November 19, 1998 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol. XLIII No. 44
The House met at 2:00 p.m.
MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!
Statements by Ministers
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.
MR. GRIMES: Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as a result of the rapid growth in private training institutions and the financial difficulties that were experienced by some of them, government committed last April to a complete review of the current act and regulations which have been in effect since 1988 and 1999, respectively. Subsequently, in July of this year Dr. Phil Warren was appointed to conduct an independent study of the industry and to provide a series of recommendations to government on how to improve the legislation for the benefit and further protection of the students and to provide stability for the private training institutions.
Government's objectives, as I have indicated, are to provide greater protection for the students, establish more rigorous operating control measures and to create a fair and healthy environment for the private training industry in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Dr. Warren has concluded a thorough and detailed review of private training in Newfoundland and Labrador. He has received numerous submissions from private citizens, interest groups, the industry itself, and the other political parties represented in this Legislature. Dr. Warren presented an interim report to my office on November 12, with several recommendations for legislative changes, including the following:
First, increase the bond to a minimum of $50,000 and a maximum of $150,000 from the current levels of $10,000 minimum and $75,000 maximum.
Second, provide authority to establish a train-out fund with revenues to support it derived from a percentage of student tuition to be paid by all training institutions in the private training sector.
Third, to reduce the two-year period after forfeiture of a bond, in which the minister can pay monies recovered under the bond to a judgement creditor, to a thirty-day period. The bond proceeds would then be paid directly into the train-out fund for the benefit of the students.
Fourth, establish a board to oversee the operations of the private training industry, including the administration of the train-out fund that would be established.
Fifth, to provide authority to require audited financial statements annually from the operators of private post-secondary training institutions.
Sixth, to require that schools be in continuous operation as a registered private training institution for one year and have at least one graduating class before receiving designation for student aid purposes.
Seventh, a requirement that in order to obtain approval for program registration, information must be provided with respect to a needs assessment for the program, curriculum content, program durations and graduate certification. In addition, information on tuition levels and admission standards must be provided.
Finally, a recommendation suggesting that we reduce the ninety consecutive days that must pass following the closure of a school before the licence can be revoked to a period of ten working days instead.
Over the next few weeks we intend to introduce a bill in the Legislature which will propose major changes along the lines recommended in Dr. Warren's interim report. With an industry that has grown significantly with fifty-seven resident institutions, delivering approximately 370 programs, it is absolutely essential that we create an environment to provide greater protection for students and a fair and equitable playing field for the industry itself.
This will be the first major adjustment to legislation regarding private training in Newfoundland and Labrador in a decade and we will deal with matters in a manner that reflects this government's policy, rather than continue on with legislation drafted by the previous provincial government of the late 1980s.
Government's objective is to affect changes in the current legislation for the next period of registration in January 1999.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
What a change in a minister nine short months can make. This is the same minister who nine months ago stood in this House under repeated questioning from the Opposition and said: Private training colleges and private training education is not our responsibility. It is like any other consumer good. Consumer protection is not what we are up to. It is the same as if you bought a loaf of bread or a can of milk at a convenience store. That is what this minister said with the points that he made.
Number one, where did we here it first? Right here, that is where we heard it first. Number two, about the train-out fund, where did we hear it first? Right here on this side of the House. Number four, where did we hear that recommendation first? Again, right here on this side of the House. Number seven, where did we hear that recommendation? Right here.
This is the same minister who stood in his place last year and blamed the Member for Baie Verte because of his disparaging comments about a private training college. This minister today in his statement, Mr. Speaker, is admitting that it is the minister's own lack of action with respect to private training colleges and post-secondary education generally that has caused the necessity of Dr. Phil Warren's report. We will hear more about it in Question period, I say to the minister.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, does he have leave?
AN HON. MEMBER: By leave!
MR. SPEAKER: By leave.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It is very obvious from Dr. Warren's interim report that the regulations governing private training institutions are grossly inadequate. It is pretty obvious, from what has happened in the last year or so, that they indeed were.
These recommendations might make things a little bit better for students who go to private training institutions, but the fundamental problem in post-secondary education in this Province is the lack of funding by this government for the public college system.
AN HON. MEMBER: And the lack of commitment.
MR. HARRIS: And the lack of commitment by this government to public post-secondary education.
I have a little concern about the minister's - even in the minister's response, even in his Ministerial Statement today, he misreads one of the recommendations which says that you should be open for two consecutive years before you qualify for student aid. That is what Dr. Warren recommends. The minister has already turned that into one year. We know that the government dropped the regulation a year or so ago to suit some individuals.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member's time is up.
MR. HARRIS: I have a concern about this government's commitment to post-secondary education for students of this Province.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise before the House today to mark the official opening of the Transshipment Terminal at Whiffen Head.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. FUREY: This facility represents a significant -
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, this facility represents a significant component of the Province's petroleum industry and is yet another example of the world-class infrastructure available here in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Transshipment Terminal will benefit both industry and the Province. Oil companies now have a facility which will allow for more efficient transportation of our oil resources to market and will provide greater flexibility in the marketing of that oil. That flexibility will maximize the profitability and competitiveness of our industry.
