going in! I can see what is going on over there now.

MR. SIMMS: That is the worst of being in the editorial.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes. Then, of course, we have done all we can to get the Member for Bonavista South into the Cabinet. We have given him all the support we can give him.

MR. TOBIN: And get some people out.

MR. MATTHEWS: We have inside sources which tell us that our lobby is going to be effective, by the way, inside sources. So, I say to the Member for Eagle River, even though he still thinks there is a chance, he is going to have to wait a bit longer. He should go up and talk to the Member for Bonavista South a bit more because, if he patterns himself after the Member for Bonavista South, and sits well-behaved -

AN HON. MEMBER: Slow and steady.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, slow and steady as she comes. - then perhaps one of these days he might get the nod.

MR. SIMMS: Oh, I know what he wants, he wants to get on the panel now, in place of Aubrey.

MR. MATTHEWS: Oh, get me on the constitutional committee or something, or on the panel on television?

MR. SIMMS: Yes, that is what he is after.

MR. MATTHEWS: Oh, on television? That is what it is, yes.

I would say, of course, if he becomes Minister of Justice and so on he could possibly Chair the constitutional committee. So I say the Member for Eagle River wants to be appointed to that committee. You see, he is doing his lobby, so members opposite better watch what he is up to, because I am not sure if it is true, Mr. Chairman, but I have heard that the Member for Eagle River likes to travel a bit, so he would not mind getting on a few committees so that he could see a little bit of the - what?

MR. TOBIN: Clyde said he is incompetent.

MR. MATTHEWS: No, he did not say he was incompetent. The Premier did not say he was incompetent, he said he was politically immature or something to that effect.

MR. TOBIN: That is something for the Premier to say about a member of his caucus.

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, that is it, you know.

MR. SIMMS: He could have said that about three-quarters of them over there, sure.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) .

MR. MATTHEWS: Now, now! Let's not get nasty.

Now, what I was going to say to the Member for Eagle River is, when I heard him talking about all the jobs, Mr. Chairman, I thought I was in another province.

MR. SIMMS: I remember so well (inaudible) my dying day (inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: When I listened to the Minister of Development and the Member for Eagle River, I thought that I was in another Province, about all this employment and all these great employment initiatives, and how things are so much better in Newfoundland and Labrador. But things have never been worse, I say to the members opposite, things have never been worse. The unemployment rate is as high as it ever was.

The Minister of Social Services today informs us that the caseload in social services, I suppose, in two years is up 25 or 26 per cent at least, if not 30 per cent in two years. I am sure if the former Minister was here he would be able to tell us precisely how many people today are on social assistance.

AN HON. MEMBER: He would give you a number, but it might not be the right one.

MR. MATTHEWS: Oh, yes, it would be the right one because he would know, he would have it at his finger tips. I will give the minister a bit more time and he will be able to spit out the statistics as well. There are more people on social assistance in this Province today than were ever on it before.

Again I want to say to the Member for Eagle River, when he talked about the $14 million for employment generation, just remember -

AN HON. MEMBER: The bull pickle factory.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, the bull pickle factory, that is one thing.

MR. TOBIN: There are 25,000 on welfare.

MR. MATTHEWS: What is that?

MR. TOBIN: There are 25,000 on social assistance.

MR. MATTHEWS: Oh, there are more than 25,000 on social assistance.

AN HON. MEMBER: 51,000 was the last (inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: There are 50,000 people at least dependent upon social assistance in this Province.

AN HON. MEMBER: 54,000.

MR. MATTHEWS: 54,000.

What I was going to say to the Member for Eagle River when he talked about the $14 million, I will ask him to remember that just a few days ago when we were talking about the financial position of the Province, and the Minister of Finance and the Premier were re-acting to where we really are at this particular time in the fiscal year, I believe it was the President of Treasury Board who talked about how there is $17 million, I believe, that has not been spent this year, that will not be spent. I believe that is correct. I thought I heard that. So, I say to the Member for Eagle River, it is not that you went somewhere special and got the $14 million.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is capital account.

MR. MATTHEWS: That is capital account.

I say to the member again, that is what we used to argue when we were in Government but, when you were in Opposition, you always said it was the bottom line of the Province. It is the Budget of the Province, the bottom line of the Province. You cannot separate one from the other. The Minister of Finance is nodding his head in approval. So I say to him, there is $17 million. You should have taken all of it and put $3 million more into the Employment Generation Program. You still would have spent only the money you budgeted and you could have employed a fair number of people.

AN HON. MEMBER: He said he needs five more.

MR. MATTHEWS: Five more what?

AN HON. MEMBER: Million.

MR. MATTHEWS: You need another $5 million. I believe that. He needs another $5 million to take care of this Province. I know that. We all know it. We all know of the problems we had when we were in Government, with social services and community development programs. In a year you needed more money.

MR. TOBIN: But we had twice as much then as what they have now.

MR. MATTHEWS: We budgeted twice as much for the programs. It is the same thing as we heard today from the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs when he talked about the Labrador travel subsidy.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. MATTHEWS: The Labrador travel subsidy.

MR. TOBIN: You cut it out.

MR. MATTHEWS: Most years, since that program has been introduced -I believe it was 1968 the Member for Menihek said today - there had to be more money found to put into the program. We always had to find more money for that program because what was allocated was always spent before the end of the fiscal year.

