April 18, 1994               HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS              Vol. XLII  No. 24


The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Dicks): Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Harbour Grace. Does the hon. member have leave to address the House?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

MR. CRANE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask this House, on behalf of the members, to send a message of condolence to Mrs. Ellen Moriarity, in Harbour Grace district, on behalf of her late husband, Paul.

Paul Moriarity was a young man who dropped dead over the weekend, a man who contributed a lot to the community of Harbour Grace and to the district of Harbour Grace as well. Paul was a young man, about forty-four years old, who had spent about fifteen years as a councillor and mayor - about ten years as Mayor of Harbour Grace. He relinquished that post only this year.

The man, as far as everybody knew him, was very healthy and still on the go with sports and recreation, and anything to do with Harbour Grace, Paul was involved with it. He was very involved in politics as well, of course, and tried on one occasion to be an opponent of mine, but certainly we were always good friends, even at that.

Paul got up on Saturday morning and drove his wife and daughter to St. John's to do some shopping, and he dropped dead out at the Avalon Mall.

I would like to ask you, Sir, on behalf of the members on this side, to send a message of condolence to the family, including his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Leo Moriarity.

Thank you.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, we, of course, want to be associated with the remarks of the Member for Harbour Grace. I can speak personally about Paul who was, to say the least, an outspoken individual who was not afraid to express his views and speak his mind on many, many issues, as some members opposite certainly will know.

He also served I think it was two terms as Mayor of the Town of Harbour Grace, so just that alone, I think, is worthy of tributes from members of this House, anybody who gives eight years or so of their lives to municipal politics these days, and those were in the days when most municipal politicians didn't get paid - most still don't - certainly he didn't.

I got to know him on a political level, I guess, as well, but I knew him well before the politics entered. He did seek the nomination for us in the election campaign of 1989. To me, he was always an individual who was aggressive, spoke his mind, worked very hard for the town and the people of Harbour Grace and indeed the entire region. He was actively involved in the Summer Games out there, he worked very, very hard on that issue as well as many others. There are colleagues of mine here who served as mayors, the Member for Waterford - Kenmount and the Member for Humber Valley, who knew Paul Moriarity, and I think they would want to join with me along with all the other members on this side of the House in seeing to the request of the Member for Harbour Grace that Your Honour write a letter of condolences to the family.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to join with the Member for Harbour Grace and the Leader of the Opposition to concur in the request that the House send a message of condolence to the family of Mr. Moriarity. He worked hard and with dedication for the people of Harbour Grace both as Town Councillor and Mayor and also otherwise and I think the family deserves the support of this House at this tragic time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to rise today to send out congratulations. As of yesterday, the Herder Memorial trophy was played for down on Southern Shore and with all due respect to my colleague, the Member for Ferryland, the new Herder Memorial champions are in my district, in the community of La Scie.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SHELLEY: The La Scie Jets were crowned yesterday as the new champions, and I must say that I had a chance to watch two of the games; it went to the fifth and final game and, of course, then ended up in overtime and it was something to experience. But you know, to me, it is the true championship of Newfoundland hockey. It has been there for years, they are all Newfoundlanders on the ice, the atmosphere that was in the arena yesterday was unbelievable, but I have to say at the same time, on behalf of my colleague, the Member for Ferryland, that the Southern Shore Breakers and the La Scie Jets gave what I would call the classic Herder Memorial championship and I would like to commend both teams on a fine performance.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. MURPHY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to join the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay, in offering sincere congratulations to the La Scie Jets. Yesterday morning at around -to show the interest, at 11:30, in front of the Mobile Arena, there were at least, 400 people. It was a great series I understand, I didn't catch it all, I got a little bit of it and having a little bit of experience related to the Herder trophy, knowing what it means, as my friend, the Member for Humber Valley -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Well, I say to the hon. Opposition House Leader, we never brought in any imports when I played; however, it was a great series. Congratulations to the Jets and of course, congratulations to the Breakers on the Southern Shore who put up a tremendous battle. It was a great series.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'd like to pass on congratulations too, to the La Scie Jets and very importantly also to our Southern Shore Breakers who had all local people, except for three on the team, from the Southern Shore who grew up and played hockey there. They were a tremendous credit to the area. Fan support was tremendous there and it revived senior hockey in this Province on an unpaid basis. It speaks well for hockey and for Newfoundland in general. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: Four brothers on the team.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'd like to join in congratulating the La Scie Sea Jets, of course and the town of La Scie, for winning the championship and for demonstrating to all of us and the rest of Newfoundland and Labrador that you don't have to be from a big place, big community or large town or city to be able to have hockey talent and show that you can win a championship. So congratulations, it's well deserved.

Oral Questions

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I have a few questions for my old friend the Minister of Mines and Energy. He will remember before the House adjourned in March month I think it was, certainly several weeks ago, I asked the minister at that time for the cost of the government's and Hydro's advertising campaign and their public relations campaign to promote the sale of Hydro. Now the minister said then he would get the information for me. As a matter of fact, if I remember correctly, he left the House, went outside, came back in and I asked him if he had the information, he said: no, we couldn't reach the person. Well since then, several weeks has gone by, I called his office, he certainly had lots of time to reach out and touch someone. Can he now answer that question? How much has government and Hydro budgeted to promote the sale of Hydro and how much has been spent to date?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, two separate items. I think it's been made clear since the beginning that government was not involved in the initial campaign that was done. The only government involvement in the initial campaign was in the preparation of text and so on but not in cost. That initial campaign has concluded. The last ad was on radio, it appeared a week or so ago, and the total cost in round figures was $82,000 for all of that. The brochure that was done and the radio advertising that was done, paid for and sponsored by Hydro, that's completed and over with.

Hydro is not involved, at the present time, with the latest round of newspaper advertisements that are now being done by the government. I don't have a cost that I can give at this time on that one. We've just started it and I'll have figures later on when we see how much we're spending but it's not very much, it's very little.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I've heard the minister say that before, it's very little. I mean one of those full page ads with the two colours cost $2,300 - $2,500 alone and I've seen four or five of them myself so don't try to slough it off. I can't understand why he wouldn't have the answer to the question. I asked it three weeks ago. Surely they must have budgeted.

Let me ask him another question, Mr. Speaker. Last year at a particular time government created a new expenditure, a new subhead, for $1.7 million in their Budget. It is under Executive Council called Professional Services. That amount wasn't there when the Budget was presented in March of last year, it was created after that. It is on page 19 of the Estimates. Will the minister now confirm to this House that that $1.7 million was the amount spent last year by government on the privatization of Hydro?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: No, Mr. Speaker, I will not confirm any such thing. It was very much less than anything like that, if I know the figures that were spent last year.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I suggest to the minister he had better check into this and have a discussion with the President of Treasury Board. Because in the Budget lock up on Budget Day this year, the officials from Treasury Board in answer to questions from my officials, the researchers who were there from my office, told us that represented the government's 1993 expenditures last year spent on the Hydro privatization issue. So somebody is lying to somebody in this House. We want the answers. I'm asking the Minister of Mines and Energy, will he tell us then what the exact expenses were covered under that $1.7 million? Will he table a breakdown - surely it is readily available - of that $1.7 million expenditure, and will he table it at least before the end of this day?

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I will get a complete breakdown of that as quickly as possible and make it available to the hon. gentleman.

MR. SIMMS: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: I look forward to receiving the information, I say to the minister, but back to the Minister of Mines and Energy. There is also an amount of $1 million for the same subhead in this year's Budget. That is $1.7 million last year, $1 million this year. Will the Minister of Mines and Energy confirm that that money is also intended to cover the expenses dealing with the privatization of Hydro, and will he also tell us what kind of expenses will be paid out of that $1 million?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, I'm not going to confirm what it is for. I don't have the breakdown on what it is for. I will check into it and I will get back to you on what it is going to be for.

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

MR. SIMMS: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. The minister told me three and a half weeks ago he was going to get back to me on the advertising costs and he hasn't yet got back to me.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. SIMMS: You didn't, you said you didn't know how much it cost, what do you mean you got back to me? When will he get back? Will he get back today? By the end of the day? It is $1 million. The officials of the Treasury Board President's department told us it was for Hydro privatization. Surely the minister knows how much is being spent on Hydro privatization, doesn't he?

Let me ask him another question, Mr. Speaker. Things obviously are not proceeding as smoothly with the privatization of Hydro as the government would like to see it. You have spent tens of thousands of dollars in advertising, whatever the amount is, which he does not know.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. SIMMS: No, you have spent. Hydro spent $82,000 I say to the president of Treasury Board. Listen carefully, now - more than you had anticipated in a futile effort to convince people that wrong is right, and it is very likely some of the other costs have gone up, too, by the time the minister gives us the answer if we ever get the answer. Can he tell us, or does the President of Treasury Board know, one of them tell us, that the $1 million expenditure that I just referred to for the privatization of Hydro that was estimated for the 1994 year under the subhead I mentioned, has already been revised to $1.5 million? Can either of the ministers confirm that?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, I cannot confirm that. I have not seen any revised figures.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, will the minister get the answer for us before the day is out, or try to get the answer before the day is out? It is a very simple question, that the $1 million in that subhead has been revised to $1.5 million?

MR. GRIMES: Nobody hears.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, truer words were never spoken than those just spoken by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations. Nobody on that side hears, that is the problem. Let me ask the minister this, this is a simple question, and the minister should be able to answer the question. He told us how much Hydro spent on the ad campaign, $82,000. How much other money did Hydro spend on the privatization issue? How much has Hydro budgeted to spend in the coming year, this coming fiscal year, on the privatization issue? Whether it is tens of thousands, or millions, whatever it is, if that is being spent, will he confirm that any of those expenditures will in fact be passed on to the consumers on their electricity bills?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, if Hydro spends money Hydro has to collect the money, and it will probably have to come out of their profits, or otherwise. I do not see it being passed on, as he said, to consumers on their electrical bills. It is such a tiny amount of money we are talking about here that it is almost trivial and irrelevant.

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

MR. SIMMS: A final supplementary.

A minute ago in asking questions of the minister he told us he did not know the answers to the questions, but now all of a sudden it is trivial. Does he know, or does he not know, how much Hydro spent last year, 1993, and how much have they budgeted to spend this coming year? Not on the ad campaign - on the privatization issue? The Board of Directors have been involved with this issue for quite some time, on the privatization of Hydro totally, not just on the ad campaign; that's what I asked him. Of course, he evaded that question as well.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, Hydro does have ongoing costs for its board members who are participating in this. It has some other related costs. I don't ask for a daily accounting or a weekly accounting, and I will not ask for such from Hydro. When this is concluded there will be a full accounting and you will see the facts.

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Health. We will see if there is any more success in getting answers from him.

In the past few years the Burin Peninsula Health Care Board has gone from operating one hospital to becoming a regional board on the Burin Peninsula, responsible for all health care facilities on the Peninsula. This was undertaken, to a large extent, by direction from the minister and his department, who assured them that would be the extent of regionalization; it would be restricted to the Peninsula.

A few weeks ago the minister announced that the Burin Peninsula will be included with Clarenville and Bonavista. This decision has been strongly opposed by residents of the Burin Peninsula. Last Sunday my colleague from Grand Bank and I attended a rally where over 2,500 people came out to oppose the decision.

I say to the minister that there can be only two reasons for the minister to consider such a regional board. One would be to improve the health care of the Peninsula; the other would be to save money.

My question to the minister is this: Has he or his officials done an analysis on how the health care services will improve, or how much money will be saved by this proposed regionalization? If he has, will he make these reports or analysis public by tabling them in the House today?

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

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The hon. member said that there was a commitment by some Minister of Health not to ever include the Burin Peninsula in a greater regional area. As far as I know, that's not true. I might ask the former Minister of Health some day if he made such a commitment; I doubt it. So whenever the hon. member makes statements like that, I am questioning all his statements because if he can't tell what is right in one, how can we believe what he says on other points?

Now in answer to your question as to cost analysis, let me say this. The health budget in this Province is under siege. We have trouble funding the public services of this Province -

MR. TOBIN: Answer the question!

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, can you protect me in some way from this person over there who makes these erroneous statements and then doesn't allow a person to answer. Now he has sort of sidetracked me, which is, I guess, his original purpose.

To come back to the point, I was saying that health care in this Province is under siege. We have great difficulty maintaining the budget, and what we have to do is to make sure that the health of the Province improves rather than decreases, and the only way we can make the health of the Province improve is to eliminate unnecessary things and put the money in where it is necessary.

We are trying to build up health care in the Province through prevention. We need money for prevention, and one of the ways we are going to get money for prevention is to make the hospital and nursing home situation much more efficient than it is now - not by decreasing care, but by improving care - by freeing up dollars which are improperly used and putting them into places which are more appropriately used, and if we merge the Bonavista Peninsula and Clarenville area with the Burin Peninsula area, we will be able to save administrative dollars so that we can expend this money on prevention and on the maintenance and improvement of the actual hands on care in the Burin Peninsula and throughout that area.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, most of what the minister has said hasn't got one ounce of fact. I asked the minister, and I ask him again: Has he done an analysis on the cost saving, if so, will he table it and, Mr. Speaker, my second question is to the minister and that is, if he has not done an analysis, which is obvious that he has not, what then did he make his decision based on?

