The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Dicks): Order, please!

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask all members of the House to join with me in extending sincere congratulations to Ms. Kim Campbell, the newly elected Prime Minister of Canada.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WELLS: Members on both sides of the House of course made a significant contribution to the leadership convention that occurred in Ottawa over the weekend in that we adjourned on Thursday and Friday and agreed not to sit yesterday to facilitate members of this House who were participating in the convention. It is obvious they were successful, at least some were successful in their endeavour's, because they have produced a new leader for the PC Party and a new Prime Minister designate in Canada. I am sure all members of the House will join with me in wishing Ms. Campbell great success in her responsibilities, in the discharge of her responsibilities as Prime Minister, because what she does as Prime Minister of course will be of great significance and great impact on the nation as a whole. I do not, Mr. Speaker, understandably, go quite so far as to wish her great success in events that may come later this Fall but I certainly wish her well in the conduct of her office while she is there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SIMMS: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I want to be associated with the words of the Premier, at least the congratulatory words of the Premier, extended to the new Prime Minister, Prime Minister designate or Prime Minister elect or whatever it is called. I had occasion to meet with her during the weekend and had a little chat with her about working with the first ministers around the country. I assured her of the willingness of our first minister here in Newfoundland and Labrador to work cooperatively to deal with some of the very difficult problems that the country is faced with and the provinces are faced with. So I am sure she will be impressed and pleased to hear the words of the Premier, notwithstanding the last little dart, which I am sure he felt he had to get in but let me just say to the Premier and to the members of the House of Assembly, having had the chance to experience the third federal leadership campaign, this one was beyond any comparison to any of the others. It was a very, very highly successful, highly charged convention, a very enthusiastic and energetic new leader, not only for our party but for our country and I think she will be there for a long time yet to come.

That could be seen in the poll today, which indicated that Canadians would prefer Kim Campbell over Jean Chretien and Audrey McLaughlin by some ten percentage points. So, I think that augurs well and we will see what unfolds over the next two months. All the partisans will be able to say what they want to say over the next couple of months, but the reality is that it is going to be a fight and do not ever lose sight of that, it is going to be a fight and a battle that will be won on the ground.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I too would like to join of course in a totally non-partisan way in congratulating Kim Campbell on her selection as Leader of the PC Party of Canada and of course, the first woman Prime Minister of Canada and indeed it is an honour to lead a party and lead a country in that way, and we are looking anxiously towards any new policy directions that might come forward, particularly those that might be favourable to this Province and this Province's needs, but that all remains to be seen, but I would like to join with the Premier and the Leader of the Official Opposition in congratulating her on her victory and wishing her well in her new post.

MR. SPEAKER: On behalf of all hon. members, I would like to welcome to the House of Assembly twenty-five students from Grades V and VI at Catalina Elementary in Catalina from the district of Bonavista South and Trinity North. The students are accompanied by their teachers Ms. Lorrie Smith and Mr. Marvin Ryder together with their driver Mr. Don Hicks.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If I may make a brief statement, I would like to advise the House, Sir, that I have today ordered a judicial inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of John Steven Rich, of Makkovik, June 8th, which was last week. Mr.Rich was the gentleman who was shot in circumstances, I suspect most members will recall, and my officials have received an interim report into the death and as a result we have decided to hold the inquiry.

The Chief Judge of the provincial court, the hon. Donald Luther is responsible for assigning a judge and for the timing, my officials will ask Chief Judge Luther to hold this inquiry as quickly as possibly. I think I should add that I am not suggesting there is anything untoward or anything that is going to require any unusual treatment, but what I do want to say, Mr. Speaker, is that, given the circumstances of a hostage taking and a man who died as a result of, apparently, an exchange of gunfire with the police, we feel that it is in the public's interest to have this inquiry as quickly as possible and address the matters in that way.

Thank you.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just heard the minister's announcement and I welcome it. I think it is important that there be a public inquiry into the death of Mr. Rich. It is a rare instance involving a death at the hands of a police officer in a very highly charged situation. It is important that this be probed, and I am glad that the minister has acted promptly in arranging for an inquiry.

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

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I welcome the announcement by the Minister of Justice, particulary in view of the public comments of one of the individuals who was involved in this particular incident. These are very tragic circumstances, and very difficult ones for a police force.

It is often difficult to find the right mixture of compassion for the individual involved and public protection, and I think in each and every case like this there ought to be a public inquiry to ensure that the proper procedures are being carried out and that there is not any unnecessary suffering, so I think it is quite appropriate and very timely.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I have a question, or maybe two, to the Minister of Fisheries.

Some time ago, I remember during the election campaign myself having a meeting with a delegation or group of people from the Fleur de Lys area. I know that my colleague, the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay, who is unavoidably absent today and will be back later on this evening, has also had some discussions with the minister over the last couple of weeks.

Now my understanding is that the minister indicated - this relates to the reactivation of a crab licence for the plant in that particular community. I know he is well aware of what I am talking about. My understanding from having communication with one of those people last night was that the minister indicated to them last week that he was hoping to have a decision or something on their problem last week, after Cabinet or whatever. Can I ask the minister: Does he have such a decision, and if so when is he going to announce it?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I do not know if I promised when we would have a decision. This matter has been ongoing now for quite some time.

The plant in Fleur de Lys presently has licences to process groundfish, lump fish roe, seal, herring, mackerel, caplin and squid. Mr. Speaker, the government is not prepared, at this point in time, to issue a crab processing licence for that plant.

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

MR. SIMMS: Has the minister communicated this information to the group from Fleur de Lye? Can I just ask him that? I want to know if he has communicated to them because up until late last night they were not aware of that and they were anxiously awaiting his decision.

Secondly, in view of the fact that is now his decision, what does he have in mind? Does he have any suggestions for the people in that particular area? Because I think there were something like 280 jobs, certainly, well in excess of 200 jobs, connected with the operation of that crab plant. It had been in operation for the last couple of years, as you know, through a temporary license. I just wonder if the minister has communicated that information to the group and does he have any other suggestions for them?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, that information has been communicated to them. I think it has gone out this morning, and I was not in a position until this morning to communicate that message to them. With respect to the future of that plant, Mr. Speaker, it is like a lot of other plants around the coast now, with the new market developing for crab and the high price being paid, a lot of fish plants want to get access to crab processing licenses. We already have adequate capacity in that area and, for that reason, we just can't issue any more new licenses. It just would not make sense, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

I have a question, as well, for the Minister of Fisheries. I just read recently an article, I think it was in The Evening Telegram, where the Deputy Minister of Fisheries said that the number of processing plants in the Province should be cut from 260 to 100, which is a reduction of nearly two-thirds. I would like to ask the minister: How did the department arrive at that number? Is it a wild guess or is it based on a careful study of the size, location, and economic viability of the fish plants in the Province? Could the minister explain for the House from whence the deputy minister drew that number?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, we were having a meeting in Marystown, one of the meetings on our discussion paper, and in the course of addressing the gathering the deputy minister did make reference to the need to reduce the number of plants. I am not sure what the numbers were but, I think, most people will agree that the processing sector in the Province will have to be reduced. I don't think there are any hard and fast numbers as to the extent it will be reduced, but certainly, the fish stocks are not being rebuilt as rapidly as we had hoped, and I think circumstances will dictate that the number of plants will be reduced over the next few years.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The deputy minister was rather specific, I say to the minister - he said, from 260 to 100. He wouldn't say approximately, or within a fifty range, he was very specific. Now, government decided some time ago not to renew inactive processing licenses, or to transfer licenses until a plan was in place for the processing sector of the fishing industry. I want to ask the Minister of Fisheries: Is that still the policy of his department or has it changed recently?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, there is already a freeze in existence on the issuing and transferring of groundfish licenses, and crab licenses, and that policy is being followed.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Can the minister then confirm that government has very recently issued a license for a plant at St. George's, where a license, I understand it, was inactive for a period of, I believe, five years? Apparently, that license now has been awarded to Mr. Martin O'Brien. Can the minister indicate whether this license has been given to Mr. O'Brien? If so, will he explain what appears to be a violation of government policy, which maintains the status quo until you're ready to restructure the processing sector? Could the minister confirm that? If so, could he explain for this House why he and government have made this award at this time?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, unlike the previous government, of which the hon. gentleman was a member, this government does not violate its own regulations. There was no groundfish license issued to that plant. There were two plants, one in Stephenville and one in St. George's, that had a number of licenses. It is part of the government's policy to consolidate plants and to encourage plants to consolidate. That is precisely what has happened with respect to the plant in St. George's. There is no groundfish license being issued. There will be no freezing capacity authorized in that plant. So it is a consolidation, Mr. Speaker, of a number of licenses that were already in existence up there.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: I will give the Opposition House Leader a supplementary.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The policy of the Department of Fisheries is not specific to groundfish license, I say to the minister. I want to ask the minister: He has been going about the Province with `Changing Tides'. He has a number of processing sector policy measures. I want to refer him to page 62 of that document, where he says: `No incremental capacity increases would be authorized where plant consolidation is permitted under existing licenses. That is Article 20. Then, a bit further on, he goes on to say: `the withdrawal of inactive licenses once any processing facility fails to meet specific operating criteria, such as a period of inoperation for two years.'

I want to ask the minister: How can he stand here today and tell this House and the people of this Province, and particularly, the processing sector of the fishery, that he has now flown in the face of his own policy document and his own `Changing Tides' and issued licenses to two plants that were closed for more than two years? Really, when the minister gets in his place, Mr. Speaker, I want to ask him: Won't he confirm that what we see here is the most blatant political patronage move that we have seen for years in this Province? - awarding a family, Mr. Speaker, awarding a candidate who ran in the last provincial election; that's what he has done - rewarding the family for it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, for that member to stand in his place and talk about patronage, given the fact that three days before this government took office on May 5, 1989 - three days

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I can't hear the hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: - his then colleague, the Minister of Fisheries, Mr. Peach, on orders from his then Premier, issued three processing licences.

AN HON. MEMBER: After the election.

MR. CARTER: After the election, three days before we took office - purely on a patronage basis. So, Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to rationalize the hon. gentleman talking about this government and patronage.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Health.

On May 21, I asked the Minister of Health about any plans his government may have had to compensate victims of the HIV virus from blood transfusions before mandatory testing occurred in 1985. The minister avoided the question by saying that it was under review before the courts.

I ask the minister: Has he received a proposal for compensation, and is the government prepared to consider some form of disability benefits for those who were infected, and their dependants?

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

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, since that time, we have been in contact with some of the individuals who have been involved with this problem, and we appreciate very much the seriousness of the problem they are facing. We have taken it under advisement but, as I say now, the matter is still before the courts and I don't particularly want to discuss this matter publicly at this time, but be assured that this government will do what is appropriate.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The fact that it is in the courts has not stopped the Government of Nova Scotia from giving compensation, and it hasn't stopped the Provinces of Ontario, Quebec and Alberta from developing packages that are going to their Cabinets. Why can this government not act as other governments have done and are now doing?

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

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, the Province of Nova Scotia, I believe, did make a move after the government was defeated in the election, and the Government of Quebec have made certain movements in that direction, as have other governments. One government has asked that it might be put on the agenda for the next Health Ministers' Conference, and another government has asked that the item be put on the agenda for the next Deputy Ministers' Conference, which will be occurring later this month, so the matter is under consideration.

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would hope that this matter of compensation is not a political matter, as the minister stated it was after the Nova Scotia government was defeated. There are nineteen people in this Province who received the HIV virus through transfusions - sixteen haemophiliacs and three through surgery, of which two of the three from surgery have died, and seven out of sixteen have died who were haemophiliacs.

Many of those surviving cannot obtain work and their families cannot obtain life insurance and medical insurance. Surely, this government should be as compassionate as the other four governments involved which are seeking or giving compensation.

Now, every person in Newfoundland and Labrador understands the fundamental justice and compassion needed, especially in cases where these individuals received HIV infection through something they thought was safe. I think it is the responsibility of this Province to do something about it.

This minister has a proposal in that I think is reasonable, and I will ask him: Will he move now to put in place a disability package for these people and their dependants?

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

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, I have said all I am going to say on this topic at this point.

Thank you.

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

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Environment and Lands.

Recently, the Minister of Environment and Lands told the media that the proposal to import garbage for incineration at Long Harbour was dead because of the cancellation of ACOA funding.

According to the stories in the press, North American Resource Recovery is not yet ready for burial. Has the minister met with NARR, and has she told them the project is dead as far as the Provincial Government are concerned, and is the minister prepared to pull the plug on this project?

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

MS. COWAN: Mr. Speaker, in response to my critic's comment, when you put in context what I said about the North American Resource project, I think it becomes clearer. My response to the question at the time by someone in the press was that, when ready funding was available to these individuals and they did not take advantage of it, it seemed unlikely that they would, indeed, then go out and try to find funding through banks or whatever. That was the context in which I made those statements. I also indicated at the same time that NARR is, indeed, still free if it should so wish, to put in a proposal to us, but I felt that in the light of the money being withdrawn, this was not likely to happen. They failed to meet all the deadlines that had been put in place by ACOA, who were ready to hand them the money free gratis.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for St. John's East Extern.

MR. J. BYRNE: Will the minister bring in legislation to ban the importation of domestic and industrial waste for incineration or other forms of disposal? Will she introduce legislation so that there will be no more NARRs?

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

MS. COWAN: Mr. Speaker, in response to that question, my answer can be no different from what it has been in the past. We do not at this time see a way to bring in legislation that would rule against cross-border transport of garbage that could not, in some way, interfere with a future project that this Province might have in mind, that would involve taking some of its waste materials to another province. So, our position remains the same, that we are comfortable with the legislation we have at this time and feel the environmental assessment process is a fair and just way to look at any new project.

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for St. John's East Extern.

MR. J. BYRNE: I want to ask the minister a question on another subject. Newfoundland Power has recently received, apparently, permission from the City of St. John's to store PCBs at their site in Mundy Pond, which is a densely populated area. As the minister knows, the proposal to store PCBs in Mount Pearl, Chance Cove and other areas have been turned down. Will the minister take action to ensure that the storage of these highly hazardous materials are not permitted in or near populated centres? Will she insist that Newfoundland Power find a site well away from residential areas and that it provide security so that there can be no risk to people or the environment?

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

MS. COWAN: To my knowledge, there has been no certificate of approval granted to Hydro for the storage of PCBs outside of their current storage area. We have now turned down two - the application has been withdrawn or we have turned down two such proposals. It will not be too long before PCBs will be destroyed and we hope the problem will be over with. In the meantime, we do have to find a safe place to put them and we are endeavouring to do that. So, I can only reassure you that we will find a way to get Hydro to store these PCBs as safely as possible until they can be destroyed, which we hope will happen over the next few years. Possible sites for the destruction of PCBs have now been announced in New Brunswick. An environmental process is ongoing in New Brunswick to see if those are appropriate spots, and once that is resolved, then our PCBs will be accepted by New Brunswick and we will get rid of them there.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a question for the Minister of Social Services. In the March Budget, which we, in this Assembly, are now debating and will shortly be expected to pass, the government cut funding to community organizations, including agencies funded by the Department of Social Services, including: Big Brothers, Big Sisters, The Personal Credit Counselling Service, Church Counselling Services, the Newfoundland Hearing Association, The Goodwill Centre and the Community Services Council. These organizations, through their good work, prevent social and health problems, thereby saving the government money, and because the agencies enlist volunteers and raise money from other levels of government and the private sector the Province gets a high return on its investment and the provincial government funding cut is only a minuscule percentage of total Social Services spending. Has the minister - being in office now for over a month - realized that cutting these community organizations is penny wise and pound foolish, and will he reinstate the funding?

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

MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, I don't know whether the hon. member is aware or not but we're living in a time of fiscal restraints, living in a time of economic malaise. We've got some terrible fiscal problems. In times like these there are bound to be some cutbacks in all government departments. Certainly the government is aware of the contributions made by these agencies - Big Brother's and the Community Services Council. All of these. We're certainly aware of the contribution that they make and delivery of services to the Province. That's why we've asked for an assessment of all of these agencies, and that's presently being done, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Supplementary, the hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't know about malaise anywhere else but there's certainly malaise in the government benches opposite here.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Here, here!

MS. VERGE: Mr. Speaker, the minister's department, the Social Services department, has budgeted spending a total of about $10 million on young offenders this year. That's an average of about $60,000 per youth in trouble with the law. Does the minister realize that the good work of just one of the organizations his department is cutting - Big Brother's-Big Sister's -, work mostly done by volunteers and supported generously by community fund-raising, helps to prevent crime by young people? Does the minister realize that the cut in funding to Big Brother's-Big Sister's of $40,000 this year, down from $90,000 to $50,000, puts in question the ability of that organization to continue serving as many families as it does? Does the minister see that if the work of Big Brother's-Big Sister's keeps just one or two young people out of trouble with the law each year, then the Province will be in money?

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

MR. LUSH: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we're concerned, and we're concerned as I've said about all of these community agencies. That's why, again, we've asked for an assessment. That's why we have our people out in the field talking to all of these agencies, determining the type of work that they do, determining the levels of financing which are necessary, and determining whether or not the government will be able, in recognition of the work they do, to assist them further.

MR. SPEAKER: Final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Why hasn't the government done assessments long before now? The government's been funding these organizations for years, the four years this administration has been in office. Why hasn't the government completed its assessment? Why won't the minister give the members of this Assembly who are being asked to vote on the Budget in a few days, an answer? Are these organizations going to have their funding reinstated, yes or no?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, it takes time to do these assessments. We have many agencies out there in the area of delivery of services to government, and we want to ensure that there is a thorough and a comprehensive assessment in terms of viewing what these - in terms of analyzing and determining what each of these agencies is doing. As soon as that's done, Mr. Speaker, we'll be in a position to determine -

MS. VERGE: When will it be done?

AN HON. MEMBER: When!?

MR. LUSH: - as soon as that is done, Mr. Speaker, and it will be done as expeditiously as possible, the government will make a determination of what its response will be.

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

MR. MANNING: Mr. Speaker, my question's for the Minister of Tourism and Culture. As the minister is fully aware, major developments are taking place at Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve, including the upgrading and paving of the access road. A few weeks ago the minister confirmed that his department was not consulted in regards to the establishment of a quarry at the site until it was too late. Is the minister aware of other activities related to the development of cabins along the route to Cape St. Mary's, either by private or business persons, and what is his view on such developments taking place?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism and Culture.

MR. WALSH: Mr. Speaker, I anticipate there are about three questions there so let me try to deal with them in the order that I remember them, so that is starting from the back and going to number one.

In terms of cabin development along the road, I am not overly familiar with the fact of whether or not there is cabin development taking place on that road, but I would like to point out to the hon. member that the access road from the main highway to the site is actually a road that is owned and has jurisdiction by the Coast Guard. It is a federal road, a federally maintained road and will continue to be that way in the future.

With respect to the upgrading of the road in terms of wanting to have the road paved, last Fall, under a federal/provincial subsidiary agreement with respect to that site, the hon. John Crosbie wanted to add some $750,000 to the federal/provincial subsidiary agreement, specifically to upgrade that road. After much discussion and deliberation, it was decided that we would accept the funds and the funds came forward under the agreement and they were project-specific upon Mr. Crosbie's insistence, and by that I mean, the $750,000 could have been used in some other aspect of the development that we would have liked to have seen go there, but he was somewhat insistent that that money be used on the road, so we decided that we would certainly agree with him and pave that road. There was a proviso of course, that even though the road was being paved and upgraded, that the road would continue to be the responsibility of the federal government.

Now, with respect to the quarry, I cannot remember, but there was a question about more quarry operations or - I may have to ask the member to repeat that part of the question.

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

MR. MANNING: Mr. Speaker, I am fully aware that the road leading to Cape - St. Mary's is federally owned. It is the land that goes on both sides of the road that I am concerned about, and the possibility that cabins will be built on this road and this road is agricultural land now, has been leased to the Development Association in our area, which is controlled by the Department of Forestry and Agriculture. The question I asked is, what his view would be on developments taking place on the road to Cape St. Mary's, and would he have his officials check this out and report back to the House on their findings as soon as possible, because I am sure, as I am sure the minister is, that if the cabins become the problem that the quarry became, he would not want to see either?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism and Culture.

MR. WALSH: Okay. I was not sure about the cabin part - thank you, Mr. Speaker, I thought you were talking about a new quarry and that is what threw me a little bit.

With respect to cabins and cabin development, not only does the federal government control the access road that leads to that site, but I believe they control - and I am not sure of the exact amount but a fair amount of land on either side of the road, so if the federal government were wishing to restrict access, they own the road, they own the boundaries on both sides of the road, it could be 200 or 300 feet on either side of the road, I am not sure of the exact amount, but if they control that, they also control the access to it, they control the ditches that one would have to put culverts in, they control the land that you would have to put the roads on to get to your cabins, so should there be cabin development there, I will certainly ask our officials to discuss with the federal government, and the Coast Guard in particular, what would be the best way to deal with the use of their land.

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

MR. MANNING: I ask the minister, would he seek a change in present policy to ensure the projects can impact on our tourism industry, require the prior approval of the Department of Tourism and Culture before proceeding, even though the possibility of the cabins being built on the side of the road, there is also the possibility of the cabins being built on the border of the ecological zone which stretches for three miles on each side of the road?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism and Culture.

MR. WALSH: Thank you, Mr . Speaker.

Regardless of where the line for the ecological reserve is drawn, there is always going to be a border, whether we take it right back to the communities or the nearest community, there is always going to be a line that you have to draw that says: the ecological reserve begins here and something else can exist on the other side and so, for us to decide that you cannot build within a certain distance of the reserve, where does the reserve end, you may as well keep the reserve going.

But I certainly will take under advisement your recommendation that we talk to our federal counterparts to see if we can ensure that any development that would take place within a reserve area, and by that I mean on the outskirts and not inside, but within some reasonable distance from the reserve, would be something that we would jointly agree to and that we would hopefully be able to administer collectively in terms of the Crown Lands Division, but also in terms of how the federal government looks upon their own property which is the access road. I will take that under advisement and talk to my officials.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I have a district question I would like to ask the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation. He would be familiar with, and be aware of, the controversy that has occurred out in the Central Newfoundland area, the Grand Falls - Windsor area, with respect to the four-lane Trans- Canada Highway. I understand from some public comments the minister has made he has offered to go out, sit down and talk to whoever to see if the issue can be resolved to the satisfaction of the business community, in particular out there, who have a lot of concerns. Can the minister tell the House when he intends to go out, if in fact he has said he will go out, and who he intends to meet with?

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

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I inform the hon. Leader of the Opposition that while he was enjoying his two or three days in Ottawa I was meeting with the council members from Grand Falls - Windsor and we have come to a reasonable agreement. I have notified them by letter since of the stipulations that we wanted in the agreement to come to an understanding that everything would be satisfactory to both sides. That has since been faxed to them on Monday morning and everybody seems to be quite happy about it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has expired.

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

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce the following bills:

"An Act To Amend The St. John's Municipal Elections Act."

"An Act To Amend The City Of Corner Brook Act."

"An Act To Amend The City Of Mount Pearl Act."

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce the following bills:

"An Act To Amend The Teachers' Pension Act."

"An Act To Amend The Financial Corporations Capital Tax Act."

"An Act To Amend The Retail Sales Tax Act."

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Insurance Adjustors, Agents and Brokers Act."

If I may, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a very brief comment on it. One provision of this bill, of which I have just given notice, bears upon a matter in respect of which I was briefed, or retained if you wish, as a lawyer while in private practice.

I have taken no part in consideration of the matter at either the official or Cabinet level. As this is the first occasion that the matter has come before the House, I now make a declaration pursuant to Section 33 of the new Conflict of Interest Act.

My friend, the Minister of Finance, will carry the bill through to its parliamentary stage, whatever may be its fate, and I would ask the Clerk to make an appropriate notification in the Journals of the House, Sir.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Green Bay.

MR. HEWLETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I stand to present a petition from 286 residents of South Brook and surrounding area. The prayer of the petition to the House of Assembly is as follows:

We the undersigned residents of South Brook and surrounding area petition the hon. House of Assembly to instruct the government to repair and upgrade the bridge over South Brook on the Trans-Canada Highway near the intersection of the Beothuck Trail and the Trans-Canada Highway.

As I said, Mr. Speaker, that is signed by 286 local residents.

Mr. Speaker, South Brook, the town, derives its name from the brook which runs through it - South Brook. At the intersection of the Beothuck Trail and the Trans-Canada, very near that intersection, the Trans-Canada crosses South Brook, the river, and there is a concrete bridge there that, to say the least, is an absolute disgrace. It is in a stage of total disrepair. It looks terrible, and I think from a safety point of view leaves a lot to be desired.

A good bit of the railing consists mainly of planks wired together, and anybody probably leaning on the railing is in danger of actually falling into the brook itself which, given the Newfoundland terminology, we know it as a river rather than a brook.

Also, Mr. Speaker, I indicated the bridge in question is very near the intersection with the Beothuck Trail, which is a designated tourism trail in our highway network - the trail that the Beothuck Indians used to take in their Spring migrations to the sea. It does very little for the tourism potential of that particular trail, to begin one's journey with the bridge in question in sight. It certainly would do much to discourage tourists from exploring the surrounding area if that is the sort of bridge work they have to deal with. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, that entire intersection leading to the bridge is far from up to modern day standards and is in dire need of upgrading.

I have written both the federal and provincial Ministers of Transportation, as has the council of South Brook, with regard to the bridge and the intersection. Both sides seem to be passing the buck as to whose responsibility this bridge is and what priority it should receive.

Mr. Speaker, I would like both governments to stop passing the buck and start spending the buck on the bridge over South Brook. This bridge is a disgrace. Anyone driving over it can see it. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the section of the Trans-Canada Highway between Badger and the Baie Verte junction might as well be in the Bermuda Triangle, because it's receiving absolutely no attention from the appropriate authorities.

Mr. Speaker, I support this petition. I've signed it. I ask that it be tabled and referred to the department to which it relates. Thank you very much.

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

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In listening to the Member for Green Bay read the petition, or speak to the petition that he's talking about, I cannot as minister say that I'm fully aware of the situation at the bridge. I guess he probably had written the former Minister of Works, Services and Transportation. I suspect that the condition of the bridge is not quite as bad as he says it is. If it is, I'd have to question first of all why he did not approach me personally and say so. Because the danger that he's talked about here in the House of Assembly in presenting the petition leaves me somewhat dismayed at why we would have a bridge in that condition where it's life-threatening to traffic or to pedestrians or anybody else.