I want to say to hon. members opposite that for such a very, very valuable program that means so much to all residents of Labrador in the cultural and sporting community, that the Government should give very, very serious consideration to finding sufficient dollars somewhere in their Budget to transfer - and there is money there they can transfer, which happens every other year - into that very, very important program. The Member for St. John's South shakes his head, no, as if to say it is not a worthy program.

MR. MURPHY: Where is the money coming from?

MR. MATTHEWS: The same place it came from every other year. When I was Minister of Culture, Recreation and Youth, every year about this time the funds for that particular program were exhausted, and I would say to the Deputy Minister, 'You go find more money to keep the program going.' And, you know what, they would find it. Anybody who is a minister and worth his or her salt and is running the Department now, not reverse like I said today, the problem is the officials are running the Government. Ministers have to run the Government and give them the marching orders to go find the money. I bet you if the Minister of Provincial and Municipal Affairs told them to find a couple of hundred thousand dollars to continue with the Labrador travel subsidy program they would be back tomorrow saying, 'Minister, we found the $200,000 for you.' You have to have a minister to give the orders. That is what is lacking over there, ministers giving orders, officials running the Province.

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

MR. RAMSAY: Do you want to hear about a Government and what a Government can do for a district in a difficult period of time?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. RAMSAY: The hospital is one situation where obviously the Opposition loved the politics of that kind of thing, because they decided the comments that were being made about the hospital situation were the truth when they were so far from the truth, when they were so far from the evolution of the Budget. What actually happened in Port aux Basques is so far from the truth as to what would happen with the hospital, the Charles LeGrow Health Centre.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. RAMSAY: You guys wanted me to cross the floor.

You said: you cannot have it both ways! But the fact of the matter was that when you work to try to do something within a Government structure, one where you can speak out against your own situation, if, in fact, the situation belies that you should speak out against it to a certain point, the fact of the matter is the hospital in Port aux Basques has been preserved by this Government as a hospital, a caring Government, people who listen. It is first and foremost a hospital, and it will also address the chronic care needs of the people in Port aux Basques.

AN HON. MEMBER: So it should be.

MR. RAMSAY: So it should be, and so it will continue to be.

Now, you speak about a Government. Do you want to hear more about what a Government can do in difficult times in spite of the fact that there is a $500 million annual debt charge cost to this Government to cover off the interest on the debt, in spite of the fact that there is $500 million in Federal Tory cutbacks to the equalization system that we have? Since we have been elected, in spite of that billion dollar baby created by the two Brians, they can still manage to support different districts throughout the Province. Let's look. What is the debt? Nine billion dollars. Nine billion dollars if you include -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RAMSAY: - if you include the $5.3 billion that has been accumulated over the period of time since we have joined Confederation, if you add the unfunded pension liability, $9 billion that this Province has to find somewhere. In the next twenty, fifty or 100 years your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will still be servicing some of the debts that were accumulated by both Governments: 76 per cent by the Tories, I think, who were in for seventeen years as the hon. member stated the other night, and 24 per cent by the Liberals who were in for twenty-odd years, twenty-three or twenty-four years I think it was, but who are still managing to find the money that is necessary for public services such as the hospital in Port aux Basques, and for public services such as Government providing a service to the people in Port aux Basque in their fish plant, the Port aux Basque fish plant.

Now let's talk about something that you people - of course, you had the best interest of the place at heart when you were in Government. You sold it to, I think it was Rose Ting at the time. Well, FPI was in there. That was something that we were never too fond of, the FPI situation at the time, but what they did to Port aux Basques was somewhat dastardly at the time. The Rose Ting fiasco where Government had to buy it back from her, expropriated. It had to be expropriated. The deal on this fish plant in Port aux Basques is still being worked out, the final detail soon to be finalized, but they will soon be operating. The fish plant that this Government gave the Community Diversification corporation in Port aux Basques the opportunity to run last year to keep the people in the area employed. They are willing to listen to new ideas. They are not bankrupt of ideas as the hon. Member for Mount Pearl would have some believe. New ideas on a way to approach assisting the people in a given area with Government help.

The fish plant situation: we provided a $600,000 loan to assist with the purchase of that fish plant to be re-paid through the hospices of Enterprise Newfoundland. A fantastic deal offered there for the maintaining of 400 plus jobs in the Port aux Basques area. This is what we can do in difficult times. It has to be done, and this Government does not shy away when difficult times come. We make sure that the money is available, we do it. Granted, it takes a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure these things come together, but we are up to the task.

Let's look at some other things. The swimming pool in Port aux Basques. Now, for years - it was built back in the late 'seventies, I think, early 'eighties. It has been shut down for the last seven years.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why?

MR. RAMSAY: Well, when it was built the government of the day did not really take into account that you had to come up with money to operate these things. So typical of many recreational facilities and things that look like arenas, but so typical not to plan for the future. Not to plan: how are we going to finance the operation of this? Let's build it. Great politics. Let's go out and put up a building here. Cut the ribbon, get your picture in the paper. Great politics. But never thought about: how we are going to operate these things.

Well, my predecessor in government, Cal Mitchell, who was the previous Member, was told by his comrades on the Opposition side at the time to promise during his term of office the swimming pool would be re-opened. The swimming pool would be re-opened under the Tories. All those years, it would be re-opened.

AN HON. MEMBER: All the way to North Sydney.

MR. RAMSAY: All the way. Oh, you could learn to swim there, you could swim all the way to Nova Scotia. People were really hepped up and at the time that might have been the key to that man's election platform. He was promising that the pool would definitely be re-opened. Four years later after the term was up, no pool.