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

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, we have had a report, we established a consultant and the consultant went throughout the Province and heard people make representations. I have heard no representations from the Burin Peninsula as to why we should not move, but I have heard lots of representations and flag waving and things of that nature, largely stimulated by the member opposite but not entirely, but in large measure, and every time I get a letter it's based on improper information. They say we are going to make sure that all the women who have babies on the Burin Peninsula are going to have to go to Clarenville to have them and that is absolute nonsense; and letter after letter after letter even from some physicians, make that false point, so as I said before: let the hon. member tell me why, I shouldn't do it. Let him put up or shut up.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West, a final supplementary.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, it is not the place to get into a debate here, but for the minister to say that I am the one responsible for what's taking place on the Burin Peninsula is down right not true, Mr. Speaker. I did not tell the doctors what to say; I did not tell the 2,500 people who came out what to say -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: - and that is a cop-out, Mr. Speaker, by an incompetent and uncaring and callous minister, that's all that is. The fact of the matter is that you have gotten letters from the doctors on the Burin Peninsula explaining their concerns; you have had requests from the mayors, every single council on the Burin Peninsula, that's not me or my colleague from Grand Bank who are concerned about health care and you shouldn't make such crazy statements, but then again, what would you expect from the minister.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, let me ask the minister, after the meeting with the Premier the other day, when you said in front of the Premier, that: no Premier, I didn't have a cost analysis done; when you admitted that in front of the Premier that you were basing it on hype for all intents and purposes, will you do what's honourable and say to the residents of the Burin Peninsula basically keep what you've got; you have gone regional, you have been the first in the Province to start a Regional Health Care System on the Burin Peninsula - get off our backs, Mr. Speaker, and let us keep what we have. Will the minister leave in place the board that is in place, that has been in place to protect the health care of the Burin Peninsula residents, by the people of the Burin Peninsula?

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

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, another point that's false that he just made. He said that the Burin Peninsula Board was the only board in Newfoundland that's a regional board and that is not true. Mr. Speaker, let us look at the hospital in Grand Falls. The hospital in that area serves - there is a regional system operating with headquarters in Grand Falls which takes in the Harbour Breton area which takes in the Botwood area; we have a system operating in Gander which takes in Fogo, which takes in Brookfield, so it is not the only regional area in the Province.

MR. TOBIN: I never said that.

DR. KITCHEN: You said -

MR. TOBIN: I said we led the way in the Province (inaudible).

DR. KITCHEN: They all led the way, everybody leads the way. How can you say that the Burin - I am not putting down the Burin Peninsula and I want to congratulate the people for how well they have made that system work. It's a good system down there, it is one of the best systems in the Province but, but, we want to merge them with others so that we can take more savings and put it back where it needs to be. I hear requests from the Burin Peninsula to provide better health care services, and how am I going to provide better health care services unless I eliminate things that are not necessary?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is for the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.

I want to ask the minister why there was no attempt to consult with people who cut wood for domestic use before he changed the woodcutting regulations in the eastern region?

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

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should know there was indeed consultations; there has been consultations for two years. The hon. member should also know that this is an issue and it's a major issue in the media today, that the hon. member or members opposite or any new members can't run with the hares and hunt with the hounds on this one.

We are over cutting the Bonavista Peninsula by 100 per cent; 100 per cent over cut, Mr. Speaker. Now I can turn a blind eye, forget it, let it happen in which case there won't be a stick of wood left on the Bonavista Peninsula for either the commercial operators or the domestic operators, or I can manage the forest on a sustainable basis.

There has been consultation. Nothing is cast in stone. We believe that six cords per household on the Bonavista Peninsula, on the Avalon Peninsula, where 80 per cent of the over cut is by domestic firewood cutters, we think with a view to sustainable development that that is adequate. It is not cast in stone, nor is it two months. I can tell you, we are going to have to take a major look and we are going to have to start managing that forest to make sure there is any wood for anybody ten or twelve years from now.

MR. SPEAKER: Supplementary, the hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the key words in that first question, which the minister went off on a tangent somewhere, I don't know where he went with the hares or whatever he is talking about, but the key word was consult. It is the same thing with so many issues that come up in this House with this particular government. I asked why there was no consultation. We didn't say about what the minister went on with afterwards. I was asking for the consultation. Nobody knew anything about this. You said for two years there was consultation? If you come to my office and take the phone calls that have been coming in, and my colleague here, the phone calls he had, there was no consultation.

First of all, the domestic use of firewood varies considerably from household to household as I'm sure the minister is aware. Some people have it for fireplaces, other people have it for heat, some homes in this Province have it for heat and cooking, and they need that wood. Six cords of wood is the limit for some, yes, but for others they need more. There is no doubt about it that they need more. Why didn't the minister allow for different cutting limits based on the use of the firewood? Couldn't that be still done and respect the conservation methods?

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

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, let me deal with the consultation aspect. I have had meetings with the Member for Trinity North representing the people of Trinity North and Bonavista Peninsula, I've had meetings with the Member for Terra Nova, representing her constituents, I have had group meetings, people from the Bonavista Peninsula, sat and talked to them. This weekend I attended as minister the annual meeting of the Newfoundland lumberman's association where there was -

AN HON. MEMBER: Not (inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: Lumberman's association. Lumber producers association. So there has been consultation, Mr. Speaker, but there is a fact of life, and the fact of life is that the forests on the Bonavista Peninsula can't stand the level of cut that we are having up to this point in time.

I might say to the hon. member also, that there will be different regulations for different parts of the Province. There are parts of the Province where there is no over cut, where we are cutting within the AAC and the forest is being managed on a sustainable basis. It so happens that on the Bonavista Peninsula and the Avalon Peninsula, that is not the case. We are over cutting by 100 per cent. The member can have it either way. He can suggest I turn a blind eye and let them go cut what they like, because I can tell the hon. member that in most of the consultation we've had, I've become known as `Dr. No,': Increase my cutting permit. If I had a licence to cut a few more cords of wood.

Mr. Speaker, the way the Bonavista Peninsula is being managed, it is being managed on a sustainable basis, and I can tell the hon. member that when representations are made to me that make sense, that are credible, concerns expressed, I will consider them. I'm in the process now of considering some of the recommendations or some of the concerns expressed to me by the people on the Bonavista Peninsula. As soon as I determine in view of the wood supply whether or not it is possible to accede to the wishes of the people on the Bonavista Peninsula with regard to the level and the size of the cut, I will be getting back to the people on the Bonavista Peninsula.

MR. SPEAKER: Final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think there are a lot of `Dr. Nos' on the other side, especially when it comes to the word "consultation," in many issues.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SHELLEY: I will ask the minister this: most people don't understand the need for the two month time frame to cut the wood and haul it out. Just for example, I will give you one example of where there was no consultation and this wasn't thought of, obviously. For example, people who are working, okay? That will now give them eight days to haul their wood out for a year's use of wood, eight days. If people can only cut six cords, does it matter when they cut the wood, and what is the point of all the red tape?

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

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, again with regard to consultation. I noticed that all the members of the front bench clapped when the member said there is no consultation. Let me tell the hon. member, I sat in those back benches for fourteen years. The last five of those years, or three or four of those years, I don't recall too much consultation on Newfoundland's ability to produce cucumbers, so don't talk to me about consultation. Let me tell the hon. member, and he had better recognize this - and the hon. the Member for Bonavista South, I know, is concerned about this - and the hon. the Member for Trinity North and the hon. the Member for Terra Nova had better know this, that we have a situation in this Province where domestic cutters on the Bonavista Peninsula are coming in and asking for domestic permits, an annual domestic permit. Six or eight cords, it doesn't make any difference, they take the permit and go out and cut forty cords and they sell twenty-five cords of that on the black market, so it is a control mechanism. At least, if we regulate -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: What do you think I am doing? That's regulation. If we regulate the amount of time we set - the hon. member is from Baie Verte. Anyone who knows anything about cutting wood knows that you can cut six or eight cords of wood in three or four days, you know, most cutters will cut it in - so I said two months. If there is a real problem with that, if there is a transportation problem, I will review it, but at least it will give us more control. We will stop the black market; we will stop the rape that is going on in our forests, because the enforcement officers have two months to worry about somebody cutting eight cords of wood. The transportation aspect - if there is a problem with two months because, as the hon. member says, it takes them two months to haul their wood home, we will look at that and probably increase it.

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

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

My question is for the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations. Can he confirm that recently over seventy iron workers working at the Hibernia project, Newfoundland iron workers, have been laid off while workers from outside the Province, iron workers as well, with the exact same qualifications have been maintained? If he can confirm that, does he have an explanation for the House and for the people of this Province?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly appreciate the question. It is probably a timely question, because all hon. members should know that this summer the work force at the Bull Arm site is expected to reach its peak, and the norm at Bull Arm for the rest of the period of construction will not be hirings which is the norm now, but will be layoffs. In the collective agreements that are there and in the special contract, there was a preference statement for hirings which gave clear preference to Newfoundlanders over everybody else. The layoff language is not nearly as concise, or precise. The unions and the workers are trying their very best to make sure that the same intent that is in the hiring article which is preference for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, as long as they are qualified and capable, will be maintained even though it is not in the contract language.

With respect to the direct question, Mr. Speaker, there was one full shift of iron workers laid off and that full shift did contain some workers who were Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and some workers who had been previously brought in from outside of Newfoundland and Labrador.

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, what a weak, weak, explanation from the minister. Let me tell the minister what is happening out there. Over seventy Newfoundlanders have been laid off, workers with the exact same qualifications as those from outside the Province. That is not preference for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, I can assure the minister.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: Let me also say to the minister that the unions involved in the Hibernia site have absolutely no say in layoffs. It is a management decision. Let me ask the minister this question: Can he confirm that superintendents, general foremen, and foremen at the Hibernia site, due to the work slow-down, have been given rank and file union jobs which is in direct contradiction to and direct contravention of the Hibernia agreement, which says that management has the right to bring in supervisory personnel but if they come in as supervisory personnel they must leave as supervisory personnel. Why are they taking Newfoundlanders' jobs, I ask the minister?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, there is nothing to get too exercised about, I suggest to the hon. member opposite. The fact of the matter is that there is a special project order in place with respect to Bull Arm, and the role of the Provincial Government is very limited, and everyone should understand why. In return for an opportunity for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians in all the trades areas and in all the skilled areas to demonstrate and prove to the world that they can produce top-notch work on a one-of-its-kind, a brand new never-before-built structure, which is what is happening at Bull Arm, the idea is that the union hall practice would take care of the hiring with respect to the collective agreement. And the unions - because what the hon. member pointed out is correct, there is no orderly layoff in the contract like there is for hiring and the preference is not as clear. In the meetings I have had with both the union representatives and the employer representatives, they have indicated that their clear commitment is to try to make sure that the intent of the language on hiring is followed through and that there is a commitment to make sure that the maximum number of job opportunities are maintained and offered to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians under every circumstance. I would suggest that if the hon. member is going to be up today talking about some seventy lay-offs in a workforce that approximates 3,500 with the prospect of maybe going back when the work picks up again in the summer, and if that is the kind of thing that you're going to get excited about and going to get exercised over, then you're going to be doing a lot of talking about it over the next two or three years as the project winds down, because everybody involved has given a commitment to this government that they are doing everything possible to maximize the opportunities for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I say to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, that this member here will get excited about one job that's lost for a Newfoundlander in this Province, if it's only one, I will get excited about it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: Now, I am also aware, I say to the minister, of the commitment and the talk that is demonstrated from the employer, from the union that they would guarantee or maintain wherever possible, that the maximum numbers of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are going to work at that site. The reason I raised this question today, minister, is because that is not happening. Can you also confirm, minister, that while over seventy Newfoundlanders were laid-off from that site, in the iron workers, that HMDC maintained an extra overtime shift for employees from outside the Province doing exactly the same work, with exactly the same qualifications, who have not even gotten a day off in the last thirty-three - can you confirm that? If you cannot, can you find an explanation for why that is happening and bring it back to this House?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I remind the hon. member again, everyone opposite and everybody in the House that this is not a project at Bull Arm that's being managed by the Provincial Government, it's not being managed by the Federal Government, it's being managed by HMDC with the contractors in full consultation and working very co-operatively with the unions. The exchange and the deal from day one was to make sure that the job gets done right, that it's a unionized work site and that there is no stoppage of work - that we do it right, we do it on time and we do it to the best of our ability and hold it up as an example of the quality workmanship that can be done here in Newfoundland and Labrador, that the government stay out of it. Now, that's the deal, Mr. Speaker, that was agreed to by everybody at the time. The previous government was involved in those kinds of discussions, members opposite and so on and we will honour that commitment.

Mr. Speaker, I say again, each of the shifts that are still working there, with respect to the iron workers and the rebar, are mixed shifts. There are people from outside Newfoundland and Labrador working side-by-side with Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. There's not one shift of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and another shift of people from outside the Province, they are mixed shifts. And in the best interest of getting the project to function on time and within the limits, effectively, efficiently and so on, it was decided that there would be one shift let go and that shift comprised some Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and some people from outside the Province.

We have talked to the company representatives and the union representatives, Mr. Speaker, and they all agree that while they would prefer to make sure that every single person out there is a Newfoundlander and Labradorian, it couldn't happen. There are reasons why there have to be some people from outside the Province and everybody is satisfied that it is kept to a bare minimum.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time for Oral Questions has elapsed.

Presenting Reports by

Standing and Special Committees

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to table a report required under the mineral act, Report of Mineral Licences and Mining Leases issued for the fiscal year April, 1993 to March, 1994.

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Terra Nova.

MS. YOUNG: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a petition here today on behalf of a number of residents of this Province. The petition reads as follows:

`To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents of the district of Terra Nova and Bonavista South humbly showeth;

WHEREAS the Department of Forestry has changed the regulations for domestic cutting only, from Port Blandford to Paddy's Pond; and

WHEREAS the domestic cutter can only cut wood in a two-month period, with less wood allowed, and the wood has to be hauled in the same period, and this will be impossible at times if wood is not accessible by vehicle until road conditions improve; and

WHEREAS full-time workers only get eight days in this period to cut wood, and people not working full-time have fifty-two days to cut their wood;

WHEREFORE we feel the regulations should be reviewed and changed back to the way they were.'

This is dated April 13, 1994.

I would like to point out that the signatures are from residents of other parts of this Province, included Trinity North, and I have had lengthy discussions on this matter with my colleague from the district of Trinity North.

As well, I have had discussions with the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture; he is aware of these matters, and they will be addressed. He recognizes that the concerns raised in this petition are certainly legitimate.

The residents of my district contacted me over the last few weeks regarding these new regulations for domestic cutting permits, and the main concerns seem to be the reduction from eight cords of wood to six cords for firewood. They feel that this will certainly have an effect on the amount of firewood that they will be able to use for their homes. The length of time allowed to cut the wood has been reduced to two months. Again, they feel that these regulations are very harsh.