Newfoundland and Labrador has seen considerable direct benefits from this facility, with more than 60 per cent of the $200 million site construction costs spent right here in the Province, and 30 per cent spent in the rest of Canada. Many local companies were contracted to work on this facility, proving yet again that we are building a knowledgeable and qualified oil and gas service industry right here in the Province.
During the construction phase, over 1.5 million person hours of employment occurred, with 93 per cent of that occurring right here in the Province. At peak construction, approximately 720 people were employed.
The benefits of the Transshipment Terminal should not be underestimated. It will strengthen the local economy, provide employment opportunities, and create spinoff benefits.
Newfoundland Transshipment Limited has created some forty-seven direct full-time jobs, and fifteen to twenty part-time jobs at the facility, on the tugboats and in their St. John's office, exceeding their original estimate.
Our oil and gas industry is growing. Just two days ago we marked the one-year anniversary of first oil at Hibernia, but there is much more to come with Terra Nova progressing and other projects such as White Rose and Hebron on the horizon. The Transshipment Terminal is a stepping stone in the development of Newfoundland and Labrador as a major player in the world of oil and gas. The wealth of our resources, combined with our trained workforce, competitive fiscal and regulatory regimes and state of art infrastructure, are all combining to make that a reality. On behalf of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and the people of this Province, I offer congratulations to everyone involved on a job well done at the Newfoundland Transshipment Terminal.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East.
MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
This is an important announcement. This facility is obviously an important facility, and the official opening is obviously an important day. When we see statistics, for example, showing 60 per cent of the $200 million site construction costs being spend here in this Province, this too is positive. However, we have to keep in mind that there was great hype in the 1970s, great hype in the 1980s, and to some extend great hype and great hope continues in the 1990s.
The oil industry, the offshore industry, is an industry that many people in this Province are looking forward to, to be a significant - a huge economic force, a huge economic engine, and I think we are still waiting to see that economic force becoming a reality.
I would ask government to be constantly vigilant in ensuring that this particular industry in our Province reaches its potential.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi, does he have leave?
AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.
MR. SPEAKER: By leave.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My, how we have scaled down our vision. My, how we have scaled down our expectations. I remember when the Come By Chance oil refinery was built just next door to this Transshipment facility, and the Premier of the day was talking about a great petrochemical industry that was going to be developed around Come By Chance. If he were here today to see the oil on our doorstep being brought ashore, put in a sophisticated tank farm and then shipped off again without any further processing, he would be mightily upset, I say. He would be mightily upset at the lack of vision that we have, and the lack of ability we seem to have to ensure that these resources are further processed on our doorstep.
It is nice to see this facility here, but that should be the beginning and not the extent of our vision and our expectations.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform members of this House of the substantial progress that has been made by government and the Regional Economic Development Boards in moving the economic agenda forward in the twenty economic zones of the Province.
Members will be aware that the centrepiece of this government's approach to regional economic development is to engage key community stakeholders in the twenty economic zones under the leadership and coordination of the Regional Economic Development Boards, otherwise know as REDBs. Communities themselves have been empowered, in partnership with government, to identify the most effective ways of developing their economies on a business oriented basis. Previous efforts tended to be centrally driven, were largely uncoordinated at the regional level, and were ad hoc in nature. These approaches did not work.
This government is interested in approaches that will result in permanent long-term solutions to our economic challenges - solutions that also actively involve its citizens - not solutions that are band-aid and short-term in nature.
I am pleased to inform the House that eighteen of the twenty Regional Economic Development Boards have completed strategic economic plans for their zones, based on consultation with key stakeholders in their areas. The boards are now focused on implementing those plans to diversify and strengthen their economies and create new sustainable job opportunities and growth in their regions. Many members of this House have been directly engaged with the REDBs in this process. This is important work for all members and I encourage them to continue to support and be active with the REDBs in advancing the economic growth agendas in each and every one of those zones.
The Regional Economic Development Boards have been aggressive in identifying initiatives that offer the greatest opportunity to improve the economy of their zones. Government has committed to work with each board to ensure that the available resources of both orders of government are harnessed to advance these initiatives in the most expedient manner feasible. The Cabinet Committee on Rural Revitalization met with the boards in their own zones last year to review their strategic economic plans, and just last week the Cabinet Committee commenced another Province-wide set of meetings with each board to take stock of progress made to date and to advance priority economic initiatives as fast as we can. The overall progress made by the REDBs has been impressive.
We have made substantial gains in the past two years and there are encouraging signs that our efforts are starting to yield real dividends. While the unemployment rate remains at an unacceptably high level, and out-migration regrettably continues, there are 10,700 more people working today than there were a year ago. Employment levels have increased every month since August of 1997, except for a brief dip in August of this year that was caused by the distorting effect of an earlier crab season than normal. As a result of the efforts put forward by the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, it got off to a wonderful start this year. The growth in employment in the first ten months of this year alone has translated into a 1.3 point decline in the unemployment rate, the fourth best improvement among all provinces. These improvements are not restricted to the St. John's area as some would like us to believe. The economy is clearly moving in the right direction.