AN HON. MEMBER: And no Cal Mitchell.

MR. RAMSAY: And no Cal Mitchell. I did not, Mr. Chairman, promise to do anything other than work hard for the people of my district. I made a solid promise that I would work hard but no false promises. No promises. Some tears; some blood - I cut my finger now and then; though much sweat and hard work.

AN HON. MEMBER: Don't go giving away anything (Inaudible).

MR. RAMSAY: No, I should not tell them how to do this, should I? No, that is a secret, yes. But anyway, now we have some people - we have maintained the hospital; we have maintained the fish plant - putting another 400 people back to work; the layoffs at the hospital, the naysayers at the time were saying 100-plus people gone. I think we had to, and regrettably, lay off, I think it was, thirteen people. Thirteen instead of the 100-odd that was being suggested. Politically motivated, no doubt, at the time by others.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's fearmongering.

MR. RAMSAY: It was definitely fearmongering. But there were fears of the people, and those fears were addressed by this Government, a caring Government under the hon. Minister's Department, who did a fine job in addressing the problems and concerns of the people in the LaPoile district of their hospital.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RAMSAY: Now. We have a swimming pool, good for the health and physical activity of the people. We also have the fish plant, good for the employment and the overall benefit to the community as a large employer to the community. We also have surprises sometime in the future. Sometime in the near future I will be able to stand with the hon. Minister of Development here in this House and make another nice announcement on the Port aux Basques area, Mr. Chairman. I will not say much more about it now but very shortly we will be able to give some more good news and some more jobs for the area. This is two years of hard work on my part that I promised to the people of the area, and I said it would happen, and I said I would do whatever I could do to make it happen. With the help of this good Government, a good Liberal Government, in tough economic times we are going to make it happen for the people of the southwest coast.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HEARN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. That is twice this evening I have had to get up after people who were over lauding the Government for all the work they are doing. Anybody who goes back to the election campaigns remembers the Premier going around the Province waving his arms, promising to bring home every mother's son. I am aware of only one mother's daughter that he brought back. I know one person who came home to find a job in the Province and it was not the Premier who found it either.

So I guess the only way to create jobs - I hope he does not plan on bringing people home with the list of jobs we have here, as tabled this evening. I was a little bit late getting in tonight because I was doing some statistical analysis. Looking at the list tabled by my friend, the Minister of Social Services, is almost enough to make one smile. Anybody who is familiar with the geography of Newfoundland knows that the district of St. Mary's - The Capes takes in practically half the Avalon, the southern half of the Avalon, with nineteen or twenty other districts in the northern half. But my area covers practically half the Avalon, thirty-six communities, approximately, spread out over a couple of hundred, 250 miles, of coastline.

Many of them depend entirely on the fishery. This year, unlike most areas of the Province, it was not a really bad year in parts of the district, but in other years it was similar to those experienced in many districts of people here in the House - a disaster. Many of our inshore fish plants this year did not operate long enough to even provide steady workers with enough insurable weeks work to collect UI, so they were left short. The fishery in many areas made sure that a number of the fishermen actively engaged even did not obtain enough stamps to qualify. Of course, many on the borderline did not get anywhere near enough. All those who are usually called in when there is extra work... in the area, many people work at the caplin fishery. This year there was not any caplin fishery in St. Mary's Bay at all. So people who depend on that, and people who work in the inshore plants generally, lost four to five weeks right off the top.

So we have this year a lot of people who have just not been able to find work enough locally or anywhere else to qualify for UI. Consequently, an ideal location to jump in and pick up some of the jobs as delivered by my friend and colleague the Minister of Social Services. So the Minister looked at the southern Avalon to some degree but he did not look far enough. He only looked at Placentia. In the Placentia area the Minister provided - now, this is in his extra programme, this is not in the regular programme. But in his special top up to help those who are in need, to help people who not only are on social assistance but people who are just about to run out of unemployment insurance, who have run out and have not been able to find employment, people who are in hard shape out there.

So all the people out there figured: oh, we are going to be saved, we are going to be able to pick up a programme, get some work, at leats qualify for UI. Lo and behold, in the district of St. Mary's - The Capes we had eight positions approved, six have been hired, in the total area. Despite the fact that numerous requests came in from different offices. There are there offices covering my area. The one in Ferryland was able to put in neither job into the end of the district it covers - St. Shotts, Trepassey, Portugal Cove South. Then in St. Mary's, covering the whole area from St. Vincent's right through -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: Yes, the one in Ferryland district, Fermeuse, covers Trepassey, St. Shott's, Portugal Cove South. The one in St. Mary's covers from St. Vincent's - Peter's River, actually, on one side - right up to North Harbour, the whole heart of the bay. Eight jobs. Now, people might say: but everybody up there is working. I checked.

AN HON. MEMBER: How many people?

MR. HEARN: How many people in the whole district? There are about 10,000 people. How many people covered by this office? About 5000 or 6000 people. There are 10,000 people in the district, eliminate the Cape Shore on one end, and 2000 people in Trepassey so you have 5000 or 6000 people. In one small community with a total population of about 250 I had a quick check done to see how many working people there this year have not qualified for UI, and sixty-one people in a community of approximately 250 sofar have not had work enough to get UI. Most of them live in an area where they got half their stamps in the caplin plant that did not open at all this year, and the rest of them, or many of them, worked on an inshore plant but work was so scarce this year that only very few regulars got called back for any sufficient time. All these people are out there, along with construction workers who got no work because there was no construction, and along with others who try to find employment where they can. Sixty-one in one community and that is just an example. We are getting fifty or more calls a day, just like I did back in 1982, to say, is there anything on the go? I suggest that Government is coming out with programs that will help get some of you on. In St. Mary's we have six jobs, in the whole St. Mary's Bay area there are six jobs approved by the Department of Social Services. Next door adjacent to my district is the office of Placentia. Now, I wonder how many jobs were approved in the office in Placentia?