My constituents are confident, along with myself, that the minister will review these new regulations. They are also aware of the need to sustain our forest in a manner that will allow future generations the same rights and privileges that we and our forefathers have enjoyed. So I would ask that this petition be placed on the Table of the House -

MR. TOBIN: Do you support the petition?

MS. YOUNG: - and be referred to the appropriate department.

My signature is on it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to support the petition put forward by the hon. the Member for Terra Nova.

When the minister got up, he spoke about all the consultation that was done. I would like to know what the Member for Terra Nova's stand was in advising the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.

Mr. Speaker, I raised this issue some time ago.

MR. SIMMS: That's the reason why he is responding.

MR. FITZGERALD: That's the reason why the response is there, certainly. But, Mr. Speaker, I raised the question through some people calling from my district who had gone forward to get a wood-cutting permit on April 1. The other permits expired on March 31, and it wasn't until that day that those gentlemen went into the forestry office to get a permit that they were told, at that particular time, that no permits were going to be issued until October. So I called the regional manager in our area and he wasn't sure; they didn't have any petitions. Then I called the regional manager in St. John's and was advised that he wasn't even aware of the rules and regulations, and he would look into it right away. So, Mr. Speaker, if that's the hon. minister's understanding of consultation, I think there is a lot lacking here.

I would like to remind the hon. minister, when he sits down to his deliberations, to consult widely with the people out there in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, because I can assure you that not everybody out there has the luxury of looking at their wall and seeing two or three thermostats, so that when the wood burner dies down the electric heat will cut in or the oil furnace will cut in. Many people in my district depend on wood entirely, not only for heat, but for domestic cooking as well. They are not all fortunate enough to be living in an R-2000 house.

The minister speaks about conservation. I fully agree with the minister that we should have conservation. In the particular meeting that we had down in my district, a small number of people in King's Cove have voiced their concerns. The Department of Forestry came down and met with them. At that particular time there were a couple of sites identified where a commercial cutter had left the area and had left log tops and other wood that was quite suitable for domestic purposes behind in the forest - just there, just a hindrance to the new growth that would be allowed to grow after those people usually moved out. At that particular time, some people asked if they would be allowed to go in there and clean up the area to make it more attractive for the regeneration of the forest. The answer was: No, you are not allowed to go in there because we are afraid you would cut some standing timber.

Are we in favour of conservation, are we supporting conservation, or is it a situation where one or two people have gone out and made a mistake or took the rules and regulations and made a mockery of them that everybody else has to suffer? I don't think we should all have to suffer because of the actions of a few. I call on the minister to immediately rescind those rules and regulations, to allow the eight cords of wood, to allow the one year on the permits, and also to allow people to have their 200, I think it was, up until this time, domestic saw logs that they could harvest under domestic cutting permit.

The minister points his finger. I would like to remind the minister that rural Newfoundlanders, many of us, live below the poverty line as it relates to income. We've always been able to take a great amount of pride, with a little bit of intestinal fortitude, of going in the bush, cutting our saw logs to build our own houses, being able to go in and build our own sheds, being able to go in and cut wood to heat our houses. And now, this minister, without consultation, has come forward and brought in those rules and regulations, without talking to anybody, by sitting in his office in St. John's and being guided by the actions of a few.

I remember a couple of months ago, just to give an example of no consultation, talking to a gentleman at Forestry. At that particular time I called him and it was about two weeks before he called me back. When he called me back he apologized. He said: I went and I had to lock myself in a room to bring in some new rules and regulations on forestry management on the Bonavista Peninsula. A prime example, Mr. Speaker, of what everybody here is saying. No consultation, not going out and listening to the people. And I don't know if the people's input would make any difference anyway. Because, obviously, if the minister consulted with the Members for Trinity North and Terra Nova and if he calls that consultation, then they must have agreed with what the minister brought forward.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FITZGERALD: Are those the people you consulted with? Are those the people who agreed with what you brought forward? The Member for Terra Nova got up and I still think that the minister probably wrote her response to the petition. She didn't say she supported it, Mr. Speaker, she didn't say she was against it. She just got up and read the petition.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MS. YOUNG: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: A point of order, the hon. the Member for Terra Nova.

MS. YOUNG: I take exception to the insinuation from the Member for Bonavista South. I would certainly not present a petition to the House of Assembly if my name were not signed to it, and I would not sign something that I did not support.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS. YOUNG: With regard to the consultations, you were not in the - you were called to the meeting. The meeting time was changed for your convenience and you didn't turn up there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

The hon. member has no point of order.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: To the point of order.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. To the point of order raised by the Member for Terra Nova, I just want to say to the member that you can't have it both ways - either you support the petition that you presented today in the House on behalf of the people of your district, or you support the minister in bringing in new rules and regulations that are impacting negatively upon thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, I say to the Member for Terra Nova. You have to make up your mind. Do you support the people in your district, or do you support this minister -

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: - who is going to make changes to the forestry regulations? Are you going to support the minister who is bringing in new regulations to the detriment of thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

The hon. the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am pleased to speak to this petition, and I want to congratulate the mover and the gentleman, the Member for Bonavista South who spoke to the petition.

I want the Member for Bonavista South to know, inasfar as having sensitivity, or being aware, I come from an area of Newfoundland that burned firewood all their lives. I burned firewood, as did most of my family. I have lived in St. John's for five years. The day I came to St. John's to live I had seven cords of wood in my back yard that I burned - so I am aware. The hon. the Member for Bonavista South hasn't got the monopoly on sensitivity and a feeling for how badly the people of rural Newfoundland need to burn wood and what it means if they can't cut it, but the Member for Bonavista South, and other members of this House have to deal with reality.

A month or two ago the hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay stood up in this House and accused me, and said: If you continue to manage the forest the way you are managing it, the forestry will go the way the fishery went. Now, he can't have it both ways.

There is a fact of life. The Bonavista Peninsula is being over-cut by 100 per cent, and when we get those figures it is not estimating the amount of illegal cutting; it is based on the permits issued and the wood that is cut. If we continue to cut the wood on the Bonavista Peninsula, whether its commercial or domestic, it doesn't matter, there will be no wood to cut in ten or twelve or fifteen years. So you have to manage the forests on a sustainable basis if you want wood there twenty years from now.

Mr. Speaker, the issue of six cords of wood: there are not many Newfoundlanders today in Newfoundland, whether its rural or urban Newfoundland, where the only source of heat is wood. There are very few. There may indeed be some, and we will deal with that. We will deal with any extenuating circumstances. On the Bonavista Peninsula the problem is that it is the saw log material that is being over-cut by 100 per cent; it is not necessarily firewood.

I would have no problem today in sitting down - I will be, and I have been sitting down. This petition today didn't make me aware of the concern on the Bonavista Peninsula. I have met groups from the Bonavista Peninsula who have expressed their concerns to me about the overall forestry situation. It may well be that it may be right to increase, if it's necessary, the cut from six cords to eight cords or ten cords of domestic on the Bonavista Peninsula, if the people on the Bonavista Peninsula understand they can only cut in low-volume stands, in insect-killed, what we consider junk forests; but what the hon. member should also know is that what has been happening on the Bonavista Peninsula and elsewhere in Newfoundland is they are getting domestic cutting permits, cutting saw logs and selling the saw logs on the black market. They get a permit for eight cords, and they cut thirty-eight.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would have no problem in increasing the cut for firewood on the Bonavista Peninsula if the resource can stand it, and that is what we are determining right now.

Now, the regulations came out on April - there are 300 officials in the Department of Forestry. I can't be accountable for every one on any given day.

MS. VERGE: You're the minister.

MR. FLIGHT: Oh, yes. You were the minister when we spent $23 million on Sprung. Were you responsible for that?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FLIGHT: You were the Minister of Justice, as a matter of fact.

And, Mr. Speaker, the two months is not cast in stone. Everyone knows that you can cut eight cords of wood, or six cords of wood, in two or three days, even if you are using a bucksaw and an axe. With a chain-saw most people will cut it in two or three days.

What people from the Bonavista Peninsula - the hon. member shakes his head, but what his constituents tell me is that they are concerned that two months is not long enough to get their wood home - it may not be, and it may go to three months; I would have no problem with that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Let it go for a year like it's always been.

MR. FLIGHT: No, I won't let it go for a year because we have - we could bring a regime into this Province that manages the forest properly, that eliminates to the extent you can the abuse that we have been having. We only have so many enforcement officers. If an enforcement officer has to worry about a domestic cutter for twelve months, he is spread too thin, so we are going to reasonable. We are going to say you have three months, or whatever it is, to cut your wood. If you need longer than that, come to the forestry office and if there are extenuating circumstances we will approve it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: The hon. member should know, nobody is allowed to cut domestic or anything else during the fire season, so that is two or three months gone.

So, Mr. Speaker, we will continue to manage the forests of Newfoundland -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. minister's time has elapsed.

MR. FLIGHT: - the way the people are asked to have the forests (inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. FLIGHT: - and make sure there will always be a wood supply for the people on the Bonavista Peninsula.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. minister's time has elapsed.

The hon. the Member for Ferryland I think, was on his feet.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to present a petition on behalf of residents in various districts across this Province and it reads: `We, the undersigned residents of Newfoundland and Labrador, who wish to avail themselves of their right, thus to present a grievance common to the House of Assembly, in the certain assurance that the House will therefore provide a remedy, we submit:

WHEREFORE the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon Parliament to demand the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador not privatize and sell Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and ensure that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro remains a Crown corporation, and as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.'

Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture is so concerned about the conservation of our forests, maybe he would defeat this Hydro bill and permit people to burn electricity again for the rest of their lives. That's another nail in the coffin of people here in this Province.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I support these petitioners who are from various parts of this Province, all over the Province, from Port au Port, Kippins, Corner Brook, Port aux Basques, Bishop's Falls, Stephenville, St. Anthony and numerous parts of the Province. Mr. Speaker, this government has been far from up front and far from honest in dealing with the real problems and downside of privatizing Hydro, and if you look at it just from a purely economical sense, the answer would be no to privatizing Hydro, and I would have great difficulty in voting against Hydro if it wasn't done on a sound, financial basis. We just need to look at a few simple, little figures showing the impact it is going to have on this Province.

Number one, it has been determined and suggested by an economist that it will cost the ratepayers of this Province anywhere from $40 million, possibly up to $70 million just by increasing the rates of electricity in this Province, and these figures are tabulated from looking at all the areas that would impact upon privatization from the defeasance agreements, from the increased equity by having a private company, all of those areas I won't get into in any detail in these few minutes, that would come to $40 million to $70 million extra on the ratepayers of this Province.

Now, aside from the ratepayers of this Province, let us look at the impact it is going to have on the taxpayers of this Province. The taxpayers of this Province will give up the $10 million guarantee we now receive, put that on top of the $40 million to $70 million, take the profits that Hydro is making now; Hydro made a profit last year, their latest financial statement showed a profit of $24 million; when you take away the portion that applies to the Upper Churchill, it showed a profit of $16 million, so you have your $16 million profit, you have your $10 million we are giving up in guaranteed fees of $26 million, put that on to possibly $70 million or the $40 million if you want to take it that way, and that shows at least, $66 million would be the downside of privatizing and on the positive side of the ledger, there is only one positive financial reason for privatizing Hydro and you have to compare the financial gain and the financial loss.

MS. COWAN: If you twist numbers long enough, they will (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: No, they are numbers by independent people and by the Premier. Your Premier, who dictated to you how to vote, said $10 million guarantee fee is in the financial statement, the Premier who dictated to you, had tabled in this House of Assembly the profits of Hydro, and the same Premier who dictated to you stated it would cost $25 million when he knew it would cost $40 million to $70 million. Now, there are the figures that were taken from government sources and from independent people. The only thing that the Premier has said that makes any sense whatsoever, in which there is any iota of truth, is that, it will save this Province roughly $25 million a year by not having to pay interest on a debt that may go on while this Province has a debt. So that's –

MS. COWAN: Why do you (inaudible)?

MR. SULLIVAN: If you want to speak, I say to the hon. Minister -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: If she would like to speak, she should stand and be recognized. People don't like to hear the truth.

It will save $25 million to spend from $66 million to $98 million, a loss to this Province of at least $50 to $60 million. Now, if you want to charge the people of this Province higher electricity rates you are following the proper route, and if the Premier thinks that the brochure he circulated around this Province is coming close to telling the truth he just has to read -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has expired.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HARRIS: I would like to rise and support the petition presented by the Member for Ferryland. I note that part of the prayer of the petition says: whereas the sale of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro has not been proven to be in the best interest of the citizens of the Province. Mr. Speaker, even more than that, it has been proven that the sale is not in the best interest of the citizens of the Province, and proven by none other than a government economist. I call him that because he is doing work for the government now. The Minister of Mines and Energy has this individual under contract now to do economic studies. A government economist with no axe to grind, Mr. Speaker, has done an objective analysis of this Hydro deal as proposed by the government, and he has looked at the costs and benefits, based on the figures obtained from the government itself, and he has concluded that the rate payers of this Province will have to pay an additional $60 to $75 million to save both the local and provincial governments, and industry the equivalent of $39 to $42 million per year.

What he came up with, Mr. Speaker, if you add in the loss of the existing surplus that is generated by Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, he said the net cost to the Newfoundland economy is between $33 million and $45 million every year in perpetuity, and that is just based on the economics of the deal, Mr. Speaker.

Now, there is something going on in this House of Assembly, I say to the Member for Eagle River, who the other day read out from this book, the Thatcher bible of privatization. The other day he read out from this book that is being distributed by the National Citizens Coalition. He read out from that, but he did not read out this, and here is what he says: given the best advice the private sector can offer, and the opinion of the experts as to what price the market will bear, government is best to aim at a premium of between 10 and 15 per cent. That is it should deliberately under price the shares by that amount. Now, Mr. Speaker, that is the Thatcher bible.