What I will do - because I don't agree with him either that this area of his district, or any district, is not getting attention when it comes to safety or the lives of the people, or the transportation system across the Province. What I can assure the hon. member that I will do, I will have my officials look into this immediately. If it is as bad as he says, whether it's the responsibility of the provincial Department of Works, Services and Transportation, or a federal responsibility - I don't know what point he was trying to make there, one passing the buck over to the other - there's monies to take care of emergency situations. There's money in the Trans-Canada Roads for Rails agreement and there's money in the provincial agreements every year to do the provincial funding for the highroads and by-roads across the Province, the secondary roads.

All I can say to the hon. member, in a situation like this I would have certainly had somebody look at it sooner, had I been aware of it. I can assure him that I will have someone look at it and report back to him personally so he can take it back to his constituents. Once I get it checked out and see if what he's saying to this hon. House is the exact clear picture of the dangers the bridge really poses.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I have a motion, but before I do perhaps the House might allow me a moment or two to discuss what the government will be asking us to do now that we're either refreshed from the long weekend or impressed.

AN HON. MEMBER: Or depressed.

MR. ROBERTS: Or depressed. I say to my friend for Grand Bank that he and his colleagues in the Tory Party in my judgement did Jean Chretien a considerable favour on Sunday. I realize my friend was not part of it.

We're going to ask the House to deal first, Mr. Speaker, with Your leave, with the amendment to the Standing Orders so we can move that ahead. Then we shall ask the House to deal with Bill No. 4, which is the Department of Industry, Trade and Technology bill. Now that's a change from where we left it last week. We were going to deal with Bill No. 2 first, but I say to those interested in Bill No. 2 that I'm trying to accommodate my friends opposite who've asked that we deal with the `DITT' bill, as we call it, first.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: The `DITT' bill. Not `ditts' but `DITT'. Department of Industry, Trade and Technology. Then we'll go on with Bill No. 6, which is An Act To Amend The Municipalities Act. It's a long bill. It's a very straightforward piece of legislation. We'll leave Bill No. 8 for a moment, because that may be a little more controversial. Bill No. 12, that's the Liquor Control Act. Bill No. 10, which is the implementation of the deals with the government. Then we'll come back to Bill No. 2.

Now we'll see how we get along. We may not get through all those, I realize, this afternoon before 5:00 p.m. That being so, Mr. Speaker, I move the House do not adjourn at 5:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER: If I understand the hon. Government House Leader before I move on, you wish to deal first with Motion 5, then orders....

MR. ROBERTS: Orders, Mr. Speaker, number 8 -

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, I just wanted to understand first of all what the (inaudible) -

MR. WINDSOR: (Inaudible) speak to the motion.

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, that's fine. Then we would move on. You propose to deal with -

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) non-debatable motion.

MR. SPEAKER: - 2, I'm sorry, with Nos. 8, 9, 12, 13 and 7, in that order. Is it?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk, if I could, to the Government House Leader.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: The Government House Leader sent across a list here that we did not have a chance to discuss and I wanted to get a chance to have a chat about that before we really proceed. We have no problem starting with Bill No. 4, "An Act Respecting The Department of Industry, Trade And Technology." Perhaps we could then have a word about procedure after that because we do have a person or two who are en route and we might be able to accommodate them by re-scheduling it or juggling around the order, please?

MR. ROBERTS: Before my friend for Mount Pearl speaks perhaps I could say I would be delighted to call Bill No. 4 in an effort to co-operate with the opposition. He and I could meet while the minister and the opposition critic are dealing with Bill No. 4.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, the minister is making a motion not to adjourn at 5:00, but Standing Order 7, I believe it is, is very clear.

MR. SPEAKER: On the point of order so I know what we are discussing, I do not think the hon. Government House Leader made the motion. I think he said if business was not completed.

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, I did.

MR. SPEAKER: You did make the motion?

MR. ROBERTS: I did move that the House do not adjourn at 5:00 o'clock.

MR. SPEAKER: That is if business were not completed. Anyway, go ahead.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The hon. member has moved a motion and let me be clear, I think we are going to agree with what he wants. I think that was the agreement - that we would agree. I just wanted to make it clear that I think the motion is out of order, actually, because Standing Order 7 very clearly says that at 5:00 o'clock, except on Wednesday and Thursday, if the business of the House is not adjourned, Mr. Speaker, shall leave the Chair until 7:00. You cannot change the Standing Orders except by the mechanisms laid down and by the unanimous consent of the House. What I am saying is that the motion is out of order. Now, if the member would like to have leave to come back at 7:00, or not to adjourn from 5:00 to 7:00 we will agree with that, but I want to make it clear that he is totally out of order in accordance with the Standing Orders but we will agree to it.

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

MR. ROBERTS: To that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Let me, first of all, say to my hon. friend that the Standing Orders are not the only rules of this House. In fact Standing Order No. 1 says: In all cases not provided for hereinafter or by sessional or other orders. The hereinafter refers to the Standing Orders and then there are sessional or other orders, point one. Point two, the motion, Mr. Speaker, has been made time and time again during my period in the House, which goes back a little further than even my hon. friend from Mount Pearl, and has been accepted by any number of Speakers as being in order. Furthermore it is not debatable and does not require notice. The motion, I would submit, is in order and accordingly should be put without debate and it does not require notice. Generally we do it with consent but I would make the submission that the matter is in order, the motion is in order, and accordingly should be dealt with at once.

MR. WINDSOR: To that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. WINDSOR: I submit that the hon. member's submission is totally irrelevant, that in all cases not provided hereinafter, but in this case it is very clearly provided hereinafter in Standing Order No. 7 which says very clearly that the House shall adjourn at 5:00 and come back at 7:00 if the business is not there. Now, my friend points out that way back in history, and we all know he comes from back in the dark ages, and he may well be correct that there may have been cases, but I point out that the Standing Orders were changed only a number of years ago to provide that there would be a supper break from 5:00 to 7:00, and it also provides that at 10:00 the House will adjourn. The former Speaker ruled against an objection of ours a couple of months ago when the House failed to adjourn at 10:00. I am pointing out to the hon. member opposite and to Your Honour that these rules were changed so that we are not going through the foolishness of being here all night and that we do take a supper break from 5:00 to 7:00. If the member wants leave not to, then we are prepared to give leave, but we are not going to do it because he says the Standing Orders are not applicable.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I shall be brief. I will not get into the personal diatribe that he wants me to get into, but he should at least read the full passage which says: in all cases not provided for hereinafter, or by sessional or other orders. Secondly, the House does not adjourn at 5:00 pursuant to Standing Order. Standing Order 7 says, 6:00 o'clock and not 5:00 o'clock.

MR. SIMMS: That has been changed.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I want to hear the member on the point of order.

MR. ROBERTS: The point I wish to make is that there are precedents of this House from the session before the election in March, there are precedents from the session before Christmas, the last two sessions of the 40th or 41st general assembly and I could go right back through the entire history of this House, Mr. Speaker, at least the last ten or fifteen years and would find precedents supporting the motion I have made.

MR. SPEAKER: I will hear from the hon. Member for Mount Pearl, then I will go to the hon. Member for St. John's East.

MR. WINDSOR: Just one final submission on that, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member may well find cases where we have done that, and I say again as I did then, that it is incorrectly using the Standing Orders, and that mistakes were made, I say with respect, by the Speaker who was in the Chair at the time, but that does not make it correct. The Standing Orders are very clear that we adjourn from five to seven, unless the member has leave and we are not prepared to accept this motion.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To that point of order, as the Government House Leader said the other day, if you do not have rules, you do not know what is going to happen. Now we have a situation where the rules provide for certain specific sittings of the House, and the Government House Leader takes the position: well, it does not matter what is in the rules because we can pass whatever motions that we want. I think it is an important point, Mr. Speaker, because otherwise we can come here any day at the whim of the Government House Leader and his party whip behind him, and we can be here until five, until seven, until ten, until twelve, until one, until two, whenever it suits the Government House Leader. I do not think that that was the intention of the rules when they were made and I think there has to be some overriding intention that is very clear from the rules, and there may well be emergency situations or situations not provided for, but this one is clearly provided for and before we go on this afternoon, I think it is important that we have a ruling from Your Honour, as to the status of the rules of this House.

MR. SPEAKER: I will take five minutes and come back with the ruling. The House is now recessed.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

We have before us a point of order raised by the Member for Mount Pearl. I would like to point out to hon. members that, as I am sure most you know, the Standing Orders have not been amended formally to reflect a change in sitting hours which have been in practice since the mid-1980s I am told, since at least 1985, and that we sit from 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. and from 7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m., although the Orders provide for the sittings to be, in fact, one hour later. So, I will use for a point of convenience and reference the current hours that we now sit. I would not want to be held to that on any future occasion should any member wish to raise a point of order with respect to our practice, with respect to when we do, in fact, sit.

The hon. the Government House Leader earlier made a motion that the House not adjourn at 5:00 p.m., but continue on through what is often termed the supper break. The Member for Mount Pearl has objected that the motion is out of order, since Standing Order 7 provides for an automatic break from 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m., and I will use our current hours as opposed to those provided for in the rules.

The Government House Leader suggests that Standing Order 1 allows a motion not to recess from 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. to be put to the House at any time. It is my view that it is the intent of Standing Order 7 that there be an automatic two-hour recess for members to enjoy a supper break if we are to resume sitting in the evening. Standing Order 1 is insufficient to override this, since there is no other standing, sessional or other order, or usage or custom of the House of Commons, that would support the contention of the Government House Leader. On a strict reading of the rules, I would be persuaded to uphold the point of order by the Member for Mount Pearl; however, there is a long history of precedent in this House which includes, in a brief survey, rules of February 15, 1979, December 14, 1984, December 6, 1985, March 26, 1986, June 18, 1987 and December 14, 1992, all of which allowed such motions to be put either to not recess at 5:00 p.m., in accordance with Standing Order 7, or to not adjourn at 10:00 p.m., in accordance with Standing Order 8. Furthermore, in the notations or commentary at page 10 of the Standing Orders of this Legislature adopted on May 8, 1951, it was stated as follows: if the House intends to sit later than 11:00 p.m. a motion may be made either during the sitting and without notice having been previously given, `that the House do not adjourn at 11:00 p.m.' These apparently were notations and comments attributed to Speaker Sparkes who was the first Speaker of this House of Assembly following Confederation.

Just in summary, therefore, I believe that the Member for Mount Pearl is correct insofar as the rules, I think, were intended to give members a supper break and I don't know to what extent they have been in existence but they certainly predate Confederation. However, there is a clear precedent in this House going back to 1951 that contemplated that the motion should and could be allowed to be put, as the Government House Leader did. Therefore, I would, on the basis of the considerable long-standing precedent, allow the motion to be put by the hon. the Government House Leader.

The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: I am not to question Your Honour. Your Honour has made a ruling and I am not going to question it at all - I will simply point out that these Standing Orders were changed in 1979. Some of the precedences Your Honour has referred to was before these hours were put in and the rules were clearly changed to provide these things. I simply want to say, Your Honour, that if the Standing Orders can be changed then let's throw away the Standing Orders. Obviously, they can be overruled at any time. So I ask the Government House Leader: let's establish the Committee and get the Standing Orders changed, and make it clear that precedent will not govern, and these, and many other items that have been overruled by previous Speakers - if the Standing Orders are not going to be strictly followed except by leave, then they are of no value.

MR. SPEAKER: If I may, before I recognize the hon. the Government House Leader. I just point out to the hon. the Member for Mount Pearl that, in fact, Standing Order 7 was not changed in 1979, that it is, in fact, the same wording as we have had going back to about Confederation, and did provide for the supper break. So had there been a substantial change in the orders since Confederation, or since those notations originally appeared, I would probably come to a different conclusion.

I think the member's contention is well put, that we are operating under rules right now, or we are operating in a fashion which is not provided for by the rules. It does concern me, and frankly, I intend to enforce the rules and the precedent, as I understand it, in this House. It just so happens that I think the member is right in point of view of what the rules probably originally meant; however, I don't think I can overrule a history of this House going back to at least 1951 that I can discern at present.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, let me simply say that the Standing Committee on the Standing Orders has been struck - I chair it. It is the intention of my colleagues and myself to ask the Committee to meet - we won't try to get at this while the House is meeting, particularly with the kind of schedule we are now in. But we hope to meet over the Summer and before the Fall, and there are a number of areas of the Standing Orders that I hope we will address with a view to bringing a report back to the House. I would say to any member of the House, if he or she has any suggestions, please speak to any one of us, or, of course, any member of the House has the right to sit in on any committee. Indeed, my friend from St. John's East has sent word, I believe, that he would like to sit in on the meetings of the Standing Committee.

I agree, the rules ought to reflect where we are. In fact, when Your Honour asks for the first order of business, I will call an order which I hope will address that very problem in part.

MR. SPEAKER: I believe that before the point of order was raised the Government House Leader had indicated he wished to have Motion 5 called at this point.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: I'm sorry, does the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture wish to be recognized?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, okay. Motion 5 is now before the House that the Standing Orders -

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, have we put the motion that the House not adjourn at 5:00 p.m.? I want to be sure.

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, that is the order in which you wished them put.

All those in favour that the House do not adjourn at 5:00 p.m., `aye', contrary, 'nay', carried.

Motion 5. An amendment to the Standing Orders by providing for 54.1 and 54.2.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I shall be very brief. There has been consultation among the groups in the House. I understand that this Standing Order, as it is drafted and as it appears in today's Order Paper, represents a consensus to which all members, I understand, can subscribe. Although I don't hold myself out as speaking for all members, I certainly speak for my colleagues on this side of the House in this matter.

The order doesn't require much detailed comment, but may I make just one or two points. It is divided into two parts, Mr. Speaker. The first part addresses the situation where legislation is referred out to a Standing Committee of the House before it is introduced into the House. The procedure is laid down for dealing with that. The Standing Committee involved would be the Standing Committees on the Estimates, which have been set up and which have worked very effectively, in my judgement.

The second order deals with a situation where a bill has been given second reading by the House, which means it has been approved in principle by the House. If a committee wishes to become seized to that bill - the appropriate committee is defined - it simply passes a motion. The bill is then dealt with by the committee and cannot be dealt with further in the House unless the House passes a motion to allow the matter to come back on the Order Paper before the committee's report.

There is a provision here that will allow a very brief debate on that motion, essentially, a statement of principles or a statement of position by each side of the House, should we be into that. The House will note that only a minister may move that motion that, in effect, reflects the fact it is a form of closure, and under Standing Order 50, only a minister may give notice, as I understand it, of a closure motion.

Mr. Speaker, I think this is a step forward, in itself. The amendment, the rule speaks for itself. I will not say anything more but I will make one further comment in a general way, this grew out of a misunderstanding to which I contributed perhaps in large measure, but others as well in some smaller measure, and it reinforces the wisdom of the adage we have seen in the last little while, that where we do not have rules written down, not only can Your Honour not enforce them, but we cannot even attempt to follow them because we do not know what they are.

This is an attempt to write down an agreement among the members of the House, as to how we should deal with legislation where we want to refer it out to a committee for consideration by the committee, but also as a means to allow people throughout Newfoundland and Labrador to come before the committee and be heard. That is very easy in the committee format, it is very, very, much more difficult to have it done here in the House of Assembly, although there are precedents for that as well, but not always happy ones, but with a committee, it is quite easy to arrange a meeting and if people want to come forward and make representations or ask questions or discuss the issue generally, it can be done, so with that said, Mr. Speaker, I will move that we adopt this change to the Standing Orders.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Just a few brief comments. The Government House Leader is quite right, we did have consultation on this, the Government House Leader and myself and as well, the Leader of the Opposition and the Premier had a short discussion on it, and the Opposition House Leader and the Government House Leader, so in essence, we agree with these changes, but I would just like to point that in 54.2 (2) we, as an Opposition would have liked to have seen a little more time there - it goes on to say here: which motion was spoken to by one member of the opposition shall be replied to by a minister for not more than ten minutes each. Originally, there was no intent there to have any debate really on this particular section, and we felt strongly that there should be an opportunity to have a debate and we were able to only be able to squeeze ten minutes out off the Government House Leader -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: What is that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Well, we asked for more, we fought for more but we felt that ten minutes was at least an opportunity, I say to the Member for St. John's East. That is better than none but not quite enough, but at least it gives us a chance to have something to say about whatever we want to say at that time, so without further ado, Mr. Speaker, these are my comments on that. I personally think it is a move forward and I guess it might be an opportunity to say, that as the Member for Mount Pearl so rightly said before, and the Government House Leader has certainly indicated I think, a willingness that we really have to come to grips with our Standing Orders and get on with it, and let us formulate what our Standing Orders are going to be so that Your Honour can rule in the best interests of members according to the Standing Orders, and let us get on and do it because we procrastinated a lot over the last couple of years on making revisions and improvements to the Standing Orders and I think now, there is a willingness to do that so I look forward to committee convening before too long.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will say there was some consultation on this but there was no consultation on the issue that the Opposition House Leader now refers to and that is, apparently an agreement by the Leader of the Opposition and the Premier or someone on that side, that only one member from this side of the House shall speak and only the minister on the other side, which appears to be inappropriate and designed, at least by default, to prevent anyone other than the Official Opposition from having any say on this particular motion, and I do not know if that was intended. If it was not, I would ask that the one be changed to two, and will so move at the end of my remarks.

But the issue here, and I think we are all agreed on the principle here, and upon consultation with the Government House Leader I made it clear that I will be quite happy to see an arrangement whereby the legislation in draft form will be sent out to the committee, giving people an opportunity to have an input into it in draft form, before the government has committed itself and I think that is a very valuable approach and can lead to better legislation at that stage, before the government has made any political commitment to a particular bill.

I am a little concerned about the ten days, the ten sitting days being a requirement, because although the government has the right to increase that ten sitting days by motion, it seems to me that that is a very small period of time, particularly if the interest of members of the House is to have real public input and public discussion ten days does not hardly seem enough time to get proper advertising out and to allow the public to be aware of the sittings of the committee. Nevertheless, there is still flexibility there in that the committee can itself insist on carrying a bill and can go on holding hearings despite the fact that the matter is still being debated in the House.

There is some flexibility there, and it is certainly acceptable in the form that is there, but I would say that by only allowing one opposition member to speak to a motion, even after giving notice, allowing the House to go ahead and override the consideration of the committee by having a very short debate of only twenty minutes duration of the House, it seems to be unduly short. There should be at least an opportunity for not just one opposition member but at least one other to state their views on a particular motion.

So I would move an amendment to the motion that the 1 in paragraph 54.2(2), that the 1 be changed to 2 - that one member be changed to two members - and that would adequately allow a thirty-minute debate instead of a twenty-minute debate, which would not unduly lengthen the time of debate and would provide for more discussion in this House of such a motion.

Usually, Mr. Speaker, these kinds of motions are only made when the matter is one of some public contention, when there is obviously a dispute between a committee and the House as to what is going to go on, or a dispute between the opposition and government. It is only going to come about when it is a matter of contention, and it would be desirable, therefore, to have at least more than one view on the opposition being able to be expressed, and that would adequately meet the requirements of the House that all views are put forth.

As I said, Mr. Speaker, I do not think it was intended by the discussions between the Government House Leader and/or the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition and/or the Government House Leader to exclude me or any third party from any debate. If that is the case, Mr. Speaker, I think we probably could readily have agreement from members of the House to amend the words `one member` to `two members` of the opposition, in paragraph 54.2(2), and I so move.

MR. SPEAKER: (Inaudible) motion?

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: I will second his motion, sure, and in doing so I want to explain to the Leader of the NDP, or the Member for St. John's East, how this transpired.

If I had my druthers I would rather have a full day's debate, which would allow for ten or twelve members - not only the opposition members but members of the House - who might want to debate, so I can assure him that was not the intent.

The original draft that came to us did not provide for any debate, and it was basically just a measure of compromise that allowed at least for the opposition in the House - I mean, you are a member of the opposition, in our view. You are on the opposition side of the House, so it said: `Can be spoken to by one member of the opposition.` Now whether that is interpreted by this Speaker or future Speakers as being simply this party or some other member of the opposition, it is up to the Speaker. Our point was that we wanted to make a provision for some debate to occur rather than it being another non-debatable motion. At least you would get up for ten minutes and be able to argue how crazy it is or whatever, how silly it is, for them to be pursuing it or whatever.

So that is the purpose of it and that is the point, but if the hon. member moves - well I have already shown I am prepared to support his amendment, because it will still be up to the Speaker or future Speakers to decide which members of the opposition would be recognized in such a debate. So if he wants to amend it to two, I would have preferred to see him amend it to read five. I would have seconded that amendment as well, but since he has moved the amendment to allow for two, we will support it and agree with it, but I have a funny feeling it may not receive the same kind of support from the other side of the House, but we will just have to wait and see when the vote is called.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, if I may speak to the amendment, and perhaps if the House will agree, end the debate, unless any other hon. members want to speak. I do not want to speak twice, so if there are other members who wish to speak, either on the amendment or on the main motion, I will yield the floor gladly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, let me deal with the amendment first. We must oppose it, unfortunately, but for two reasons. One of principle and one practical. The practical one is the one adverted to by my friend for Grand Falls, the Leader of the Opposition, which is that this amendment, the wording is the result of a compromise arranged behind the Chair, to which he was party I think - I'm not speaking out of turn - and the Premier was party, as were the House Leaders. So I must proceed on that basis.

The principle on which this compromise was struck in my understanding is straightforward. The House recognizes a Ministry and those who support it and those who sit in opposition to it. The physical arrangement, the debate, inevitably flows this way. There are references in Standing Orders. We do not have a definition of Party in this House, or group, and perhaps when we come to look at Standing Orders that's a point we might well with profit address. Because there are some rulings -

AN HON. MEMBER: It's in the draft (inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, and there are precedents. Again, I can recall when other groups sat in this House. When the Premier sat with the Liberal Reform group in 1968 and 1969. Mr. Crosbie, the Premier, the late Mr. Abbott, and Mr. Gerry Murden sat as a group in the opposition. There was a time when the official opposition only had three members: Ank Murphy, Senator Ottenheimer and Tom Hickey. Yes. There were three.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, for those reasons we shall not be able to accept the amendment. I am prepared however to suggest, if members are willing, that we change the words, a "member of the Opposition" to read: a member sitting in opposition, with a small "O". Or whatever the Clerk may decide is a proper wording. To catch the point it doesn't have to be the Official Opposition.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Well, alright then, if there's no agreement I won't press the point.

Let me go on to say, Mr. Speaker, with reference to this particular point, that the motion is not one to limit debate. This is why when we struck the compromise on this side we took a fairly strong position. I think the Leader of the Opposition will agree. He and the Premier had a conversation. I understand the Premier took a very firm position on this. This is not a motion to restrict debate. The motion to call a bill back into the House is one to bring debate on in the House. Recall again, this will apply only to a bill that has passed second reading, that's already received approval in principle by the House.

For our part, we don't think it's at all exceptional. We think it would be entirely in order if the Ministry were prepared to take upon itself the responsibility and to move that motion, to ask the House to bring the bill on for early debate. The committee can still meet. When the rule was drafted it did not prevent the committee meeting. It would be a little anomalous. It might be superfluous or redundant, but if the committee wished to make a point it could carry on with the point.

MR. SIMMS: But all we ask for is the opportunity to debate.

MR. ROBERTS: That is what - my friend the Leader of the Opposition is quite correct - we've attempted to do, in that each side will make a statement. Ten minutes is long enough for many things. I've heard debates, as I suspect he has, Mr. Speaker, perhaps Your Honour has, in the House of Commons in England, in London, sits in London, where twenty minutes is as long as anybody speaks.

We're all familiar, Mr. Speaker, with the old adage: I'm sorry I've made a long speech, I didn't have time to prepare a short one. There's a great deal of truth in that. We see it every day here in the House.

I would make one other point in response to my friend for St. John's East. When he said with reference to bills that are being referred out before they had been introduced into the House, that he was somewhat troubled by the ten sitting day period. I would point out to him that the rule says - and I'm reading 54.1(3): it may not be called for debate, or the report to the House shall be the later of either the tenth sitting day or the day set by whoever is responsible for the conduct of business on behalf of the government, the House Leader.

MR. TOBIN: Carried!

MR. ROBERTS: It is our intention that this be used primarily in respect of legislation that's being addressed while the House is not meeting.

Mr. Speaker, with that I shall heed the admonition of my friend for Burin - I never thought I'd hear him say `Carried'. If he keeps it up, in twenty or thirty years he may some day, when he's back over here, be the Government House Leader. I'm not sure I'd wish that fate on him, but anyway I do.

The other thing I would request, Mr. Speaker, is if this motion is adopted, as I hope it will be, I would ask the Chair of the Social Services Standing Committee, which is the committee seized of the subject matter of Bills 1 and 7, if he would be good enough to call a meeting of his committee at the committee's convenience with a view, I hope, to passing a motion to have Bills 1 and 7, which are the anti-smoking bills, referred to the committee, so the committee can get on with hearings; I don't care when - it is the Social Services one. My friend from Burgeo -Bay d'Espoir chairs it and I think the lady from Humber East is the Vice-Chair. With that said, Mr. Speaker, I will call a vote on the amendment and then on the motion, which I hope will not be amended.

MR. SPEAKER: Is the House ready for the question?

We will vote first on the amendment. It is moved by the hon. the Member for St. John's East, seconded by the Official Leader of the Opposition that Order 54.2(2) be amended by the deletion of the word `one' at the end of the fifth line and substitution of the word `two'.

On motion, amendment defeated.

MR. SPEAKER: Is the House ready for Motion 5 that the Standing Orders be adopted in accordance with - Standing Order 5 is written to add 54.1 and 54.2?

On motion, amendment carried.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, would you be good enough, please, to call Order No. 8, Bill No. 4 which stands in the name of my friend the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. ROBERTS: The Municipalities Act is next.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do you want a long speech or a short speech?

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act Respecting The Department of Industry, Trade and Technology". (Bill No. 4)

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MR. FUREY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am pleased to rise for second reading of this bill. The reason why we refer to it as DITT, in short now, is because I had a letter from a company in Toronto that was very disturbed that we were using ITT because it was their copyrighted name, so we refer to it as DITT, in short. I thank whoever put the structure together for getting the letters in that order I, T and T is a lot better than any other order, I can assure you.

Mr. Speaker, this department comes about, as you know and as all hon. members know, because of the Strategic Economic Plan. The Premier and the government, after consultation across the Province, determined that we should break down the Department of Development, which really was a catch-all department and a very large department, a combination, I think, of four-and-a-half ministries from the previous government. We determined after consultation with various interest groups and people in general, that Tourism and Culture ought to be pushed out on its own and given specialized attention with its own department to create opportunities for people.