AN HON. MEMBER: Seven.

MR. HEARN: No. Actually, it covers about the same population, maybe a little bit more, but we happen to have 165 jobs there. Six in St. Mary's and 165 approved in Placentia. The total amounts of money: in St. Mary's we have $18,000, Placentia $391,000 approved for make-work projects. Now, surely the people who have not had any work, and have no food to put on the table in the St. Mary's area are just as important as the people anywhere else. This does not mean that the minister should not have spent $391,000 in Placentia or $209,000 in Bay Roberts. There is nothing wrong with the minister spending those kind of dollars if the need exists, but surely if the need exists to such a degree in these districts, the Placentia district and St. Mary's - The Capes are very much alike in the way they make their living and in the employment opportunities, consequently you would think then that fairness and balance would dictate that at least half of the number, eighty jobs, which would be more than ten times the number of jobs provided would be provided in St. Mary's. The hardest thing to take, of course, is that St. Mary's is the home town of the Minister of Social Services. Maybe that is why we got the six jobs we got. The unfortunate thing about it also is that part of my district, the far end, the Cape Shore, is serviced by the Placentia office so that means that many of the jobs I am now talking about in Placentia went out to the Cape Shore, not in the minister's district at all. Wrong. Four or five went out there and these were the ones, as we were told by the minister's own Department, four or five people got jobs on the community development programs but they were on the old second page regular programs and none of them were funded under the new dollars. Six people got called but they got called back and were told, sorry, you were told you were going to work Monday but you cannot because the minister goofed, he overspent. He did not have the money he thought he had. What the Minister of Social Services should do is go in and pound on the Cabinet table and make the Premier aware that he did not bring anybody home from the Mainland because there are no jobs and he is causing many, many more people to go away to the Mainland to find employment. Many, many more people are going away to the mainland to find jobs because of the desperate situation here. The minister should go in and say: Mr. Premier, at least keep what we have home. Give me some more money so that I can help the people in the other districts the way that I have helped my own.

This is not fairness and balance. This is political patronage to the highest order. This is the biggest sham that we have ever seen. Now, the question is: How bad would it have been if we had said nothing a few days ago, just let the universe unfold, let all the monies be passed out, and then demand the list? But before the jobs were announced publicly, before every dollar was spent in every department, we made aware, knowing what was happening, that we wanted to see the list; that we wanted to see how many jobs were provided in St. Mary's, and in Ferryland, and in Grand Bank, and in other places. Then, of course, there were the few days of quick doctoring. That is why we did not get the list right away, simply because there was a little bit of scurrying around the departments to manipulate the few dollars that were left, to shuffle the few jobs in our districts - and it is a good thing we did that or we would get none - so that the ministers would not look so bad. Unfortunately, the Minister of Social Services had jumped the gun and had allocated most of his money, so he could not backtrack very much, and he ended up getting caught spending $391,000 in his own office and leaving the rest of the districts right next to him with very, very little. That is blatant. It is terrible. Now, how can anybody over there with a straight face get up and talk about fairness and balance? This is not fairness and balance.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: Well, the point is, you could be right. It is also interesting, looking at some of the other lists, the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture got up this evening and tabled a list of all of the development associations that got money. I have more development associations in my district that anybody. I have four covering the district. Not one of them is mentioned - not a copper. You might say, you have not got many woods. I have not. You cannot have a forest industry down in St. Shotts perhaps, but you certainly could have a silviculture project up on the Salmonier Line. You certainly could do some forest work down in the area between Admiral's Beach and O'Donnells. You could at least cut the brush that we have been asking for for three or four years.

AN HON. MEMBER: Your time is up.

MR. HEARN: So we could go on, and on, and on. Time up?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. HEARN: Mr. Chairman, did you tell me my time is up?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. HEARN: Oh, I am sorry. I did not hear you. I will certainly continue later on.

I would just finish by saying that I wish we had the former Minister of Social Services, because then I feel we would have been treated much more fairly.

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

MR. EFFORD: Mr. Chairman, I can assure the hon. Member for St. Mary's - The Capes that if this gentleman was Minister you would not be able to say that. No way, I can assure you.

Now let us take about four or five minutes to take a look at what we are doing here this evening. We are playing a lot of politics. We are throwing some good accusations or slurs back and forth across the House and some innuendoes and accusations, and making some statements. We are having some fun. Just think about it. We are playing games. We are having fun for the last week. That is what the Opposition is doing.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh! Oh!

MR. EFFORD: Stalling, playing politics, do not really know where they are going, do not really know what they are saying and looking at keeping the House open until 10 o'clock in the night. I was thinking if they were a least bit concerned about providing jobs for people they would take a look at what it cost to keep this House open tonight, -

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. EFFORD: - it would probably create another ten jobs the amount of money we spent here tonight. That is one thing they could seriously look at.