How do you privatize a company? You sell it off at between 10 or 15 per cent less than what it is worth so that people will buy it up. What is happening here, Mr. Speaker, is a very sinister conspiracy. Over on that side of the House people are wondering who are the friends of these members over there that plan to jump in and buy up these shares? What is going on? Is there a conspiracy between the rich of this Province and the members over there who are ignoring their constituents? Are they gutless wonders, Mr. Speaker? Are they standing behind the Premier because they are gutless wonders? Is there a conspiracy going on between them and the rich people of this Province who want to jump in and make a quick buck on the shares of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro?

That is the question in the minds of people right now, because it has been made very clear in the public opinion surveys that have been done, in the Open Line shows, in what their constituents are telling these members every single day - they told me they have been doing that, that they do not want Hydro privatized, yet to date the members opposite are standing behind the Premier who says: I have been elected, I have a mandate, and I can do what I want. Well, something has got to stop that process, Mr. Speaker. The members opposite have to turn their consciences towards the realities of what their people want and have to start saying to the Premier: no, we will not support this privatization.

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition on behalf of seventy-eight people from the District of Bonavista South and the District of Trinity North. The petition reads: To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland in Parliament assembled the petition of the undersigned residents of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador asks for the House of Assembly to accept the following prayer;

WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to stop immediately the privatization of Newfoundland Hydro and hold a referendum to ask people of the Province their views as to whether Newfoundland Hydro should be privatized or remain a Crown corporation.

Mr. Speaker, this is another petition in a list of petitions, that's been brought forward in this House in the last few weeks. Mr. Speaker, today we witnessed an event here in the lobby of Confederation Building of another group of people coming forward to express their views, representing about 80 per cent of the people in Newfoundland and Labrador who object to the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

Mr. Speaker, today we heard a legal opinion from a gentleman who is very well respected in the legal profession. Up until now we were always told that if we didn't support privatization or all the people who are calling into Open Line shows and writing letters to the editor were people who were misinformed, Mr. Speaker. They were misinformed because they didn't understand the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. Mr. Speaker, today I think that those concerns, that the people over there might have about all of us and all the people out there in rural Newfoundland and Labrador who don't know what they read or who don't know right from wrong, should be laid to rest. Mr. Speaker, public opinion polls have shown in just about -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I'm having trouble hearing the hon. member over the din in the House. If members would keep their conversations down.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, public opinion polls have shown that in excess of 80 per cent of the population of Newfoundland and Labrador oppose the sale of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. The Premier and the government members continually put forward our credit rating. They make it an issue that our credit rating will be much more favourable if we sell Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. This, Mr. Speaker, has been dismissed as falsehoods by two of the credit rating agencies. I can tell the opposite members that those are not good reasons for selling Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. If they listen to their constituents, if they go out - and the word consultation again has to come up - consult with the people, hold public forums, Mr. Speaker, and do what they were elected to do when they were elected here to this House of Assembly.

Mr. Speaker, we continually hear from the opposite side that we will be able to go out and buy shares in Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro but I can assure you that most of the people out there today who are finding themselves - Mr. Speaker, I find it annoying and I guess the people in Newfoundland and Labrador - I guess this is a reflection of how they feel too because there's nobody over there again listening, everybody is talking among themselves and a lot of action - Mr. Speaker, I say this is a reflection of a government that doesn't care what anybody thinks, they don't care what the debate consists of or if you're of a different opinion.

Mr. Speaker, a prime example here today of what's happening here in this House, not interested when you read out a petition on behalf of people from Newfoundland and Labrador, they are not interested in what they have to say in the prayer of the petition. All we hear is people saying: oh, not another one or yes, that's a good thing, a referendum. How much money is that going to cost? Mr. Speaker, it's an example of letting people have a say in what's going to happen to their future. I think that's a very, very important issue here today and all during the debate here in this House of Assembly, Mr. Speaker, that we're not consulting people and we need to do that. Mr. Speaker, I'll leave the Member for Pleasantville alone. If he wants to speak he's quite capable. I don't have to root him up out of his chair.

So, Mr. Speaker, I call on the Premier and I call on the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador not to be shortsighted and not to come forward with this piece of legislation. Consult the people, listen to the people and represent their people as they were elected to do here in this hon. House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

I rise today to support the petition presented by my colleague the Member for Bonavista South. Mr. Speaker, I've said and asked here in the House on several occasions a number of things. I've asked the Premier, I've asked the Minister of Mines and Energy and members opposite, what will result if Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is privatized? Will we see new investment in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador? The government has failed to demonstrate that. Because we will not.

Will we see lower electricity rates as a result of privatizing Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro? No we will not. We will see a dramatic increase in electricity rates. The government has indicated that itself. Will we see an increase in jobs to this Province? No we will not, Mr. Speaker. The government has failed miserably to demonstrate where there would be a net increase in jobs in this Province. Will we see any new technology enter this Province as a result of the sale of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro? No, we will not see new technology. The government has not demonstrated anywhere that we have seen new technology or will see new technology, because we will not see new technology as a result of this sale.

I've asked the government again, where is the cost benefit analysis that was done by that government? Was it tabled in this House that proved undoubtedly that the sale and privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro would be a positive thing for the government and for the people in this Province? It has not provided it because one was not done, and if it was done, why isn't it tabled here, I say to the Member for St. John's South? The government has failed miserably. These things - new investment, new technology, an increase in the electricity rates, a decrease in the number of jobs - are why I do not support the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

The Premier on numerous occasions has stood in this House and has accused members on this side of the House as being fraudulent, of misrepresenting, of creating hysteria. I've said to the Premier, and I say to government members, if we have been so fraudulent in our statements, if we have been so misrepresentative of the facts that we have put forward and the arguments that we have put forward, then why doesn't the government and government members hold public hearings into the sale of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro to expose us for being the very fraud that they accuse us of being?

They will not because it is not this side of the House or members on this side or members who are speaking out against the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro who have been fraudulent or misrepresentative. The government has not held public hearings because it knows full well the people of this Province see no good public policy reason for privatizing Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. They see no good economic reason from a private sector point of view to privatize Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. It is a good reason for those who can afford to buy shares, for investment brokers, for banks. For those who have money it is a good reason, I can tell you. They would buy shares. If someone were to sell you something today that was worth twice its value tomorrow you would buy shares as well.

But it is only those in society, the minority, those with money, who will be able to afford to buy shares in Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. That is why we see RBC Dominion Securities, ScotiaMcLeod, chambers of commerce coming out and supporting the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. They do not represent the average Newfoundlander and Labradorian on this issue.

If we backtrack to see where this tale really began we will go back to October 1, 1993 when the Premier announced that it was government's intention to proceed with privatizing or merging Newfoundland Light and Power and Fortis with Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. The reason? Because it was in the best interests of the Province to merge both utilities, to have one company supplying electricity to the Province. When the people spoke out against that the Premier and his policy were abandoned on merger. What did we see then? We saw that maybe privatization on a stand alone basis was the second best option for all economic reasons.

In this House the Leader of the Opposition and members opposite asked the Premier was there another reason. Was there another reason that we saw the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Power, Bill No. 1, and the Electrical Power Resources Act, Bill No. 2. The Premier said: No, not to my knowledge. Then what happened, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave!

MR. E. BYRNE: By leave, Mr. Speaker?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No leave!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member doesn't have leave.

The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to present a petition on behalf of residents mostly of the St. John's area. This is again asking government not to privatize Newfoundland Hydro.

WHEREFORE the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon Parliament to demand the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador not privatize and sell Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, and ensure that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro remains a Crown corporation.

Mr. Speaker, this government has been told many, many times that the people of this Province disagree with the direction they have taken, and the Premier has misled the people of this Province on public television. He has done it here in this House of Assembly, and he has done it on many occasions, and he has permitted his backbenchers and Cabinet ministers to go along with him in further misleading the people of this Province and denying them something that is legitimately theirs, and they deserve a right to be heard.

Now the Premier has stated, and it is in the bill, that it would result in consumers in this Province having equitable access to an adequate supply of power. Now the Premier has identified, in this mail-out to householders, what they consider an adequate supply of power. Seven hundred kilowatt hours is what they call an adequate supply of power.

Now the Premier, by that statement, is once again misleading the people. There are 173,000 households in this Province that consume electric power, under Newfoundland Power, of which 99,000 are heated by electric heat and 74,000 by other than electric heat, and the average consumption by these people is over 1,300 kilowatt hours. Yet the Premier determines an adequate supply of power is 700 kilowatt hours.

The Premier stated on public television, and I repeat: If the majority of people of the Province end up in the end being opposed to the privatization of Hydro, I would not ask the Members of the Legislature to proceed with legislation privatizing Hydro, because I don't think any government, no matter how strongly it feels about an issue, should use its majority in the Legislature to cause something to be done that is contrary to the wishes of the people of the Province, and I won't ask the Members of the Legislature to do that.

That is what the Premier stated on his public address in the debate here to the people of this Province.

AN HON. MEMBER: What's wrong with that?

MR. SULLIVAN: What's wrong with that? There is nothing wrong with that. The problem is, what's wrong with the Premier who won't listen to the people of the Province? That's what's wrong here. It's not his words; it's his actions. His words are full of trickery and deceit. He makes statements he contradicts. The problem is with the Premier, and the problem is with you, who support the Premier, and everybody else that supports him in misleading, contradictory statements to the people of this Province. That's what's wrong.

I ask the Member for Fogo: Who can stand up in this House and support legislation that's going to increase electricity rates in this Province by $40 million to $70 million? Who, at the same time, is going to stand and permit tens of millions of dollars of lost taxpayers' revenue in this Province?

It is not done on an economic sense, this privatization of Hydro. If it is, I would probably be the first to stand up and support it. It is not done on a financial basis. Still, the Premier - and if you read the full page ad, the $2,500 - $3,000 page ad that they keep putting out to the people, if you read that, there is nothing in that ad that tries to put forward an argument for a financial basis to support privatization of Hydro because there just isn't one. He is trying to sell it on a philosophy, ideology.

AN HON. MEMBER: Did you read the ad?

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, I did - called that number, too. You call it and find out who you'll get. They will get back to you some time next week. A recording is what they get.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I sure did, and I got as few answers as I got and obtained here in this House of Assembly. We got as few answers as the Minister of Mines and Energy gave today. We got just as much information by calling that number, and everybody here in the House today knows very well the answers the Minister of Mines and Energy knew about the costs - hidden costs. He didn't even know that $1.7 million was spent last year by this government, the government's portion, on the privatization of Hydro. He doesn't know that they budgeted another $1.5 million.

He didn't know that, doesn't know any of the costs, he doesn't know what costs Hydro is spending that is going to drive up and impact electricity rates in this Province. The government doesn't know because it has been led around by an individual and being asked to do what I say and do what I do. That's the problem here. People are not standing up -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. CAREEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to support the prayer of the petition put forward by my colleague from Ferryland, and, it is a pleasure for me to echo the sentiments that the majority of Newfoundlanders whom you hear around, that they are saying no, and the tragedy is, how often should they have to say no? No is no, is no, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears from men opposite.

AN HON. MEMBER: Less than 100 people (inaudible).

MR. CAREEN: Look who is among them.

AN HON. MEMBER: You can't count very well.

MR. CAREEN: Look who is among them.

AN HON. MEMBER: No wonder the municipalities are in such hard shape.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible) don't be sidetracked.

MR. CAREEN: - but anyway, the men and women of this Province who are constantly making it known that they are against the privatization of Hydro are in the majority, from where I sit. I am glad to be on the Newfoundland side not on that government side. Too often we see governments over the years not listening to its people, and they pay for it and they pay dearly, the governments themselves but the tragedy is that the people for whom they were supposed to be responsible, they pay even a greater price.

Ladies and gentlemen today, yes there was a small crowd but I don't go by numbers lots of times; I see out here today, Mr. Halley, and what a long shadow that cast and what a spectre of doubt when you see a man of his stature standing up to question what is going on. I hear the radio ads constantly that used to be on the radio out our way; there was a despicable man named Josef Goebbels who used to say about propaganda to simplify it and repeat it every day, every day, every day, but now, they have terminated those ads on the radio, so I am wondering now, what is the next move, and probably, by our questions here, and questions and people outside calling radios and writing we will get to the bottom of what is the real agenda of the government opposite.

A lot of people across the way have not risen to speak on the Hydro issue. Some members opposite in their seats, in their roosts here, remind me of laying hens the way they are perched up in their seats but that is where the similarity ends, because a laying hen is much more productive. But my friends, it is too important for any of us to get on with rhetoric here. What we hear the people outside of this building constantly talking about and they are against it and I am happy to be here to echo those sentiments.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am pleased to rise today to present this petition on behalf of people in my district, Baie Verte - White Bay:

WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to stop immediately the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and hold a referendum to ask people of the Province their views as to whether Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro should be privatized or remain a Crown corporation.

Now I would just like to make a couple of points on this. It was already commented on today that oh, it was 100 or 150 or 200 or if it were 5,000 out there today, I mean, the point the people are making time and time again on the Open Line shows, whether you believe that is a good avenue or not, it is still people speaking and whether you believe the true petitions like this in the House, from what I can gather so far, the government doesn't believe any of that. If there are petitions here in this House we've been asked - we've been stopped from presenting those on occasion. Open line shows have been dismissed as just set-ups orchestrated by us and by everybody else. The different demonstrations that have been put off, and people have been accused - the people who organized these demonstrations or whatever - of being political on one side or the other.

I can tell you, all hon. members in the House, that the people who organize these things, who phone into open lines, who sign these petitions, are real people with real concerns. For seven long months we've stood here in this House presenting petitions listening to those kinds of criticisms about what people are putting forward on this particular issue. What does it take - that is the question I keep asking myself - for this particular government to finally say: Hold on a second, maybe they do have a point, maybe we should reconsider, maybe we should go and consult. There is that ugly word again, "consult." Because it seems like the consultation process on any issue - and especially on this issue that is so vast, has such an importance in this Province.... If there ever was consultation needed it is on this particular issue.