We determined that Industry, Trade and Technology should be set up on its own and broken out into a number of divisions. Mr. Speaker, Off-shore Petroleum Business, Industrial Technology, Information Industries which by the way, Mr. Speaker, last year in Canada the whole telecommunication and information industries, I think, accounted for some $15 billion worth of activity, and in the deepest part of the recession, had an 8 per cent growth. I think that is significant and worth noting.

The manufacturing industry - we have created its own division. Last year there were 600 businesses operating in this Province, with a value of $700 million, and it, too, has a great potential for growth.

I saw this morning in The Globe and Mail - I don't know if many members saw it - in the business section there is an article there on Terra Nova Shoes out of Harbour Grace. The former government was very helpful to that company. The current government continues that help. They are now marketing in Japan, what is called the Wild Sider boot. Perhaps my friend from Burin - Placentia West would know all about that boot - the Wild Sider boot.

We see Heritage Woodworks out of Eastport marketing container loads of furniture into Japan. Brookfield Ice Cream is marketing their ice cream products in the Skydome in Toronto, exporting into Ontario, so there are good things happening in that sector.

There is a services industry sector, a business analysis from the old department. Marketing and Investment is standing alone now, which will help to operate the SIID agreement and Strategic Procurement.

Mr. Speaker, we decided to take a focused look at the new department, splitting off Tourism and Culture, creating the new Department of Industry, Trade and Technology, so that we could focus the energies of a very competent work force in that department to look after companies that can expand in the new economy, and I think that is very important to recognize. The old economy is the economy of the resource base - the trees, the timber, the paper, the fish, the minerals; all of that which we took from the earth is the old economy and, as that is in decline, we have to look for new ways to generate opportunities for people in the new economy. The new economy is the information industries, the high-tech industries, those kinds of things.

I am very proud of this little high-tech sector we have in this Province. Instrumar is a classic example of doing the contamination ice wing detector, which has great opportunities to change the aviation laws of the world.

Ultimateast Data Communications - I met their president in Halifax. We passed each other yesterday - or was it this morning? - in Halifax. They are marketing in the South China Sea, marine telecommunications, in a big way, and doing a fabulous job. There are all kinds of others.

Newtech has just done a joint venture last year with General Motors, building components for tanks, so there are lots of good things happening in the high-tech sector, in the manufacturing sector, in the information sector and in the trade sector.

In the trade sector, Mr. Speaker, the department, as you know, focuses on three areas - the Free Trade Agreement, which was constructed by the current Federal Government, with some consultation by the provinces, with the United States of America; the NAFTA agreement, which will open up continental free trade right through Canada, the Americas, and Mexico, and has potential to stretch out beyond that to the Latin American countries; and, of course, the other issue that we have to be cognizant of is the issue of internal trade barriers and what that means for business people who conduct their day-to-day business from East to West in this country.

Those are very detailed and very complex issues, Mr. Speaker, and we have a very good team, I am happy to tell hon. members, in our department, who look after those issues.

That is a thumbnail sketch of the department and I will wait with bated breath for the Opposition's wonderful comments about my great speech.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Green Bay.

MR. HEWLETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just have a few brief comments. Essentially, this is a bill formally constituting a department which already exists in government. The name DITT - I would suggest that the name probably be changed to DLEC, the Department of Liberal Economic Cosmetology.

This is a department which basically handles the economic development end of things in this government - and this government has very little economic development of which it can boast.

The high-tech sector, the information sector, there is a growing sector there. I was impressed with the displays at the booths that were at the Manufacturers' Trade Show here some days ago, but while that industry, itself, is in its infancy in growing, it falls far short in terms of the numbers of jobs that are needed in an economy such as ours.

On the larger issues, Mr. Speaker, such as the Lower Churchill and general creation of jobs, the record of the Wells Administration has been nothing short of absolutely dismal. It is the job of the minister, the smooth-talking minister, to put the best face on the failure of the Wells Government to deliver on its initial economic promise of bringing home every mother's son. If it weren't for the fish aid package from the Federal Government and the Hibernia package negotiated basically by the previous PC Government and the Federal Government, there would be very little money in circulation in this Province.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, all I can say is that even the minister's million-dollar smile, can't put a pretty face on the sad economic face of this administration.

Thank you.

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak on this piece of legislation. When the Government House Leader introduced it as DITT, I thought he said DIP, D-I-P, which is another piece of legislation that I have a concern, that in this particular department - and I have no difficulty with the reorganization of the department in putting Tourism and Culture in one department and allowing the government to focus on industrial and technological development. But, Mr. Speaker, the success of the department under the old name is not something that if I were this government, I would want to brag about, and I have a major concern, as well, Mr. Speaker, as to exactly what this government's attitude is towards development.

What do they really mean? What kinds of jobs can we expect from the attitude of this government? And I want to give an example of the kinds of things that this government is up to under the aegis of development and supporting the private sector. You don't have to look very far, from the minister's own actions in the last couple of weeks, in establishing a corporation known as Labrador Stores Inc. Labrador Stores Inc, Mr. Speaker, was incorporated quietly, secretly, down in the back rooms of the government divisions. It transferred all the employees in the Labrador Stores Inc. who were formerly working for the Department of Industry, Trade and Technology, working for the Labrador Stores division, and then they refused - they said then, Mr. Speaker, these people are no longer covered by a collective agreement, they are no longer unionized. We are not going to deduct their union dues any more; we refuse to collect union dues. They don't have a collective agreement any more. And now, these thirty-nine or forty jobs, the people who had long service, between seven and twenty years in the public service, are no longer even covered by a collective agreement.

They will not be able to collect their union dues, there is no successor rights. The government takes the position that they have transferred these people from a government department under the Public Service Collective Bargaining Act, out from underneath that, and under the Labour Relations Act. The collective agreement doesn't apply, no successor rights - the government knows this because this has been before the Labour Relations Board a number of times - and all of a sudden, these thirty-nine people have no job security, because the minister plans to sell off the corporation and these thirty-nine jobs with job security, with pensions and everything else intact, all of a sudden these people are at the whim of what the minister may sell to one of his friends, these stores up in Labrador.

What is the plan here? Are we going to trade - is this the government's plan to trade these unionized jobs, change them automatically by stealth of hand without even consulting with the union, without consulting with the employees, transfer these jobs to Labrador Stores Inc., with no consultation, no information to the union members, to the employees, these thirty-nine people, some of the very few full-time jobs I say to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, on the whole Labrador Coast, working in this service that has been provided by the Government of Newfoundland since 1942, Mr. Speaker, for fifty years. For fifty years, the Government of Newfoundland has provided this service on the Coast of Labrador, supplying goods to the remote areas of Northern Labrador that could not be provided and still can't be provided adequately by the private sector.

Mr. Speaker, what we've got here is a plan by this government first of all to de-unionize these jobs and then sell off this corporation. That's what's happened. Sell off this corporation. We're going to trade these full-time decent jobs in Labrador for some sort of part-time jobs at minimum wage standards with no union in place. Because the government has already carried out a plan to get rid of the union and to deprive these individuals of their bargaining rights in collective agreement. That was done without any consultation with anybody in the bargaining unit, without even informing the employees of what was happening, and without any consultation with their bargaining agent.

The minister's idea of development for Labrador, at least, is to take this public service that's being provided to the people of Labrador, turn it into some sort of private enterprise thing, which is going to be what's known to be called `McJobs' in Canada. Part-time, low wage, usually non-unionized clerks' jobs in stores, and that's going to be the end result of this minister's idea of development for the coast of Labrador.

I understand he's going up to Labrador later on the week or next week and he's going to try and tell the people of Labrador that it's all going to be better. I don't know. Maybe he has another member to carry his briefcase. I'm not sure who's going with him. I understand that the minister has plans to go and try and sell this proposal to the people of Labrador, but I don't think it's going to work.

What we've got here is an attitude by this government. We've heard it expressed by them now. Supporting the efforts of the NAFTA agreement, the free trade agreement with Mexico. He's going to extend that now further south than Mexico. I think he's even ahead of the Michael Wilsons of the world. He's even ahead of them. He wants now he's going to go south of Mexico with a free trade agreement. An agreement which is depriving not only his government but all successive governments of Newfoundland of the ability to even have a development strategy that's not based on just giving money away to the private sector.

That's what happening under our very noses with the platitudes that we hear from the minister and the government and the Government of Canada, particularly the members of the Ministry, and the back benchers are all supporting this whole notion of so-called competitiveness. Globalization and competitiveness are the big watchwords of people who support this approach. What this really means is tearing down the standards of living and working life in this country, The standards that have been fought for for generations by workers, by people in this country trying to put together a social safety net, the social programs of Medicare, social services, health care, old age pensions. All of these things that are part of what it takes to make Canada a different country, all of these are being eroded by the approach to development, the approach to so-called competitiveness.

The feds, the PC Government of Canada, calls it their Prosperity Initiative. This government calls it a Strategic Economic Plan. It all boils down to the same thing. That we will eliminate the role of government in development and we will turn it over to the competitive private sector and put in place rules, such as NAFTA, such as the free trade agreement with the Americans, that really prevent us from acting in our own best interests.

The minister talks about taking down inter-provincial trade barriers. The first thing that's going to happen when you take down inter-provincial trade barriers is we're going to close down the brewery in Newfoundland. The two we have left, they're going to close. Take down all the inter-provincial trade barriers, the first thing that will happen is that we will lose the two breweries that we have left. That's the first thing that would happen. Pretty soon Canada would lose any brewing capacity and it'll all be done in the United States, down in Pennsylvania some place.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I say to the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture, who's just discovered that trees don't swim, that I'll tell him one thing that does swim, and that will be leaving Newfoundland, will be the jobs of the people who are currently working in the brewing industry. I say that to him. Those jobs will be swimming to Nova Scotia and later on down to the United States, just as the hundreds of thousands of jobs have already fled and swam down south of the border as a result of the Free Trade Agreement entered into by the PC government in Ottawa, that your government here supports. You support that policy. Your government supported the Free Trade Agreement, and still supports the Free Trade Agreement.

The Minister of DITT supports the NAFTA agreement. President Clinton is concerned about American workers now, but I did not hear the minister here express any concerns about the faith of Newfoundland workers or Canadian workers, but we now have the President of the United States unwilling to move forward on this bill without the additional protection for labour standards and employees in the United States who have worse standards than we do. He is concerned enough about it to try and bring about some changes but the Canadian government and the Newfoundland government are quite happy to go along with the erosion of labour standards, the downward pressure on our social programs, and the further implications we are getting day after day in terms of restricting the ability of government to take action to really control their own economies and in fact to effectively do what the leader of his federal party talked about in 1988, the erasure of the Canada US border. They were very effective ads and I think the minister would agree. Back in November 1988 when the issue before the people of Canada was the Free Trade Agreement, and when 60 per cent of Canadians voted against the party that supported free trade and only 40 per cent voted for them one of the most effective set of ads was made by the Liberal Party of Canada talking about the erasure of the Canada US border.

Well, we now have an about face by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology in Newfoundland who now thinks its a great thing. You have NAFTA, We are opening up new markets for Newfoundland products, and I have to join with him in praising the technological firms that are involved in this particular case, but I ask the minister to get on his feet and tell me how many people work for these firms. How many people are employed in this Province by these firms? He said we are going to forget the old economy. The old economy is the resource based economy. We are going to go to the new economy. How may people in Newfoundland are employed in the old economy? Right now, unfortunately, there are 20,000 of them who are suffering because of the mismanagement of that economy.

If the minister is saying that we are going to turn our backs on the resource industries of this Province I hope the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture is prepared to agree that we will forget about the loggers, we will forget about the people who work in the woods and in the paper mills, who are working in the resource industries. We are going to forget about what is going to happen after the cod moratorium runs out. We will forget about them and ask them to all work in the new economy.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology causes me very grave concern when he drops these platitudes about the new economy and let us forget about the old economy, especially when some of the actions of his department, particularly with how they are handling Labrador stores, shows a callous disregard for the employment rights and employment standards and wants to set up a private enterprise in Labrador that is going to de-unionize and take away the security of employees. Sell it off, privatize it, lay of those people who have worked for dozens and dozens of years.

I see the Member for Torngat Mountains listening, as he should be. Have a look, talk to some of the people who work in the stores in Nain, Makkovik, and Hopedale. Ask them when they were told what their status was. Ask them when they were told they were not going to have their union dues collected anymore because they were no longer covered by a collective agreement. After the fact, two months later. If the minister gets his way what I would predict, I say to the Member for Torngat Mountains, if he gets his way and privatizes those operations all those people will be laid off or they will be offered a job part-time at a very low rate of compensation.

That is what I would predict if the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology gets his way, to do away with the service that is being provided in Labrador. I am very concerned about that, Mr. Speaker, because it is an example of the attitude that government has and what it is prepared to do. Maybe the minister has an explanation, maybe he is going to get up and say: I did not know this was happening, maybe he is going to get up and say: well, this just happened without my knowledge, they did not consult with me. He transferred Labrador stores to ENL, Mr. Speaker, and they immediately set up a corporation called Labrador Stores Incorporated. It is on the road to privatization, gets legal advise on how to terminate employees and all of that sort of stuff.

They then refused to collect union dues, Mr. Speaker, and all of these employees, these thirty-nine or forty employees, were told that they were no longer covered by a collective agreement. They were no longer required to collect union dues and they were in a very different situation then they were the day before. Now, Mr. Speaker, maybe he is going to say he does not know anything about it but if he did not know anything about it, Mr. Speaker, he did not act to protect the interest of his own employees in his own department. If he cannot protect them, Mr. Speaker, what hope do we have that his policies and his government policies are going to look after the interest of workers in this Province? Especially, Mr. Speaker, when he holus-bolus agrees that NAFTA is a wonderful thing. It is going to buy the market for Newfoundlander's and increase our job potential.

Here we have the American President saying hold on a minute now, we have to make sure that American workers are protected. We have to make sure that American labour standards are protected. We have to make sure that the environment is protected but not the Member for St. Barbe, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, no we do not see that kind of concern from him. He seems to be content to mouth the platitudes of the captains of industry of Canada. The Michael Wilson's, Mr. Speaker, who speak on behalf of the major corporate interests in this country and not on behalf of the needs of people in this country.

The whole notion, Mr. Speaker, that we can carry out in this Province alone some kind of industrial development program in the face of this kind of legislation, this kind of international treaty being undertaken by the Government of Canada without criticism from this government, without a reaction from this government other than saying: well here we are, we are going to forget about the old economy. We are going to move to the new economy. The resource base industries are in decline and we do not really think that we have any future in that. We do not see our future in that, we see our future in the new economy.

I say to the minister that the economy of this Province is going to be dependent for many, many, many decades to come on the resources that we have and not only is it going to depend on those resources but it is going to depend on our ability to utilize those resources. It is going to depend on the development of technologies so that we can maximize not only our use of these resources but the products that come from them. So, there has to be new technologies, I have no difficulty with that but we must not turn our backs on the resource based economies. We must not turn our backs on our roots, we must in fact do what one of these organizations, that the minister spoke of, what Ultimateast is doing, their technology, their business is based on our resource and our use of the sea. They have developed technologies for use in our ocean resources, developed for use in our ocean industries and they have taken that and marketed it to the world. We should be doing the same in our forestry, the forest industry, Mr. Speaker, not only in this Province but in this country. This country has failed to develop from its own resource base industry the kind of technological development that it should. We should not be importing all of our forest mechanical needs, all of our equipment, our harvest, all of this comes from Norway.

Mechanical needs. All this comes from Norway. It comes, Mr. Speaker, from those countries such as the Scandinavian countries which have developed, in addition to their forest resources, forest technology that they have marketed throughout the world.

So that's my point about this issue,. We can't do what the minister says in his flippant way. Turn his back on the old economy, the resource-based industries, and say: we're all going to be in the new economy. These hi-tech companies - Instrumar, Ultimateast, and there are probably four or five or half a dozen more - are doing excellent and remarkable work. How many people do they employ? A maximum of 300? Maybe more. Give them 500. Nothing to compare to the employment in our fisheries, in our forestry, in mineral resources in this Province, and the employment to come in those industries. Very important. We don't just go overnight from an economy based on resources to an economy that's totally based on the information technology.

We've got a long way to go before the population of Newfoundland - which we always hear people complain about the fact of our illiteracy rate, our high school drop-out rate, our 40 per cent illiteracy rate, our 50 or 40 per cent high school drop-out rate - before our population is going to be sustained by the information technologies. Granted we have lots of good examples. In Paradise River, Labrador, Mr. Higgins has a wonderful contract to do software in a little community of eighteen or twenty families, if that many. Maybe eighteen or twenty people. He has a $500,000 contract to develop software for remote learning. That's a wonderful thing, but that doesn't come from somebody who does not have a high school education, who hasn't completed high school, or who's amongst our high numbers of illiterate people in this Province. We don't move from being an economy based on resources to a hi-tech information based economy by the minister saying so. There's an awful lot of work that has to be done in between.

So I say to the minister that while his dreams may be high, there has to be an awful lot of reality and a lot of real work on developing the stages and steps that take us from one to the other. I have a concern that this government, and this minister, as evidenced by what his department has done, this is just one example. If that's the way that this government is going about the creation of industry in this Province what we'll see is `McJobs'. Part-time, low wage, temporary jobs to fulfil somebody else's need to make profit, not to provide service to the people of this Province, such as Labrador stores has done in its various formations for the last fifty years.

What has been predicted, Mr. Speaker, is that if the minister has his way and these stores are privatized, we are going to see a price increase of 30 per cent - 30 per cent. That is a conservative estimate, and that comes from his own officials.

Mr. Speaker, if that is the kind of attitude this government has, or lack of planning - maybe he is innocent, and I would be interested in hearing him get up and proclaim his innocence, he knew nothing about this; this was not part of his plan; he wants to make sure - he has made some statements about this - the government are not good shop keepers. The government is not a very good shop keeper. If that is the kind of simplistic idealogy that we are going to hear from this government about development and planning and everything else, then I am afraid that we have a very serious problem.

These are not stores that are run in Labrador. This is a public service. This is a service being provided to the people in Labrador who cannot get access to retail goods and services because of the geography of this country, and subsidies are not enough. Subsidies are not enough. Labrador stores fly fresh fruit and vegetables into Nain, Hopedale and Makkovik, in the winter. No private enterprise is going to do that, Mr. Speaker, unless someone is prepared to pay $10 for some broccoli or whatever else. It is just not going to happen.

Mr. Speaker, we have a situation here where the government's attitude seems to be one that is willing to allow these services to disappear, not interested in looking after the employees. Some of the few full-time jobs on the Labrador coast of that nature are being carried out by employees of Labrador stores. They no longer have access to their collective agreement. They are being told that they are no longer unionized, and there has been no consultation, no planning, and they do not know what is going to happen next.

Mr. Speaker, I have no problem with reorganizing the department. I am sure that somebody has decided that all of these pieces can fit together in a different way, in a different department, to allow the Department of Tourism and Culture to concentrate on one aspect of activity. I think it is probably a very good idea. Perhaps the minister could be a little bit more expressive and learn - maybe he has to learn a little bit more, I do not know. Not everybody has the same security in life as perhaps the hon. minister now has. There are people who have to worry about their pension rights, about their bumping rights, about their ability to earn a living, and their ability to keep a job.

Mr. Speaker, that is a major concern and I am concerned that this government does not have that for its own employees. If it does not have it for its own employees, what about the employees who they expect to be hired in the new technologies, the new economy about which he talks. Does he have a concern about them and what kind of job conditions that are going to be there, or are we all going to have our wages and our economic conditions determined by the wage rate in Mexico? Is that what we are going to have?

The wage rates in Mexico are about one-eighth of what they are here, so you take the hourly rate of a worker here in Newfoundland, and that is the daily rate for an industrial worker in Mexico. That is who we are competing with under NAFTA. That is the standard that is being set for industrial development in this Province, by this minister praising NAFTA as a means of economic development in this Province, establishing a department that is going to promote development and holds up NAFTA as a means of us getting economic development.

I do not see that happening, Mr. Speaker. I can see the government supporting private enterprise, giving out some money. I think creating a climate is what the Premier says from time to time, creating a climate for private enterprise to operate, making the rules to suit Bill Barry, for example. That is what I hear from this government when they talk about making the rules in such a way as to support private enterprise.

He praised up Terra Nova Shoes, another company that went through the same kind of racket that Mr. Barry is going through now out in Corner Brook, tried to decertify a union, organizing the workers, committing unfair labour practices. It is the same kind of thing. Not only did they do that, they did that with the help of the same person who this government has appointed to the commission to look into the Barry situation.

I see some platitudes from this government about economic development and industrial development. I see a Strategic Economic Plan, but I do not really see a commitment to the kind of jobs in this Province, and to the kind of industrial development that this Province needs to be able to guarantee security to our work force, and I do not see the kind of concern about making sure that those who are working in our resource industries are protected for the future.

Mr. Speaker, those are my remarks on this Bill. I hope the minister does get up to answer them. Maybe he will successfully claim innocence of what's been going on in his department. If he does I'll be very interested in hearing that. I say, Mr. Speaker, that his own department's action and treatment of his own employees bespeaks a very negative prospect for the future.

AN HON. MEMBER: Sit down (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I will sit down, Mr. Speaker. Not at the urging of the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, but because my time is up. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology if he speaks now will close the debate.

The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MR. FUREY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, I think it's important to address a few things. Having listened to my hon. friend speak he gives me a deeper appreciation for Shakespeare's Hamlet when he said: first we kill all the lawyers.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. ROBERTS: I beg your pardon?

MR. FUREY: I mean, I have never heard anybody distort in so short a time the truth. Just imagine going to university to learn how to distort, and when you can't even distort you concoct and create an untruth disguised as a truth.

Nobody on this side of the House, Mr. Speaker, said they were for the free trade agreement. That is an utter falsehood. We inherited the free trade agreement. This new Liberal government in 1989 inherited the done deal. It was done, completed, done. Done by a fellow Mulroney and the Progressive Conservatives. Federally we argued against it, provincially we said: we are in principle for free trade but we do not like this free trade agreement that's being inked by the federal Conservatives and Mr. Reagan at the time. Let the record be clear. That is just an utter falsehood on the hon. member's side.

Then he talks about the old economy. I said: forget the old economy. I didn't say any such thing. I said: wake up to the reality. Unless my hon. friend is living in Disneyland or fantasy land, like his colleagues in Ontario are doing, he's got to snap open his eyes and have a look at the real world. In the real world fish stocks are going down. In the real world we're prohibited from cutting timber and making paper due to recycling, and the eco-sensitivity that's happening worldwide. We have no claim on that, or monopoly on that, that we can cut trees whenever we want to cut trees and create jobs. Is it our fault that mineral prices are going down and therefore mines are shutting down everywhere? I say to the hon. member, jump out of Disneyland. Stop your Donald Duck economics.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FUREY: Wake up, boy!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FUREY: While the old economy is in decline, Mr. Speaker, we have to be reaching out and looking to the new economy. It is important that we do that, very, very important. Now, he talked about beer. Yes, there has been a loss of jobs in Saskatchewan in the beer industry. Yes, there is a brewery shutdown in New Brunswick, Mr. Speaker, and some jobs lost in Nova Scotia, but I do not know where my hon. friend has been. Newfoundland has resisted the interprovincial beer agreement. This minister at the Canadian Trade Minister's table resisted that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Carried!

MR. FUREY: I have to say something about Labrador.

MR. ROBERTS: Say what needs to be said.

MR. FUREY: I am surrounded by lawyers, Mr. Speaker, and I cannot even speak, I cannot get my two cents worth in. Let me say this about the Labrador stores. Everything that my hon. friend said is utterly false as well. I have had consultations with the Member for Torngat Mountains, very serious and in-depth detailed conversations. Mr. Speaker, the only thing we have done is loosened the bindings on government. Our hands were bound because the stores were strapped for some forty or fifty years in a line department. We could not access sales, we could not build in efficiencies. Our hands were bound by the Public Tender Act. How could we function in the real world of the private sector competing as a line department when sales were being swallowed up instantly and we were being left behind? Yes, we created Labrador Stores Incorporated. We put that Crown Corporation out there to take the bindings of government off it so that it could act responsibly as a Crown much like any other storekeeper could.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I hear him sounding the alarm bells and starting brush fires and employees losing their jobs. Nobody is going to lose their job. We have simply asked for a request for proposals and we are waiting to see what those proposals will say. When we moved them out of a line department into a Crown, yes, under union agreements there is a state of limbo, much like there was when we moved the RAND employees over to the old NLDC. They were NAPE and NLDC was CUPE. There was a limbo period until they, the union members, not you or not me, we do not decide which union they have, they will decide that, but I guarantee that we will honour every provision of the collective agreement that is currently under DITT which was transferred to Labrador Stores Incorporated. Their pay, their severance, their holidays, their sick pay, all of that will be honoured and I give my personal commitment that will be the case. Consultation. The Vice-President for Labrador consulted up and down the coast, consulted with the employees, and I am going in with the Member for Torngat Mountains very soon.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues want me to sit down but I will say this. We need not take any lessons from the New Democrats. You just look westward to Ontario and see the economy crumbling, day after day after day, in Ontario.

He says it is free trade. It is partly free trade, but it is partly the policies of the socialist government, and I know nobody on the planet who can afford to be socialists except wealthy NDP members like the hon. member opposite.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

On motion, a bill, "An Act Respecting The Department Of Industry, Trade And Technology," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill No. 4).

[Continuation of sitting of June 15, 1993]

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, would you be good enough to call order 9, Bill No. 6, please?

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Municipalities Act". (Bill No. 6)

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

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to take too long in introducing this Bill. As all members in the House realize last year we introduced a new Elections Act in this House, and basically what we need to do in this Bill is to introduce into the Municipalities Act, basically the same rules and regulations pertaining to the Elections Act. There are a few items that may need to be explained.

Clause No. 1 for example, would permit an increase in the maximum number of councillors from ten to eleven, and that is to accommodate one area of the Province as it relates to amalgamation.

The second clause talks about a two-year afterward waiting period. That is somebody who has been on council and has been disqualified, thrown off council for some reason or whatever, and a by-election is called and in some cases, that person runs again or something and often that person is convicted, and that is to provide a two-year waiting period before that person goes back in.

Items 3 to 6, are pretty straightforward. 6 is to remove the occupation of the person after his name, and I suppose the stigmatism of having to write after your name 'unemployed'. I think that same question came up in the Elections Act Committee last year, so that is gone too as well, as is within our Elections Act to the House of Assembly, that is gone.

Clause 16, gives the municipality the right now to enact, or this act will enable people to vote the four hours that the provincial and federal people have as well. Disabled people are allowed to vote in the advanced poll the same as our provincial election; the physically disabled and also election officials may vote now in the advanced poll and the requirement under Section 12 or Clause 12 of allowing persons confined to their homes to be forced into getting a certificate, that is done away with as well.