But listen, let us be serious about it for a couple of minutes. How many jobs did that amount of money create in Social Services? Did I hear today about 1,300 jobs total?

AN HON. MEMBER: Eighteen hundred.

MR. EFFORD: Eighteen hundred jobs. Are we saying now that we have kept these people out of work, that eighteen hundred people are waiting to go to work, waiting to put food on their table, waiting to buy a bit of clothes for their kids who are going to school, and while they are waiting they are out there doing without their stuff, what are we doing? In here in the House of Assembly playing games, and playing the old political system of trying to prove a point. Is that not sickening? Is it not silly? Is it not really silly? Now if you were trying to get us to create 1,800 jobs, I could understand it.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is right.

MR. EFFORD: If you were really sincere in saying that we want 1,800 jobs, there are 1,800 people out there hungry, they would hold the House up for twenty-four days or twenty-four years if you got to.

When I say you are waiting for a list, I remember back in 1985 when I first joined the Liberal Party and got on the Opposition, I remember asking a question: Were there going to be any jobs created in the District of Port de Grave for that year? That was in 1985. I am still waiting for an answer, and there were no jobs created.

AN HON. MEMBER: They just laughed at it.

MR. EFFORD: They just laughed at it. In fact, I went to the Minister of Labour, I then went to the then Premier, the hon. Brian Peckford and he did not even stand up and answer the question. And they were holding up the House of Assembly. The procedure holding up monies while 1,800 people who desperately need food to put on their tables are going to be going hungry. That is what we are doing. Eighteen hundred people.

Mr. Chairman, let me give you one example of how we could create a few jobs. Now Members opposite if they were sincere and honest about what they are doing, one thing I would suggest to them is called job sharing. Did you ever hear that phrase job sharing?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: If you were serious and interested in the people who are out there looking for work and the people who are hungry, probably you should give up some of the jobs that MHAs have outside of the House of Assembly and give it to the people who need them, employ some people.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is called job sharing.

MR. EFFORD: Job sharing that is what we call it. I wonder how many business people do we have in this House of Assembly drawing down two, three, four salaries. Those people are so interested in the poor person out there with no food on the table.

The Member for St. John's East, to name one, the great socialist with the conscience who is concerned about Members of the House of Assembly expense accounts. What is he doing? Three hundred thousand dollars a year workmen's compensation going into his law firm.

AN HON. MEMBER: Be careful now.

MR. EFFORD: Sitting on adjudications. Oh, it is not careful. It is facts. And it can be backed up. And a salary coming in from a law firm. And it can be backed up. If anybody wants to question it, let them question me. A full-time Member of the House of Assembly, drawing a full-time salary. How many other people? What about the trucking businesses? And people who operate a trucking business? What about engineers? What about the club owners? Are we operating business? Do we scoot in and out of the House of Assembly and sit in offices while people are out there without food on the table? 1985 when I decided to get into politics I was the owner and operator of three businesses, and before I ran in the District of Port de Grave I disposed of each and every business.

MR. WINDSOR: You sold enough stoves.

MR. EFFORD: Yes, I did that, and I made a lot of money. And I am proud and I worked for it honestly. But when I became a Member of the House of Assembly I told the people of Port de Grave District I would be a full-time Member, and I sold no more stoves, and I sold no more clothes, and I sold no more wholesale businesses, and I sold nothing else. I had three businesses. Very successful businesses. But now I can come in here with a clear conscience and work for the people who need jobs in my District. And I can tell you from 1985 to 1989 there were no jobs created in the District of Port de Grave, no jobs by that government.

Now when I read this statement, we talk about governments, in 1983 there were 866 jobs lost in Labrador City and 133 in Wabush.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. EFFORD: Baie Verte has lost jobs. As a result of the Bowater situation 650 permanent jobs were lost in 1983, and the mill also had forty-nine days of downtime, and you can go on and on and on and read. But the good part is on the last page: There are good signs on the horizon for a recovery, but it will take time. We must act wisely in the interim. The Government is determined to act wisely and firmly in the circumstances. We seek your support so that we can together get through these difficult times and together participate in a better and a more prosperous time.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who said that?

MR. EFFORD: The hon. Brian Peckford.

Now what was the result of it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, he was sincere (inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: Yes, he was so sincere he created a cucumber farm in Mount Pearl. Twenty-one million dollars to grow cucumbers. That was really sincere. And I would bet to say that each and every employee of that factory is now on social services, each and every one of them. But I would congratulate the now Minister of Development who just got back that $21 million through selling off a major catastrophe in this Province, $21 million.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. EFFORD: Now the area, the district will be better off, there will be more jobs created.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: God, I thought I lost it. My God, that is the one that tells us about Bev's dip. I thought I lost it. Where did it come from? I have not cleaned out my desk.

Mr. Chairman, look this Province has given away enough money in the last twenty to twenty-five years, and we have lost enough jobs and if we all got together and put our heads in the right place instead of playing this foolish, petty politics that we have played so much in this House of Assembly the people in this Province would be a lot better off and we would not be worried about the social service and the community development grants that the Minister of Social Services has to try to get some money and pay such attention to $5 an hour. How much fish have we given away on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland? 356,000 tons this year inside the 200 mile limit.

AN HON. MEMBER: Shame!

MR. EFFORD: Can you just imagine how many jobs, just the processing, never mind the catching or the making of the gear or the equipment or the building of the boats, but can you just imagine how many jobs could be created with secondary processing of 356,000 metric tons of fish?