Mr. Speaker, in 1992 some 40,000 people and over 300 communities in this Province lost their whole economic structural base. For a less resilient people that would have meant the end of our communities and culture.
Today I believe we are on the road to recovery. Notwithstanding this positive trend, I say to the Member for Bonavista South, much hard work lies ahead in rebuilding and restructuring the economy of our Province, especially in rural areas. It would be unfair and unrealistic to expect that the Regional Economic Development Boards or anybody else can solve all the economic and employment challenges confronting the Province in the short term. Substantial progress has, nonetheless, been achieved over a relatively short period. There is a growing sense of optimism and confidence throughout the Province. The building blocks are now solidly in place and the Regional Economic Development Boards are playing a critically important role in this process.
In closing, I would like to acknowledge the dedication and energy that the hundreds of volunteers who serve on the twenty Regional Economic Development Boards have brought to the process thus far. I encourage them to maintain the momentum generated to date and never lose faith in their ability to make a difference. It is all too easy to be critical of new approaches and to call for a return to old ways and quick fixes when confronted with difficult circumstances. This is not the answer in today's world. We need to forge ahead in a positive and progressive manner - one step at a time - and do so by working together at the community level to rebuild the economy in all parts of this Province.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.
MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to respond to the minister's statement. I just got it a couple of minutes before the House opened.
There is no doubt that, first of all, we can commend the many volunteers who take part at a local level in these boards. Of course, concerning the whole concept and idea of REDB boards at a local level and putting things in place and getting those people involved so there is work from the grassroots, there is no problem with that. That is a concept I think anybody in Newfoundland and Labrador would agree to. Like it is said over and over, that no matter if you have the best plan in the world, unless you can execute that plan it is not worth the paper it is written on.
Yes, there are positive things, there is no doubt about it. I deal as a member, and so do many people in this House of Assembly, day after day, with people with small businesses, two to five people in a business, who are starting up and moving in the right direction, I say to the minister. I have no problem with that. Those things are happening. They are for real and they are happening.
The real question is: Are they happening fast enough? The bottom line, the real tell-tale sign of this whole process, is jobs. You can cut it any way you want to, but what people in Newfoundland and Labrador are looking for is jobs. The people who are leaving this Province, the amount of unemployment in this Province, are the real things that are happening today and they have to be addressed. People cannot wait.
As I know, the Speaker himself with the many rural communities in his district, some thirty-three in my own district, Bonavista South with some forty-four communities - and I go to all these communities, and I am sure as do the rest of the rural members - as you go into these small communities they are not asking me: How is the strategic plan going? Is the strategic plan going to get me a job today? People in rural Newfoundland and Labrador over the next days and weeks are looking for answers.
I agree with the minister when he talks about band-aid solutions. Right now in all these communities, what are we hearing every day? My phone calls are about projects that are starting up, the farm projects. Now they are looking for other projects. No, they are not solutions, but the reality is - and the minister and the Premier know this - that they have to eat. They have to be able to turn on their electricity. That is where it is at these days. I get calls, and I know every member here and over there does too, from people saying they cannot pay their phone bill or their light bill because they are out of unemployment, they are out of work. They do not want to go to social services, a lot of these people. They are proud Newfoundlanders out of work.
What I am saying to the minister is that we have to catch up with reality. We can say that these strategic plans are fine, and we can gloss them up as much as we can, but the bottom line is this: at the end of the day they have to be laid on the table now. If a job comes from that, well, it is working. Mr. Speaker, the time is critical in this Province. Over the next year to eighteen months people in this Province, when the FRAM and when the make-work projects are over, we are going to have to come back to reality again.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member's time is up.
MR. SHELLEY: That is when we are going to have to see if jobs will be the bottom line to this.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'anse au Clair, does she have leave?
AN HON. MEMBER: By leave!
SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
I ask the hon. minister to take his seat. I believe the hon. Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair is asking for leave to respond to the statement by the hon. Government House Leader.
MS JONES: Yes I am, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: By leave.
MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I wanted to comment on the statement made by the hon. Minister of Development and Rural Renewal. I am pleased to see that progress is being made by the Economic Development Boards in their strategic planning level. I also want to add that we have had two years now of planning and I think those plans have been laid, the ground work for that has been laid, and it is time to move on.
People in their communities are identifying opportunities and initiatives for long-term development. They are looking at ways in which their communities can survive and build. I think now government has a responsibility to start investing in what they are proposing. To start putting money back in to help them revive these ideas and these initiatives.
In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, they also have a responsibility to direct where federal government funds are going. We all know right now, or I know as a member who represents communities in rural areas of the Province, that the mandate of the federal government's funding initiatives is not being invested where it ought to be, to build in rural areas of Canada. That means we have to make changes in ACOA's programs, in HRD's programs. We have to change the focus -
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member's time is up.
MS JONES: - to where these dollars are going.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.
MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The statement that I made earlier was so enthusiastically supported by the Opposition parties that I would like to give it again. In fact, I would like to table a copy of Dr. Warren's interim report so it can be distributed for members of the Legislature.