Clauses 24 and 26, if you remember what happened to us down in Labrador in our own provincial act, this section of this particular act will allow for the draw of a name in the case of a tie, and the returning officer then places the two names or how many are on the ballot if they are tied or whomever is tied, have to draw one name and that person then would automatically be elected.

Along with this Bill, Mr. Speaker, Bill No. 6, there are three other bills which I gave notice of motion in the House today and they are: The St. John's Act, The Mount Pearl Act and the City of Corner Brook Act and basically all I am doing in those three acts is adding the clauses that are in this one into those other three. I apologize to my hon. friend from Grand Bank, the Opposition House Leader, I think it was Wednesday of last week for not having that in there earlier, but they should be written up tomorrow and ready to go in the next couple of days at least, but the only thing is that -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. REID: Yes, I think I should do that. I found out after why they did not come in early. Those three communities were notified some two months ago that this Bill was coming and that the three cities should immediately request the Minister for Municipal and Provincial Affairs to include into their bills this particular section. They for some reason or other, the three of them, did not get around to doing it and then when they heard this particular Bill was going on the Order Paper they rushed and immediately asked for it to be done, so it was not really the responsibility of my department. It was the responsibility of the three cities. I hope that members understand what we are doing here and I think the majority of the clauses in this particular Bill are already found in our elections act and it is only a matter of transferring some of the new regulations we have in our elections act into the new one.

Thank you, very much.

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

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to make a few comments on this particular bill, Bill 6. There are a large number of amendments, something to the tune of eighteen amendments to this particular act. It is to the Municipalities Act, as the minister stated. The other three cities covered by the City of Mount Pearl, the City of St. John's, and the City of Corner Brook Acts, are separate. I take it from his comments that those other three pieces of legislation he introduced today will come in later on but will deal with one and the same thing, having the amendments that are going to be added to the Municipalities Act also added to the other three cities acts as well.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. WOODFORD: Okay.

Mr. Speaker, there are no real problems with this particular piece of legislation. I would just like to make a few short comments on some of the amendments. Well, it is obvious from Clause 1 of the Bill that it would permit an increase in the maximum number of councillors from ten to eleven. I mentioned to the minister earlier where that particular place would be. I know of municipalities around the Province, especially since some areas and regions in the Province have gone through this amalgamation process, that there would be an increase in councillors because of either the ward system or whichever way they chose to go. I know in my area, for instance, if it went through tomorrow the town of Deer Lake now has seven councillors so at least if there were another two communities there would be nine. I think that particular part of it is covered now anyway. In the Placentia area they would have to go to eleven because of the number of communities that are in a region or in the grouping of that particular amalgamation process.

Clauses 4, 7, and 15 are one and the same really. A lot of communities in this Province under the Municipalities Act now state they have to have a newspaper in circulation in the area, but there are a lot of communities that do not have a paper circulating in that particular area, and that would remedy that problem because a lot of small communities with small populations can just post it on the door or post it in two or three stores and so on and everybody going in and out could see it. It is still big bucks to put it in the papers and this would eliminate a lot of that. Like I said Clauses 4, 7, and 15 are pretty well the same thing.

Clause 8: remove the disqualification from voting of a returning officer.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. WOODFORD: That is right.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WOODFORD: That is Clause 8 of the Municipalities -

AN HON. MEMBER: Clauses 24 to 26.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, but 24 says where both or all of those cannot be elected. That is further down the line (inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: No, Clause 8 is repealed.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: They should put the names in a box and then draw out one, like you said.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: Yes, okay.

So rather than prolong that, we can deal with that one after because what it does really, Clause 8, the amendment, does away with Clause 8 under the municipalities act, but twenty-four replaces it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: Yes.

MR. ROBERTS: If I may, Mr. Speaker, Clause 8 of the Bill will delete 532(2) of the municipalities act. That is the section, I do not have it in front of me, which says, in so many words - the Clerk has been kind enough to look it up - that a returning officer is not qualified to vote - 532, not 232. I have the right act, but I was given the wrong section. 532(2) now reads: The returning officer, except where there is an equality of votes, is disqualified from voting at an election.

So that will disappear, which means the returning officer, as a consequence, may vote as may any other citizen, which is the way it is in provincial elections.

Mrs. Baikie, the lady who was the returning officer in Torngat Mountains, told the world she had voted in the election, when it appeared that she might have to break a tie had that been the outcome.

Section 24 of the new Bill repeals 587 and puts in a new 587. What it says is: If, upon the counting of the votes, two or more candidates have an equal number, where both or all cannot be elected, then the returning officer gets a casting vote, a second vote, which is cast by a process set out in here. That is done to ensure that, in so many words, the returning officer does not get a second vote, but really is the mechanism through which the tie is broken.

Does that satisfy the concern?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: It does? I may say, the British act says by law. We chose instead to put in this. Now the reason it says two or more, I think, was troubling my friend from Humber Valley. There could be cases where there would be eight candidates elected. If you get a tie among the first seven, it does not matter a hoot because you just declare all seven elected. It is only when number eight and number nine are tied in that instance, or where you are running for a separate mayoralty ballot and there are two people tied, then you must vote for he or she.

I thank my friend for yielding.

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

MR. WOODFORD: Section 24(c) clarifies and really spells out what happens, because you just draw until the right amount of people are elected.

The same thing applies to Clause 10 with regard to two notices in two weeks down to one in seven days. That is another clause that should have been out long ago, and the one pertaining to a candidate's occupation included on the ballot paper, again the minister has stated some of the reasons for that, and I agree with him, because you stand up with a number of people in an area asking what your occupation is, and people are a bit reluctant sometimes to say otherwise. As far as I am concerned, it is true enough, it should come off.

The one with regard to a period of time off to vote is another good one, because some employers there do not afford the voters the courtesy to give them time off to vote, especially someone who is outside the community and wants to take part in the municipal election.

Mr. Speaker, those particular amendments, there's nothing wrong with any of them, as far as I'm concerned, and we'll have to wait and see when the minister brings in his other three pieces of legislation, when it is tabled, to see if there's anything other than that in it. As far as this is concerned, Mr. Speaker, there's no problem.

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. the Minister speaks now he will close the debate.

The hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

MR. REID: I move second reading, Mr. Speaker.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Municipalities Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill No. 6).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I think with agreement among both sides of the House we'll now go to Bill No. 12, but I'm not sure of the order number.

AN HON. MEMBER: Order 12.

MR. ROBERTS: Which is also order 12. Thank you. If my friend the Minister of Finance is not here I'll introduce it on his behalf.

Motion, second reading, "An Act To Amend The Liquor Control Act". (Bill No. 12).

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, my friend for Grand Bank has asked me to be kind, and I will. I will not tell the House that this Bill is being brought in at the insistence of himself and his colleague for Burin - Placentia West.

The Bill which stands in the name of my friend the Minister of Finance amends a number of sections of the Liquor Control Act. There's a common theme running throughout these amendments and that is this. That we are deadly serious about doing what we can to stop the illicit importation into the Province of alcohol and spirituous liquors. I think that phrase is probably still in the Act.

This Bill toughens the penalties substantially. It does it in a number of ways. It puts in a definition of contraband and it also significantly expands the word "vessel". It now includes, or will include, all ships, boats, vessels, aircraft and articles used in transporting. That provision in context allows the confiscation, in certain conditions, of any vehicle or vessel used in improper importation.

We also go on and increase the penalties very significantly. Finally, we have some measures in here, including in Section 3 of the Bill and in Section 2, that address the user of this. Because the information we're getting from the police forces - and I've had a fair amount of conversation with a number of the senior police officers in the RCMP and the RNC about this - the information is that the vast quantities of liquor which apparently are coming in unlawfully are not being distributed door to door. This isn't a few of the boys from Lawn, just to take a community literally at Random - not from Random but at random - a few of the boys from Lawn taking a run over to St. Pierre and bringing back a little stuff for the weekend. Which is what's been more or less traditional, one might possibly say. I'm not slandering anybody in Lawn, I hope, when I make these remarks. What we're seeing now is organized smuggling almost to order, I understand, and organized smuggling that is ending up in too many instances on the shelves of licensed establishments.

This Bill if adopted, as we hope it will be, will first of all allow the board - and this is Section 3 - to prescribe regulations about the serving receptacles. I'm reading now from Section 3. Allow the board to make regulations to "prescribe the quantity and conditions under which liquor... can be open for serving as opposed to liquor stored as inventory." Because what is happening is a lot of this illicit liquor is coming into the Province, we understand, it's being purchased by bar owners, and is then being put into the bottles which they purchased lawfully. The inventory control is not sufficient.

MR. WINDSOR: Sophisticated.

MR. ROBERTS: Not sufficiently sophisticated. I thank my friend for Mount Pearl. Is not sufficiently sophisticated to allow the Liquor Board or the enforcement authorities to pick it up by means of calculating how much of an inventory the licensed owner has bought. So we're going to make regulations as to the receptacles they may have, the number they may have open. Very straightforward. If you've got forty bottles of rye whisky open on your bar you're going to have to explain. Because when you buy it legally from the controllers it's sealed, as we all know.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, in Section 2, any licensee "...who possesses contraband shall have his or her licence suspended or cancelled." Not `may'. We're not leaving this to the courts. I want to serve notice now that if any licensee, any person licensed to sell liquor in this Province, is found guilty of possessing contraband, then that license is suspended or cancelled and that's it. So as we're trying to get at this, if you wish, at the real source of the increased problem, as we see it, which is the fact that in too many cases bar owners, we understand, are now buying the liquor.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: In too many cases they are buying too many cases. I agree with my -

MR. SULLIVAN: It's okay to buy a few.

MR. ROBERTS: My friend for Ferryland makes sport. It's not okay to buy a few. We're now losing, we estimate, somewhere between $10 million and $20 million a year. This is no longer a few of the boys taking a run over, which is what in my understanding has traditionally gone on. The House is hearing from a person who has never been to St. Pierre. I won't say never taken a drink, and I don't know if I can even say never taken a drink of something from St. Pierre. I remember campaigning on the Southwest Coast on occasion one would be offered a glass of white substance with sugar cubes in it. Any hon. member here who knows what that is could please tell me, because I never did know.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)?

MR. ROBERTS: There would be hot water with it. Occasionally. In any event, Mr. Speaker, that was in a previous existence. Either long before I became a minister of the Crown, or long after I was a minister of the Crown, as may be the case.

We're now in a very different thing. What we're seeing -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I haven't tried it as a minister but as a minister I've helped to try many people who have, and more to come. The point is that what we are now seeing is a substantial increase in the quantity of it but also a significant change in the nature of the smuggling activities. This Bill is designed to toughen things up. It will make one other prosecutorial change.

MR. TOBIN: What will it do to a fellow who is caught with a couple of bottle?

MR. ROBERTS: It won't have much affect at all on a fellow who's (inaudible) -

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Unless that fellow, I say to my friend for Burin - Placentia West, is licensed, in which case the licence is gone. Pretty heavy penalty.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I'm sorry?

MR. TOBIN: You said here the licensee (inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I'm not sure I want to answer that because I'm not sure I know the answer. But I think if the licensee has it under his or her control then there's going to be a question to be answered. I don't suggest he can get around the law by having two bottle open on your bar and forty-six bottles open in the cellar of your home. I don't think the law would allow that.

MR. SULLIVAN: On the premises.

MR. ROBERTS: My friend for Ferryland says "on the premises". I don't even want to get into the debate because I don't know the answer. He and I can discuss it, I'll undertake to get him the answer, but I don't know the answer.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I'm told what's happening is this. That the guy comes around and says: I can get you some cheap whisky. St. Pierre sells, say, an amount that is equivalent to seven times the annual per capita consumption of St. Pierre. Nobody should think this is small stuff. So the guy says: Jack, I can get you forty cases of whisky cheap in your bar. He says: Bill, I'd be delighted. They do their deal. Then the guy gets it in. Now, the bottles are often different, and they do not have Canadian tax stamps on them, of course. They haven't been lawfully imported into Canada, these bottles.

Has my friend for Burin - Placentia West ever gone into a public place where a guy asked: like to buy a watch? Well, he said, maybe. He holds up his sleeve and there's eight or ten watches down. You have to question the title of the person who offers you watches in those -

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Just hold on, let me finish. So you have your forty cases of forty-ouncers in your cellar, you cannot put them out on the bar because if somebody comes in and sees a bottle - what are they called, Texas mickeys, the big ones, in some brands we do not sell here?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, and some we do not sell, but in any event, you have it on the bar and if there is no tax stamp on it, somebody may notice, some curious RCM police or some other person, so what you do I am told, is, you have a half-dozen empty bottles that you bought lawfully and you refill them. That is all hearsay in my case, but you refill them -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Well, there are no tax stamps on them, they cannot be taxed because you see, they came in unlawfully.

MR. SULLIVAN: If the seal is broken (inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: If the seal is broken? We will leave the case law to take care of this, the burden is going to be on the guy to explain why he went to the liquor store and bought forty cases and all of them have the seals broken on them.

MR. SULLIVAN: That is outside the control in a home-based (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: My friend is reading section 3. Section 2, the other one of which I am speaking says: A licensee who possesses contraband. Now the issue would be, do you have to possess it on licensed premises or not? I am not going to address that because I do not know the answer.

Now the other point I want to make, Mr. Speaker, and I will gladly answer or try to answer whatever questions people have. The other point I would make is that we are going to change the prosecutorial policy. Much of the prosecutions on most of them, in fact nearly all are under the Federal Excise and Customs Act. We will be instructing our prosecutors, the RCM police are doing this, some of this under provincial contract work and some of it is under the federal work, to lay charges under the Liquor Control Act, which means that we will be able to change a problem that now exists.

If contraband is confiscated tomorrow, at the end of the day it is all poured down the drain. From now on, we will be able to take it into inventory, with proper testing and all that and it will be back on the shelves and sold again so in that case we will make it twice. We are not going to pay the makers of this, the bottlers, the distillers, whatever they are -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I am sorry? No, I say to my friend from Grand Bank, there probably will not be any sales. We are having a sale on pork. There will be a big sale on pork in this Province one of these days but there is not going to be any sale on the liquor.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: There is a big sale on pork now.

MR. ROBERTS: My friend from Ferryland, it takes him a little while to get to the point, but, yes, he is there now, where I was, yes. But in any event, the Bill, Mr. Speaker, is designed to toughen the penalties very substantially to give us more weapons in an ongoing battle. The RCM police are increasing their efforts significantly, we have authorized additional person years, to use the jargon, in that area of their activity. There are new patrol boats coming, there are new patrol measures coming in, new surveillance measures coming in -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I understand the Burin detachment has been increased, has it not?

AN HON. MEMBER: No, reopened.

MR. ROBERTS: Reopened, but I mean we are making a significant effort here for two reasons. First of all, because the law says you must buy liquor from the government through our Crown Agency the Newfoundland Liquor Corporation and anybody who does not buy that, in effect is robbing everybody else in the Province and secondly, because the losses are so very significant and we just cannot tolerate them any longer, so with that said, and unless there are some questions, I shall - Sir?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I do not know about those popular brands of rum but I understand Golden Wedding - is it Golden Wedding?

AN HON. MEMBER: It is a whisky.

MR. ROBERTS: Golden Wedding is a whisky, I know. I do not drink it, I drink other things, but Golden Wedding whisky I am told that there is enough sold in St. Pierre each year, enough imported into St. Pierre to float St. Pierre all the way across the Atlantic and half-way back again, you know, incredible quantities of liquor. Then we have been working with the authorities in St. Pierre who are working with the Canadian distilleries to stop them selling this and all that happens is the St. Pierrais, free enterprisers, are going to the States and buying the booze, so you know, we have plugged the Canadian one by threatening not to list some of their products, so they are now going to the States.

MR. TOBIN: The American stuff is not fit to drink.

MR. ROBERTS: My hon. friend says the American stuff is not fit to drink, he has privilege here in the House but I am sure he is speaking only on the basis of reports that have come to him, second hand or, liquor that he purchased in the States.

MR. TOBIN: No, actually I was over in St. Pierre.

MR. ROBERTS: I am glad he was in St. Pierre. My only quarrel is that he came back, but that is another story.

AN HON. MEMBER: He floated back.

MR. ROBERTS: Anyway, Mr. Speaker, with that said I move second reading of the bill.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just want to take a few moments to comment on this particular bill. I think we can agree with the principle of the bill. When the minister says we are losing $10 to $20 million I suspect he is being very small `c', conservative. I suspect we are losing in fact a lot more than that. There is an awful lot, I suspect coming in than even the police and the liquor corporation are not aware of so we may well find that it is a tremendous amount more. Now, whether or not we will actually pick that up is debatable because people only have so much money to spend on these products, whether they be coming from the liquor store or whether they be contraband. There is only a certain amount of disposable income available to purchase them, nevertheless we will pick up a tremendous amount, I guess, on taxation for it.

There are a couple of points I want to make. First of all, I guess, if you are going to try and eliminate the importation of contraband liquor then you have to do whatever you want to do. It does appear on the surface, though, that these fines have increased quite substantially. Now, whether or not we have gone too far with that and whether it will become excessive or not does not make it right, or whether or not the penalties now are exceeding the crime, is something, I suppose, that one could debate. It does appear here, and perhaps the minister would like to try and address this. As I read the explanatory note under Clause 4 it says, 'Fines for possession of contraband liquor contrary to the Act would be increased from a current maximum of $200 to a new maximum of $10,000.' There is also a possibility of two years in jail. Now, I realize that is just the explanatory notes but that is just possession. That does not say anything about a licensed establishment or anything else there in the explanatory notes, however, when I read Section 4 Subsection 124 (b) 'where the offence is considered not to have been committed for profit or reward, a fine up to $500.'

Now, could the minister tell me does that mean -the question my friend was asking, the individual in his or her home who is found to have a bottle of contraband liquor and who had purchased it for their own use, that the maximum fine then is $500 or imprisonment for up to three months, or both the fine and imprisonment? It is still pretty heavy for having a bottle of contraband, a possible jail term of up to three months. I know the courts may well not impose that.

AN HON. MEMBER: It certainly makes a fellow think twice.

MR. WINDSOR: It certainly makes a fellow think twice, but I want to clarify it because the explanatory notes and the section here seem to be a little inconsistent.

MR. ROBERTS: Section 124?

MR. WINDSOR: Section 124 Subsection 1 (b) `where the offence is considered not to have been committed for profit or reward.' In other words somebody is consuming it.

MR. ROBERTS: Will you yield for a minute?

MR. WINDSOR: By all means.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, 124 Subsection 1 (b) as it is here if enacted will allow the courts to impose a fine of up to $500, and my hon. friend correctly notes that the courts may decide to impose a lesser fine - that is up to the judge, of course, when the offence is considered not to be committed for profit or reward. Now, this would cover the case, I think, where somebody brings a bottle into my house, or my hon. friend's house, and we are unfortunate enough to be caught by the authorities, prosecuted and convicted. In the case where the offence is committed for profit or reward, which would be a more commercial transaction. I hope that answers the question.

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

MR. WINDSOR: I just wanted to establish what my friend for Burin -Placentia West had asked as to what happens if it is simple possession by an individual who has some contraband for their own consumption?

MR. ROBERTS: I was talking earlier about a licensee in his home.

MR. WINDSOR: Well, that is what we are trying to establish here, the differentiation here between licensees and otherwise.

MR. ROBERTS: A licensee gets the book thrown at him.

MR. WINDSOR: Now there is a little contradiction as well. Under Part II there Section 33 of the act is amended and subsection (6) on the bottom of Page 3 of the bill: `A licensee who possesses contraband shall have his or her licence suspended or cancelled` - shall have.

On the next page, (7): `Where contraband is sold or offered for sale from a licensed premise` - it would appear that there is somewhat of a redundancy here to have both sections in there. If he has it on the premises he loses his licence. Number (7) says if he tries to sell it, but here it says: `May have his or her.` There is a difference between shall and may.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend again.

Subsection (6) deals with a situation where a licensee possesses contraband, and that is where the owner sort of knows it is on the premises. Subsection (7) deals with a situation where, in effect, the owner does not know - where it is not established that the owner knows. In other words, where contraband is sold, or offered for sale, from a licensed premises.

So let us suppose a charge is laid against Windsor and Roberts' bar, a prominent establishment that does very well on George Street, and it turns out that the waiter has been offering this contraband booze but that Windsor and Roberts, being the owners and the licensees, do not know about it. It is not a matter of them establishing their innocence. That is not the way the system works. The Crown must establish guilt, of course, but then the board would have the power to suspend the Windsor and Roberts' licence, but they would require, presumably, some evidence, and administrative law rules would apply.

Subsection (6) is where Windsor and Roberts, to consider my analogy, know that the waiter is peddling the booze, in which case the licence goes right out the window - goodbye Charlie.

There is a difference, in essence.

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

MR. WINDSOR: I thank the minister, Mr. Speaker, that does help, I guess. I'm just wondering why the differentiation between `may' and `shall'. If that's the explanation then that's fine.

Section 124 again. An offence again. Where somebody is guilty of an offence, subsection (a): "where the offence was committed for profit or reward...." So we're not talking about a licensee, we're talking about an individual who may be selling it, is that what this is? Because the fine there is up to $1,000 or twelve months in jail.

MR. ROBERTS: That's the general section. Then subsections (2) and (3) deal with specific offenses under other offenses of the Act.

MR. WINDSOR: I see.

MR. ROBERTS: Subsection 124 (inaudible) -

MR. WINDSOR: Okay. (Inaudible) goes the $10,000 and two years.

MR. ROBERTS: Yes. If you look up 70(2) and 70(1), these are the importers. I have them here. I can refer my hon. friend to them if need be.

Section 70(1) says: except as provided by the Act or regulations nobody may sell liquor in the Province. Section 70(2) says: a person in the Province shall not directly or indirectly keep alcoholic liquor unless it is obtained by him or her in accordance with this Act and the regulations. Which in effect means from the controllers.

MR. WINDSOR: I'm just trying to clarify here. There are three different sections here. The first one, where it's $1,000; then this one we just referred to where it's $10,000; and then the next one, subsection(3), where it's $50,000. I'm not clear in my own mind the difference of when it applies.

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

MR. ROBERTS: I'll try again, Mr. Speaker. Subsection 70(1) of the Act creates an offence in these words. It says: except as provided by the Act or regulations a person shall not keep or expose for sale, offer to sell, sell or barter, alcoholic liquor. So that creates an offence of selling alcoholic liquor other than in accordance with the Act. Which means in a licensed establishment and all those things. A conviction of 70(1) will render a person liable to a fine of up to $50,000 or imprisonment for up to two years or both in the terms of the subsection 124(3).

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I'm sorry?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: That applies to anybody. If my hon. friend offers liquor for sale he's committing an offence under 70(1). It also refers to Section 71 which requires a sale to be in accordance with the regulations, and Section 79 which says a person shall not peddle alcoholic liquor. A very elegant sentence.

Section 70(2) makes it an offence to keep alcoholic liquor, in other words even to possess it! Forget the sale. To have it! Unless it's been obtained in accordance with the regulations. A conviction on that offence will render one liable, according to 124(2) -

MR. WINDSOR: Is that dealing with somebody who has a licence now?

MR. ROBERTS: No.

MR. WINDSOR: But we're back to the other question of the $500 fine for simple possession of the individual.

MR. ROBERTS: Yes.

MR. WINDSOR: Now you're telling me that it could be $10,000.

MR. ROBERTS: A person in the Province shall not directly or indirectly keep alcoholic liquor unless it is obtained by him or her in accordance with the Act and the regulations. So that would render one liable. Section 124(1) is the general catch-all that would prescribe the maximum penalty for a conviction of any offence under the Act other than the four which I've just named: 70(1), 70(2), 71 and 79.

I may only have confused my hon. friend but I assure him it makes sense. What he's got to do is to read this together with the Act. I realise he doesn't have the Act in front in him because I've got the only copy. It's here at the table. But 124(1), the $500 one, is really intended to cover the case where my hon. friend asks me in for a drink. I say: I'll come over, Neil, delighted to have a drink with you, and I'll bring a bottle because I have some good stuff you might not have tried. That's what that's aimed at.

These are maximum fines. The courts will decide what (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: That's fine. Then the next one is a $10,000 fine, again for simple possession.

MR. ROBERTS: That's where you keep alcoholic liquor. I think there you'll find that's more than the casual possession. That's a matter of - and of course there's prosecutorial discretion as to which - I mean, a given set of facts. It's like the Criminal Code. A given set of facts will often give rise to a whole range of possible charges. The Crowns will generally select one of them, and there are principles and practices that follow.

I will say to my hon. friend that keeping alcoholic liquor is a serious offence and upon conviction can render one liable to a serious penalty.

MR. WINDSOR: It depends on how much.

MR. ROBERTS: Yes.

MR. WINDSOR: Five hundred dollars is if you have one bottle. If you have twenty cases -

MR. ROBERTS: Well, if my hon. friend has twenty cases in his basement, he had better ask us all in and drink them up quickly before this bill becomes law.

AN HON. MEMBER: Cut out the middleman.

MR. ROBERTS: The middleman, the middleperson, I say to my hon. friend.

I thank my friend from Mount Pearl.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his explanation, as best he can. Other than that, there is not much I can say, other than again to say that I guess while we agree with this obvious attempt to stop this, the increase of fines seems to be very substantial, changing in one case from $200 to $10,000. That is a very great increase. It is a very, very substantial increase. Whether or not that is justifiable - when is a penalty too much? How does a penalty befit the crime? I am not sure we can judge, but certainly if this smuggling into the Province is to be curbed, then the government has to take some action.

That is all I have to say for now, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I want to just make a few brief comments on this piece of legislation.

The big problem in this is the cost of purchasing a bottle of liquor in St. Pierre versus the cost of purchasing the same bottle of liquor at the liquor store.

AN HON. MEMBER: There is a big difference.

MR. TOBIN: That is what it is. The big difference is that if you go to St. Pierre, you can probably buy a 60 ouncer of Golden Wedding, as the hon. member referred to for, I do not know, probably $20? Probably $20 for a 60 ouncer, probably less than that, probably $15 or $16. When you buy that same bottle in Newfoundland, you will pay $50. So the big problem is the taxes that have been applied by the governments. That is the problem, and today people are buying their liquor the cheapest way possible, I would suspect, because the economy dictates it.

So I would say to the Minister of Justice that one of the areas they should be looking at, as it relates to controlling smuggling and bootlegging, is reducing the taxation. If they were to reduce the taxation on some of this, then I believe that people would not be taking the risk that is involved in terms of selling the liquor and bringing it in.