AN HON. MEMBER: Three thousand jobs, I would say.

AN HON. MEMBER: At least.

MR. EFFORD: There would not be one person in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador who wanted to work out of work. You would not have to worry about the economy. You would not have to worry about cold winters. You would not have to worry about somebody who could not pay their heat bill or their light bill. We have spent our time since Confederation, since 1949, playing cheap childish politics, and we have let the main industry slip right through our fingers, and all we have done is try to suit our own needs and our own personal gain in the political arena, and it time for all of us to get our heads together in the right direction. And we all know that with a bit of common sense that there is going to be so much fish going to be taken out there by other countries, but give us a percentage of it. We fought hard for the oil, and every Newfoundlander and every Labradorian said that the oil must be processed here on land. Why? Why should not the fish be processed here on land? Why should not a portion of that fish be processed here?

AN HON. MEMBER: Nonsense.

MR. EFFORD: Sure it is nonsense. It is nonsense because it is the truth and the truth hurts everybody. And it is time because I am going to tell you now if you have 1,800 people this year on social services because of the fishery, in two years time down the road if we allow what is going on and taking place around our shores you will not have to worry about creating jobs, and you will not have to worry about creating jobs in the social services because there will be nothing there to create anything with. And that is a fact of life that we all better realize.

So to sit here in this House of Assembly until 10:00 o'clock tonight and 10;00 o'clock tomorrow night and play, have fun, and think about what the people can buy with $5 an hour. The rice, the Kraft dinner, the tin of beans. How many of us will have that for supper and breakfast tomorrow morning? So play our games, work our jobs, and do what we like and mock the people of this Province. Let us close down the House and forget it all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HEARN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I hesitate to get up again after being up, but after listening to that sanctimonious member over on the other side with his false information there are a few things I think I should run over.

First of all, to hear the member stand up and talk about 356,000 metric tons of fish that is being grabbed up by others inside our limit to provide jobs. The member once again knows full well that he is not telling all the facts. Earlier in the year the member, after he was kicked out of Cabinet, ran around trying to get attention, just like the Pied Piper, by trying to gather all the fishermen to run around behind him. He insulted the Minister of Fisheries and he insulted the Federal Minister of Fisheries, telling about all the fish that the foreigners had.

When the fishermen began to find out the truth of the matter they found out that the fish that is given away within our 200-mile limit, with the exception of long-term agreements over which we have no immediate control; secondly, with the exception of the fish that we can perhaps neither catch, nor if we caught it sell, there is not a tremendous amount of fish left. There is enough, and I agree with the Member here, that there is enough fish, even inside the - forgetting about the overfishing, which would keep all of us alive and flourishing if we could have it controlled and have our share of it - but even within the 200-mile limit there is enough fish that is being caught - by means of by-catch, that is being caught not reported, and that is being caught under agreements that should be cancelled - to provide jobs for people around the Province, including the 600 people who have now lost their jobs in Trepassey.

But the Member stretches it when he starts throwing out total figures, paper fish. Because what it does is give people false hope and gets everybody upset about facts that are really not factual. We are talking about paper fish or fish over which neither the Minister of Fisheries here nor the Federal Minister nor anybody else has any control over. Even if they did, as any operator will tell you, a lot of it could not be caught. If we could catch it we could not market it anyway, so what is the difference? Under international laws, if you cannot do that then you have to give it to somebody who can.

I am not saying to the member that it is wrong in being concerned about fish being taken or given away. He is correct, yes, and he is only saying what everybody else has said. What I am saying is that he is sensationalizing the facts and he is upsetting a lot of people out there by means of sensationalizing. His own fishermen who, as I said, like the Pied Piper followed him for quite some time, now realize that the Member is basically talking through his hat and they no longer follow him.

MR. EFFORD: Come to the meeting next week!

MR. HEARN: The member talked about being a full-time member and about divesting himself of businesses and so on. Let's talk about being a full-time member. I will personally - I cannot speak for anybody else; we will let people talk about themselves - but I certainly fitted into one of the categories that the member mentioned. But I will put on my table my hours that I work for a constituency and I will compare them to that hon. member or any other hon. member in this House.

Because if you have an investment it does not mean that it is a job. Then the hon. member by looking at the newspaper when we do our conflict of interest statements, there is no one in this House with as many investments as the hon. member. So if we are talking about other income, then it seems that the member now is probably the richest member in the House, according to what you read in the newspaper and according to what he always said himself. So consequently if we are talking about having other income the member should not be - the member is talking about, I presume, another job which takes you away physically. Which takes you away not from the House but which takes you away from doing work on behalf of your constituents.

I would suggest to the member, before he starts bandying that around he should probably check to see if members who are involved - and I can say that I am not taken away from my constituents by investments that I have - but I can say that any other member who might find himself taking unemployment to survive in this life, to try to get a portion of the income that that hon. member has, that they are not taking their time away from their constituents in order to do it. If somebody is here working another job and having a secretary or a girl friend or somebody answer your phone, go out and do your constituency work, yes, that is wrong and I agree with it.

But the member is letting on that anybody who has another job or is associated with another job, is doing something wrong, and yet that same member spends more time going over the stocks and bonds and the stock market report every night than many of us spend, certainly in the other interests that we might have, including several members on the member's own side, who have investments in business whereby you only have to check in occasionally to see how things are going, so the member should be very careful before he tars everybody with the same brush, he should look in the mirror himself, and if he is talking about incomes, you should not have another income - I wish I had the money that the hon. member has. I wish I had the money that he has then I would not even worry about having any other interest. I do not have the money that the hon. member has.