Oral Questions
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
With the tabling of Dr. Warren's report today, having a copy of it for about an hour before the House opened and reviewing it, it can only be described as a complete condemnation of government's lack of action to protect either students, the consumer, or the industry, those private training colleges that have a sterling reputation and are delivering sound programs. On page 19 the report says: "If implemented, these changes result in, essentially, a new Act and new regulations, with a different philosophy and orientation."
My question for the minister is: Along with his new-found hair cut, will he adopt this new-found orientation and philosophy governing private training colleges in this Province?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the references and comparisons to Preston Manning and so on. It is greatly appreciated. Actually, it shows the Leader of the Opposition not paying much attention. It is not a new hair cut I have, it is brand new hair. I can give you a few references later on (inaudible).
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. GRIMES: In effect, Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the Leader of the Opposition raised that particular point, because it does talk about essentially a brand new act and a whole new philosophy and approach. Because if he would read the last paragraph of my statement, I indicated quite clearly that the legislation we are currently operating under was enacted in Newfoundland and Labrador in 1988, when there was a Progressive Conservative Administration led by Premier Brian Peckford.
I believe a current MP in Ottawa by the name of Mr. Bill Matthews was the minister of education and training, or post-secondary education, at the time. What is in the act now, because it has not reviewed in this Legislature in that ten-year period, reflects the philosophy, approach and the planning that was put into it by a previous administration. We welcome this review, we welcome the opportunity to make some changes, Mr. Speaker, so that we can put a stamp of this government's policy and approach on the legislation.
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: The minister is right. The difference in his hair and my hair is that mine is real, his is not. At least the appearance, I say to the Minister of Education.
This is a serious report that requires a level of debate that should have taken place some time ago, but I am pleased today to have the minister stand and acknowledge that there are serious problems, and there have been with the industry. I am pleased to have him stand in his place today and put forward a report with some concrete recommendations that will enhance the industry for both students, the consumer, and also for those institutions that will remain to carry on and deliver high quality training for all the people of the Province.
I would like to ask the minister this. In talking with Dr. Warren just after the press conference, I asked him this question.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) ready.
MR. E. BYRNE: It is coming.
I asked him, in terms of the report, for it to work - for the vision of what you see to work in terms of the recommendations that you have laid before government - will it not require that all of the recommendations that he has put forward, from A to Z, will be implemented?
The question I have for the minister - obviously, you have had it for a week now - have you made a commitment, or have you looked at implementing all of the report? Because in your statement you say you will propose major changes along the lines of what Dr. Warren recommends, which indicates you will not adopt the entire framework approach that he has suggested. The question is: Are you going to adopt the recommendations as put forward in its total form by Dr. Warren?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.
MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
At the press conference about an hour ago, when we were releasing the report publicly and having some public discussion of it, it was indicated quite clearly that we will provide a very brief opportunity now for the directly impacted stakeholders - those who run private training institutions in the Province today under the current legislation, as well as student representatives and others - now that they have an opportunity to present to Dr. Warren, now that they have had an opportunity to see what he has recommended, for at least the government to be prudent and to spend a week or ten days - because that is all the time we would have - to ask them if they agree that these recommendations are headed in the right direction.
Government has not concluded, because we have looked at Dr. Warren's report in a week and have not asked anybody else what they think about it; that because he made these recommendations, having heard what he did over a couple of months period of study, that we would holus-bolus commit to doing everything that is recommended without checking with the people who are most directly impacted...
After another week or so of review, and an opportunity to do that checking, government will finalize its position. I guess generally what we are trying to indicate today is that, unless there are good public policy reasons why we should differ with any of the recommendations suggested by Dr. Warren that are brought to our attention in that period of time, we intend to concur with the trust of his report and his recommendations. If we don't, we will spell out the reasons here in this Legislature as to why there is a difference of opinion on one or more, if that happens.
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
You have indicated that you are going to look for some briefings and take a different approach in terms of looking for advice. I would like to ask the minister if he could enlighten us just on two of the recommendations which I think are outside of everything else; two recommendations specifically that have been talked about in this House.
In your statement and in the report there is a distinction with respect to a private training school which will get designation for student aid purposes. In your statement you referred to one year; on page 19 of the report it refers to Dr. Warren's recommendation of two years. Obviously, there has been a mistake. I wonder if you could clarify that and indicate: should your report say two years, or Dr. Warren's report say one year? What is the recommendation with respect to student aid designation?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.
MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That is one of the issues, actually, that we would like to discuss with the industry further. There is no mistake in either of the documents. Dr. Warren's report did recommend that there be a two-year period of successful operation before designation for student aid be conferred to a private training institution. The release that I provided today in the Ministerial Statement indicates that we would look at one year. We will discuss that with the private training sector and the industry.
The other thing that is occurring, that Dr. Warren was not fully aware off when he was doing his review because it was not his mandate, is that we have entered into harmonization discussions with the federal government with respect to the rules that surround student aid.