Why, if you can buy a bottle for $30 as opposed to a bottle for $50 at the liquor store, in most cases what people are doing is saving themselves $20. I would suspect that if the government was to reduce the price, the taxation, which is more - the taxation is more, by the way - there is more taxation on a bottle of booze than there is to buy the booze without taxation. Therein lies the problem.

So I suggest to the minister and to the government, what they should do is look at reducing the cost of liquor.

MR. SULLIVAN: About 80 per cent of it is taxes. Less than 20 per cent, I think, it costs...

MR. TOBIN: Yes. There you go. Eighty per cent of the cost of liquor today is taxes by both the federal and provincial governments. So I would suggest to the Minister of Justice that what they should be doing if they want to curb the amount of smuggling that is taking place, is to reduce the amount of taxation that they have placed upon booze.

MR. SULLIVAN: They are going to sell less now -

MR. TOBIN: What is that?

MR. SULLIVAN: They are going to sell less -

MR. TOBIN: Yes, and as a result, if they were to do that, I would say to the Minister of Finance, now that he is here, if he was to reduce the taxation on the cost of booze and alcohol - if you were to reduce the taxation - then he would increase the amount of money, the revenue, that government would get. So that is probably what the minister should be looking at. If the taxation was reduced somewhat, you would stop the smuggling, I say to the minister, because the market would not be there. People would not get involved in the contraband, and the government would make more money, so probably that is what the minister should look at.

MR. WINDSOR: I just want to ask the minister one question.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member on a question?

MR. WINDSOR: Really on a question to the minister.

MR. SPEAKER: Okay.

MR. WINDSOR: I have already spoken once, and I cannot be recognized a second time, but by leave we have been very informal here.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. WINDSOR: I just want to ask him one question. You can legally bring into the country, and into this Province, forty ounces, I think it is, per person, or whatever that limit it. How will anybody who is found, if I come back from New York and bring back a 40 ouncer of Grand McNish, which thanks to the liquor corporation you can no longer buy in Newfoundland, and happens to be my favourite scotch, and every time I come back I do bring back one. I brought one back from Ottawa this weekend because you cannot buy it here. How will you distinguish between that bottle which I brought legally back with me and a bottle which might have came from St. Pierre? I might have gone to St. Pierre and legally brought one back with me.

MR. SPEAKER: The Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: I am sure the hon. gentleman does not run into it often because I am sure a bottle will last him a long time, but I tell him it is unlawful to import liquor into this Province from another province except through the controllers. Now, we all do it all the time but it is unlawful. The answer to the other one is there is a record where one comes through customs. At the very least the hon. gentleman would say, I bought it in -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: - no, we are free from arrest in the precincts of the House of Assembly, our privilege goes back a long time, back to Charles 1st coming to depose the Speaker.

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible)

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, my time at the bar, and I do not mean the bar where you drink, I mean the bar where you drive people to drink. I say to my friend it simply would be a matter of saying to the authorities, look, here is what happened. I was in New York last week and, of course, I bought a bottle of Grand McNish, and I am sure any responsible police officer or any responsible Crown prosecutor - I believe all our Crowns or police would both say we understand, no problem, but if my hon. friend has a dozen bottles of Grand McNish he has a lot of explaining to do and he may find himself doing it to a judge of the Provincial Court.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am going to speak briefly on the bill. I agree that the situation with respect to the importation and sale of alcoholic liquors in the Province is getting to the point where the revenue of the Province is seriously affected. I always have a concern though, Mr. Speaker, about the absolutes in legislation, the requirements that people have liquor licenses suspended or cancelled. The definition of contraband as listed here is a pretty strong one and I say to all hon. members, including the Member for Mount Pearl, that the situation he is talking about is in fact covered. The one bottle that you might bring back from New York, Toronto, or some other place, is covered by the definition of contraband but it only covers one bottle or whatever you are allowed to bring in on one occasion. Section 68 of the act is a sub of the contraband, contraband meaning alcoholic liquor acquired in any manner not expressly authorized by this act or the Liquor Corporation Act. Section 68 says a person may have or consume liquor that he or she has on any one occasion brought into the Province from a place outside the Province, that is brought into the Province from outside the country and legally allowed to be let in, or bought in another province, but it is on a one occasion trip, so if you have two bottles and you are only allowed to bring in one then your are in trouble.

What may be worse, and this is why I have a concern about those absolutes, if you happen to be a licensee and you happen to have two bottles that you brought from New York, nothing to do whatsoever with the operation of your bar or your licensed premises, but you happen to have in your house two bottles of your favourite liquor that you cannot obtain here, brought in from New York or Toronto then you lose your license, and as the Minister of Justice is saying, the government intends that the judge would have no choice at all because it does not say whether this is on licensed premises or not.

I have that kind of difficulty with any of those absolutes and I know when the minister said the judge has no choice obviously it is quite clear that they do not want the judge to have any choice regardless of the amount involved, whether it is one bottle or fifty, regardless of whether it is contraband merely by being caught in the definition and having been brought in on two occasions instead of one, the judge in that case would still be told by the Crown prosecutor representing the Minister of Justice, Your Honour, you do not have any choice, this is contraband, he has two bottles of scotch he brought in from New York, he is a licensee, the act says he has to lose his license and you have to take it away. This legislation suffers from that defect in that it does not allow for what is sometimes called de minimis. It suffers from that defect. I am telling you, Mr. Speaker, and I say to the hon. member, I have heard Crown prosecutors tell judges in situations: Well, Your Honour, you may want to have a choice but you don't have a choice here because even though that is not the situation you are required to have that licence suspended or cancelled.

So, there is a problem here and I see that as a difficulty. I accept the minister's explanation of Section 2(7) here but quite clearly, it seems to me, it is not certain that the `may' and the `shall' - we are saying that is intended to deal with a situation where you can't nail the licensee; but if his premises is being used then presumably a judge or the Liquor Board has some authority to make a decision whether he condoned it or knew about it. And if they felt that he condoned it or knew about it then they will remove his licence. If he somehow or other - if it is a reverse onus, I don't know. If he can convince them that he didn't know about it then they might not remove his licence.

It seems to me that is awfully vague. That leaves an awful lot to the vagaries of in what cases would they remove it and what cases wouldn't they. I'm not sure. Perhaps if the minister has been told by the officials, that is the intention, I don't know. Since it is not the minister's legislation perhaps the Minister of Finance can get up and clarify these points when he speaks to close debate.

It strikes me that these two sections here are confusing. "A licensee who possesses contraband shall have his or her licence suspended or cancelled" - that could be contraband that the Member for Mount Pearl brings back from New York because he happens to like a particular brand of liquor. Instead of having just one bottle, he happens to have two trips in one month. Before he drinks the first bottle he gets a second one. So now he has contraband in his house. He is a licence holder and the judge has no choice, or the Board may have no choice, but to remove the licence.

Now the minister may -

AN HON. MEMBER: `May', `may'.

MR. HARRIS: Only `may' in the second instance, no `may' in the first one.

MR. WINDSOR: It may be that I had two or three drinks and bring (inaudible) back for him.

MR. HARRIS: That may be, too. So you may have it as a gift. But there is no `may'. I ask the Minister of Finance to look at this legislation. There is no `may' in clause 2(6): "A licensee who possesses contraband shall have his or her licence suspended or cancelled." Period. No `may'.

MR. BAKER: `Shall have,' you're right.

MR. HARRIS: `Shall have'.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible) from Gander, That is the way it should be.

MR. HARRIS: That is a concern. So if I happen to be a friend of the Member for Mount Pearl and I come back from New York with a bottle of his favourite liquor and give it to him, and he already has another -

MR. ROBERTS: Then you should both go to jail - together.

MR. HARRIS: Then he can lose his liquor licence. If that is what the Minister of Finance wants, that's what he is going to get, and I say to him, that is wrong.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: And that is the problem with absolutes in legislation, that gives no room for judicial discretion. Now, I am not necessarily a fan of total judicial discretion, but I am opposed to the kind of minimum laws. We have had for many years in this country -I think we probably still have - these minimum sentences of seven years in jail for importing narcotics. So the Narcotic Control Act calls marijuana a narcotic, even though it isn't, and if somebody imports or brings couple of joints of marijuana over the border, the judge is supposed to give him seven years in jail. This kind of legislation is wrong in principle.

There is no amount here. If it is one bottle, or it could be 500 bottles, he still loses his licence. So if licensee having one bottle of contraband, perhaps in relatively innocent circumstances such as we are describing here, where somebody gives him a gift of a special liquor from away somewhere, happens to be caught by some overscrupulous RCMP officer or Liquor Board inspector, who goes to the letter of the law, that gets him in trouble. I think that sort of legislation is wrong in principle and I think that if there were an amount put on it you could have a more satisfactory result.

There is always a danger, Mr. Speaker, when government decides to get rid of some evil, that it uses too big a stick or too big a net and captures people they don't want to capture in order to get the people that they do. I think that this may be one of them. I am not speaking out in favour of licensees of licensed premises having the right to sell contraband liquor from St. Pierre or anywhere else, but I don't want to see people get stuck who shouldn't get stuck with this, and I think there may be an opportunity to do that.

I would ask that the minister consider this matter, in third reading stage, I suppose - we are only at approval in principle now. In principle, I have no difficulty with the increase in the fines and tightening up on methods, particularly methods to stop commercial premises and commercial activity in the sale of imported liquor. I don't think anybody is too excited about somebody having a bottle of liquor from St. Pierre in their home, or drinking it. I imagine many members of this House have partaken of a bit of St. Pierre liquor from time to time.

What I think is being recognized here, though, is that it is now to the point where we are dealing with a very widespread commercial activity that is costing the taxpayers of this Province a lot of money. What it is really doing is forcing the taxpayers to pay money that they shouldn't have to pay because there should be revenue from other sources. So, Mr. Speaker, it is the kind of legislation that we can support as long as we don't have the kinds of defects that we see here in requiring perhaps what might be a baseball bat to swat a fly, in certain circumstances, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: He can't speak.

MR. SPEAKER: No, I'm sorry.

If the hon. the Minister speaks now he will close the debate.

Is it the minister's intention to speak now?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: I recognize the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

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

It is good to see the Minister of Finance. He hasn't been here. He has been hiding from the Chamber all afternoon - didn't want to be here to take the heat on some of the bills that he has put forward, couldn't take the bombarding he was going to get. Now he rushes into the House for about five minutes, jumps up and thinks he is going to ram this important piece of legislation through.

Mr. Speaker, this is another vicious attack by this government, I say, on the Burin Peninsula. All we have seen for the last five years are vicious attacks - health care, education, fish plants, and now they are attacking the only growing industry left in this Province. They are now making a vicious attack on the only growing industry.

MR. WOODFORD: They finally identified one.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: They found one, Mr. Speaker. They found a growing industry and now they are going to destroy it. They want to destroy that.

Mr. Speaker, on a more serious note, I wanted to have a few words about this. Because it seems that whenever this topic is raised here in the Legislature, my good friend from Burin - Placentia West and I always seem to be the ones that people look at, and nod and wink - the odd nods and winks. It is because, I guess, we represent districts that are closest to St. Pierre and Miquelon.

MR. WOODFORD: That is the only reason.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, we get aligned, sort of, that our constituents, when it comes to this stuff, are the bad boys.

There have been some good points made here today, Mr. Speaker. The cost, the taxes that are imposed upon alcohol by the Liquor Corporation. Someone quoted the figures, I believe, the Member for Burin - Placentia West. It is absolutely terrible.

If we did reduce the cost and reduce the taxes, I would think that a lot of this smuggling activity would dry up on its own. Because the incentive would not be there for two reasons: First of all, people would not purchase contraband if the price difference weren't so great because it wouldn't be worth the risk for people to buy it, because no one would want to get charged, arrested, thrown in jail or whatever. But, as it stands now, the difference between the liquor store prices and the price at which people can buy it, say, from the smuggler, is so great, they think the risk is worthwhile.

If government were wise enough to reduce the taxes, and consequently, reduce the prices, they would eliminate the smuggling automatically and I say to the Minister of Finance, I don't think they would be any worse off financially.

Those are a few comments I wanted to make about it. There is many a story I could - if we weren't in the time frame where we wanted to get through the business of the House, government business, and go on to try and finish this place up by the end of - there is many an interesting story I could tell about this tradition that has existed on the Burin Peninsula for so many years.

Because this piece of legislation is obviously targeted at, well, mostly the people on the Burin Peninsula who are alleged to be participating in illegal activity - alleged, I say, for the ears of the Minister of Justice.

AN HON. MEMBER: `Rory aforesaid'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: `Rory aforesaid' (inaudible) defending them.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Defending them? After listening to the Member for St. John's East, I don't know, I am kind of confused. I am sure the Minister of Finance is going to address some of his comments when he gets up.

Mr. Speaker, this activity has escalated, particularly over the last four years; and this government have to take most of the blame, because they have driven the unemployment rate up so much in this Province, especially on the South Coast. The highest unemployment rate ever for that region of the Province has been imposed upon them by this government.

Now, I want to say to the Minister of Finance and others that those people who participate in this illegal activity are doing so to keep body and soul together, as I say also to the Minister of Health. Because the fishery is bottom up. What was on the Burin Peninsula this government has closed up. So how else are they going to stay alive now, Mr. Speaker? That is how they stay alive, a lot of these people. The few dollars they make off a few measly bottles of booze, I say to the Minister of Finance, is how they get through the winter; that is how they buy fuel for their homes and put food on the table.

MR. TOBIN: They are driving Cadillacs and everything.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, no. The Member for Fogo has been away too long. He is still in a dream world; he is still having illusions.

MR. TOBIN: They are driving Cadillacs and everything.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, my good friend from Burin - Placentia West - you know, just when you are getting serious about something, he throws you off with one of his comments. Because the people who engage in this activity, are not in it because they want to be at it, I say to the Minister of Finance. We all know what happens when the unemployment rate gets so high and times get so tough.

MR. BAKER: You don't condone breaking the law?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Well, if that were the only way I had to keep my family warm and to feed them, I say to the Minister of Finance, if I were a victim of his government's policies and programs, slashes, cuts and rollbacks, cuts in services, and layoffs, then I don't know, I say to the Minister of Finance, what I just might resort to. I am just not so sure what I would resort to.

Maybe I would be inclined, Mr. Speaker, if I could afford to get a boat and a motor. I might be, if I could afford to get the boat and the motor.

MR. TOBIN: You can have mine.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: My friend from Burin - Placentia West says he has one.

MR. SULLIVAN: You can get one for a dollar from the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: It isn't like the days when the present Minister of Fisheries was selling boats, longliners, two-for-a-dollar. If we were back in that day, you never know.

MR. SULLIVAN: We will be back there again.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes, we will soon be back there. There will be no reason to have the boats.

The message I want to leave for the Minister of Finance is that people are not doing this because they want to do it, because they enjoy doing it. There is a lot of risk involved in this, not only financial, and that of getting arrested.

AN HON. MEMBER: Life.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: There is risk to life, that's right. A lot of people have lost their lives at this stuff, but the real reason is they have to feed their families and if, I say to the Minister of Finance, if he was proactive and lowered the price at the liquor store, this problem would go away automatically, I say to the Minister of Finance, so why does he not consider that?

MR. BAKER: How much would they need a year to feed their family?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: To feed a family? That depends on the size of the family, a man and his wife and two kids, a man and his wife and ten kids, it varies, so that is hard to answer, how much would one need.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Well, I would not be surprised. Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador has funded some very funny businesses, I say to the Minister for Tourism and Culture, and I would not be surprised if we could get into it and dig it up, that perhaps they have funded equipment -

MR. TOBIN: Except during the election campaign.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: During the election campaign, that is another story. They shut down their offices in some regions of the Province, Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador, so that their employees could be campaign managers for Liberal candidates, I say to members opposite.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes, that is right, I say to the Minister of Finance, that is right - shut down the offices for three weeks -

AN HON. MEMBER: Where?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: In Grand Bank; shut down the office for three weeks.

AN HON. MEMBER: That was a good idea.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Well I say, perhaps it was, but if it was a good idea for three weeks maybe it is a good idea to shut it down for good.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Grand Bank.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Grand Bank, I say to the Minister of Finance, Grand Bank, shut it down for three weeks, shut it down and the employee in that office was campaign manager for the Liberal candidate for three weeks.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)

MR. W. MATTHEWS: I would say, that is gospel, that is the truth. I do not know how I got sidetracked into that because I said I would never bring that up.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: I think it was Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador did it but the Minister of Tourism and Culture who prompted me to get into that stuff.

MR. SULLIVAN: Did he get paid to campaign?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: I do not know, I would say he got paid twice, at least twice. Now I am sure there was nothing connected with this bill that we are talking about here that had anything to do with that, but my message to the Minister of Finance is that people do not do it because they want to do it, people do not want to do it and if you cut back on the prices the activity would stop automatically and I think as a Province you would be just as well off financially if not better, I say to the Minister of Finance.

Now, I want to say to the Member for Eagle River as he is always down in the gutter, that if the hon. Member for Eagle River calls the truth being in the gutter, then he has to take a lot more of it because that was the truth.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: That is the truth, Dan. I know you do not like to hear it because it is something negative about you and the government that you kowtow to, right? you do not like to hear that, but that is the truth. Anyway, those are the few remarks I wanted to make about it, I will not take any more time but I could tell a few good stories but I will save that for another day, when we have more time.

AN HON. MEMBER: When we are in Committee stage?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, not Committee stage but another time because there are some very great tales of what has happened of course, right along the South Coast, songs that have been written about it, we know by Simani. I expect that the Member for Fortune - Hermitage would get up and have a few words on this because I said to him that all of us who represent districts along the South Coast, I figured we should get up and say something because you know, this terrible government is trying to take away a tradition and a way of life -

MR. TOBIN: Destroy our culture.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: That is right, destroy our culture and here is the Minister of Tourism and Culture over there supporting it. You talk about culture, you talk about tourism I say to the minister -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Well, it is all part of our heritage and our culture. As a matter of fact, I said to the Minister of Tourism and Culture a little while ago when he talked about the loop and trying to develop tourism, he said, what will we call the one down there, and I said, maybe we should consider calling it the Smugglers Trail, but then he could not support that. The Minister of Tourism would call it what?

MR. WALSH: Call it the Walsh Loop and get some money from a grant.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: My God, Mr. Speaker, call it the Walsh Loop. Well, well, well, I think I had better sit down, Mr. Speaker, I am getting a little bit hungry and I do not want to get too upset so I would not be able to have my supper, I say to the Minister of Tourism and Culture, so I better sit down before I hear any more of that.

Now I expect the Member for Fortune - Hermitage to get up. All the South Coast members have to get up -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you (inaudible)?

MR. SULLIVAN: No, I don't. Actually, anything that's going to curtail the sale of contraband I'd have to give it support. I do have some concern with Clause 2. Where: "A licensee who possesses contraband shall have..." their licence revoked, and a licensee who sells contraband may have it revoked. In other words, the penalty for possession is greater than the penalty for committing the offence.

MR. TOBIN: But he just explained that.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Explain that. Because they don't understand that over there.

MR. SULLIVAN: Because unless there are certain clauses in Section 33 that precede (6) and (7) that I haven't seen, and I have not seen the Act -

MR. TOBIN: He explained that (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: What?

MR. TOBIN: Roberts explained what that meant.

MR. SULLIVAN: He did? It's not specified here in the explanatory notes.

MR. TOBIN: No (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Okay. Well, it's probably similar anyway to having possession of a firearm and the penalty is more severe than using a firearm. I guess if you want to make a parallel to it.

Over all I really don't think we're going to save $10 million or $12 million by bringing this in. What we're going to have is a reduction in the sale of alcohol where I believe less than five dollars on a forty-ouncer is a genuine cost really to the distiller and the rest of the cost is all taxes. We're really going to have a cutback in the various sales and so on because there's going to be less consumed, and we're not going to have a substantial increase, even though the fine itself should be a deterrent.

Overall, Mr. Speaker, I support the generalities of this. I think it's good but I don't really think it's going to achieve what it's set out and hoping to achieve. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. the Minister speaks now he will close the debate.

The hon. the Minister of Finance.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, milord.

AN HON. MEMBER: Milord!

MR. SPEAKER: And master.

MR. BAKER: Just a couple of very brief comments, Mr. Speaker. First of all, to my good friend the Member for Grand Bank, the Opposition House Leader. In spite of the absolutely vicious personal attack he unleashed on me during his speech I have to say that my practice is always to turn the other cheek. I sympathize with some of the things that the Opposition House Leader said. He's very concerned about what's happening on the Burin Peninsula, he's very concerned about his people. I sympathize with him in the fact that he has been unsuccessful and largely failed in providing jobs for people on the Burin Peninsula. So I can sympathize and empathize with the hon. member and I appreciate his comments.

The comments from the member for - my learned friend for St. John's East - really amazed me. It's surprising considering that it's coming from a lawyer. That really amazed me. Obviously, as the Member for St. John's East should know, you have to have trust in our system. Obviously you have to realize that within our system of justice there's an awful lot of common sense. You have to believe that. You have to believe that common sense still has a place in our justice system.

Having said that, that common sense has some place to play in our legal system, then an awful lot of what he had to say really means nothing. As my hon. friend knows it's impossible to write a piece of legislation that covers all of the bases, that covers all of the eventualities, all of the possibilities. No such piece of legislation has ever been written. No such law as far as I know has ever been written to cover all of the eventualities. We have to trust to our system that it would use common sense and there are enough checks and balances built into our system to make sure that the intent of the legislation, the intent of the law, is carried out. I think the intent in this case is really obvious.

What amazed me even more about the Member for St. John's East is that he's insisting on a law - his speech would lead you to believe - he is insisting on a law that is absolutely clear on every single point. I'd say to him, if that were so, if the laws that were written were so clear and precise as to be absolutely clear and precise on every single point, then he would have starved to death over the last number of years. There'd be no need for lawyers. Because everything would be so clear that lawyers would simply not be needed. The courts would decide, without their being two sides to an argument. So, Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to him that I am sure his friends in the legal community would not appreciate the fact that he is trying to do them out of a job.

Mr. Speaker, having said these few words, I move second reading.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Liquor Control Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House presently by leave. (Bill No. 12).

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, before I ask Your Honour to call the next order, members might wish to know what we will ask the House to address tonight. I will, in a moment, ask Your Honour to call Order 7, which is Bill No. 2, the amendment to the Memorial University Act, to address the Auditor General situation.

When we finish that tonight, as I hope we will, we will ask the House to deal with committee stages on the four or five bills that have been adopted, with the hope of moving them through the committee stage this evening.

When we finish with that we will adjourn and go home, so it is in the hands of the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) said if we finish (inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: No, we will finish. I did not say when. I said when; but when we finish then we will adjourn, so it is in the hands of members entirely and that is the way it ought to be, how long we wish to stay here tonight.

Your Honour, could we please call Order 7?

MR. SPEAKER: Order 7.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Memorial University Act". (Bill No. 2).

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, this bill is not a very major bill. It just would simply clarify the authority and responsibility of the Auditor General respecting the conduct of audits at Memorial University.

What this bill does, Mr. Speaker, is assure the people of the Province that there is accountability for the money that the university is spending.

You recall that when the Auditor General's bill was amended -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: When the Auditor General's bill was amended back in October of last year, we inadvertently referred to the university as an agency of the Crown. Mr. Speaker, this was not the intent. The intent was that government would have some way that the university would account for the money that it spends.

Instead of putting this authority into the Auditor General's act, this bill will put it into the Memorial University Act, so we have the same effect as if it had been in the Auditor General's act, but it is in the Memorial University Act.

I move second reading, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

First of all, the obvious first comment I have to make is that I cannot believe that a minister would come into this House and not have any more to say about a piece of legislation that has such far-reaching implications as this one. Does the minister honesty think he is going to get away with that kind of an approach to this piece of legislation - a minor piece of legislation?

Let me say, Mr. Speaker, this is far from being a minor piece of legislation. It is probably one of the most undemocratic bills ever introduced to any House of Assembly. How the minister can stand there and say with a straight face that this is a minor piece of legislation? Who does he think he is kidding? No one, Mr. Speaker. This is a very, very serious piece of legislation. It involves two things. It involves taking away significant powers from the Auditor General, and it involves a direct infringement on the rights and responsibilities of this House of Assembly, because it is taking away from this House, through the work of the Standing Committee of the House, the rights and privileges that this standing committee and this House has had.

Mr. Speaker, we've gone through this many times. I don't know if there's any sense in me saying it all again but I'm going to. Because I know hon. gentleman opposite are not going to pay attention. It's 6:20 at night. There's nobody around in the press gallery as far as we know who's going to report it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes there are a couple up there.

MR. WINDSOR: But the information will be gotten out. There are some up there? That's good.

Mr. Speaker, the bottom line here is that this piece of legislation makes very significant changes to structure, first of all. I'll get into some details later on. We're talking about structure and accountability to the people. Accountability to the taxpayers of this Province who give that university $130 million a year. The Auditor General is an officer of this House. She's not asking the university for information. She doesn't carry out audits to suit her own purposes. She does so to fulfil the duties and obligations that she has to this House under the Auditor General's Act.

The minister stands up and says: we inadvertently included the university. Absolute nonsense. What a stupid statement for a minister to make in a House of Assembly. Inadvertently included it. The university was included because it is an agency of the Crown. One hundred and thirty million dollars a year qualifies the university as being an agency of the Crown. What this Act is trying to do - what it will do if the government rams it through, as they always do - what it will do is make the university different than any other agency or group or organization or Crown corporation in this Province that receives taxpayers dollars.

Let's be very clear. What we are doing here is setting the university apart. Separate, unique, the university alone will not be answerable directly to this House of Assembly. The minister will stand up later on and say: the minister will answer. We'll find out. Because in due course we'll have the minister come before the Public Accounts Committee to answer the questions that we've been asking and we'll see if the minister is in a position to answer them. He may not be so comfortable then. We are establishing the university and the university alone to be unique. They alone cannot be called before the Public Accounts Committee.

As I said, the Auditor General is a servant of this House. When she does an audit on the university or anybody else she is working on behalf of this House. That was made very clear by the court decision of His Honour, Justice Noel, just a month or two ago. I'll just refer to it. His Honour said first of all by refusing to comply with the Auditor General's request His Honour said: Section 17 of the Act imposes an obligation upon the university which it has not fulfilled. Every department of government, every agency of the Crown, and every Crown controlled corporation shall furnish the Auditor General with information regarding its power, duties and so forth. I'm quoting now from that section of the Act, Section 17.