That is why we plead and beg and do whatever we can every day, ever way we can, to ask the Premier - because we have to ask the Premier, because whatever the Premier says goes. We all know that. So we don't have to ask the hon. members. What we really have to do is ask this Premier. He is running the show. We have to ask him for God's sake, for everybody's sake, step back, sit back for a second, say: Maybe there is a lot of opposition. Maybe these 80 per cent polls that the PC Party did and the Power of the People did and Decima Research did, maybe they are true. If they are true, would the Premier just sit back and say: Hold on a second, we have to look at this again, we have to get some people some input in it.

I still have to make this point once more, something that came up quite a while ago, but now I still can't understands it. When the Premier started to doubt whether all this criticism was true - I remember back a few weeks ago when he thought that the open lines and everything and the petitions that we were presenting, were all falsehoods. What the Premier did one day in this House was stand up with a petition that we presented here in the House, and he said while he was up in his office that morning he decided to check it out.

I tried to picture the Premier of this Province calling some lady 10:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m., saying to her: Say ma'am, did you sign this petition? This is the Premier calling, by the way. The Premier of the Province is calling some lady now out in who knows where, out in Conche. Calling my mother. I can picture my mother getting a call at 10:30 a.m. now making her bread and the Premier on the other end saying: Mrs. Shelly, this is the Premier calling. We were wondering if you signed this petition, if you really do go against this privatization. What do you expect those people to say? If you want to see intimidation, that was the most explicit display of intimidation by the Premier of this Province. I can't even fathom to believe that the Premier would do such a thing.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: How about the St. John's North poll?

MR. SHELLEY: The St. John's North poll, as my hon. colleague just mentioned. What a lovely poll. That was a great poll. I should get you to do some research for me for the next election.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SHELLEY: I could be in trouble. I think I will do my own.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SHELLEY: Now, accurate one time out of twenty, is it, or nineteen times out of twenty.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SHELLEY: Here is my only criticism of the government now and the Premier. The Premier has said that we have misled, people have been misinformed. A few of the ministers have said the same thing. Let's just take that for a minute.

The Premier has said the people are misinformed, they are misled, that is why the public is riled up. In other words, what he is saying is that those 80 per cent of the people in this Province who have been polled, none of them know what they are talking about. All the information that went out so far is misinformation by us, the Opposition, by the Power of the People, the take back the power group. All of these people calling open lines, you are all giving wrong information, the Premier is saying.

Here is what the Premier did. As we just found out today, $1.7 million spent on advertising through Hydro. Indirectly through government through taxes is what I believe, Hydro being a Crown corporation. Then they went on the beat and decided: We are going to put radio ads on every day. Then the Premier lo and behold gets a full half hour on NTV, and then complained because he only got fifteen minutes on CBC, and then he had an open debate. All this has happened with this nice glossy thing coming out in the mail from Newfoundland Hydro explaining all the great things.

Every day I hate to turn on the radio now and hear these little advertisement clips of how great Hydro is. Now to me, the government has had the best opportunity to put forth their side. Now after doing all of that, I can't see for the life of me why the Premier can still stand in this House and say: well the people are misinformed. Well if they're misinformed, I say to the Premier and all hon. members opposite, if the people are misinformed well you didn't do your job. If it was such a great thing for this Province -

AN HON. MEMBER: Lloyd you got quite a fine tan.

MR. SHELLEY: That's a great tan that the hon. Member for St. John's North has - if the Premier was doing such a great job and the government was doing such a great job of it, why are the people still against it? That argument does not wash with anybody in this Province any more. Maybe three months ago the Premier could have stood up and said: oh, the people haven't been given the right information but we're going to correct that. We're going to put radio ads on; I'm going to be on TV for half an hour -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. SHELLEY: - so I think the government has had their chance.

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

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

I was not granted leave a few moments ago. I'd just like to continue on by saying that I support my colleague's petition against the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador and the people who signed it.

As I was saying earlier, the tale of the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro began October 1, 1993, Mr. Speaker, when government's intention was announced by the Premier then that Newfoundland Light and Power and Fortis would be merged with Newfoundland Hydro. The reasoning put forward was that it would be in the best interest of the people of this Province to have one company deliver electrical resources and electrical power to all residents in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Now the people of the Province expressed - with great dissatisfaction at that time - their belief that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro should be merged with Newfoundland Light and Power and Fortis. Now, Mr. Speaker, thereafter it was decided by the Premier and his government that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro would be privatized on a stand alone basis. It was based upon the economic argument and the economic merits of privatising Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro on a stand alone basis that the Premier said he and his government came to that conclusion. Now when asked in the House, Mr. Speaker, the Premier indicated clearly, he said that, no, there was no other reason for privatising Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro on a stand alone basis that he could think of when he was asked by the Leader of the Opposition and other members opposite. On other occasions the Minister of Mines and Energy repeated again, what the Premier had already said, that there was no other reason to privatize Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro because simply it made economic sense.

Now, Mr. Speaker, over time, members here on this side of the House - backed with the support of people in this Province - asked questions daily, day after day, week after week, month after month, to this Premier and to his government on why should Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro be privatized when it did not make sense economically.

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday night before the spring break - when the Premier was on NTV for half an hour - we found out why, Mr. Speaker, we found out why. The Premier admitted and he said publicly, that he urged members of his Cabinet and members of his government not to talk about the Electrical Power Resources Act, not to talk about Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro because there was another plot, Mr. Speaker, there was another reason which he denied earlier but which he came clean on that Tuesday night. He said that there was a movement afoot or that he was convinced, in his own legal opinion, that power from Upper Churchill could be regained based upon privatizing Hydro, which needed to happen, he said that night, and also based upon the Electrical Power Resources Act which would turn control over, of electrical power in this Province, to the Public Utilities Board, he said that on Wednesday night.

Then on Thursday night - that following Thursday night or that same Thursday night of the same week - in the leaders' debate the Premier admitted that when he was Chairman of Newfoundland Light and Power that he put forward the same legal argument. He put forward the same idea to the government of the day which was rejected out of hand by independent legal advice but he admitted then, that night, Mr. Speaker, that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro did not need to be privatised for his theory to be checked out, for his theory to be put forward in this House in Bill No. 2, The Electrical Power Resources Act.

Mr. Speaker, it is necessary to highlight these past events dealing and beginning on October 1, 1993 because clearly it has been demonstrated that from the onset this Premier has been fraudulent and misrepresentative, and has not come clean with this House when asked questions in the House. He has not come clean with representatives - elected representatives - on the issue of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and the subsequent privatization of that company.

Mr. Speaker, is there any wonder that the people of this Province are so upset - violently upset - with the privatization initiative as put forward by the Premier? Why has he constantly and continuously refused to hold public hearings? Why has he constantly and continuously refused to listen to the everyday, average Newfoundlander and Labradorian on their views?

The Premier has said publicly he has got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of calls from people, at his home privately, supporting the sale of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. Where are those people coming from? Where is the elusive pocket of support for the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro? It's not in Trinity North, as the member says. It is not in Trinity North.

Seventy-five to 80 per cent of the people in this Province know what the issues are. The Premier continuously, as early as last week, said: I am confident that when the people of the Province have the whole story that they will make a reasoned and rational judgement in favour of privatizing Hydro. How long will it take to get the reasons and the full story on the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro?

I would put forward that my colleague from Humber East put forward the right reasons why the Premier wanted to privatize Hydro, and why he walked away from a Lower Churchill development agreement some two years ago that saw side agreements for Upper Churchill.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. E. BYRNE: Those are the reasons, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

Just a point of order before we move on to Orders of the Day. I just want to raise the issue of the scheduling of the estimates committee with the President of Treasury Board, the Minister of Finance.

As I understand it, there are some meetings scheduled for tomorrow, I believe. The Department of Health is schedule for tomorrow morning, I believe, and I don't know what else the rest of the day. I am just wondering if there is some way, because every year it seems we have the same concerns and same problems of scheduling the estimates committee. It sometimes turns into a bit of a wrangle and members don't have sufficient notice.

I am just wondering if there is something we could do to try and schedule properly so that members have advance notice, proper notice, so they can prepare. I am just wondering if the Government House Leader, the acting House Leader today, would undertake with the Chair, persons of the committee, perhaps the vice-chairs, to see if there is not some way we can schedule these estimates committees in an orderly fashion to enable members to prepare and to get to the meetings as they would like to.

It seems that some committees, I believe, are scheduled for tomorrow. There was one meeting originally scheduled for tonight. As I understand it, the schedule was given before we broke for the Easter recess, and I believe the Minister of Social Services was scheduled but I understand he can't make it tonight, which is fair enough, because I thought personally the earliest we would start the committees would be tomorrow, as a lot of members just came back into town today.

I am wondering if the House Leader would undertake, perhaps, to initiate scheduling of meetings whereby it makes sense to give members adequate time to appear.

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Opposition House Leader for raising these points. They are extremely important, and we should be getting started now and going through the departments. We are under time constraints. Of course, by agreement we can extend those but we should really get started soon.

I will take it upon myself to check with the committee chairpersons and see what has been scheduled. I know nothing of what has been scheduled so far, but to check and see what has been scheduled and what we can do to make the system more efficient than it seems it is at the present time.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker, I doubt if the Minister of Finance, the President of Treasury Board, is even aware, but I have a schedule here that was sent around March 29. As I said, there was a meeting originally scheduled for Social Services tonight at 7:00, which I understood the Minister couldn't make, and that is fair enough, so that won't go ahead; but then tomorrow, Tuesday, April 19 there is a meeting, if this schedule is accurate, or correct, for 9:00 a.m. here at the House dealing with the Department of Health. That is a bit short notice, I know, for the critic here. He would like a little more time, so I am just wondering if there is anything we can do to reschedule that until perhaps later tomorrow, tomorrow evening even, and give the people a little more time to get on with it? I am just wondering. I think the Member for Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir is the Chairman of the Social Services committee, as I understand it. I was just talking to the acting Government House Leader I say to the member about the meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning at 9:00 o'clock with the Department of Health. I am just wondering if we could reschedule that for some other time because we have some problems with our critic being there to be honest with you?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir.

MR. GILBERT: You are saying Health is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 9:00 o'clock. As far as the committee is concerned I do not see any reason why we could not change it to later in the week, but I think we would have to talk to the Minister of Health and his officials because I think they are ready for it. You referred to the fact that the one this evening is out and is rescheduled for later the week, I think.

AN HON. MEMBER: Thursday night.

MR. GILBERT: Thursday night, I think. This one tomorrow morning, I do not know if it would be fair to the department itself at this short a notice.

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I wonder if the Opposition House Leader and I could meet with the Chairpersons of the committees at 5:00 o'clock today for about ten or fifteen minutes and see if we can sort things out? Would that be okay?

MR. TOBIN: And the vice-chairs.

MR. BAKER: Well, the vice-chairs, too, it does not matter to me.

We will go down to the Treasury Board boardroom and see if we can sort things out at 5:00 o'clock today.

Orders of the Day

MR. BAKER: Motion 1, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The address on the Budget Speech.

The hon. the Member for LaPoile.

MR. RAMSAY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I guess everyone has been eagerly awaiting the Budget Speech and to get down to business and the nuts and bolts of what brings us here. We come to the Legislature to make decisions on behalf of the taxpayers with respect to the overall planning that government makes, and to put into effect a program that it feels is in the best interest of the people of the Province. Now, the Budget process this year is quite a bit different from the processes in previous years. As most people are aware it has become much more transparent as the demands placed on us require that there is a certain transparency in dealing with fiscal matters of government.

It is the same thing when one looks at the way that companies, large and small companies, run. They have to make sure that their shareholders, or the people who have an interest in the company, or in this case the general public of the Province require a certain element of transparency in the process to make sure that they can reconcile of their own accord the reasons and the rationale that government has used to put forward the decisions it has and the program it wants the people of the Province to follow with respect to taxpayer expenditures.

Now the transparency is such that it allows a building of trust between those who make the decisions and those who in turn are affected by them. One only has to look at the course this government has followed over the last five years in order to make sure that there was an understanding of the rationale for our decision making. We have provided the fiscal situation of the government and of the Province to the public sector unions and to the people of the Province so that they would understand why certain tax measures were being taken; they would understand why we would choose not to borrow in certain cases in order to accommodate expenditures that we would have to make otherwise without the cutting that we had to do at times, the lowering of expenditures and the trimming of budgets in order to, I suppose, meet the test of cutting the cloth according to the garment's needs.

Now the one element of the Budget which was presented and I feel is probably the most significant is an element of business development initiatives, and, Mr. Speaker, it is in this area that we feel that we certainly have to cultivate and assist the businesses here in the Province in developing and also we have to see to it that the businesses are allowed to become more profitable, there is certainly by virtue of the amount of taxation that is generated for the Province in the area of business taxes, one only has to look at that figure and find that we can collect more even in light of the tax regime, the current high tax regime that we have in the area of alcohol and tobacco, and when we can collect more from either of those two sin taxes than we do from business taxes, it certainly shows that there is an unhealthy private sector economy in this Province, and one only has to, I suppose, look at the past history of the previous administration prior to the election of the Liberal government, to understand that they saw the public sector as the engine of growth in the Newfoundland economy.

The statistics demonstrate categorically that the Progressive Conservative administration, previous to the election of the Liberal government in 1989, increased substantially the public sector workforce which was great for the statistical figures but certainly was not great when one took into account the overall deficit position that it now places government in so, Mr. Speaker, we certainly have to take account of what is the root problem of the Newfoundland economy.

Now setting aside, not for purposes of importance but for purposes of this discussion, the fishery and its importance as a resource industry for the Province, if we just take that and just highlight the other aspects of our economy where we can get an economy to grow because we are no different from any state of the United States, any province of Canada that has taken initiatives in order to improve the overall performance of our economic and private sector and one would look at the way we go about it, the private sector and say that - my time is up?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RAMSAY: I thought it was twenty minutes, Mr. Speaker, I wasn't sure that it was ten. Anyway, just to conclude what I was saying there with respect to business development initiatives, if we cultivate an impressive private sector base for our economy, then growth will be as a result of that and, Mr. Speaker, I would submit that that would key in more growth for the future and would certainly allow us to improve the overall tax base through the private sector -

MR. SPEAKER: You have lots of time.