I know what he is saying, look at the act and I know what he is talking about, and perhaps I know of whom he is talking about, but the member should be very careful because the point is, it may not mean- I will give you an example. I went to a caucus meeting one day with a St. John's member some years ago. The caucus meeting lasted about an hour and a half; I came back from that caucus meeting and I had twenty-three phone calls waiting for me and I said to him: do you get many phone calls? And he said: I had one, at one time last year and I referred it to city council.

Now if this is the workload of the St. John's members, and I see the Member for St. John's South nodding in agreement, or maybe understanding -

AN HON. MEMBER: You are making about as much sense (inaudible) as you had all night (inaudible) sit down.

MR. HEARN: - then I can easily see why somebody has lots of time to work another job, so the member should be careful. The member talks about keeping the House open, and letting poor people out there wait for work. The member must have missed the session the other night when during supper hour, they found out that the minister responsible for the Environment, the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture, really did not need the money he was looking for, that the people were already working. People on social assistance programs are working. People on the linkages programs have already started to work, consequently we are not keeping people from working, we are just trying to find out who is not working, so that hopefully we can help put programs in place to get them to work. And we found out now, that most people in Liberal districts who needed work are working; most people in Tory districts who needed work are not working, so what we are asking is, the hon. ministers, who provided employment or money for employment, to go back and ask for more so that the people in other parts of the Province can also go out and find some employment. So perhaps we have clarified that for the former Minister of Social Services and perhaps he will support it in asking his colleagues, who do not get along with him very well, to go back and look for some more money, instead of saying we have to cut back, look for more money to fill the gaps so that we could provide some employment for those who are out there in desperate shape. I do not know whether the House recognizes the fact or not that a lot of people who are in desperate shape, there are no possibilities.

The Federal Government, unless it changes its programs and brings in some ordinary, what is called 'job-development programs' or Canada Works Programs, unless they do something like that, a lot of people are getting caught between the cracks. We realize the Government over here does not have money enough to take care of everybody, but at least be fair with what you have and maybe in certain areas try to add some more because it is extremely important that we -

When we were in, between our programs and the common sense programs then that the feds brought in, not too many people - in fact, I can guarantee the member, that speaking in my own area, I know for a number of years that there was nobody, that were constantly in touch, who at the end of the fall did not at least qualify for unemployment insurance between one program and the other, and in many other districts -

AN HON. MEMBER: In your district.

MR. HEARN: - the same thing happened.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about in my district?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: That was because of the federal programs, not only the provincial ones. We did not have many programs. There was no need. There was a lot more work on the go. People were not leaving for Ontario. They were home working - even if they were working in Mount Pearl on a cucumber farm, at least they were working. There were jobs created. The employment rate was much higher than it is right now. The unemployment rate was much lower than it is right now. The social service caseload was much lower. Facts. Look at the unemployment rate today compared to 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1989. Look at the social service caseload today compared to 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1989. We have more people unemployed today; we have more people on social assistance today than ever before.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why?

MR. HEARN: Why? Because of the mismanagement of the Government opposite. That is exactly why we have them there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEARN: And unless you get your act straightened out and say to the Premier, to his face, what you are all saying behind his back, then we will never get the mess straightened out.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEARN: So maybe it is time -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Eagle River (inaudible).

MR. HEARN: The member is starting to get a bit embarrassed. I can embarrass the member a lot more, but I will not. Maybe it is time that you told the Premier to stay home and look after the poor in the Province rather than trying to be the saviour of Canada, because the Premier is starting to become the laughing stock of the country now, not the saviour.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: Charity begins at home, and we need a lot of charity in this Province right now, but we also need a caring Government with a social conscience. We have a right-wing Government; we have a right-wing Premier who is dictating to his members despite how they feel themselves. No wonder we have people leaving Cabinet left, right, and centre. We are going to see more of it. We are going to see more of it simply because they cannot go along with the philosophies and the dictatorial attitudes of the Premier, and it is about time that you took him to task.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) elapsed.

AN HON. MEMBER: Question?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall the resolution carry?

The hon. the Minister of Education.

DR. WARREN: Mr. Chairman, I am very hesitant to speak tonight. I know we have had a bit of politics played, but I would like to say a very few words seriously.

We face a critical time in the history of this Province. We are into a very severe economic situation in the country as a whole. We have the recession that permeates not just this country, but the whole of North America and many other countries throughout the world. Certainly in this Province we have seen the general effects of the recession. We have had a disaster in the fishery. We have had major cutbacks in federal equalization payments, and I think that scares me more than anything else, what is happening in federal payments to provinces such as this.

We have had a devastating year and we must, as a Government, a caring Government, and I was not going to get up until my hon. friend talked about caring, as a caring Government we have done what a good Government should do, provide short-term need for those who need help, and I have seen them. I have been in offices in the past few weeks, and I have seen people who are poor and hungry. It is not a comfortable feeling. It has not been a comfortable feeling to go into some offices where people are lined up, and you know why they are there. They look at you, and you have a tie on, and they say, why are you here? They feel uncomfortable. It is not a good feeling, but as a Government we must respond. We must respond in the short term. This Government has done it, and I hope we can pass the bill. I would sit down now if we could pass the bill, if you would call the question. I would sit down now and not continue on, but let me continue on for another few minutes. We must provide short-term help, and this Government has done it.