What the government is doing now is passing legislation which says: the university is no longer an agency of the Crown. Not only that, they're going a little farther than that. They're doing it retroactively. At the time that this matter was referred to the court by the Auditor General, having made a special report to the House of Assembly saying the university has refused to comply with the legislation, has refused to provide the information requested, government refused to take action that was necessary. They refused to direct the university to do that. They took no action whatsoever. The Auditor General was forced to refer the matter to the courts.

She referred the matter to the court and the court ruled that the university was in violation of the act. That's ruled by the courts. The president of the university says in his own words: well, I know I was in violation of the act but that is okay because we do not like the act and civil disobedience is acceptable under these circumstances. The president of the university says civil disobedience is acceptable, under these circumstances. Well, I find it absolutely incredible, Mr. Speaker, that the president of our university would advocate civil disobedience but that is precisely what he has said and that is precisely what he has done. He broke the law. Well, he is going to be aided and abetted now by this government who are going to change the law retroactively. They acknowledge that the law was broken. The courts have told them that. The courts have said that the act imposes an obligation upon the university which it has not fulfilled. We all know the university broke the law.

MR. MURPHY: What?

MR. WINDSOR: The university broke the law. My friend for St. John's South knows full well what I am saying. He can sit there and smile all he wants but I will say right here and now that he agrees with every word I am saying. I know he does because he was on the Public Accounts Committee when this matter was brought up and he was a very strong supporter of the position I am taking. I speak on behalf of the whole Public Accounts Committee at that point in time. I cannot speak for the new members because we have not discussed it, the new committee, but we were unanimous in our position at that time and my friend for St. John's South confirms that.

AN HON. MEMBER: How long have they been breaking the law?

MR. WINDSOR: This is the first time that the Auditor General requested information that was not given.

AN HON. MEMBER: Has the Public Accounts Committee over the years ever requested it?

MR. A. SNOW: The Public Accounts Committee has never requested the university to come before them before. They have reviewed issues. Well, let me correct that. There were discussions before but it has never been pushed. There were meetings with ministers and the government of the day, and decisions.

AN HON. MEMBER: Did the President not appear at one time before (Inaudible)?

MR. WINDSOR: Not that I am aware of. President Harris always took the position - and you can read the letters, the pompous attitude: oh, I do not have to answer to the Public Accounts Committee. Who are the Public Accounts Committee to summon the president of the university? Well, I say who is the president of the university to snub his nose at this hon. House? Whether the president of the university likes it or not he is an employee of government. He is a public servant. He is a servant of the people who own that great university and who fund it. What makes the president of the university any different from any other of our Crown corporations? What makes him different than the chairman of the school board, all the school boards in the Province, Mr. Speaker?

They can say: well, we raise a lot of our funds through fees. So what? Do the school boards not charge fees, until recently through school tax? By their own act had legislation, the School Tax Act, gave them taxing authority, basically. It gave them authority to impose taxes. They raise a significant portion of their funds on their own, yet the school boards are responsible to come before the Public Accounts Committee. The Minister of Education can be called on a matter relating to a school board if the committee choses to do so, but the school boards are being called in to answer. We have done it.

The hospitals raise a considerable amount of money on their own as well. Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro have a board of directors. They have a chairman and they raise money through fees imposed on users through the sale of electricity to Newfoundland Power, a private corporation, and through fees imposed on individual consumers in rural areas, yet they have to answer for their expenditure. Why, Mr. Speaker? Very simply, because there are considerable taxpayer's dollars involved and the fact that only a portion of their revenue comes from the taxpayers is irrelevant. There are taxpayer's dollars involved and the House, through the Auditor General and through the Public Accounts Committee has the right to examine all expenditures of these agencies, even the funds raised by these agencies because they are only an agency of government and so when they raise funds through fees, through school taxes, whatever mechanism that may be involved, they are raising funds on behalf of government, because they have been given a trust by government to operate and a mandate to provide certain public services, be it generation and sale of electricity, be it operation of schools, be it operation of hospitals, be it operation of the university, and the taxpayers of this Province have a right to know how that money is being spent and that it is being spent properly, and we as legislators, have a responsibility to examine those expenditures.

We are not doing it for the fun of it, that is what we are being paid for as legislators, we are the final arbitrators of the public purse. This is the highest court in the land, sitting right here and we have a responsibility to review and to review to our own satisfaction, to satisfy ourselves on behalf of the people who put their trust in us, that we are safeguarding their tax dollars. Now this piece of legislation is taking that right and responsibility away from us. If this legislation is approved, the Public Accounts Committee cannot summon before the committee the officials of the university; they will be the only people in the Province who cannot be summoned before the Public Accounts Committee, perhaps, with the exception of the judiciary, perhaps we cannot summon them. I do not know, we might be able to summon the Chief Justice to see about the operation of the courts, I do not know.

MR. ROBERTS: It would be an interesting effort (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: It would be an interesting effort but that is a possible exception, but how can we justify, Mr. Speaker, first of all, correcting a breach of the law by making this particular act retroactive? The courts have ruled, the president of the university broke the law a number of months ago, and now this act is saying: we will pass this act retroactively and then that will be okay, so he did not really break the law, even though it has been to the courts and the courts have said he broke the law. The courts of course, have no penalty. They have no remedy as His Honour says in his judgement.

The Auditor General had no remedy when the university refused, in her view, to comply with the act except to report to the House, the highest court, that there had been a breach of the privilege of this House because the Auditor General is acting on behalf of this House, and the same holds true for the Public Accounts Committee when we reported to this House that the university had refused to answer to the Public Accounts Committee. In my view, that was a clear breach of privilege of this House. How can members perform the duty that we are sworn to perform, if the university or anybody else can snub their noses at the House of Assembly, can break the law, and then the president of the university can say: civil disobediences is justified because we do not like the law. There are lots of laws that many of us do not like but we do not have the right not to obey them.

We go to our elected representatives, in our case we come here to the House of Assembly and we go through the proper legislative procedures to correct errors and anomalies in law, to make the law just, to reflect what society wants, that is what we do, collectively, we are all subject to answer to our constituents, we represent them here, that is what we are here for and we pass laws that are acceptable to society generally, and this House of Assembly passed the law that said the university shall answer to the Auditor General, that said the university shall answer to the Public Accounts Committee and the president of the university chose to disobey that law and the court has ruled so, but this government says: that is okay, he is the president of the university, he is special.

Every Minister of the Crown sitting in this House could be called before the Public Accounts Committee to answer, every public servant can be called before the House of Assembly, before the Public Accounts Committee except the university, and the president of the university cries about academic freedom, the biggest red herring ever put forward. It is an insult to the intelligence of hon. members of this House for the president of the university to suggest that that would be an infringement on academic freedom. What does it have to do with academic freedom, Mr. Speaker? Who is the president trying to kid? We have a Senate which, under the University Act, controls the academic side of the university. It controls curriculum and all of those matters. We have a Senate that has that responsibility. We have a Board of Regents.

Let me quote from the University Act, Mr. Speaker, under Section 33, the duties and responsibilities and rights of the Board of Regents. It says: The management, administration and control of the property, revenue, business and affairs of the university as vested in the board.

That is the Board of Regents. They are the business administrators. The president will say: Well we do not have to answer to the House because we have a board. There are many, many Crown corporations and agencies that have a board, but they still answer to the Public Accounts Committee. They still answer to the Auditor General - and no impact. Why are the Board of Regents so special? Because a majority of them are appointed by government? Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro are totally appointed by government, yet that board answers to the Public Accounts Committee and to the Auditor General.

School boards are elected by people. Just about all of them, I think, are elected by people in school board elections. They might say: Wait now, we are elected by the people here. We are representing the people the same as you are. School boards might have an argument to make that they answer to the people and have a right to say: We do not really need to go through this because we also answer to the people. You are elected, we are elected, and let our constituency, being the people who contribute and pay and use the services of that school board, they might have an argument to make.

The university is certainly not elected, Mr. Speaker. They are certainly not elected, and the Board of Regents is the business side, as compared to the Senate, under Section 56 which says: The Senate shall have general charge of all matters of an academic character, and it shall have certain powers.

There is a clear distinction in the university's own act between the Senate and the Board of Regents. Now how can the president of the university try to tell us that there is an infringement?

Mr. Speaker, I say this: The Board of Regents is only a rubber stamp anyway. They are only a rubber stamp. It is the administration of the university that runs that university. The Board of Regents has the power, I suppose, to question, but I would submit that they are basically a rubber stamp - absolutely no justification whatsoever for precluding them.

Mr. Speaker, that is not just my opinion. There are others who have been asked this question, and I refer to some hearings held in Ontario where a representative from Trent University, the University of Guelph, and the University of Ontario came together to discuss this question. I would just like to quote some of the people, some of the things that were said, and these are official transcripts from the Public Accounts Committee - let me emphasize that - the Public Accounts Committee hearings of Ontario.

Let me quote this one from a Madame Celeste Gilbert. She says: I am Vice-Chairman of the Board of Governors of the University of Guelph. With me today are Dr. Brian Segal, the President of the University, Charles Ferguson, the Vice-President, Colin Graham and Jim Dinnes, the firm Ernst and Young, who are our external auditors, and want to start up by telling you how pleased we are to appear before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to present our views on the public inspection audit that was conducted at the University of Guelph and to respond to members' questions.

All of those people appeared before the university and said how pleased they were. She goes on to say: there can be no doubt that universities have a duty to be accountable to the government and to the public for the responsible expenditure of funds, a significant percentage of which comes from the public purse. That is the Vice-President of the University of Trent. She does not seem to have any problem with the concept of the university answering to Public Accounts Committees. She does not seem to have any problem with any infringement on academic freedom. She goes on to say: universities in Ontario have always retained a high degree of autonomy owing to, I believe, the recognition by successive governments that the purchase of teaching scholarship and the dissemination of information can best be served by allowing universities to be responsible to their time tested tradition, and she says, this, of course, does not remover their obligation to be responsible to the larger society nor would any university desire that freedom.

She does not know Memorial University, Mr. Speaker. Nor would any university, she said, desire that freedom. Well we see that our university here not only desires it but when they do not have it they take it, in violation of the law and now government is going to aid and abet that. They are going to help the university break the law because now that they have broken the law government will change the law retroactively and says therefore they did not break the law. They still broke the law at the time, Mr. Speaker. Dr. Segal says clearly that one of the instruments for conducting that measure of accountability is the provincial auditor coming in and conducting an inspection audit on those matters that pertain to the provincial auditors mandate. He goes on to say that government has the right to request from us any information of any sort and we must provide it. Some interesting quotes, Mr. Speaker.

Trent University, Mr. Stevenson says the Trent Act assigns to the board of governors responsibility for the government, management and control of the university and its property, revenues, expenditures, business, and affairs. There is no different at all from Memorial University. Later on he says at Trent we accept the principle that openness leads to more effective management and to better public understanding of the role we play in society. It was in this spirit that the university acceded to the request of the provincial auditor to conduct an inspection audit of the appropriate areas of our books. The Vice-Chairman of the board, Mr. Stevenson, goes on to say: I would like to extend to the Public Accounts Committee the full co-operation of the university in pursuing any areas of interest either today or in the future. Our books are open and you are most welcome to visit Trent and to observe the educational and research programs in which we take such pride. Interesting comments, Mr. Speaker.

The University of Toronto, Dr. McGavin, Chairman of the Board of Governors says the university is a self governing community but it is also a public institution with much of its income coming from the taxpayers and from the university's benefactors. You the governors are accountable to the public to assure that the university maintains and enhances its position as an institution of academic excellence, and to assure that the public funds are being spent responsibly and effectively. To digress for a moment for the public, I mean also the Legislature, and through it it's elected officials. It is pretty clear stuff, Mr. Speaker. He then goes on to say, the autonomy given to our university is not possible today without two things, a clear provision for public accountability and internal mechanisms to mold the work of our highly skilled faculty and students into a set of programs and activities. The university board of governors are the means of uniting these two requirements.

A little later on he says: our accountability to the elected representatives of the people of Ontario is important. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the accountability of Memorial University of Newfoundland is also very important. I'm a great supporter of that university, I'm a graduate of that university. I have very warm feelings toward it. I still feel very strongly that the people who are involved in the administrative side must also be accountable. There is no magic formula that says they should not be accountable.

Academic freedom is not an issue. I'm sure I say without fear of contradiction, there is nobody in this Legislature who wants to question the right of the university to absolute academic freedom. We're questioning matters of financial control. That has nothing to do with academic freedom or the right of the university to speak out on issues. The Premier in responding a while ago in this House when this issue was raised said: the university must be totally free from any political influence. The university must know that it can speak out against the government. They should, if they want to criticize the government.

What does the Auditor General looking at the books have to do about that? What does the Public Accounts Committee, looking at matters of concern on the financial side of the university, have to do with the fear of the university of being able to speak out against government? If government doesn't like what the university says they can stop funding it. They can stop funding the university if they don't like it. Government always has the ultimate power of control over the university. The Public Accounts Committee is simply trying to ensure that the Financial Administration Act, which is also a law, and a very important law in this Province, is control.

There are other laws. When we talk about private auditors going in, that's all well and good. I point out that the university ever since its inception, until 1989, was subject to the Auditor General doing the books. In 1989, quite rightly, the university said to government at the time - and I was a part of that government, and I agreed wholeheartedly - that rather than having to wait for the Auditor General to do the audit and paying the Auditor General, that the university perhaps could get an audit done at a lesser cost by going to the private market, and they could get audits done on a more timely basis. In other words, the Auditor General has so many groups and agencies to audit that perhaps resources would not be available at the exact time that the university might want it.

It made a lot of sense to say to the university: you may hire a private auditor if you choose to do so. The government of the day didn't give the university full freedom. Didn't take away from the Auditor General the right to audit the books of the university if he or she so desired. In fact, a Minute of Council issued - very clearly stated that it was there. I will quote it very shortly.

It said: subject to the Auditor General retaining the right to inspect any and all accounts of Memorial University at his discretion at no cost to the university. That's an Order in Council made on March 8, 1989, part of the Order in Council which gave the university the right to hire independent auditors. But it retained for the Auditor General the right to do such inspections and to satisfy himself or herself that the audit was being done properly and that everything that needed to be looked at was done.

There are two reasons for that. One, is that the Auditor General is responsible to this House ultimately, and it is the Auditor General's responsibility to review the audits done by the independent auditors and to confirm to the House that the audit was satisfactory or was not. So obviously if the Auditor General reviews the work of another auditor, obviously they will not question I suppose - there is professional integrity here, but the Auditor General may find that there are additional things that need to be done and there are areas, Mr. Speaker, that private auditors do not necessarily look for.

A private auditor will come in and they will basically do a financial audit to ensure good procedures are in place and that the Financial Administration Act basically is followed; but, how about the Public Tender Act? A private auditor does not look at the Public Tender Act, does not look at local preference policies of government, does not look at conflict of interest legislation which is very important when you are talking in terms of public circles and you are talking about taxpayers dollars. A private auditor is not going to concern himself or herself with conflict of interest legislation, with the Wage Restraint Act that has been brought forward on a couple of occasions. Is the private auditor going to look at that? No, Mr. Speaker, they are not necessarily going to look at that and there are many other policies of government that are not in the Financial Administration Act that are not considered good financial management questions that any auditor would look at, these are other policies and other pieces of legislation with which the Auditor General does concern herself with because you are talking about the expenditure of public funds. So there is the difference, Mr. Speaker, and the Auditor General must have that right, and, Mr. Speaker, the Public Accounts Committee must have the right to satisfy themselves that the taxpayers dollars are being used the way that we always believed they should be and that the taxpayers expect that they would be.

Mr. Speaker, there are many things that I could have mentioned in passing in reporting to this House on behalf of the Public Accounts Committee through two special reports and I think two points of privilege. I have quoted all of the pertinent references in our Standing Orders, references in Beauchesne and in Erskine May, which make it clear that the Public Accounts Committee has the right to summon all of these people. I will not go through all of that again, simply to say that there is no doubt that the Public Accounts Committee has every right to question it but not only that, we had a responsibility, and, Mr. Speaker, I guess one real question that remains is: How can the university stand here and say, and how can this government support a university saying we do not want to answer to a committee of the House, we do not want to have the Auditor General coming in and poking her nose in our business, at the same time the president is talking about tuition increases, talking about increasing the enrollment requirements to make it more difficult, to lower the number of students, talking about substantial - I was reading an article in the newspaper yesterday - increases in fees for somebody who has to go back and repeat a course. Talking about a very, very substantial, in the words of the president, increase in the cost, the fees, for that one course, on the assumption that if that person had worked harder, I suppose, he or she would have passed that course, and therefore why should the taxpayers of the Province be required to subsidize that person having another shot at it.

It's a penalty for not doing as well as you should. Maybe you're just not quite as capable as other people. Maybe you're unfortunate for whatever circumstances you didn't pass that course, or your mark wasn't as high as it needs to be. He talked about even those who go back to do a course a second time to get a higher mark so that he or she can get into another institution to advance their education. For example, if somebody wants to go on to medical school or law school, there are standards for admittance, you must have a certain percentage, a certain academic standing, in order to be accepted. So students go back and do courses over to improve their academic standing so that they can meet these requirements. Now the president is saying: we're going to increase those fees. Maybe that's a fair thing to do and maybe it's not.

The point I'm making is that while all of this is taking place the president of the university is saying: but we don't have to account to you, we're different, we're the university. Everybody else in this Province will account to the Legislature for any expenditure of public funds except the university. Put them up on a pedestal, in their ivory tower, snubbing their noses at the House of Assembly. That's what they did. Snubbed their noses at the law. The courts told them: you broke the law. The president of the university is as pompous as you've ever seen in your life. I've never seen anybody more pompous than the president of the university saying: who are you to question me? I'm the president of the university.

I'd tell him who he is. He's on the payroll of the taxpayer. He should account for it the same as every one of us does. What makes him so different? He's in a very high position of public trust. He should be called before the Bar for suggesting that civil disobedience is acceptable.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: He said that. It's justified in this case, he tries to tell us. We have to question his suitability as president of a university when he makes a statement like that. I'm sure if any one of us suggested civil disobedience we'd be highly chastised for it.

How does he justify the increases? He doesn't want to come before the Public Accounts Committee to talk about efficiency. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, I've had dozens of people over the past six months since we've been involved in this issue, people involved in the university, working in the university, in the financial side of it, who know what's going on, who have come to me and told me: have a look at the increased cost of administration in the university. Have a look at the cost of administering a course versus the actual delivery cost of that course. You'll find out that the cost of the educational component has not increased nearly as much as the administrative costs. Have a look at the number of people who are now employed on the administration side of the university. See the increase in the number of administrative staff in relation to the increase in the number of students. While all the rest of us, every department of government, every government agency, is cutting back.

I know we've cut the university back too. Government has tried to do it. The president comes in crying in his beer: oh well, that's fine, if that's all you're going to give me then the Board of Regents will have a look at the rates - basically threatening government that if you cut my grant more, then we will have no choice but to increase the cost of tuition to students. That is blackmail, Mr. Speaker. That is blackmail. I withdraw that, because that is unparliamentary, I think, to use the term blackmail. If it is, I will withdraw it.

AN HON. MEMBER: What is that?

MR. WINDSOR: Blackmail. I think it is an unparliamentary term - not a good term - but that is what it is, by any other name. It is using the students to manipulate government. He is saying: If you do not increase my grant, well here is what is going to happen. We are going to have to reduce the size of the university. We are going to have to increase tuition fees. It could have an impact on our ability to provide all the courses. It could have an impact on our ability to be, what is it called - not sanctioned - there is a fancy name in the academic community for having -

AN HON. MEMBER: Accredited.

MR. WINDSOR: Accredited. I thank my friend for Green Bay - could lose our accreditation if we cannot provide the standards of excellence required.

All of these things are thrown at us, Mr. Speaker, as justification for increasing the amount of money to the university, but try to get the facts. I have been around here for eighteen years and I could never yet feel comfortable that I had the information necessary to judge the university. Even when I was in Cabinet it was taboo, and I suggest every member around here says, when you talk about getting information from the university, you sort of laugh and say: Good luck. We have not been able to do it in the past. Good luck getting it now.

Well it is time, Mr. Speaker, that this university answered for their actions. I do not question their academic freedom. I do not question what they are teaching. They should have the highest possible academic standards, and the taxpayers of this Province are prepared to ensure that they have the money necessary to provide a good level of education for our young people - and proud to do it - but they have a right to know that their funds are being spent wisely. They have a right to know that their elected representatives - Mr. Speaker, would you like to stifle the Member for Port de Grave? He does not add anything to this debate. He does not add anything to the House. At least he could keep quiet while somebody is trying to say something.

AN HON. MEMBER: He is not stifleable.

MR. WINDSOR: And that is the truth.

Mr. Speaker, the taxpayers of this Province are putting out $130 million, a blank cheque, a lump sum grant, basically, to the university. I know they submit a budget, but that is only broken down into a few headings. It will be interesting to see how much information the Minister of Education has when he comes before the Public Accounts Committee to answer all these questions. I suspect we will be there for three hours and he will go away with twenty pages of notes of things that he has to go ask the president of the university about so he can come back and answer the questions.

If the minister can go and ask these questions to the president of the university, why can the president of the university not come and answer for himself? What is he afraid of? Why is the university afraid to answer to the Public Accounts Committee? Why are they afraid to answer to the Auditor General? What do they have to hide is the question? It is high time we found out.

Every one of us will have to go back to students this year and try to justify increases in tuition fees, and not one of us can honestly do it. Oh, you will make all kinds of excuses. Boy, the cost of everything is going up. That is all we can do, you know. That is all we can say to them. Not one of us could stand and look a student in the eye and say, in all honesty to that student, there is nothing we can do, and I can guarantee you that because I have had a good look at their books, the committee of the House of Assembly, or the House of Assembly itself, or the Auditor General, or anybody else, has had a thorough examination of that university, and we are satisfied that every dollar that is spent is being spent wisely and well.

We will not be able to do it. You will not be able to look a student in the eye and honestly tell that student that they have to pay that amount of money and it is a fair and honest assessment for them to pay. You cannot do it.

While we are here, Mr. Speaker, cutting $70 million off the public servants wages, while we are cutting back on programs and services to the people of this Province, we are not allowed to find out if we need $130 million or $100 million or $160 million. We don't have the right to question that university on $130 million worth of expenditure. What's worse, Mr. Speaker, from the university wanting that kind of power, is that this government is going to go along with it. That's what's shocking.

I can't believe that this government would bring forward this piece of legislation. I don't have a very high opinion of them but I thought they were a little more democratic than this. It'd be interesting to hear how some of the members opposite are going to go back to their constituencies and answer to the people who elected them here for this piece of legislation. Each and every one of them should be asked to tell their constituents why they think the university should not be called to account. Why they think the university, and the university alone, should not have to answer for the expenditure of $130 million of taxpayers money.

Other universities across Canada are accountable. Other universities answer to the Public Accounts Committee. The Auditor General's been auditing the books for years. Now, all of a sudden, we don't want the Auditor General in there. The president of the university says now: I'm afraid she's going to get into value for money received. She has no business getting involved in that. We've told her that. I think she knows the difference. It's a cop-out on behalf of the president of the university, an absolute cop-out.

No excuse at all for the university not coming clean, not providing every bit of information the Auditor General wants, not providing every bit of information that the Public Accounts Committee wants. If they fail to do it they should be hauled before the Bar of this House and forced to answer. This government is going to give them a privilege not enjoyed by anybody else in this Province, or probably by anybody else in Canada or any other democratic country.

Let me sum up by simply saying once again the basic principle of what we're concerned about here. The basic principle that the university can break the law - can be judged in the courts as having broken the law - will not be penalized for that. If you or I went out this evening and went speeding across Prince Philip Parkway at 100 kilometres an hour you'd have broken the law and you'd pay a penalty for it. The government won't come in tomorrow and change the speed limit on the Prince Philip Parkway and make it retroactive to today so that you didn't break the law. You'll pay the price. But the president of the university can snub his nose at the law, at the House of Assembly, and get away with it.

That's the principle that's of greatest concern here. That the president of the university feels that he alone has the right to decide which laws that he likes, which one's he'll honour and obey, and which ones he won't. If he's not the president of the university, he's got to be something higher than that. That's what he thinks he is. Who gives him the right to make that decision? Who makes him higher than this hon. House of Assembly that makes those laws? That's what he thinks he is. The House of Assembly and government are only a nuisance to him, only a bother. Why don't you go away and leave me alone? Let me run my university. I don't have to answer to you. That's what he's saying. By insulting every member of this House he's insulting every person who elected us here to represent them.

He's being aided and abetted now by this government which is going to change the law retroactively. Which is going to set the university higher in their ivory tower. You'll have to kiss his feet to get in the front door of the university. Absolute disgrace. One of the most undemocratic pieces of legislation ever imaginable. I can't believe that this government would have the audacity to even bring it before this House.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Green Bay.

MR. HEWLETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee and I would like to have a very few brief words with regard to this particular bill - a bill that basically exempts the university from scrutiny by the Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee of this House. I think this bill is basically an obscenity and a shame on the Wells' administration of this Province.

Some years ago there was a debate concerning the university, and it had to do with a certain professor at the university named Webber, I believe her name was, and she was teaching Marxism at the time, and I do believe there was some question and philosophical debate as to whether or not she was also preaching Marxism. I do believe the professor in question was dismissed from the university at the time, and there was a great to-do about it in the public media. That is the sort of thing that is questionable as regards the university.

As I drove past the university earlier today, Mr. Speaker, I saw the grounds in front of the administration building being torn up, presumably new sidewalks or whatever being laid. The first thing that occurred to me was whether or not public tenders were properly called with regard to these public works. I do not know, and as a member of the Public Accounts Committee I no longer have a right to know, after this bill passes.

These are tough times, very tough times, and a number of sacred cows have been taken away.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. HEWLETT: A number of sacred cows have fallen because the government has said: These are tough times.

Well, here we have an instance of the government creating a sacred cow and I say: Bull, Mr. Speaker, bull.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I guess to some extent the previous two speeches may well be part of the reason why the Public Accounts Committee is not being given the authority to go into the details of activities at the university.

I say this because I remember the first time this became an issue publicly. In fact, it was raised not by members of the PC caucus, or the PC party, but members of the Liberal party elected. I think Steve Neary was a great proponent of the notion that we should have all the university professors in and examine them as to what they were spending their money on, and their sabbatical leaves, and how many students they had in each class, and whether or not they should be teaching Greek or Latin, or whether they should be teaching that. That was the order of the day when Mr. Neary reigned in this House, or at least his voice reigned. I do not know how long he actually reigned. I think he was Leader of the Opposition for a period of time.