MR. RAMSAY: I thought I did. - improve the overall private sector economy and in turn -

AN HON. MEMBER: He is just a rookie, that's all.

MR. RAMSAY: Yes, I think Mr. Speaker is just getting used to his Chair. Anyway, I suppose the ultimate goal is to have a thriving private sector that will in turn, through the provisions of wages and benefits for the individuals who are working for these private sector companies, then stimulate the economy and provide the necessary taxation to stimulate the public sector and to - not necessarily stimulate, I suppose, that is not the correct word. Possibly to provide the necessary tax support for the services and the overall public welfare that the people of the Province want and deserve as citizens of the Province.

In looking at this, it is the kind of business development initiatives that the government has taken as a hallmark of its program for the next number of years. The program that we are undertaking, Mr. Speaker, is a program of lowering the taxation level for the businesses in the private sector so that they in turn can stimulate the economy. This will have a twofold effect. One, it should help to secure the existing private sector, and two, it can help to attract new business opportunities and new businesses themselves that have set up in other locations or have ideas and are looking for a new location to set up.

We only have to look in several areas I guess to see where we are strategically located. Not the idea of a strategic area of location but certain fields and certain sectors of the economy that Newfoundland would certainly be the ideal location to establish. One has to look at marine transportation. One can look again at the issue of dealing with telecommunications. With such a vast province that we have here advances in telecommunications methods and devices and equipment are the kinds of things that we certainly could be at the forefront of in dealing with our geography. The harshness of the weather conditions in the northern parts of the Province, the difficulties that we associate with Newfoundland being a rugged, rocky, barren place, are things that we should look at as opportunities to develop the products and services that will stand the test of any environment anywhere in the world.

It is those areas and if you also look at a sector in the fishery, to go back to that from a private sector viewpoint. To look at just what in fishing technology that we have had success in over the years and how we can go about stimulating that into the future.

While on Easter vacation I had the opportunity to meet with an individual who is a native of the Sudan. This gentleman suggested to me that there are huge opportunities for fishermen and fish plant people from Newfoundland in assisting in the training and development of the Sudan and the Sudanese people in that particular area. Sudan has a very wealthy area of fishery off the coast of Africa near the India Ocean that is currently not fished. This particular individual is hopeful that it is the kind of thing we can stimulate a private sector interest in bringing our fisheries technology over to train these individuals in fishing their waters that they have sovereign rights over off the coast of Africa. Not dissimilar at all to something that was featured on Land and Sea a while ago where we were training people in Central America through the provision of assistance by the different agencies involved in transferring the technological expertise of people here to people in other parts of the world and teaching them what we know. It also then creates an inherent sense of value and worth to the people who now have to stand idle because of the crisis in the fishery.

This is the kind of thing that we are hopeful that this as a private sector initiative in the lowering of a taxation regime and in making Newfoundland a more attractive place in which to do business, we can offer up to the people of the global business community and say: We are open for business, we are interested in doing business with people in all parts of the globe. I think that is the kind of thing that we can then serve better to the people of the Province to assist them in stimulating their minds and their ideas and broadening the overall horizon that they see as a potential for their future.

Especially young people. You speak of young people who have become so disheartened with the economy - and it is not only here, it is throughout the country, I suppose. Were it not for the occasional service job in some cases the youth of the country would certainly be not well dealt to go into the workforce without the foundation of a very high education, I say. Even a basic higher education these days is no guarantee of employment. To see how the individuals who would go out into the workforce and get an education in a specific field, and you will find often that people who are trained in a specific area, their services are just not able to be used because of the glut of trained personnel in a given area or because the jobs just aren't there.

I think we have to fire ahead and we have to go as individual members and take the initiative ourselves in making contacts and doing things for our districts. As well, we have to see to it that the efforts that we make in trying to attract business that we leave no stone unturned. It is I suppose a real cliché almost to use that term, but it is certainly the kind of thing we have to do in order that we look beyond and we lead for our people and that we show them that there is another day with another dollar to be earned. We have the best entrepreneurs in the world with us in this Province and those entrepreneurs are the fishermen who, running an enterprise, have sustained themselves for hundreds of years continually using the resource available to them.

That is the ultimate entrepreneurial spirit. An individual or group of individuals in a fishing enterprise who would go and risk the risk of peril at sea, who will work so hard and work long hours in the most difficult of conditions, and to seek the harvesting of a resource, and then to take that and turn it into real new dollars for their families and their community. If we are to take that and harvest it and generate new wealth for the Province, I think we can do the same thing with new initiatives, with technological initiatives. We can do the same thing with creative ideas, and assisting in the cultivation of these ideas through government agencies that are involved.

Everyone knows that these particular agencies have a long way to go to improve themselves to the point where they are client centred and responsive to the needs of the people of the Province. They are working at it. They are bureaucratic by nature and therefore I guess they have to make a change in order to develop this client centred approach and basis to serving the people of the Province. It is very necessary that they do so. Because I've seen - as an example of one member - I'm sure other members have had a similar experience - I've seen many an idea go to waste. Because an individual will approach you with the idea - and I'm sure, Mr. Speaker, you too have had people come forward with business ideas and they haven't been able to get to first base.

Sometimes it is for the right reasons. Sometime it is not very well thought through and the process of the individuals who assist them in doing the determination as to whether they should proceed will assist them in coming to a conclusion that maybe they should not. In general a lot of times it is the process that stops them and it is that which is the key problem to business development and support measures offered by governments throughout the world.

Only when it I suppose is approached from a private sector type of initiative providing the support that is necessary to backing the businesses financially, should they have a product or service that they have a good market for, to provide them with that backing, to assist them in the marketing of their product, to assist them with management operations, to assist them in the overall, so that they can stimulate our economy.

If we provide that, Mr. Speaker, we will have done our job as legislators by creating the necessary climate for the improvement of business in this Province. Should we fail, then it will be, to many generations, having lost the opportunity because of our failure.

It is with this that I speak firmly from the heart, having been from a family of entrepreneurs who started out in the area of a forge and a blacksmithery, and grew up from there into a department store type of family business, and having experienced that end of it, as well as having been a business person myself, involved in a couple of different businesses, with no help whatsoever from government in the initiatives that I was involved in, and to see from there how we can stimulate and support, with a little bit of support of the right kind, some of the business ventures that I have seen and been involved with would have succeeded beyond the success level that they had.

Then again, one only has to look at - not all ideas are sound. Not all ideas should go forward, but there are many ideas which, if a person is discouraged, then the second time, when they come up with the right idea, that discouragement will certainly affect their intent and their desire to go forward and do something and start something. The confidence level is shaken. They think, why bother to try?

Well, we need to bother to try. We need to assist these people, regardless of the quality, I suppose, of their ideas, and if it is handled in the right way, then the individuals concerned can certainly go on to other ideas that are better thought through, I suppose is the way I would put it, and from there you can judge and gauge how they would be able to take on the next one, and that's very important. Some call it a holding of hands to a point in stimulating business. I think that's part of it. The other part of it is in allowing people to realize for themselves just how much there is to the running of a small business. It's not a matter of opening the door and hanging out your sign and hoping that people show up. There is a lot behind the scenes. Fishermen do it every day that have fished over the years, over the hundreds of years in this Province. They knew they had to gear up and be ready for the season. They knew they had to have adequate supplies of bait. They knew they had to have adequate equipment, personnel, and also that they had to look after the basics of their enterprise by making sure that the proper remittances were made on behalf of their crews. They had to make sure that they paid their taxes properly, and had an auditor or accountant assist them with their bookkeeping.

These are the same exact things that we hope to be able to assist them in stimulating and creating that environment in attracting the necessary business opportunities to the Province so that from that point onward there is industry to service, there is industry to support, there is industry to participate with.

I think we have to seek out `more strategic alliances' is the term that is used now in the business community throughout North America, and throughout the world, for that matter, and seek out companies that have strengths to combine themselves with companies that we have here who have certain strengths, and if we combine those companies, not necessarily in an ownership way but through co-operation agreements and strategic alliance initiatives, we can see the results and the benefits of that kind of initiative.

One only has to look at how you go about doing this kind of thing. Now, if we look at the Hibernia project as an example, Hibernia is a project, I think, which has reaped a lot of benefits for some Newfoundlanders, and a lot of benefits for some companies, but in general, I think more companies have lost in gearing up for Hibernia than have actually yet prospered from it in the small business area. We only have to look at the way that co-operation has gone on in the consortiums that have been put together to take advantage of the Hibernia project.

If you look at the different companies, we talk about NODECO, which was a joint venture of numerous companies brought together to secure a certain contract. PASSB - the acronym of PASSB stands for PCO, Acker, Stewart, Stein, Becker. So those five different companies have come together with all of their individual strengths and characteristics in order to bid on a very large contract and they won that contract, and they are companies from all different corners of the globe.

So the companies here in this Province are no different in seeking - in the fact that they should seek to create an alliance between themselves in order to take on larger projects, in order to draw on the strengths of their partners and their joint venture collaborators in these areas and build on the experience that they would gain from bringing themselves together in that kind of consortium. A consortium sounds like a big word but it's just another fancy word for bringing a bunch of companies together. Really, Mr. Speaker, it's the kind of thing that we, as a government, should support, and I know that the initiatives are in place to assist us in doing this.

The SIID agreement is an excellent agreement to assist in bringing together this kind of activity and that's, I suppose, the future for our children. I have four children who I hope will benefit sometime from this kind of initiative - from taking the effort on behalf of the children of the Province and putting together the kinds of initiatives as a government and also in providing advice to our constituents and our constituent companies in helping them go out and take advantage of what's out there in the global market. There are huge opportunities out there. If we go about gathering the information and we stay in touch with the trade commissioners who are there to serve us - as members, businesses and people of the Province - and act as facilitators to provide this information to local companies and saying, if you want to bid on this, there are a lot of contracts going on over here and this is in your area, maybe they will assist us in bringing you together with another company to be sure that you can take advantage of that kind of thing.

Now, on the budget - to look at just a general fiscal plan of government and what government has proposed to do with respect to borrowing and with respect to taxation - we have implemented a regime where we will raise some taxes somewhat. There are other areas where - it's not a pain-free budget. It's a matter of determining the least painful to society, in general, a method of raising the money necessary to continue to operate. We have decided to lower our borrowing requirements. As many people will know, we are the only government in the country that has lowered its borrowing requirement each of the last four years. That is not something to be held lightly when we look at other governments that did not take the steps necessary to put themselves in that fiscal position at this point in time. Every other government in this country is having a more difficult time with respect to its borrowing requirements because they did not take the steps that we took three to four years ago.

So we have put it on a solid footing, we have built a foundation that we can now start to get away from the increases in borrowing and start to get to a point where we can balance the budget in the next number of years and then move towards doing capital projects with actual cash dollars, as opposed to using borrowed money to perform these capital projects. That, in turn, Mr. Speaker, should allow us to get to a point where we can start paying down debt and it's a very gradual basis - we didn't get there overnight. If, in the course of the time that the debt was run up, if we can see to it that eventually - once we get on a solid footing we can then seek to bring in what we would call a balanced budget amendment to our budget. I think that's the kind of thing that is happening in Legislatures throughout North America and is the kind of thing that - we have to get to that point where we can comfortably say that a balanced budget amendment is reasonable and can be achieved because we have the footing of government on such an even keel.

Right now, with the borrowing necessity that we have and being so close to having to borrow for current expenses, I don't think it's prudent to consider that right away, but if we look at it at some point in the near future when we get to a point of having balanced current account deficits and not get into tax and spend situations where we spend frivolously as governments have in the past, from both sides of the fence, then we can put the fiscal health of government on an even keel and make sure that our children and grandchildren in the future will be able to see past the taxation dollars that they spend out of their pay cheques when they start earning money and contributing to our economy.

They would have to be able to see beyond, I guess, the provision of the necessary capital expenditures which is all that is tangible that they see. When they think of paying taxation money to supporting current account expenses such as the paying of electricity bills for public buildings, the paying of teachers and the paying of other public servants, I think really, Mr. Speaker, that is not as tangible for them to visualize as an expenditure of their taxation money and their tax dollars. Really, if we get beyond that and get to a point where every tax dollar that is raised through the purposes of borrowing is used for capital expenditure only, and then eventually get to a point where all government expenditure, including the capital expenditures, is going to be done through current revenues, then we will have achieved something in this Province. We will have set our Province on the road to fiscal health and integrity, beyond which no other province could certainly have done so, given the circumstances of our current economy.

With that, I will take my chair and allow members of the Opposition to do their opposing view to our Budget. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

I listened with interest as the Member for LaPoile talked about the government's business development initiatives. They talked about lowering taxation of the private sector, government's way of hopefully maintaining at least what was in the private sector today, with a view that it would build upon that base towards a greater and larger private sector, if I heard him correctly. Is that correct? Was that what you indicated?

MR. RAMSAY: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Pardon me?

MR. RAMSAY: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: I ask the Member for LaPoile and members opposite, what really have government's private sector initiatives been aimed at? What have they been aimed at? Have they been aimed at the small shops and corner stores around this Province? Have they been aimed at the small manufacturing places with less than five employees? No they have not. We have seen payroll tax introduced on small employers. Government recently in their Budget in an attempt to - what was a pure and simple tax grab, from licensed owners of bars and taverns and restaurants where these lottery machines are, chopped their net revenues by some 15 per cent to 20 per cent, and these are not business development initiatives. I say to the member opposite, if these are the types of business development initiatives that this government is pursuing, which, in my opinion, is all I have seen, then we are indeed on the road to failure, we are indeed on the road to less jobs and less employment in this Province.