He was not mandated to review student aid in any way, shape or form. He made the recommendation because that suggestion came forward many times in his discussions. We will have to check with the industry and our federal counterparts as to whether or not a one-year period or two-year period is most appropriate.
In the discussions with the federal government in terms of harmonizing the Canada Student Loan with the Newfoundland Student Loan, all of those talks are going into the direction of a one-year waiting period, and we are leaning towards harmonization, unless there is some good reason why we should have an exceptional second year here in Newfoundland and Labrador when it would not apply anywhere else in the country.
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.
MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, obviously the minister has looked at the report and has made some initial changes - this being one of them - and he has enlightened the House, and through the House the people of the Province.
On pages 14 and 15 of the report it talks about monitoring, and indicated that while the department has in recent months, due to, I guess, the situation and the crisis to some extent, or controversy that has occurred - I would like to ask him the question: Does he support what Dr. Phil Warren has indicated here with respect to monitoring, that there is a need for more monitoring, that there is a need for private institution personnel to have more support and a strategic plan for quality improvement?
After all, it is in prevention and monitoring, if there are problems that are going to occur, that we can nip them in the bud, so to speak, so that the situation does not get out of hand as it did get out of hand in the last nine months. I ask the minister: Does he concur with the request for monitoring? Has he made any decisions in terms of beefing up monitoring of the system as recommended by Dr. Warren?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education.
MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Actually, even prior to announcing in April of this year, last spring, that we would conduct this review and so on, we did announce that we would increase the monitoring capability of the Department of Education. In the middle of the summer, even before Dr. Warren commenced his study, we actually hired an additional couple of monitors; one to be centred in Central Newfoundland and one to be centred on the West Coast. They have been doing and performing their duties for their first time during this academic semester. I expect that is an indication that the government is already committed to some increased level of monitoring with respect to the system.
The important point not to be missed in all of this is that we have a study done, we have an interim report submitted, and the intent of the government clearly is, after another very short period of checking back with the direct stakeholders on a very quick basis in the next week or so, our intention - hopefully again with the support of the opposition parties - is to bring legislation forward in this House to make these changes before Christmas and before we leave before the Christmas break.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's West.
MS S. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for Minister of Health and Community Services.
Two years ago, the Select Committee of the House of Assembly, the Select Committee on Children's Interests, recommended that this government establish a child advocate whose sole responsible would be to look out for the best interests of children who find themselves at the mercy of the system.
I would like to ask the minister today if tomorrow, on National Child Day, will she please announce the government's intention to establish a child advocate so children in trouble can count on their very own officer in that House of Assembly that our own Select Committee said they so badly need.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Since the Select Committee on Children's Interests released this report, this government has undertaken a number of initiatives. As the member across the way has read the Order Paper, I am sure she sees that there is an act respecting a new piece of child welfare legislation which will address children, youths, and families, and that will be discussed in full detail at that time.
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for St. John's West.
MS S. OSBORNE: This member is aware that there will be a child welfare act, and I am asking the minister again: In this act, will we provide for a child advocate?
Back in June, in some correspondence to my colleague, the minister mentioned that she is working with other government departments, agencies and community groups, to continuously improve our response to child abuse and child neglect. Are you saying that without a child advocate - are you satisfied with the status quo? Is the minister satisfied with the child abuse rates, the casualty rate at the hands of our system? Are you saying that is acceptable, that the Select Committee in your caucus and in our caucus is wrong, and that the governments of six other provinces are wrong because they have a child advocate?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
What I am hearing from the member opposite is probably something that she had released earlier this morning in their platform on children's interests which is, from what I can gather, right out of page 135 of the Select Committee on Children's Interests book - word for word, the three main suggestions.
Mr. Speaker, I have to say this government has done quite a bit since then. I mean, you can look it up. There it is, the three topics in their platform right out of page 135, in full content. The other very interesting thing was that there is also a statement that they would implement a child day care policy for children under two. I ask: Where have you been? We have announced that last fall in legislation.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, since this report has been released this government has undertaken so many initiatives for children, and the list goes on. We have integrated services, we have coordinated services, we have increased social assistance rates for families, we have introduced a Provincial Housing Repair Program, we have introduced our Strategic Social Plan. We will be adding $10 million to our National Child Benefit, not to mention the provincial nutrition fund.
Mr. Speaker, we are very concerned about children. We have taken on a very strong, clear children's agenda. I would happy to review it with you at any time.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for St. John's West.
MS S. OSBORNE: This member is aware of the initiatives that you have started. No where in those initiatives did I see a child advocate. I am pleased to say that this party is implementing and will implement the recommendations of this House. Because we won't leave reports on desks and on shelves while they get dusty.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).
MS S. OSBORNE: We will be on the right side of the House and we will implement those issues.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
MS S. OSBORNE: We won't let this report and other reports go the way of the Inkpen report.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member is on a supplementary. I ask her to get to her question.