That is the very reason, I think, it is necessary for us to recognize that the university is, in fact, an institution different than Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. It is an institution that is not performing a public service in the same respect as - well I suppose the Newfoundland Liquor Corporation does not really perform much of a public service except collect revenues for the public - but these are agencies of government, or Crown agencies, set up to do things in the public interest on behalf of the government, the same way that the government could do them themselves. These are different types of organizations.

The university has a long tradition of academic freedom, of academic autonomy in a free society. This is a tradition that goes back many centuries. For six or seven hundred years there has been a respect for the autonomy of the institutions of learning which are formed into universities. They are special. They are different than colleges. They are different than schools. A university is designed to provide a place of learning and research which does have an independence from the politics of the day, from the political fashions of the day, from whatever whims that politicians may have, even perhaps from periods of restraint, in a way that the Public Accounts Committee or even this Legislature might dictate.

It may be that the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, if he sat on the Public Accounts Committee and happened to have four or five people with him, thought that it was important that class sizes should be changed, that the university instead of teaching Greek which might have three or four students in a class at the fourth-year level, and that this was a very unwise use of public funds in these times of restraint, that the university could be pressured to cut out these courses in Greek or Latin or Japanese or whatever. Or theology. Or whatever courses the University decided that they wanted to offer.

It may not be right, Mr. Speaker, for the Public Accounts Committee to (inaudible) what the Member for Mount Pearl calls hauling in the president of the university to deal with the efficiency of the University. The efficiency of the university may be determined by a committee of this House to be not teaching any courses where there's an enrollment of less than two or three or four students. That only the courses that they could teach are the ones that they can teach efficiently.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: The ones that they can teach efficiently, Mr. Speaker, may be the only ones that the Member for Grand Bank -

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you for or against the Bill?

MR. HARRIS: - would want the University to teach. I support the autonomy of the university, Mr. Speaker. The powers that the university has are set out very strongly in the Memorial University Act. I believe that the university has to be given, and allowed to continue in that autonomy. It's not a sacred cow that's being created, as the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay suggested. It's in fact a long tradition of academic autonomy that's been recognized for hundreds of years and should be preserved.

I accept as correct what the Minister of Education said when he said that the power to audit directly the university's actions and to submit it to the Public Accounts Committee was done by mistake, by a definition that didn't take into account the fact that the university's accounts have never been audited and been subject to scrutiny by the Public Accounts Committee. This is not something new. It's preserving something that's very old.

I can't do better than quote from a former president of the university, a fairly revered man in this Province, Dr. Les Harris, who wrote in 1987 the then chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Mr. Winston Baker, when the very same issue came up before the Public Accounts Committee. When the people on this side of the House were in government and the Liberal Party was in Opposition, and Mr. Winston Baker, the current President of Treasury Board, was the chair of the Public Accounts Committee.

He was written by the former president of the university, Dr. Les Harris, who said: however pure may be the motives of the Public Accounts Committee there can be no doubt that its intrusion into the detailed financial affairs of the university would lead to consequences that no true university could survive. For to place the university under the direct scrutiny and control of the Legislature through one of its Standing Committees would be to introduce the very real and very ponderable possibility of political direction and control of every policy and every program, of every decision and every action, subsequently taken. Under such circumstances the end would be inevitable: stultification. Memorial would become a pariah among her sister institutions. Good quality faculty would neither accept nor continue in employment here. Standards would move downward to a level of dreary mediocrity. The university qua university would die. He even uses latin in his quote, the university as a university would die because the university needs to be protected from this kind of, in some cases political manipulation.

I have no hesitation in supporting the autonomy of this university. I have a fair degree of involvement over the past number of years with the faculty at Memorial University. I have come to understand the meaning and the importance of academic freedom, the freedom to teach academic subjects at the university whether they be from a Marxist perspective as the Member for Baie Verte seems to criticize or any other perspective, as it is important for students at the university to be exposed to the various branches of thought and knowledge, and that the issue here, Mr. Speaker, is very much an issue of academic freedom `writ large', that the autonomy of the university to conduct its own affairs within the laws of the Province and within the legislation, is just as important as the freedom of a particular teacher to teach the subjects assigned to him or her or to do research in whatever branches of knowledge in which that person is interested and publish in those branches of knowledge, whether it be something that the Member for Baie Verte agrees or disagrees with or the Member for St. John's East agrees or disagrees with and that is an autonomy that is entrusted to the university through the Memorial University Act. Section 3 (3) gives a very broad definition of what powers are granted to the university and it sets forth the constituting powers of the board.

The university is said to consist of the chancellor, a convocation, a board of regents, senate, faculty councils and the faculties, altogether a constituted corporation and that includes a number of important bodies not the least of which is the convocation of the university, and I think that that gives a notion of the university as far greater than the board of regents, far greater than the president of the day, whom the Member for Mount Pearl seems to be anxious to vilify here in this House to personify his opposition to the university and the president in the person of Dr. May, which I think is a very unfortunate kind of characterization for the Member for Mount Pearl to be carrying on in this House -

MR. TOBIN: What, what did he say?

MR. HARRIS: We are talking here about matters of public policies, this has nothing to do with Dr. May as an individual any more than it has to do with the Member for Mount Pearl as an individual. This is an issue of principle having to do with the status of Memorial University as an autonomous body under the Memorial University Act, which recognizes that the university is much more than Dr. May, is much more than the board of regents, it includes the senate, the faculty councils, the convocation which includes all of the people who were in fact granted degrees by the university, is designed to be an autonomous, long-standing body that is not subject to the whims and fancies of the Public Accounts Committee or this particular House of Assembly.

The government does have control over the university in two very important ways. The board of regents is appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. There are twenty-eight persons on the board of regents, eighteen of whom are appointed directly by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. The government appoints the majority of the board of regents. There are six elected by the alumni, and there are two which are appointed by the board, one after consultation with the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, so it is very clear that the government has direct control over the appointment of the board, and secondly, in each and every fiscal year the university submits a budget to the Department of Education, to Treasury Board, a detailed budget of how they propose to spend their money and how much money they need. The only difference, Mr. Speaker, is that the university is given a blanket sum. It may not be the sum they asked for. It is based on a detailed analysis of the request and what the plans are, but it is a process designed to ensure the autonomy of the university within the budgetary process.

The board is given specific and important power and not just over administrative matters. The board is given a whole series of powers spelled out in Section 34.1 of the act to provide for administrative matters, to be sure, but also to do such things as appoint the deans of the faculties, Section 34.1 (f), the librarian, the registrars, the professors, to fix their salaries, other officers and employees, to fix their salaries, to define their duties, to establish faculty councils and other bodies within the university and to prescribe how they will be constituted and confer powers upon them, to assign them duties, to determine fees, to exercise disciplinary jurisdiction over students, to appoint committees and give them powers, to print and publish books, pamphlets, brochures, magazines, journals, newspapers, to determine the number of students they may have, to hear appeals from any matter within the university's power. All of these are very important powers but what is important is they are only powers that should be exercised within the law of the land, to do and perform all other matters and things that may be appropriate and useful, the doing of things not repugnant to this act or to a law in force in the province. That very clearly establishes that the autonomy of the university is not above the law, as has been suggested by the Member for Mount Pearl.

AN HON. MEMBER: He did not say that.

MR. HARRIS: He did say that. He said that the university desired to be above the law, making a law of its own.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is the wrong statement.

MR. HARRIS: It is very clear that the University Act prescribes that whatever the board shall do shall be not repugnant to the act or to any law in force in the province. There is no establishment of a body that is above the law but rather a body that is required to abide by whatever laws are in force. That autonomy of the university is recognized in this legislation. It is recognized by suggesting that the Auditor General, who has limited powers under the act, shall not have those powers construed as entitling the Auditor General to question the merits or decisions or actions of the board, or the senate, taking into contemplation the work customarily associated with a university as reflected in the powers and authorities granted to the university under Subsection 3 (3) of that act. That sets out the general powers of the university.

I think that it establishes the intention pretty clearly but I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that it doesn't go far enough. For greater clarity I would suggest that there be added to that clause the acknowledgement of the powers of the board in Section 34.1. I'll be proposing that amendment at third reading.

I want to say to hon. members that the current Auditor General's Act provides for an opportunity for a very detailed study into what would go on at the university. I refer members to Section 16 of that Act. It's been suggested from time to time by Auditor Generals - the current one, and I know the previous one was very concerned about being able to do what he called comprehensive audits, such as the current Auditor General in Ottawa does. He's going to make comments on policy. The previous government, of which the Opposition House Leader was a member, refused to give him that authority. Refused to give the Auditor General the power to conduct a comprehensive audit which would involve commenting on policy. Because such comprehensive auditing would allow the Auditor General to pass his judgement on the efficiency of certain policy decisions or certain expenditures. That wasn't contemplated by the previous government nor by this government.

If you look at Section 16 of the Act there is power for the Auditor General under what's called special assignments: whenever the Lieutenant-Governor in Council so requests, or the House of Assembly, or the Public Accounts Committee by motion or resolution requires to enquire into and report on a matter relating to the financial affairs of the Province or the public property, or enquire into and report on a person or organization that has received financial aid from the government of the Province, or in respect of which financial aid from the government of the Province is sought.

It's quite possible under the current Auditor General's Act for the Public Accounts Committee - and I've no doubt that if the Member for Mount Pearl got his way - would have and require the Auditor General to undertake a special assignment audit of the university to enquire into the very things that he's complaining about here in this House. That's the very thing that Mr. Steve Neary was trying to do and the Opposition, opposed.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No.

MR. HARRIS: Opposed. The very thing that Winston Baker was trying to do when he was chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who? Who are you talking about?

MR. HARRIS: I'm talking about the current Minister of Finance, the former Winston Baker.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)!

MR. HARRIS: I'm quoting from a letter written to Mr. Winston Baker, dated 1987, January 23. When the current Member for Gander was the chair of the Public Accounts Committee he wanted to conduct the kind of examination that the Member for Mount Pearl wanted to conduct. Over here. The PCs then in government opposed it. Opposed the Member for Gander.

Now the shoe is on the other foot. It just goes to show you, Mr. Speaker, that when these two parties cross one side of the House to the other they take on the positions of the other. Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I therefore have to recognize that what's sauce for the goose, when they're on this side of the House, is sauce for the gander when they're on that side of the House, and both of them were wrong. The Member for Mount Pearl is wrong now just as he was right when he opposed the Member for Gander when he was chair of the Public Accounts Committee and wanted to delve into the affairs of the university.

MR. WINDSOR: I didn't oppose him. I agreed with him.

MR. HARRIS: His government opposed him.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: His government opposed him and he was in the Cabinet, Mr. Speaker. I don't know if he's breaking Cabinet confidence now by telling us his true position. I don't know. Maybe he has his own way of dealing with these things. He was a member of the Cabinet. The Cabinet took a position. He says now that he opposed it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: It's a bit too late for him to resign now. It's awfully convenient for him to take the position now that he opposed it when his government was attacking the current Member for Gander who was then chair of the Public Accounts Committee when they took the exact same position that the Member for Mount Pearl is taking now.

I say that the proper course is to preserve and protect the autonomy of the university. Not turning the university and university courses or activities into political footballs. Because we all know, as politicians, how certain events and certain issues can be made into matters of political debate without any real substance to them. I think this is an area where politicians can have a field day over the goings on of the university. Have a total field day. At the expense of the university's autonomy, at the expense of the quality of education at the university, and to make Memorial University the laughingstock of universities in this country.

I support the legislation in principle. For greater clarity and greater certainty I would want to expand the recognition of the university's autonomy as recognized in the proposed new Section 38(1) by adding to it a provision to include and make reference to Section 34(1) of the University Act.

It's an important piece of legislation. The principle is important. I know that the Member for Mount Pearl is sincere in his attempts to get the Public Accounts of the Province to consider the university expenditures. I say to him, as I say to all other hon. members, we should resist this temptation in the interest of the autonomy and preservation of the university and academic freedom. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: You really believe that?

MR. HARRIS: I do.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to address a few comments relative to the particular bill.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

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

I've recognized the hon. Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: I do not intend to read out the copy of the Memorial University Act or the responsibilities of the board of regents and the senate and other parts and functions of the university's establishment. However, I did want to address a few comments relative to Bill No. 2.

The main issue here is one of fiscal accountability. The question is whether or not the university should be directly responsible to the Public Accounts Committee and should answer the appropriate questions that would be addressed to it. Of course, at the centre of all this are the issues of, I guess, power and influence and what that means, and how the university has convinced the provincial government that it should receive $130 million of taxpayers money, and that they should not be obliged upon request to appear before the Public Accounts Committee in order to answer questions as to the spending priorities of the university.

Mr. Speaker, the president has thrown up the smoke screen of university autonomy and he has said that academic freedom might be jeopardized if the university were required to appear before the Public Accounts Committee and to answer questions that might be addressed to the president on spending practices. Now, there is absolutely no rationale for that. I do not believe that it is appropriate for the university president to refuse to appear or for that matter to try to have legislation passed by this House that would give him the right, I suppose, not to appear. The president through his office, I believe, should be held accountable for the $130 million he receives each year from the taxpayers of our Province.

Now, some topics have been mentioned here, some dialogue, about the board of regents. Well, Mr. Speaker, I have sat with the board of regents for four years and I have some idea as to how the board functions, how it functions in theory and how it functions in practice. There is a great gap between the theory of the functioning of the board of regents and the practice of the functioning of the board of regents. Certainly, in theory the board of regents sits as the day by day watchdog of the university. It establishes priorities and representation from the people who are with the alumni, from the student council there, and from the public at large. Members are appointed by the government of the day. However, it does not function in a manner which gives the board of regents a direct role in establishing the university's expenditure priorities. In other words the board of regents pays a passive role in fiscal management and it often finds itself rationalizing the university's decision making processes rather than operating as a rational, effective, decision making body, and so often the decisions are already made when the Board of Regents meet each months. Because of that the board of regents in theory operates as a board of governors but in practice the university is run by, not exclusively, but to a large extent by the university's administration.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to address a few comments on academic freedom. In my opinion this has been overstated. It has been exaggerated. Words have been used like, a threat to autonomy, a threat to academic freedom. While these in the far reaches of the philosophical arguments that one can make, while these positions do have some potential, the reality is a lot different. Requiring the university president to answer directly, to appear before the Public Accounts Committee does not impose any threat to the autonomy of the university, not at all. In fact the university's academic freedom is guaranteed through the senate and not through the board of regents. That is where the autonomy is guaranteed, in the senate itself and the board of regents is not set up to be able to determine matters as pertaining to curriculum or to whether or not a particular division of the university should be expanded or should be changed, or curriculum should be altered or anything like that.

Mr. Speaker, I just draw member's attention to a point that was made earlier by two prior speakers. My time at the university was during the time of the fuss over the firing of a lady called Maureen Webber and I happen to have been there -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HODDER: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: Marlene Webber.

MR. HODDER: Marlene Webber - and this lady was in the faculty of political science I do believe, and she was accused of espousing a Marxist-Leninist philosophy and the university administration of the day saw fit not to renew her contract. It became quite a cause with the faculty at the university, it became quite a cause with the Canadian Association of University Teachers and in fact, in 1985, one of the largest conferences ever scheduled to be held in this Province, the Learned Societies, was supposed to have a large conference here and all of the Royal Societies were supposed to come to Newfoundland, to Memorial, for their meetings.

At that time, because the university had been censored, the conference had to be cancelled. Now, Mr. Speaker, that had nothing to do with the Public Accounts Committee, it had nothing to do with appearing before any governing body set up by this Legislature, but certainly there was, at that time, a cause held sufficiently strong by the Canadian Association of University Teachers, that they decided that they would censor the university and of course that went on for some time. In fact, it was not until several years ago that the university was lifted from the censoring. I suppose the word would be that they were removed from those groups who were censored and after that it became easier to be able to attract staff and other personnel.

Mr. Speaker, the proposed bill is contrary to what is happening in other provinces, at a time when other provinces, through their Legislatures, are making universities directly answerable to the Public Accounts Committees in these other provinces, and I mention the University of Toronto. I mention the same universities that my colleague from Mount Pearl mentioned, but also in British Columbia, and I understand as well in Alberta and in Saskatchewan. The governments in these provinces have legislation that says that the universities must, upon request, appear before the Public Accounts Committee.

Now, at a time when the other parts of the country are moving in a certain direction, in Newfoundland, we are moving in a different direction altogether. Mr. Speaker, the universities must be publicly accountable for their fiscal management. This is such a common sense statement that it is incomprehensible that a government that prides itself on its correctness of position, that prides itself on the correctness of its policies, that they should bring in a bill that is contrary to the Canadian trend in public accountability, and we are going against the Canadian norm and we maintain on this side of the House, that it is reasonable and appropriate and logical and common sense, that the university should be held publicly accountable for these expenditures of taxpayers dollars.

Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of things that I would like to mention here. Ask yourself the question, is this particular bill a smart move? I do not think it is. Is it rational? It is not rational. Does it make common sense? It does not make common sense. Is it consistent with what is happening elsewhere in this country? It is not. So Mr. Speaker, the university, knowing as it does the real meaning of power the real meaning of authority, the real meaning of what it means to be able to change potential threats to its position of control and influence over $130 million by throwing up a smoke screen called academic freedom, the university president and his staff have, in essence, thrown up this smoke screen and the government, be it the government prior to this one or this one, they have fallen for it.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the minister across the way here knows the right thing to do. Of course Bill 2, while it buys peace with the university, the minister must be willing, of course, and able, to do the right thing. If he is not willing and able to do the right thing, and since he knows the right procedure to follow, therefore by his not doing it, and not holding the university responsible publicly for the expenditure of public funds, what he is doing here is admitting to the House that he knows what is right to do but that he cannot be effectual as a minister because he has not taken the leader role and said that he would cause the university to answer publicly for the expenditure of public funds.

I was interested in my colleague mentioning the former president of the university. The university presidency is acknowledging, in their actions, their power to be able to build and create and be able to nudge legislation in a certain direction that varies from the Canadian norm. I was interested as well in the quote that the Member for St. John's East gave from the former president.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a quote from Henry Kissinger. Henry Kissinger said the following: Before I served as consultant to Kennedy, I had believed, like most academics, that the process of decision-making was largely intellectual and all I had to do was walk into the President's office and convince him of the correctness of one's views. That perspective, I soon realized, is as dangerously immature as it is widely held.

What we have here is a case of where, from an academic perspective, the government has bought the university's arguments, while they know at the same time that logically there should be a different process followed.

Mr. Speaker, we have to ask ourselves a couple of questions. What are some of the consequences of this particular piece of legislation? Number one, we are going to, as a Province, live with this particular piece of legislation for a lot longer than we are going to be debating it here tonight. In other words, the time spent here is very minimal and the bill will probably pass in the next little while here, but what we have here - the minister is going to spend much more time in the months and the years ahead justifying and rationalizing the new realities of power and influence that the president and his officials have at Memorial, and they will in the future have to give justification for the illogical approach that is out of step with the mainstream of Canadian thought.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, by their actions - by the government's actions - we are setting up a process whereby the university's expenditures will become, undoubtedly, a topic more often for direct questions in this House. There is nothing that prevents any hon. member rising in the House and directing questions to the Minister of Education, or to other hon. ministers, relative to the university's expenditures. So therefore if questions cannot be asked at the committee level, the consequences of not having a forum whereby we can question the university's expenditures at the committee level is that the university's expenditures will be directly questioned on the floor of the House in Question Period.

I say to hon. members, if they have concerns about the university's freedom and the university's autonomy, it may be much better for the university to answer its questions in the Public Accounts Committee than it is to have it brought up here on the floor of the House.

Mr. Speaker, if there are to be questions about the university's management and its fiscal accountability is it not better for these questions to be directed to the president and his officials than to have these questions directed to the Minister of Education? The minister is responsible for the overall operation of all aspects of education in this Province, and I say to my colleagues in government that if there are going to be questions that have to be answered, is it not reasonable and logical to have the president answer them himself with his staff there to support him in any of the questions that have to be answered, rather than to put the Minister of Education into the unenviable position of having to justify to the House on an ongoing basis the accountability that should be required directly of the university?

Thirdly, Mr. Speaker, I have some concerns about the dialogue which has occurred with the president on this particular matter. The president has indicated his absolute unwillingness to co-operate with the Public Accounts Committee, and I ask the government, is it appropriate for the university president to directly tell the government that they will not appear before the Public Accounts Committee? Certainly, Mr. Speaker, I do have some doubt about the right of the university president to be able to tell the government of the day that he does not intend to appear before the Public Accounts Committee. In essence, from the dialogue I have had with the president in the caucus meeting we had, the president left no doubt in our minds whatsoever of his intention to refuse to co-operate with the Public Accounts Committee unless the rules were changed. It causes me some concern when an official appointed by this government says to the government of the day that he deems it appropriate for him not to co-operate and to answer questions in a forum to be determined by the government. If there is one single reason why I feel the government is on the wrong track here it is because of the reaction of the university president himself.

Mr. Speaker, in summary I do believe the president of the university in Toronto when he said: from our act the government of the day has the right to request from us any information of any sort and we must provide it. Certainly, that included an appearance before that province's Public Accounts Committee. All we are saying is if that is okay for the university in Toronto, it is okay for the universities in Alberta, in British Columbia, it works in Saskatchewan, it works in Ontario, then why are we giving onto the university powers that they do not have elsewhere and powers which are given to them only to bring peace and happiness to the structure and not to give good government?

Thank you, very much, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. TOBIN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You shouldn't get out of here either when you've seen this piece of legislation, when you familiarize yourself with this piece of legislation that's brought before the House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. TOBIN: No, I'm not a sooky from Ottawa. But I know someone who's sooky because he's not in Cabinet, I guess.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I had the opportunity to sit in this Legislature during the last session when the Member for Gander was chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. I heard that member coming in here day in and day out fighting for a new Auditor General's act. We've got the Auditor General's Act, and we've got the Auditor General's Act to a large extent as the Member for Gander wanted it, including the right to audit Memorial University.

What has happened? Who has bought off - how has he been paid off? Who corrupted the Member for Gander into coming back here and cutting the guts out of the piece of legislation that he fought so hard for? Why shouldn't Memorial University be audited? Because Art May says it should not be audited. Nobody else except him. Now he is not the Premier of this Province, he is not the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. He is going to spend taxpayers money. The taxpayers of this Province have a right for the Auditor General to audit the books. Why should Art May and the Minister of Education and a few more hide the books? Why should the Auditor General be allowed to go into the schools - I served on the Public Accounts Committee before when independent school boards were brought in and questioned because of the school tax. Because they got their portion of the school tax.

That wasn't public money. You talk about tuition fees not being public money. School tax was not public money, but they had the right to be audited. Why? Why today is this government bringing in an amendment to the Auditor General's Act for all intents and purposes denying the men and women and the students of this Province the right to know how the hierarchy over there intends to spend their money? How will they know whether their money is being wasted? Why do we have the right for the Auditor General not to be allowed?

There was a court case involved. There was a judgement made on this. There was a judgement made on this, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SULLIVAN: They're going to make it retroactive now - so they can get around the courts. Going to make it retroactive.

MR. TOBIN: This is a government as it relates to university that is not clean. They're not clean. There's blood on their hands, Mr. Speaker. If there wasn't blood on their hands they'd have the Auditor General investigated. I'd say to every man and woman who's sitting over there: what have you to hide? What have you got to hide, I say to the Member for St. John's North. Do you agree that the taxpayers of this Province should not know how their money is being spent? Why are you covering up? Why do you want Memorial's books cooked and then shoved away in a closet where the people of this Province can't see them? Why?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

AN HON. MEMBER: Twenty thousand dollars on roses!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. TOBIN: Now, Mr. Speaker? Should we not as taxpayers in this Province have the right to know how many thousands of dollars were spent on roses? That's the question.

AN HON. MEMBER: Rose bushes.

MR. TOBIN: Rose bushes.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: You can laugh all you like. No wonder -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) roses to Kim now.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible) roses to Kim. We have the right to know. Kim will send the roses alright, but they will not be to you.

We should know. I would like to know -

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. TOBIN: I have asked the Minister of Education. He is going to be responsible. Can he tell me if there were thousands and thousands and thousands upon thousands of dollars spent for rose bushes last year by Memorial University?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: What?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: No, Mr. Speaker, you will not come clean because if you come clean you put the books on the table for the Auditor General. How can you expect, the Marystown shipyard, as an example, that was out competing with every other shipyard in the world for work, in a competitive business that is employing people, but the Auditor General has the right to audit their books, I say to all members opposite. The books of a shipyard that is involved in a competitive business have to be audited, and anyone who is involved in business knows what competition is like - have a right to be put on the -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, if I was the Member for Windsor - Buchans, I would not worry about Mr. Charest. I would worry about the Member for St. George's. That is who I would be worried about. I would not be worried about Charest.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: Why are they cooking the books? Why is it they do not want the books to be put on the table before the Auditor General?

The Minister of Justice, another former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, is now coming in here wanting the books of Memorial University to be hid from the Auditor General.

MR. SULLIVAN: They did not want it done before.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: But he wanted it done before. I have a suspicion that there is blood on the hands, and for some reason they do not want the books opened belonging to Memorial University.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: What is that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to the Member for Port de Grave that he check one of the machines.

Mr. Speaker, I would say that Memorial University has a responsibility to the taxpayers of this Province, and when the taxpayers of this Province are funding Memorial University -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) carried.

MR. TOBIN: No, Mr. Speaker, it is not carried, I say to the Member for Port de Grave. It is not carried, but I will say to the Minister of Justice that you cannot sit as a chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, together with your Minister of Finance, and call for an Auditor General's Act and have it brought in this Legislature that includes the right to audit Memorial University, and then because Dr. Art May and some of the other hierarchy over in Memorial University decide that they don't want to have the books audited, they do not want to be responsible.

MR. ROBERTS: The hon. gentleman is either missing the point or misrepresenting the point.

MR. TOBIN: I am not missing the point or misrepresenting the point. There was an Auditor General's Act brought before this House that showed Memorial University was responsible to the taxpayers and had the right to be audited, the same as the school boards in this Province. The same as the Marystown Shipyard, the same as all other Crown corporations. Art May said no, and the Auditor General went to the justice system and got rulings, Mr. Speaker, I'd say to the Minister of Justice. Now the Minister of Justice is asking to bring in retroactive legislation. Beyond, go back and cover in. Destroy what the justice system has said in this Province.

MR. HARRIS: You want to do what your government wouldn't let Steve Neary do.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's tough for you, boy, (inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. TOBIN: Probably, I'd say that what the member is saying is probably right. I don't know. I don't know what Steve Neary wanted to do. But I'm sure the Member for St. John's East knows what Steve Neary wanted to do.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who's Steve Neary?