What about back when the House first opened, I ask my colleagues in the House? One of the first Private Members' Days, I introduced a resolution here calling upon the Provincial Government and this House of Assembly to condemn the Federal Government for its actions upon decreasing the amount of U.I. coming into this Province disproportionately compared to other provinces. The Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board stood up and refuted categorically my arguments that we would only see a loss of $20 million to $25 million to this Province, not some $200 million, which I put forward and members opposite had argued.

Mr. Speaker, what have we seen this week? Coming out from the Department of Human Resources and Development we have seen - the Federal Government's own figures - $262 million being removed from this Province on an annual basis in perpetuity. That represents 11 per cent of the savings in the UI system, disproportionately the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador has borne the brunt of these changes, disproportionately.

It is also interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that this $262 million per year, I would speculate is almost equal if not equal, to the amount of money that would be coming into the new NCARP package, being announced tomorrow morning by the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and that over a five-year period Newfoundland and Labrador and the people here do not, do not I repeat, receive any net gain by the new compensation package, but what we have seen is a reduction in UI on one hand taken out of this Province, and given on the other hand, no net gain, that's what; but what was the government's response, Mr. Speaker? There was no response.

The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, the President of Treasury Board the Minister of Finance, got up and they sounded more like executive assistants and advisers to the federal government than they did as ministers, which they are, of the Province. No response whatsoever, and members in this Chamber, in the hon. House of Assembly had every opportunity to stand up and support that Private Member's resolution which called upon this House to condemn the actions of the federal government, but that did not happen. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, there was Division called on that Private Member's Day, and every member on the government side, to the individual stood up and voted against that Private Member's resolution, each and every one of them.

Now specifically, what have we seen in this Budget? I would just like to talk about a couple of issues first, and maybe the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations would be able to listen and answer some of the questions here. In his department, we have seen ten electrical inspectors laid off. Government's view is that contractors, employers can best - now this is what I find repulsive, Mr. Speaker, that employers can best inspect their own work, and the people of the Province are supposed to believe that work done by electrical contractors in this Province, that they have the right to inspect their own work? Do you think that contractors will be lining up or spending hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions, to say that their work was not done properly in the first place? Not likely, Mr. Speaker, not likely, and mark it down, what we will see as a result of this initiative, we will see public tragedy over this issue. We will see public tragedy yet the minister refused to meet with the electrical contractors.

Now there is another issue brewing as well. It deals with boiler and pressure vessel inspectors. What is the government's intention for boiler and pressure vessel inspectors, Mr. Speaker? That's a question that must, must be answered.

MR. GRIMES: What was the question again?

MR. E. BYRNE: Oh the question dealing with boiler and pressure vessel inspectors in the Province. What we have seen thus far, Mr. Speaker, is that the minister, through his advisory board or the department's advisory board, has asked the boiler and pressure vessels or power engineers to make -

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. E. BYRNE: No leave. The minister and his department and the Advisory Board have asked the boiler and pressure vessel inspectors to make recommendations to his department by May 15; a new regulation change that will take place and what will we see through that initiative, what is coming, or is emanating from the Department of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr. Speaker? The same thing that happened with electrical inspectors. Employers will be made responsible to inspect their own boiler and pressure vessel operations. Is that what will happen? I think it is going to happen. It has been indicated by the Department of Employment and Labour Relations that that's where they are heading and that's where they want to be, and what will we see as a result? By law in this Province right now, every boiler room operation has to be, Mr. Speaker, inspected each and every year.

There are ten boiler and pressure vessel inspectors in this Province, on average each one of those inspectors do 2,200 to 2,500 inspections per year; we will see that eliminated. We have seen some boiler and pressure vessel inspectors laid off already, with I suspect, a view of more to come. Mr. Speaker, the Member for La Poile, indicated that government's intentions were pursuing sound business development initiatives. He indicated that some people, some of their ideas should be heard. We shouldn't pursue some ideas or some initiatives, well I ask the Member for La Poile and the members opposite, take their own advice on what the member said.

The privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is not a sound business development initiative that should be pursued by this House. It is not a sound business development initiative that should be pursued by this government. Economically it does not make sense. It makes sense for the buyer but it does not make sense for the seller, the seller in this case being the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is that type of business development initiative that this Province is putting forward and that will see us, not adjust the course, but end up on the rocks, Mr. Speaker. We have to do something about it now. What is the government's intention? I have said time and time again that they have failed miserably in proving that this is a sound economic development initiative.

Personally, I would support the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro if these things were to occur: if it could be demonstrated that we would get lower electricity rates as a result, if it could be demonstrated that there would be more jobs created in this Province as a result of privatization, if it could be demonstrated that there would be new technology come into this Province, and new technology transfer come into this Province as a result of privatization, but this will not occur. If we were going to receive a substantial sum of money that was equal to our value and what the asset there belongs to the people of this Province, and finally, if it could be proven through an effective cost benefit analysis statement and study that this privatization initiative should take place because it was a sound business decision.

Not one of these things has occurred, Mr. Speaker, not a single solitary one has occurred and the government has failed miserably. Mr. Speaker, in this Province today we are facing some of the most challenging times from a public policy point of view, from an economic point of view, and from the type of life that we as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians wish to live, not only today, but tomorrow and for the next one to two hundred years. Tomorrow, probably the most serious and far-reaching statement on what the future of the fishery will be and the level of compensation that will be provided by the federal government will be announced by the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

Now, I am not going to speculate in terms of what will be in that package. The minister can certainly do that tomorrow for himself, but there is one thing for sure, and it has been said by the federal government and federal government representatives, the minister included, it has been said by the Premier who sits on a committee dealing with this issue, it is the Province's intention to reduce dramatically the number of people involved in the fishery from some 30,000 to some 6500 to 6700. I truly hope that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and the federal government, can articulate tomorrow for the people of this Province in a meaningful, substantial, and creative way on what will happen to the remainder of the people who will either be forced out of the fishery or who will leave voluntarily. Where will they end up, Mr. Speaker, and at what cost to the provincial economy will that group of people be? Will they end up in other positions competing for jobs now held for other people? Will they be a generation cast aside? These are the questions that I hope will be answered tomorrow by the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and the questions that must be raised.

Now, I would like to deal with the Minister of Finance on the negotiations going on between Treasury Board and the public service sector unions. While I am not about to ask questions that would jeopardize certainly government's stand, nor would the minister answer any questions that would jeopardize the collective bargaining process, are there not other examples in this country whereby provincial governments have attempted, and indeed saved, millions of dollars from the public purse without putting public sector unions, and without putting workers in this Province in such a confrontational point of view, and confrontational stand? Nowhere!

Did the minister have a chance to see what they have done in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, where there was more conciliation and more concession? Government did not sit down and open up by saying we will achieve our objectives one way or another. Provincial governments there did not do that. They opted for other concessions that were by the public sector unions who are part of the Canadian Association, or affiliate members of the public sector unions, who themselves have said that negotiations were not as confrontational.

Let me ask the minister -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: No, no, I read the article. I am not referring to the article, but some discussions that I had with other public sector union officials from other provinces. Recently they have talked about - not recently, but they talk about it all the time - but recently I spoke to them about the type of negotiations, style of negotiations, and the impact that it will have upon governmental operations and services to people, and also upon their backs - what type of impact it will have upon the people here - and some of the thoughts emanating from the discussions I had were that this Province has been more confrontational in trying to deal with public sector unions than any other province in Canada.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: No, please - okay.

MR. BAKER: Just one minute. I think the word -

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you.

I think the word `confrontational' was an improper word to use there. I don't deny that perhaps our approach in this Province has caused more turmoil, okay, and I think the reason it has caused more turmoil, if you look at what other provinces did - for instance Nova Scotia simply said: Look, here is what we are going to do. We are going to take salary away from you. They just made that decision: We are going to take salary away from you, but we are going to give you time off, okay?

If we had discussed that concept with our unions here. If we had said: We are going to take money away from you and give you time off, the roof would have fallen in. That is the most confrontational thing you could say.

In Prince Edward Island they simply announced: We are going to take 7.5 per cent out of your wages - just announced it - so that is really confrontational, but I don't think it causes the same amount of turmoil as our approach did. Our approach caused more concern and turmoil simply because we went out and laid out the position months ahead of time, and caused the discussion. I think that created a lot of turmoil, and I think the hon. member is right in that sense, that perhaps a different approach would have avoided some of the turmoil and concern that we see out there now. It may have been better had we waited until budget time and simply announced: We are going to take 3.5 per cent out of the wage package and here is how we are going to do it. It may have avoided a lot of the turmoil that we saw, so there is right and there is wrong. Who is to know what is the most right?

I think it is the turmoil idea they were getting at, more so than the confrontation - which, in turn, creates confrontation.

MR. SPEAKER: Before I recognize the hon. Member for Kilbride, I would, on behalf of hon. members, welcome to the Speaker's gallery, Mr. Janko Peric, a Member of Parliament representing the Cambridge, Ontario, area - my understanding is that there are a lot of Newfoundlanders in that particular area of Ontario - accompanied by businessman Mr. Manuel Oliveria.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

Recently in line with the line that we are on right now in terms of discussions with public sector unions, I would just like to read to the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board a letter that I received from a constituent of mine that sums up, I think, the spirit and the reality the people working for government, employees, are facing in this Province today.

It says: I am a hospital staff support worker. Since 1990 my wages have been frozen. If your government, Mr. Wells, had lived up to the agreement as signed with my union, I would now be making $2 an hour more since 1990. That means $15 a day, $75 a week, $3,900 a year. This means, for four years now, Mr. Wells, I have given you and your government $15,600 from my salary to help control the government deficit. Yet, you are still asking me for more. I have never before found myself so angry and rebellious as I do now at the demands you are making of people like me. I cannot help but feel if it's even worth getting up in the mornings. Have you ever had to struggle to make ends meet?... is the question she has asked the Premier in her letter. Let me try to tell you what it's like.

This is directly from her perspective on what she is going through: I get paid every two weeks. My cheque allows me to buy the groceries for my family, and a small amount left over covers personal necessities, not luxuries, necessities. When my husband brings home his pay he will manage to pay the light bill, phone and cable bill. By the way, we do not have First Choice. What is left over will keep us going in gas for the car, bread and milk. His other pay check for the month will pay the mortgage and the car payment. There are many pay periods, Mr. Wells, when we don't even have enough left over to treat ourselves to a movie.

The biggest most stressful thing is when we get our property tax bill from City Hall, the bill from the car insurance company or some other unforeseen expense like a radiator or a muffler finally giving out on the car. Then we are faced with payday coming and there's no extra money to cover these things, which are essential things, we then have to use our visa card which is very depressing because I know at that point we can only afford the minimum monthly payment. By the time we get one property tax bill, car insurance paid off, another one is in the mailbox. Mind you, Mr. Wells, we still have three children that we have to clothe and put through school.

The most depressing thing here, Mr. Wells, as you can see, we aren't bringing home enough money to keep up with the bills any more let alone afford any luxuries whatsoever, they are a thing of the past. So you tell me, if you were in my shoes, could understand why a government seeks to take even more money from people like me?

You know, Mr. Wells, just writing this letter and telling you about this fills me with so much anger and frustration. If all other things in this Province were frozen along with wages, i.e. light bills, phone and cable bills et cetera, then maybe a person could cope or accept what government is proposing but the fact is freezing and reducing salaries of people to the point of impoverishment is cruel and insensitive.

The bottom line is that I can't afford to give you any more money out of my check. I just can't afford it. I probably would receive more help from government if I were to quit my job and go and depend upon social assistance. I feel my work day is worth something and I have already given more then I can to help your government cope with its financial problems. I can give no more and I ask you to reconsider the demands you are making of people like me. We need and deserve fair pay for the work we do. We have not been treated fairly by you and your government for the past four years. I ask you to please stop demanding more, I have given you enough.

I think that letter sums up the anger and frustration that is characterised by the negotiations that are ongoing, and the anger and frustration that is amongst those people. Many people in my district work for the government, work as public employees. It's a heavily working district in terms of government, buildings trades construction, fishery, agriculture but the frustration that people are feeling out there today when they can't even afford small luxuries or necessities in trying to raise a family when they have two people working. I say to the minister, as he has indicated to me and said to me, where are we going to get the money? Where will government find the money? My suggestion to the minister is that there are other ways.

Ban the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. That will in fact, cost taxpayers more money. If electrical rates will improve or go up anyway as a result of privatization, why does not the government demand more from Hydro and spread it out more equitably and more fairly amongst the entire population? Why has that not been considered? But I say to the minister in all fairness or in all sincerity, what we are about to see in this Province, in terms of a strike, certainly may balance the books of the government but the personal and human toil that it may have certainly will be far more damaging, not only to his government but to the people of this Province.

It's unfortunate that the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations is not here. I'd like to deal especially with some other questions of him and his department in terms of what is this government's view, plans or strategy to deal with the exceeding numbers of unemployed youth, highly educated and unemployed youth in this Province?

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: I say to the Member for Port de Grave that nothing surprises me from the members opposite when nobody is listening. That doesn't surprise me any more but I still have the opportunity to stand up and speak.

What is this government's strategy, point of view or plan to put people, young people, unemployed young people, educated, highly educated, highly technical young people back to work or to work in this Province? I haven't seen it. It has not been articulated, it has not been put forward by this government that I have seen and if it is then, if they have one put it forward, let us discuss it, let us debate the merits of such a plan. Thousands upon thousands of young men and women in this Province today, with university education, highly technically trained from trade schools and marine institutes are applying for jobs as waiters and waitresses because it is the only thing that is available.

AN HON. MEMBER: Well they should go (inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Where should they go, the Minister of Mines and Energy said they should go out of town. Where would you send them, Minister? You have sent thousands away already through your government's policy, would you send thousands more? What is the impact, what is the economic impact, forget about the human loss and the human impact on our society, but what are the economic impacts to this Province, when young, educated Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are leaving this Province, setting up shop and life somewhere else without hope and no intention of ever returning? The economic costs are astronomical.

AN HON. MEMBER: What did he say?

MR. E. BYRNE: He said maybe they should go out of town or outside the Province; that's what the Minister of Mines and Energy said.