As the Member for LaPoile said: look what we have done in difficult times. Look what we have done. Mr. Chairman, I want to add something else, that it is not enough to focus on the short-term. It is not enough to focus on the short-term. We must provide leadership and vision for the future.

I hear it every day, and I am sure the Minister of Finance hears it: deal with today, tomorrow will take care of itself. I have heard that over and over. I have heard: let's get the instant gratification, let's look for the magic solution, the short-term. We must do the short-term, but that is not enough, Mr. Chairman. We have heard people say: spend a few million here, and spend a few million there. Let's borrow a few million here and a few million there. Don't ask if we can spend more efficiently. Spend to get re-elected. You have heard it, and I have heard it. We have heard it in this House.

Mr. Chairman, that is a dangerous and a costly attitude. We must deal with the short-term. We must deal with the immediate needs of the people who are suffering, the disadvantaged in our society who, through no fault of their own, are suffering today. We must deal with that. We must go beyond that. We must look to the long-term. We must realize that the year 2000 is not very far off. We have to look for creative solutions to our problems. We have to stop mindless expansion on programs. We have to look at the deficit. We cannot continue, as my friend said earlier about the money we are spending to pay off the debts. We cannot continue on and ignore the deficit. We cannot even continue to increase taxes as we have been. Mr. Chairman, we must provide for wise management, we must evaluate results, we must develop coherent and consistent long-term policies and plans to deal with our basic problems. They are going to be here for some time if we do not do that.

It is not easy, Mr. Chairman, it is not easy to build consensus. It is not easy! You remember we went out with an economic plan and we were laughed at, but I tell you it is the right thing to do, to go around this Province and to talk with the people about the long-term, and listen to the people. It is not easy, Mr. Chairman, but we must do it. We must look to the future with vision and leadership as well as deal with the immediate things, and I cannot sit down without saying a word about education because education is one of the basic solutions to our long-term problems. Mr. Chairman, our greatest strength is our people. Yes, we have forests and we have all of these resources, but Newfoundland is much more than forests and minerals, and water, its people, and we have to educate our people. We have to promote a new attitude among our people towards entrepreneurship and enterprise - a new attitude. We have to teach people the basic skills. We have to teach people how to think. We have to teach people attitudes towards work and competition because we must compete with the world. We cannot quarantine ignorance. We cannot isolate ourselves any more from what is happening in the world. So we must, as a Government, focus on literacy, basic education, math, science, technology, and I tell you this Government is going to do it. We have a White Paper. We are implementing a White Paper on post-secondary. We are rationalizing a post-secondary system. We have asked the Commission of Inquiry to look at elementary and secondary, and they are going to give us a plan for the next decade. Some of their recommendations are going to be rather sensitive, dealing with this issue of interdenominational sharing and the denominational system. We must do that, Mr. Chairman. We must focus on education. Learning is the ticket not only to a good job, but to a better life and a better future for this Province and this country.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

DR. WARREN: We must, however, deal with the short-term while we are doing the long-term and building for a great future. I am an optimist about this Province. We have a window of opportunity if we do it right. With all the negative things, with all the pessimism, I am an optimist, and I am sure on this side we are optimists. We are going to take that challenge and move this Province into the 21 century and provide a better way of life for all of our people.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Before I recognize the hon. Member I would just want to draw the Members' attention again to the fact that we have a number of Members who are turning their back to the Chair while we are in session here. I think the Speaker has already ruled on that and has brought it to the attention of hon. Members earlier today. So I just take this opportunity again to remind hon. Members about that.

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I only have a few minutes but I would like to say to the Minister of Education that he should know all about White Papers and studies. He was probably hired full-time by the taxpayers of this Province doing studies. Since he became the Minister of Education, and probably before it, he has done more damage to the system than any person I have ever known.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, the issues that we are dealing with tonight are extremely serious. The Member for Port de Grave got up and started talking about all of the money that Government gave, and how they should not give it to Tory districts. He said if he was the Minister they would not have (Inaudible).

Now the Minister of Social Services has done a pretty good job at the pork barrelling. That minister over there was worse. I happened to be minister of that Department one time too and I can say to all hon. members of this House that when I was there, there was no pork barrelling, there was no favouritism shown. When I was there there was none of that. I was fair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. TOBIN: It was - no, there was none of that, Mr. Chairman. I can say it with a straight face, that when I was minister there was no such thing as pork barrelling. There was no such thing as playing politics with government money. Everybody in this Province - the Budget was probably twice as much as it is today for community development - whatever community wanted community development they got it. Not depending on how they voted, like these two ministers are doing.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. TOBIN: That is what happened. That is what did happen. There was no such thing. It was not part of the Department's policy. Wherever there were opportunities for money that is who got it, Mr. Chairman. Not like we are seeing today. But the minister there - and my colleague for St. Mary's raised the matter about his district was being treated, how unfair his district was being treated. I did not know until he pointed it out.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, my colleague -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Leader now.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: My colleague - Mr. Chairman, can I have order please? My colleague for St. Mary's pointed out how the -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, will the most incompetent minister who has ever sat in the government in this Province stay quiet? The most incompetent minister. As I said today, we cannot blame him because he does not know the difference. He is to be pitied, he does not know the difference.

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

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

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Trinity - Bay de Verde.

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

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

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I intend tomorrow to call the same Bill 44, as we have been discussing today so vigorously and for so long.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, at 9:00 a.m.