MR. TOBIN: One of my colleagues asked: who's Steve Neary, we've never heard of him?

AN HON. MEMBER: Who is Glenn Tobin?

MR. TOBIN: What's that?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I would suspect that right now there are a lot of people asking who is Glenn Tobin, I'd say to the Minister of Justice. That does not concern me. As long as I am in this Legislature I have a responsibility, I'd say to the Minister of Justice, and that is to point out what you're doing here today is wrong. Why did you bring in an Auditor General's Act a year or so ago and now cut the guts out of it as it relates to Memorial University?

AN HON. MEMBER: We're not changing a thing (inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Well, if you're not changing anything, leave it in there, I'd say to the Minister of Justice. You are changing a thing, sir, you are changing everything to suit Art May and hide the books of Memorial University from the Auditor General. That's what's been changed in this Province. That's what's going on.

MR. ROBERTS: Has the hon. gentleman an opinion on freeing Middle Pond?

MR. TOBIN: Why have the taxpayers...?

MR. ROBERTS: Does the hon. gentleman have an opinion on freeing Middle Pond? The city agreed to free Middle Pond (inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: You own property there or what?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: The Member for St. John's South was vice-chair then of the Public Accounts Committee when they asked - and the Member for Eagle River -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: That's right. They don't support this legislation but they won't get up and say it.

MR. TOBIN: - were members of the Public Accounts Committee -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) vote.

MR. TOBIN: - that were members of the Public Accounts Committee that fought against this piece of legislation, if I'm right. I believe when my colleague for Mount Pearl spoke in this Legislature that the Member for St. John's South got up and supported it, if my memory serves me right. Supported what he was doing as it relates to the Auditor General's Act.

All I'm saying is that I believe that there's something going on that causes me to be suspicious.

I will ask one question -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Ask the question, ask the question.

MR. TOBIN: - all I have to do is ask one question: Why do they not want the auditor general to audit Memorial University's books? That is the question I would like to have answered. What do they have to hide?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: It is a cover-up.

MR. TOBIN: Well, I do not know but my colleague from Grand Bank says it is a cover-up, I do not know, probably it is, I do not know, but I am wondering why they have to deny the right for the Auditor General to audit the books. How can the Minister of Justice have the Marystown Shipyard - and I just use that as an example - that is involved in a competitive operation, when in good times had 700 or 800 people working, bidding against and in competition with all of the other shipbuilding contractors in the world, yet, their books have to be laid on the table for the Auditor General. All of their bidding practices can be made public if the Auditor general and the Public Accounts Committee and others so decide.

You have St. John's dockyard, you have MiL, you have Halifax, you have St. Catherine's, Ontario, you have all of these dockyards that are out there bidding every job that comes up against the Marystown Shipyard, yet their books are audited. Because there is public money - I heard Dr. May talk about the tuition fees from students is not public money so why should that be audited? Well, what about the millions and millions and millions of dollars worth of work that the Marystown Shipyard does every year that is not public money, but brought in from the sources for whom they did the work? How come they still have to be audited? There is something very suspicious, Mr. Speaker, there is a skeleton in the closet. There is something smelling as it relates to the Auditor General not being allowed to audit Memorial University's books and it is time that this government be aboveboard, come clean, lay the books of Memorial University on the table and let the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador know what is happening.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: If the Minister of Education now speaks, he will end debate.

The hon. the Minister of Education.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I thank hon. members for the stimulating debate, it was extremely entertaining, very loud, boring, no substance. No substance whatsoever, Mr. Speaker, they could just as easily have been speaking to any other bill that was on the Order Paper, obviously they did not know what they were talking about, they had not read the bill, they made a big outcry because the Public Accounts Committee could not interview the president of the university.

MR. Speaker, the act spells out specifically that the Public Accounts Committee can call the Minister of Education. Now, if hon. members think for one single minute that the Minister of Education is going to go before a Public Accounts Committee and talk about the Department of Education without having officials present to fill in the details, they would think he is pretty stupid. The Minister of Education, when he is called to discuss the university will bring whomever is necessary from the university, and if that means the chancellor or the president or the chairman or whatever the case might be, this act gives them far more authority than they ever had under the Auditor General's Act, and this foolishness they are getting on with show's they obviously had not read the bill.

It is unfortunate that the Member for Mount Pearl made such vicious attacks on who is by far, one of the most respected university president's in all of Canada, Mr. Speaker, and most likely in North America and it is unfortunate that the debate had to sink to such a low level, when you would viciously attack one of the top presidents in all of Canada. We are sorry about that.

The Member for Green Bay no doubt gave the crowning speech, it is a speech which will go down in history I suppose, as one of the top speeches ever aired in this House. The speech was rising and rising and rising and the climax, Mr. Speaker, with the word bull, bull, bull. Now what relevance in the name of goodness would that have on this bill, Mr. Speaker? I think it would be appropriate if that excerpt was taken from Hansard and sent out to the people in Green Bay so that they would know what they are spending their $54,000 a year on, someone who gets up here and tries to, instead of making a contribution to the debate, comes out saying: bull, bull, bull.

I must say the Member for St. John's East though, in fairness, did make one of his better speeches. I believe he deserves to be commended, he deserves to be praised, Mr. Speaker. It is the first time I have seen the Member for St. John's East break ranks with the Tory opposition. He has finally come of age and is now beginning to use his own mind. He is no longer being told what to say by the Official Opposition, and I think that is probably a good omen. No doubt the next time around the people of the Province might well indeed see where the real opposition lies and the hon. member, instead of sitting alone, will be sitting with probably thirteen or fourteen members behind him and maybe one or two members will be sitting where the Member for St. John's East is now.

Mr. Speaker, having said these few things I move second reading.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Memorial University Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill 2)

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Division.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Opposition House Leader was division called on this or not? I saw three members stand.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, we are prepared, on both sides, I understand, to waive the waiting period, so whenever Your Honour is prepared to call the vote.

MR. SPEAKER: Is there agreement that the vote be now called?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Yes.

MR. SPEAKER: All those in favour, please stand.

The hon. the Minister of Justice (Mr. Roberts), the hon. the Minister of Education (Mr. Decker), the hon. the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture (Mr. Flight), the hon. the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation (Mr. Efford), the hon. the Minister of Social Services (Mr. Lush), the hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs (Mr. Reid), the hon. the Minister of Finance (Mr. Baker), the hon. the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Carter), the hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations (Mr. Grimes), Mr. L. Snow, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Murphy, the hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy (Dr. Gibbons), the hon. the Minister of Health (Dr. Kitchen), the hon. the Minister of Tourism and Culture (Mr. Walsh), the hon. the Minister of Environment and Lands (Ms Cowan), Mr. Anderson, Mr. Tulk, Ms Young, Mr. Ramsay, Mr. Penney, Mr. Langdon, Mr. Oldford, Mr. Dumaresque, Mr. Whelan, Mr. L. Matthews, Dr. Hulan, Mr. Harris.

MR. SPEAKER: Those against, please stand.

Mr. W. Matthews, Mr. Tobin, Mr. Woodford, Mr. N. Windsor, Mr. Hodder, Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Shelley, Mr. Manning, Mr. Careen.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The motion is carried by a majority of nineteen. Twenty-eight Ayes and nine Nays.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, could I ask if the House could resolve itself into Committee of the Whole and we'll deal with bills, in this order - these are the bills that stand at Committee stage. Bill No. 3, Bill No. 5, Bill No. 2, Bill No. 4, Bill No. 6 and Bill No. 12. When we deal with those I will ask the Committee rise. I'll then move the adjournment of the House.

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

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

A bill "An Act Respecting The Department Of Tourism And Culture." (Bill No. 3).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill 5.

On motion, clauses 1 and 2 carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall the enacting clause carry?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Carried.

MR. TOBIN: No, Mr. Chairman. I have a....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I have a question I'd like to ask the minister regarding the clause there in terms of making it retroactive. I have a council in my district for example, the Burin town council.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: As it relates to the retroactivity of your bill. Burin town council, under the utility tax. Did up their budget and all of this based on.... I'm sure we all realise the mess that this was in from the beginning. It's three times it's been introduced. Brought in wrong. Then there was an amendment to it that corrected what we thought was wrong first, and now there's another amendment back to try and correct that again. In the process, the council had to do a budget. I'd say to the minister of - I wish the minister luck as he's leaving.

Now what has happened is that they did prepare their budget, brought it up, submitted it to Municipal Affairs, based on the law of the land. They brought in this budget. They did up the budget. Now it's made retroactive to January 1. After March 31, is my understanding, they can't increase taxes? The councils?

AN HON. MEMBER: After (inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: After December 31. The budget is done based on the law at the time. Based upon what this crowd was told to do at the time. So I'm asking the minister: has anyone contacted the town to tell them that they couldn't prepare the budget? They couldn't prepare their budget until such time as there was new legislation brought in. Does he realize that if the deputy minister, or some of his officials, made contact with the councils, that what he did in essence was ask the council to break the law, and does he condone it?

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

MR. REID: Very briefly, Mr. Chairman. On January 23 every council in the Province received notification from my department outlining that there was a mistake. January 23. That was the date of the letter that was sent out. By that time, yes, a number of councils in the Province had already adopted their budgets and had made changes, I suppose, in relation to their taxation structure because of the fact that they had so much money.

As the member knows, there is a sizeable number of councils in the Province that don't get their budgets in until late January, most years. Now I do not know, I cannot say if that particular council you referred to was one of those or not but we were assuming back on the twenty-first, so that could be corrected quiet easily - what we did, and you missed it the other day in the House - I announced in the House the other day, when I was talking about that particular bill, that in this taxation year there will not be any changes. They will collect the money that they have already budgeted for this year. Next year however in 1994 we will reduce their budgets in each quarter by one-quarter of what they collected this year. So basically, there is no need to change their budgets as such this year and what we will do in 1994 is take back on a quarterly basis from the component grant or the equalization grant.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. REID: I cannot hear you, I am sorry?

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. REID: That will be set up as an overpayment.

MR. TOBIN: So, what they collects this year -

MR. REID: They will collect this year what they have in their budgets. Basically, the government then, through component grants and grants to the towns next year, will collect back on a quarterly basis what they were paid over and I suppose then we will have to return the funding to the utilities.

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, that is something new. What is happening now is that there is going to be an overpayment. The minister just told us that because the government made a mistake, because it was all messed up from the beginning, that the councils this year who have billed the utility companies will receive the money and it is going to be set up as an overpayment. Next year it will be deducted from the component grants. Now, I am not sure if members in this legislature, on all sides - because I did not realize until now -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: What you just told me is that this will be set up as an overpayment, deducted from the councils next year and the money paid back to Newfoundland Telephone and Newfoundland Power. Now, I do not know if members in this legislature realize what that is going to do to municipalities in their constituencies and I do not think that the minister should even consider doing that. I say to the minister -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I am just saying what you said, is that it will be set up as an overpayment and deducted from the component grants and that will mean that councils next year -

MR. BAKER: Proper thing.

MR. TOBIN: Proper thing, the Minister of Finance says. Well, why is the Minister of Finance on his knees to Ottawa every day begging them to not have to pay back the overpayment that he has?

MR. BAKER: I am not.

MR. TOBIN: Yes, you are. Yes, you are so.

MR. BAKER: No, I am not.

MR. TOBIN: So, what is going to happen next year is that every council who was getting money over and above the 2.5 per cent will have less money in 1994 than - wait now, they are going to get -

MR. REID: If they had followed the regulation that was set in this regulation here, they would be - if they are over 2.5 per cent they would decrease then for a period of three years until they got back to the 2.5 per cent. The only difference in what they charge this year and what they got is the difference between the 2.5 and where they actually are.

Let us say there 3.5 per cent, so what they did was charge two-thirds of everything which is 3.5 per cent and really the regulations only say that they are allowed to charge two-thirds of above 2.5 per cent, so they are not going to lose any money as such. The City of Mount Pearl is a prime example, and Harvey is gone, a prime example - the City of Mount Pearl immediately saw a $500,000 windfall -

MR. TOBIN: Wait now, I am not talking about - yes, okay but I am just looking after - I have two towns in my district, Burin and Marystown are going to be heavily affected. For example, Burin is going to lose $100,000 in that area and so is Marystown, more than that.

MR. REID: Over three years.

MR. TOBIN: Over three years, right.

What I am saying is, on the first of that three years is that they will lose not only the one-third that they are supposed to lose according to the legislation but they will lose what is set up as an overpayment.

MR. REID: Well, their overpayment is money in excess of what they would have normally received anyway.

MR. TOBIN: No, no.

MR. REID: Yes, that is all that they are going to lose next year.

MR. TOBIN: No, no, no, the minister is not right. It is not money in excess of what they would have normally got. It is money that they were always entitled to, would have gotten it this year except you are bringing in retroactive legislation, I say to the minister.

So, what is going to happen is that the first year - the first one-third they will see deductions but they will also see an overpayment from the money that they are getting this year. That is wrong, I say to the minister, that is wrong and I ask him to reconsider that. Why should this government end up being a tax collector for the utility companies?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Yes, you just said that you are going to take it back and pay it to them. What has happened now is that we have become agents of Newfoundland Light and Power, the government has become an agent of Newfoundland Light and Power.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I am becoming very suspicious when I hear the bill that the minister is bringing in as it relates to the Fortis Act. Now next year we are going to be collecting money from the councils and paying it back to Newfoundland Light and Newfoundland Telephone. Well, I tell you that is heavy stuff, that is heavy stuff.

AN HON. MEMBER: It is only right.

MR. TOBIN: How would you know what is right? You have not done one thing right since you became a minister in this government, I say to the member opposite. I think there is something wrong when communities in this Province will have the government collect -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. TOBIN: I have been right a couple of times and I think that was one of them. I really have a problem with this and I hope I am understanding right what the minister said, and that is what they get this year from the utility companies will be set up as an overpayment, it is going to be phased in over three years, and next year the councils will have one third of what they were getting over and above the 2.5 per cent deducted and in addition to that they will have whatever they get this year deducted and paid back to the utility company. Now, in the case of Burin, for example, that this year, according to this piece of legislation, would get somewhere in the area of $30,000, their overpayment would be, so next year there will be a $60,000 debt that will be collected and paid back. I tell you, that is heavy stuff.

MR. BAKER: It is right and proper.

MR. TOBIN: That is not right and proper I say to the Minister of Finance.

AN HON. MEMBER: You do not trust him?

MR. TOBIN: No, Mr. Speaker, I do not trust them, not one of them. After what he did to the poor people of the Burin Peninsula today he asks me to trust him.

AN HON. MEMBER: After what, did you say?

MR. TOBIN: After what he did to the poor people of the South Coast today he asks me to trust him. This is serious stuff and I do not know if councils are aware of what is happening here.

MR. ROBERTS: Any council that is playing the game has nothing to fear but those that try to be cute are going to get the results of what they did.

MR. TOBIN: I say to the Minister of Justice that every council played by the law.

MR. ROBERTS: Well, they can follow the law when it is changed.

MR. TOBIN: But the law is retroactive and that is where it breaks down.

MR. ROBERTS: We are doing what we said we would do.

MR. TOBIN: There is something happening here that was not brought out, you know.

MR. ROBERTS: We are going to be here all night otherwise.

MR. TOBIN: They followed the law.

MR. ROBERTS: Then let them follow the law now.

MR. TOBIN: You are bringing in a retroactive law. That is what you are doing and that is wrong, because next year what they get we are going to be collecting. The government will be collecting money next year. They cannot do anything with this piece of legislation this year but the $100,000 they got this year, they will collect it and pay it back to the utilities companies. That is wrong I say to the Minister of Justice and I tell you that those of us who have councils in our districts are not going to be very happy. I think the minister should scrap it immediately. If he is going to bring it in then bring it in right and never mind bringing in retroactive legislation dealing with the laws and the justice system in this Province. It is ridiculous, that is what it is.

MR. ROBERTS: Could I make one very brief statement?

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

MR. ROBERTS: I do not want to delay the committee but let us be quite clear as to what happened here. Before Christmas this House adopted a bill to impose a uniform tax on utilities. There was a technical error in that bill for which we accept responsibility. My friend the minister explained it very ably at second reading. We discovered it very quickly. If recollection serves me one of the municipalities brought it to the attention of some of the officials who told us. I think that is what happened but I am subject to correction.

AN HON. MEMBER: The City of Mount Pearl did.

MR. ROBERTS: The City of Mount Pearl did. We then, through the then minister, my friend Mr. Hogan, at that time the Member for Placentia district, made a public statement of the government's policy. It was about the turn of the new year. I forget the date but one can find it, and we said we are going to correct this and municipalities please be governed accordingly. Some municipalities, I am told, and I fear, said, aha, we are going to be too cute by half. We are going to charge five thirds of the tax instead of the two thirds and that was permitted by the narrow wording. Well, fine, they lived by the law but they are now going to have to live by the new law. I repeat my statement that we are not retroactive, we are putting it back to when we said we would do it. Mr. Speaker, any municipality that played the game and charged the amount this House intended to authorize, as opposed to that which was actually authorized, namely two thirds of the difference, any municipality that followed what the minister of the day speaking for the government of the day said was going to happen, has nothing to fear. Those municipalities that got cute by half are going to have to live with the consequences of it. I make no apology for that, my colleague makes no apology, this ministry makes not apology, what we are doing is right and proper.

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

MR. TOBIN: What I would say to the Minister of Justice is that what he is doing is not right and proper. What happened here is that the former minister, Mr. Hogan, brought in a piece of legislation to deal with the utility taxes, for all of them to be the same. Now, that piece of legislation was brought before the House for the utility taxation but then what happened, the minister said: No, we are wrong; we did not deal, I believe it was the properties, we did not deal with the properties. We phased it in over three years for the revenue but we did not phase it in over three years for the property so we are not being right. You cannot do it for one group that is getting money on the revenue and not the other group that is getting money on property, so the minister came into this House, Mr. Chairman, and admitted, what I have done is wrong, what this government has done is wrong and we are going to correct it.

How did he correct it? He brought in a piece of legislation to correct it and that is the legislation that they are now amending again, I would say to the Minister of Justice, and is not a narrow technical mistake. It was an amendment that was brought in this House to correct the mistake in the first instance I say to the Minister of Justice and now, all of a sudden, we are back with this same piece of legislation, bringing in an amendment to correct the amendment that was brought in, so how can the minister say it was a small narrow technical mistake, it was not. It was a calculated decision by this government and somehow, somebody else was a bit perturbed, I would suggest to the Minister of Justice. Some of the other groups that would get more money but probably got a bit perturbed and they wanted their money and the other councils knew what the first piece of legislation was, then they knew what the amendment was and the amendment came in at a time when they had to submit their budget to the minister's department for approval and they did it and sent out their invoices. They did it according to the law of this land, the law and the rules of this Province, Mr. Chairman, is how they did it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: But, Mr. Minister, what they are doing is wrong, because next year instead of losing the one-third that they would get over a three-year period, they are also going to have to pay back the money that they got this year from the utility companies and you are going to take it out of their grant and write a cheque to Newfoundland Light and Power and Newfoundland Telephone Company and that is wrong.

MR. REID: The only money they are going to have to pay back next year is the money that they charged in excess of what they should have charged, is what they really, and forgive me for saying it, ripped off the utilities companies this year because of the act, only that money they are going to have to pay back. They are not going to have to pay back the other money.

MR. TOBIN: I ask the minister: when he says they ripped off the utilities companies, I think that that statement coming from the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs - is he protecting the interest of Newfoundland Light and Power and Newfoundland Telephone? Well, he should be protecting the interest of the councils. They did not rip off anyone, Mr. Chairman. They acted according to the law of the land and now the Minister of Justice is bringing in a piece of retroactive legislation and that is wrong. Who wants to be governed in this Province with retroactive legislation? What businessman in this Province today would like to have the sales tax increased retroactively for two or three years as is happening here? How many businessmen in this Province would like to have it done? They would not. How many lawyers would like to have a new tax brought in on them, Mr. Chairman? How many doctors would like to have it done after the law is passed, but yet, the poor, old municipal councils, the volunteers in this Province who have given the sweat from their brows to try and run small municipalities in this Province are now going to have the guts ripped out of their towns because of retroactive legislation by this government and that is wrong, morally, legally and everything else, and when the Minister of Justice can stand in this House and say: they live by the law or we will change the law. Sobeit, Mr. Chairman, sobeit. Change the law, change the law for your buddies over in Newfoundland Light and Power, the Fortis bill that has now come back before the Legislature, the Fortis Act.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No, they are not bringing that.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I predict what is happening here, it is smooth sailing until such time as their buddies in Newfoundland Light and Power get to buy out Newfoundland Hydro. That is exactly what is happening. That want all of this done, the taxation structure put in place and everything else, so it will be all hunky-dory when they make the big dive, make the big bucks, out of the sale, out of the purchase, of Newfoundland Hydro.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed a bill, "An Act To Amend The Taxation Of Utilities And Cable Television Companies Act," carried. (Bill No. 5).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill No. 2, "An Act To Amend The Memorial University Act."

Shall Clause 1 carry? The hon. the Member for St. John's East.

MR. HARRIS: I have a proposed amendment to Clause 1 to amend the Clause by deleting the period after the words and figures subsection 3(3) in the proposed Section 38.1(1), and to add the words: And the board under subsection 34(1).

The amendment, Mr. Chairman, would provide for greater clarity and certainty with respect to the autonomy of the university to add the powers of the board listed under Section 34.1 to the powers and authority granted to the university under subsection 3. Subsection 3.(3), in general terms, states the general aspects of the university. Section 34.1 spells out the powers of the board in quite some detail, and gives a fair number of examples of the panoply of powers that the board has and the university has in carrying out its mandate.

I would draw members' attention to the very final powers set out in 34.1 which clearly indicates that all of these powers and obligations, or powers of the board, are subject to the laws of the Province of Newfoundland, and quite clearly within the purview of what the university has the power and right to do under the University Act. It is not attempting to set up the university as any separate entity above the law, but obviously within all the laws of the Province of Newfoundland, and any other subsequent laws that this House of Assembly may pass to put restrictions on the expenditures of the university or whatever manner in which the university is given money by this government, any laws can be passed to provide for that.

If there are problems that the members of this House have with the way the university spends its money, whether it be conflict of interest legislation or any other legislation, then legislation can be passed to cover that. The university is still subject to it, but its autonomy is recognized and protected and not subject to the day-to-day and ongoing supervision, if you want to call it that, political supervision, of the members of this House to the Public Accounts Committee or to the House.

So the inclusion of this amendment would make it very clear that the autonomy of the university is being protected, and ensure that there should be no doubt that included in that are the powers of the board spelled out in 34.1, which provides for the specific kinds of power that the board has under the Memorial University Act.

That is my amendment, Mr. Chairman, and I would ask members to consider supporting it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, we are voting on the amendment as put forward by the hon. the Member for St. John's East.

On motion, amendment defeated.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed a bill, "An Act To Amend The Memorial University Act," without amendment, carried. (Bill No. 2).

MR. CHAIRMAN: A bill, "An Act Respecting The Department Of Industry, Trade And Technology."(Bill No. 4).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Municipalities Act." (Bill No. 6).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill with amendment, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill No. 12.

Shall Clause 1 carry?

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

MR. HARRIS: Yes, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: The Minister of Justice promised to try and find out whether or not a licence holder who has liquor in his private home is intended to be covered by that. I don't know whether he's had time to check that with officials or whether the Minister of Finance can tell us whether it's intended to cover the kind of situation that we were discussing. The possible situation where someone could have contraband because he has two bottle of imported liquor instead of one in his house. That he's allowed to have one because the Act says so, but if he happens to have two in his house he has contraband, and the court or the board must take away his licence. Is that intended to cover someone who happens to be in violation of the Act by being in possession of liquor in his own home, or does it only refer to the licensed premises?

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, the members will understand that I haven't had much of a chance to take counsel from any of my solicitors or from any of the drafts people.

All I can say to the hon. gentleman - I make three points; I think the first is that notwithstanding what he tells us, and which I accept to be so, of course, his unhappy experiences with prosecutors over the piece with respect to the de minimus principle - that's D-E M-I-N-I-M-I-S, to save the Hansard staff calling me in the morning - notwithstanding his difficulties with the de minimis principle as applied by the prosecutors, the Crowns try to be reasonable, try to be fair, and try to discharge their obligations fairly. Secondly, I think the words are quite clear, but thirdly, I will undertake to speak with the legislative council, and I will see the hon. gentleman outside the House and attempt to allay his concerns there. I'll go further. If I'm advised that my view is wrong and that more is needed we will take the appropriate action. I undertake that too. Thank you.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I agree.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Liquor Control Act." (Bill No. 12).

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, would you ask the Committee to rise, report considerable 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 North.

MR. L. SNOW: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole have considered the matters to them referred and have directed me to report that it has passed Bill's No. 3, 5, 2, 4, 6 and 12, without amendments and ask leave to sit again.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bills without amendment, carried.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, that is the end of what we will ask the House to deal with today, notwithstanding the importuning's of my friend from Burin - Placentia West, who I understand wants a supper break from 9:00 - 11:00 p.m. tonight and then to come back at it.

In a moment I will move the adjournment, before I do, Mr. Speaker, may I indicate to the House that in consultation with my colleague the gentleman from Grand Bank, we shall ask the House to address tomorrow Bill's 8, 9 and 10. These are the ones to amend the Workers' Compensation Act, the Schools Act and the various Pensions Act's. When those are done, as I hope they will be, we will go on with Motions 2, 3 and 4 which is the non-budget legislation. It is the finance legislation, the Loan Bill, the Loan Guarantee Act and the Local Authority Guarantee Act and then when that is done tomorrow, I will ask my colleagues to adjourn the House.

I will make two comments, I shall again tomorrow at Orders of the Day move the motion to have a sitting beyond 5:00 p.m. in the event we are in that position. I would remind the House there is a motion that tomorrow will be a government business day - would otherwise be a Private Members Day. Mr. Speaker, before we adjourn, and I detect among members a certain willingness to adjourn the session very soon, the Budget itself will have to be finished, the remaining estimates will have to be debated here in the House and there are, by my count, five or six pieces of legislation all of which are relatively, in my view, straightforward, I hope hon. members will take the same view. So, I am not going to give any predictions because I am in the hands of the House but we may well get out of here at some point on Friday, having done our days work. If not, my friend from Gander is making arrangements for us to be here Saturday but, Mr. Speaker, with all of that said I will -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Do you want some cheap liquor?

MR. ROBERTS: I have to tell my friend from Grand Bank, the only liquor my friend from Gander drinks is cheap liquor in any event.

Mr. Speaker, with that said, I move the House at its rising adjourn until tomorrow Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. and that it do now adjourn.

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