AN HON. MEMBER: Resettlement program.

MR. E. BYRNE: That's not the first time he has said it; he said it to a student from his district, that when he was young he had to go to the States but now he is back. Some of us may be better off if you had stayed there, Minister, with that type of attitude, I can say that to you. With that type of attitude, maybe you should line up, maybe you should be out at the airport in Gander and Deer Lake and St. John's shaking hands and saying: See you now, nice knowing you, come back if you ever get a chance; but government's policy is to create a business environment where you let business run the shop. Privatize, let business run the shop.

MR. EFFORD: And what's wrong with that, what's wrong with that?

MR. E. BYRNE: Well I say to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation that I didn't say there was necessarily anything wrong with that, but while government pursues that philosophy on the one hand, it has an obligation to pursue a philosophy on the other hand that ensures that young people, highly trained and educated have the opportunity at least, to do something meaningful and turn back something to our economy. That is not happening. Thousands -

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh be quiet boy, be quiet. When are you going to stop saying that?

AN HON. MEMBER: Another twenty-three years before that.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, as a new member in the House of Assembly and as a new, young member in the House of Assembly, I have heard this line of argument on a regular, regular, regular basis; seventeen years of Tory mismanagement. I can only say to the minister, that there were decisions made in that seventeen-year period sir, that I would never have agreed with -

MR. EFFORD: I didn't say you did.

MR. E. BYRNE: Well I never said that you said I said it but there are also - Mr. Speaker, I can tell you this, that the significant -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I can also say that I mourn the loss and the signing of the Upper Churchill contract that would have provided over $800 million a year to this Province over the last twenty-three to twenty-five years, but I intend to deal with today not yesterday -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: What about the last five years, I say to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, when you so brilliantly managed our economy, when each year the number of jobs in this Province is shrinking, each year the numbers of people who live in this Province are shrinking and each year, the number of young people leaving this Province is increasing, is that brilliant, economic management? That has nothing to do with brilliant, economic management, economic mismanagement, that's what it is, Mr. Speaker, that's what's happening and for the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation to say otherwise, he knows the difference. He knows the difference, he knows the difference.

MR. EFFORD: Brian Tobin (inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Yes, and Brian Tobin is about to give away every fish plant worker in this Province tomorrow. Mr. Speaker, what about the fisheries compensation package, how was the briefing, I say to the minister? How was the briefing that was provided, were you in agreement with it, what's happening there? Do you care to manage it or do you care to talk about it or, should we wait until tomorrow, how do you feel about it? You were pretty mum Saturday night on the television, I can tell you that. He was pretty quiet Saturday night when asked questions by Rex on CBC, pretty quiet then. Where was the brilliant crusader, here he was, I can tell you that. The fact remains, Mr. Speaker, that in the last four or five years unemployment has risen steadily, the number of people on social assistance has increased steadily, the numbers of people leaving this Province have increased steadily, the number of young people, well-educated and well-trained getting on Air Canada and Canadian Airlines leaving this Province has increased steadily, and the people over on that side have the gall to stand up and talk about how well they have managed the economy. The Premier said it right, management in decline, that is what this government is doing. They are managing decline and they are practising decline, that's what is happening, Mr. Speaker.

MR. MURPHY: You are going to have a ulcer before you're done.

MR. E. BYRNE: I'm going to have an ulcer? It doesn't run in the family, `Tom', I say to the Member for St. John's South. I apologize, Mr. Speaker, for calling the member by his first name. But ulcers do not run in my family.

Mr. Speaker, it is now fifteen or sixteen minutes to five so I would just like to conclude this part of what I have to say on the Budget. Hopefully, I will have a chance to speak again on it dealing with other departments. I would like to sit down and give someone else an opportunity to speak. Maybe the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation will get up and tell me how they managed so eloquently the economy of this Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There is one thing I like about the other side. I heard somebody this morning on the Open Line show talking about how overwhelmed they were by the great suggestions the Opposition had on a number of things, and how come when they were in government all these problems weren't resolved. I was recollecting how, when they were in government, not that long ago, by the way, it wasn't that long ago, when they had their federal counterparts up in Ottawa and they were the government, when revenues were going up instead of going down, and they had layoffs, Mr. Speaker, they were closing down hospital beds, they were shutting down services all over the Province, and they had wage freezes on the go when revenues were going up. Now, the question I have is: What they would be doing if they had to deal with what we had to deal with for the last three years with revenues going down, and we trying to control the spending and trying to get a handle on the economy? I don't know what they would do. Maybe there wouldn't be anybody working in Confederation Building, because that is the way they operated then.

AN HON. MEMBER: Five years ago today, 18 April.

MR. AYLWARD: Five years go today. That's right, the election was over.

You talk about Newfoundlanders having to leave. Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons I rose today was I wanted to speak on The Globe & Mail editorial that was in Friday's edition of the newspaper. I have to say that, to me, The Globe & Mail is no more the national newspaper of Canada, and I consider an insult to this Province what they said on Friday. I think we should all write a letter or - we are going to have to start telling mainland Canada, I suppose, that we are not down here on our knees, being humble and saying: Give us more. We are trying to deal with an economy which is reeling, in which, for the most part, as a matter of fact, we had little control over what happened.

Here we have the "national" newspaper supposedly talking about the `M' word, migration. They want us to talk about migration. They want us to think about Newfoundlanders and Labradorians going away because it is not feasible to live in this Province. I think The Globe & Mail should look again at their whole mandate and should seriously look at the number of commentaries that they've made on this Province in the last number of months. They have been Newfoundland and Labrador-bashing and I am tired of it, as one member of this House of Assembly. I am sending a letter up in the next couple of days to the editor of The Globe & Mail and I'm going to give him a few thoughts as to what I think of their bashing of this Province.

I'm sick and tired of the bashing of this Province from mainland Canada talking about Newfoundland getting money for fisheries compensation and this and that, when in Ontario we are buying cars down here because the auto pact is up protecting Ontario. There is a whole range of things in this Confederation. The reason that it exists is because we have all contributed. I think that the Toronto Globe & Mail as a supposed national newspaper, as a supposed half of a pulse of this Confederation, should smarten up and should get out of this stupidity which they are getting on with about undermining the people of this Province across Canada, when all of us here in this House of Assembly are trying to do the opposite. We are all trying to improve our lot in this Province, trying to find a better way.

We are trying to participate in the debate in Canada over the deficit, which is - the deficit in Canada - in Newfoundland and Labrador our deficit is minor compared to what the Canadian Confederation is facing. The Globe & Mail, what are they doing? They are pinning down Newfoundland and Labrador, and we are one of the provinces that have taken on the debt situation probably more seriously than anybody, and our people have suffered for it more than anybody. Because we, as a government, have decided to try to get our finances in line and we have a national newspaper still beating up on us.

I think it is outrageous and I'm going to make sure that I get my comments to the editor very quickly. I just get disgusted when I keep seeing this bashing of this Province over the last number of months. Whatever we have to do to turn it around, I think we should concentrate on doing it. Because there are a lot of good things happening, there are a lot of very positive initiatives occurring in this Province. You wouldn't know it if you read in the media - some of the media are totally negative. You wouldn't know whether or not there is a person working in the Province, or whether or not we've got rural Newfoundland totally wiped out and there is going to be nothing there.

We have small businesses starting up that are doing very well in a difficult environment, but they are doing not bad. There were some major successes. We are exporting products all over the world, small businesses people don't even realize, but you don't see the CBC, or whoever it is, on TV especially, going to cover that kind of a story. They will cover all kinds of other things, but a good news story doesn't get very far.

I think there comes a time when you look at what you are doing and you get kind of - no wonder people are kind of disappointed, or disillusioned out there, when they have to read half the time, or three quarters of the time, nothing but negatives. They turn on their TV screen and it is negative again, especially coming from one TV station that I know.

One of these days some people might wake up and say: You know, this place is not a bad place to be. I don't know about the rest of the people of this Province; I think they all want to stay here. There are lots of good reasons, too. There are a lot of great things going on around the Province, a lot of good things.

On the West Coast there are all kinds of positive things happening, even with a struggling economy, a number of positive things occurring, but you don't hear it half the time.

You can decide, I suppose, if the glass is half empty or it's half full, but we have to start - this kind of thing, there are a number of words I would like to call it, in the Globe and Mail, but this stuff has to stop. So whatever we have to do to stop it, I think we should consider, in the House of Assembly, trying to find a way to deal with it, and maybe we should have a committee of the House meet with the board of the Globe and Mail and have a chat with them and say: Listen here, folks, we are doing our part down here in this Confederation. We are doing our part. A billion dollars a year is going to Quebec from Churchill Falls. We only get $1.5 billion from transfer payments. That is not a bad trade-off, so we have been doing pretty darn good over the last number of years in subsidizing one province, so you have to look at where it's going.

So to the Globe and Mail - I will have a few words to say to them in a few days, but for the rest of us there are a lot of good things happening out there and we should start looking at the glass being half full, and should start looking at those types of positive things that are going on.

I was at a function the other day of the ACOA Enterprise Network. We had a group from Scotland over here last week, who came to Newfoundland and Labrador because they wanted to find out how to do something. They wanted to find out how to improve the rural system for their economy, how to set up a computer system, a rural computer system - information highway. They came to Newfoundland and Labrador to find that out. That is pretty positive stuff. We've got an agreement with them now to go back and forth on information. They are going to give us some new information about a couple of things that they are doing. There are some very positive things going on. You wouldn't know it half the time because there are people around here talking like: Well, the behind is out of her and that she is gone boy, she is gone. She is not gone at all, I say to the members in this House of Assembly, especially the members opposite, some of them who preach a little bit too much of doom and gloom. I would rather hear once in a while a little more positives, but anyway, there is not much you can do about that.

We, and all the members of the House, have to concentrate on talking about the very positive success stories that are out there, Mr. Speaker. A number of them are very positive and it is time that we started looking at those angles and looking at those types of things that are occurring. Other provinces in Canada right now - in Ontario they are laying them off in hospitals everywhere, they are closing hospitals, they've got teachers being laid off by the hundreds. In PEI they've just rolled back wages or the compensation package 7.5 per cent. They just announced it a few days ago. Alberta, a 20 per cent cut in their budget, they are aiming for, a total of 20 per cent cut, 20 per cent cut in education. They are one of the richest provinces in Canada. They are dealing with a deficit up there which has gotten out of hand.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. AYLWARD: Four years, yes? You have to pay for kindergarten. Up in Alberta you have to pay for kindergarten this year. I suppose they must be a have-not province, I suppose, I don't know. Maybe we are going to have to reclassify what have-not is. Every province in Canada is going through a deficit, has a deficit crisis on its hands. So everybody demands: Give us money for this and give us money for that.

Just hang her down. We are not proposing hardly any lay offs in this Budget. We are proposing trying to hold the line when we face a fisheries crisis of momentous proportions. We have to figure out what our people are going to have to go through for the next two or three or four years. Talking about young people going away, Mr. Speaker, young people, I graduated in 1982 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree when the Tories were in government in Newfoundland and Labrador. I can guarantee you, the only way that I was going to get a job is if I was a provincial Tory.

But no, I didn't go around. I went out and got a job on my own and I created a job of my own. There was a recession then, and there were lay offs then, and there was this and there was that. The only thing is, the difference was then the revenues were going up. The revenues were higher. These days our revenues have gone down and they are still going down. We are trying to find a way to turn them around.

When I hear about people going away, in this Province for thirty or forty or fifty years we've had people having to leave. It is a sad part of our life, but in Atlantic Canada, in rural Canada that happens, but we have to find a way to create more opportunities to get people back in this Province, and to keep the people here and give them incentives, to encourage them to start new businesses and to start new enterprises, and to start marketing themselves for the workplace. So we have a big job ahead of us and we need the efforts of everybody in this Province; we need the efforts of everybody in the House of Assembly. So when you are talking about all the negatives, look at the realities of what we are also having to deal with as a government.

All I say is, everybody seems to have a lot of answers, but I have to say there are a lot of people who tried, over the last fifteen or twenty years and we still have a lot of problems. The only thing is, there have been a number of improvements in a number of areas.

When I was in opposition, I used to remember getting up and if the government did a good thing then I would say it. If they did a thing, I would say: Way to go; that was pretty good because that was positive.

I say to the Opposition, be a little bit more open-minded. Be a bit credible as to the whole matter, but understand that we are dealing with a major, major crisis in this Province right now - a major crisis - and we need everybody thinking in a positive light as to where we go, and good solid debate is the way to go. Good, solid debate is very positive. A good exchange of thoughts and ideas is very positive, but this idea of what the Globe and Mail is talking about, and about well, in this Province you might as well give up, do what other Canadians have done for generations, as they say, which is an insult to this Province - an absolute insult. It is shameful. They need a talking to and a telling off, Mr. Speaker, and we in this House should try to do that over the next couple of days - three, four or five days.

We have a lot of good things going here in this Province. We are going to make it, despite some of the views of some people in this Province. We are going to make it around here. We have a lot of people starting businesses. We have a lot of people who are thinking positive, despite some other observations, and this place is going to go. We've got a bright future ahead of us. We've got a bright future for young people in this Province. We've got a bright future for everybody, if we do it collectively and we work together, but if you concentrate on the negative all the time...

When Scotland was over here last week they were totally impressed with what was happening. They were totally impressed with the way that both levels of government are trying and struggling to deal with a fisheries crisis of proportions.

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to say a few thoughts and I would like to adjourn the debate until the next day. Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the House do now adjourn. The motion on the floor has been moved and seconded. There is no debate on the motion to adjourn. The Member for Stephenville adjourned the debate and the Member for Burin - Placentia West put a motion to adjourn the House.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Does the Minister of Finance have leave?

The hon. the Minister of Finance.

MR. BAKER: I would like to remind the committee chairpersons that we are having a meeting down in my place right now, about a minute from now, to talk about committees. It will only take about ten minutes. I would like to remind all hon. members that the Private Members' motion for debate on Wednesday is the motion by the Member for Eagle River, which is the motion on the seal hunt.

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