MS S. OSBORNE: I ask the minister: Are you saying you are satisfied without a child advocate? Are you satisfied with the stasis quo? A child advocate as has been recommended in this report will address the needs of the children without them having to go through all the other government departments and government agencies. Just answer the question. Are you satisfied and will you be satisfied without a child advocate to advocate on behalf of the children?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would encourage the member opposite to go through this report and to actually identify the number of recommendations that have been met, not only since the report but over the last eight months since we have introduced our last Budget.
Secondly, I want to say: Were we pleased with the status quo? We certainly were not. What did we do two and a half years ago, when I has as the then-Minister of Social Services went up and got my orientation from the then deputy minister of Social Services, who came to me and said: If there is one area in which I've failed it is in the area of child welfare.
So no, we were not pleased with it and we immediately started a review. We have been following reports, we have not stopped implementing initiatives for children in this Province. We are proud of our record. For the first time in fifty years, Mr. Speaker, we will be introducing new legislation on child youth and family services which we are quite proud of.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's South.
MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My questions are for the Premier regarding the Canadian Blood Bank. Can the Premier tell the people of the Province, the taxpayers of this Province, the total dollar value of investment, either financially or otherwise, by this Province in the Canadian Blood Bank or any of its affiliated companies?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. gentleman for his question because I want to clarify some of the reports that have been actually appearing in the news media in regards to the Province's security.
The truth of the matter is that this Province invested $500,000, or gave the company $500,000 in an investment. The truth of the matter is that the Province is fully secure as far as we can understand at this point. Let me say to you that contrary to the reports that are appearing, that investment is not in the form of Blood Bank equipment. It is in the form of real estate.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for St. John's South.
MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The minister has just stated, as the Premier has stated publicly, that the Province's investment in the Canadian Blood Bank is secure through liens on equipment and buildings. Will the Premier tell the people of this Province and the House of Assembly the total dollar value of all securities or liens by government against the Canadian Blood Bank or its affiliated companies? Will the Premier give a full disclosure to the taxpayers of this Province, a listing of all equipment or buildings that the government currently holds securities or liens against on the Canadian Blood Bank or its affiliated companies?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. TULK: Let me repeat for the hon. gentleman, just in case he did not hear my first answer. Our security is not in the form of equipment, Blood Bank equipment or any other kind of equipment. Our security is in the form of real estate and we are told by our officials that that is secure. Let me say to the hon. gentleman that it is my understanding that the building - and it is a building, it is the building that the Blood Bank is in - and I regret having to get into this, and the hon. gentleman should understand why.
The truth of the matter is that the appraised value of that piece of real estate is worth $1.2 million. We have first call on a first mortgage of $300,000, the Bank of Nova Scotia has second call on another mortgage of I think it is $300,000 - I will get the figures exactly for him -, and we have a third mortgage of another $200,000. So that is our security. No equipment, it is a building.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for St. John's South.
MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Province's Registry shows that the Province has a $200,000 debenture against Futurac, the former name of the Canadian Blood Bank. The Province's Registry also shows that the Province has absolutely no liens against the Canadian Blood Bank. Other than the $200,000 security that the Province holds against Futurac, will the Premier table in this House any and all other liens so that we can see them, so that we give full disclosure and accountability to the taxpayers of this Province, table any securities or liens that the Province holds over and above this $200,000 that the Registry is showing?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. TULK: I don't know what else I can tell the hon. gentleman. Mr. Speaker, let me say to the hon. gentleman opposite that the best form of tabling in this House is for a minister to stand and be recorded in Hansard. I've just told the hon. gentleman that we are told by our officials that we are fully secure. The building is valued at $1.2 million. We have first mortgage for $300,000 and the Bank of Nova Scotia has second mortgage for I think it is $300,000. I will get the exact figure on that one. I know that we have a third mortgage for $200,000. Mr. Speaker, that adds up to $800,000. The building is appraised at $1.2 million.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) going to make some money.
MR. TULK: You never know, but if you get into this kind of argument, and if you get the arguments that you see in The Express today that we are into equipment - and The Express went so far as to say: You are not going to recover it. Mr. Speaker, the truth of the matter is, as I say to the hon. gentleman again, there is no equipment. Let me be very clear to him. By the way, if he is talking about $250,000 we gave them in 1994 when they made their first public offering, we recovered that full amount of $250,000.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.
MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My question is to the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods. Earlier I asked the minister questions regarding government funding and government accountability for $23 million of taxpayers' money directed to Integrated Poultry Limited. While we support each and every job at this facility and hope the private company is a success, $23 million of taxpayers' money must be spent wisely and every dollar accounted for.
Minister, to secure this deal your government agreed to pay IPL $4.5 million to help defray operating losses for one year. I ask the minister if this $4.5 million has been paid and, if so, what additional operating loses have been incurred by Integrated Poultry Limited for the first year of business?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.
MR. K. AYLWARD: The Opposition is saying that they support a company, that they support the jobs, yet they are trying to really create an undercurrent of lack of confidence in the company. They continue to do it.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. K. AYLWARD: Not in my words, but in the words of two of the owners, two of the farmers who are in the company, one has said publicly on the airwaves that he is very concerned about the response from the Opposition and the tact they have taken on this issue. Those are not my words, they are their words. They have put in first and foremost -
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. K. AYLWARD: The Opposition was the party that created Sprung, not us. They were the party. We are trying to get this company to go forward. We have required them to spend $4 million up front of their own money. They have a large stake in this operation. They are now a private company. We have secured, against $11 million in loan guarantees, $22 million worth of assets; over 200 per cent versus 100 per cent.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Bonavista South.
MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I say to the minister that he will never shame me out of standing in this House and asking questions about taxpayers' dollars. Twenty-three million dollars of taxpayers' money is into this particular industry and we have every right to ask questions.
Minister, your government also agreed to provide $4 million of taxpayers' money to IPL for capital infrastructure. I ask the minister if the total of this money has been provided. If so, has this company approached the government for additional funding for capital expenses?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.
MR. K. AYLWARD: Yes, this private company has expended some of the capital outlay that we have provided to them. We have $22 million in assets held in security to the government guarantee debt of $11 million. That is a good deal in anybody's book, I would say, $22 million in assets compared to the $11 million liability that we have for the government guaranteed loan.
We provided a grant for operations for the first year. This is a company that started in 1963 by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. It has lost untold millions and millions of dollars. I am not sure what the Opposition would have us do. If we had kept it and we had another liability this year of $8 million of taxpayers' money every year for the next number of years, they would be saying: When is the government going to sell the company? When are they going to privatize it?
We have done that. We are working with the company, and despite the attempts of the Opposition we are going to try to make it work.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Bonavista South.
MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the minister comes up with the figure of $11 million. There is $23 million of taxpayers' money into this particular industry; $23 million, I say to the minister.
Minister, your government also agreed to provide Integrated Poultry Limited with a $10 million capital loss guarantee arranged through the Bank of Nova Scotia. Has the company approached government again since that loan guarantee was granted for a loan guarantee increase?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.
MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, we outlined this months ago when we released the information; we will do it again: $11 million of guaranteed debt is what is down there now. We provided a grant of $8.5 million. When he adds it all up, it is $22 million dollars. We have security of up to $22 million on all of the facilities and all the quotas, and they are a valuable commodity to have.
The farmers themselves have put in $4 million of their own money. They were required to put it in first, every cent. They are the ones who are going to make it work, not the government. They are the stakeholders of the chicken community in this Province. They are trying to make it work.
No matter what undermining you want to do to compare this policy to the old Sprung policy or the old P.C. government, it is (inaudible).
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Bonavista South.
MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, I understand as well that government assumed the assets left at Integrated Poultry Limited for collateral. I ask the minister if his department has been approached by Integrated Poultry Limited for government to release those assets so they may use them as collateral in order to obtain extra funding?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.
MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I am going to get a copy of this Hansard and I am going to send it down to the employees of IPL.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. K. AYLWARD: The Opposition critic wants us to negotiate in public, a private company's finances. I cannot believe it. I just cannot believe it. One day they are for business, they are supporting all the jobs - oh yes, we want all the jobs down there to stay there but we want to undermine everything that is going on. We want to make sure their creditors do not become too insecure now. This is going to help create security, these types of questions - totally irresponsible. As the chairman of the company said: The Opposition is irresponsible.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. the Member for Bonavista South, time for one quick question.
MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, a quick question.
When the minister makes his trip to the Queen's Printer, instead of ordering 400 copies, order 560,000 copies to send it to every taxpayer in this Province.
PREMIER TOBIN: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
On a point of order, the hon. the Premier.
PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the people of the Province need to understand that we are talking about -
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. the Premier.
PREMIER TOBIN: Any minister may rise, Mr. Speaker. The people of the Province need to understand that we are talking about an operation that was in public hands since the 1960s and which has lost money consistently, lost tens of millions, lost $29 million in the last four years of operation, and where private citizens have put millions of their own money - and for some of them every cent they had - into privatizing it and making it work. Where the member opposite is now attempting deliberately to undermine that operation and to put the private investment at risk and to put hundreds of jobs at risk, I say to him: Take a more responsible approach to the House of Assembly!
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The time for Oral Questions has elapsed.
MR. FITZGERALD: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the hon. the Member for Bonavista South.
MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, to revert to what the Premier was saying, the Premier was trying to mislead the people of this Province whereby he accused the Opposition of trying to do away with jobs and do away with a private industry.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
MR. FITZGERALD: What we are doing here is holding government accountable for $23 million of taxpayers' money that was spent here in this Province!
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
I ask the hon. member to take his seat. There is no point of order.
PREMIER TOBIN: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the hon. the Premier.
PREMIER TOBIN: As the Speaker has said, there is no point of order. The member knows he is deliberately putting jobs at risk, deliberately undermining Newfoundlanders and Labradorians working, and the member ought to apologize! I call upon him to do so.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
There is no point of order.
Petitions
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.
MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise to present a petition. I am sorry I failed to pass it to the Clerk before I stood to present it, but I think it is acceptable. I will read the prayer and if it is not then I will sit down. The petition is to the House of Assembly:
To the hon. House of Assembly of Newfoundland in legislative session convened, the petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland;
WHEREAS the road on the Bonavista Peninsula from Route 235 through the communities of Open Hall, Red Cliff and Tickle Cove is in such a deplorable condition that it damages vehicles and creates great discomfort and safety concerns for children on school buses; and
WHEREAS this road has not been upgraded since it was first paved more than twenty years ago despite serious deterioration;
WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to upgrade where necessary and repave the seven kilometres of road leading from Route 235 through Open Hall, Red Cliff, and Tickle Cove;
And as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.
Mr. Speaker, here is a petition signed by in excess of 200 residents. In fact, there are not 200 residents in those three communities, I say to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, but if you look through the petition you will see it signed by many of the people who travel there in order to support the couple of businesses there, and two fish buyers who are in this particular location.
Mr. Speaker, the wholesale trucks that go out there to support and provide the necessary supplies to the stores there have threatened in the past not to make the route out in this particular area, because of the condition of the road. It was only a year or so ago that the school bus driver himself threatened to leave his bus parked because of the condition of the road.
Going around one particular area there, where there is a pond - it is called Shallow Cliff Pond - there was a boulder in the road for about two years. In the wintertime it would heave up. If you were driving a small car, and if you did not know that particular boulder was there, you would certainly bottom out your car, and it would certainly cause great damage to your car and maybe even the loss of life if an accident occurred.
Since that time the Department of Works, Services and Transportation has removed that boulder, but the road is in such a dilapidated condition that the whole thing needs now to be recapped or repaved without being patched. I think the Department of Works, Services, and Transportation has probably gotten to the point now where they are patching patches.
Those people are not asking for the curves to be cut down; they are not asking for the hills to be cut down. All they are asking for is to do a little bit of ditching out through there and to recap the road.
I know we are in hard times, and I know the government does not have a lot of money, but if we can only make a start on some of those roads then maybe we would see an end to it.
I know that the minister, if he decided to give the superintendent of his department in that particular area a call, Mr. Goodman, that he would inform him as well that what I am putting forward here in the House today is correct information. It is probably one of the worst pieces of road leading to a community.
There are probably some roads in just as bad a condition through some communities, but this particular section of road, this seven kilometres of road through the communities of Tickle Cove, Red Cliff, and Open Hall is certainly, I would say, probably the worst road on the Bonavista Peninsula. It has been in excess of twenty years since any amount of work has been done on this road, except for patches and adding on the sides of the road when it deteriorated to such an extent that it broke away.
School children travel over this road on a daily basis. People have to us this road - seniors - in order to get to hospitals and other government facilities. The residents in this area use the road on a daily basis. They pay the same price for automobile insurance; they pay the same taxes on gasoline; they pay the same price to buy their licences for their vehicles and for their own driver's licence. I think they should expect nothing less than to have their road upgraded and repaved.
It is something that I support. I support their efforts in putting forward this petition. Somebody said here today, or a couple of days ago, that a petition that was read here in the House was done through anger and frustration. Well, I can tell you that this particular petition was done though concern and frustration; concern about the road leading to their communities, and the frustration of not being able to have any amount of upgrading or repaving done over the number of years that they have been searching and asking that this be done.
I ask the minister if he would consider this request, and if he could see fit to put some money there this year to have that particular road upgraded and recapped. It would certainly be appreciated and would serve the residents in that area quite well.
MR. SPEAKER (Snow): The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.
MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise in my place to support the petition presented by the Member for Bonavista South on behalf of the people of Open Hall, Tickle Cove and Red Cliff. They have a very simple request to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation: that they be treated just as well as any other person in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
These people pay taxes just as the constituents of the Member for Port de Grave or the Member for St. John's North, the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, and they deserve to have decent roads to travel over.
The Member for Bonavista South mentioned that the bus driver was talking about parking his bus because the road was in such poor condition. That is not suitable for any man - or I would say for any animal - to travel over roads in that bad a condition.
In my own district, we have had some work done after constant work on my behalf to the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation.
MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: The Minister of Fisheries is making some comments and trying to turn this into a joke, but it is no joke. The Minister of Fisheries, who is the Member for Port de Grave, when he was the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, paved every road, I think, in the District of Port de Grave, paved every driveway I wouldn't doubt, and he is over there saying yes to what I am saying. He is openly admitting that he paved every driveway in the District of Port de Grave. He is over there shaking his head and saying: Yes, every driveway and cow path.
This petition presented by the Member for Bonavista South has 200 signatures. They have roads out there that require people to travel over them to get to businesses, to go to schools, to go to their homes.
This will tell you what the members on the other side of the House believe about petitions in this House of Assembly. The Government House Leader just stated that if a partridge walked on a path down in those little trails through the woods where the partridge and the rabbits go through, and what have you, they would pave that. That is the joke they are making out of this.
This is a very serious situation. There are a lot of roads in this Province that need to be upgraded and redone. It has been something like twenty years since there was any work done on this seven kilometres of road. I venture to guess that in the district of the Minister of Fisheries, in the District of Port de Grave, and a few other districts around here, they did not have to wait twenty years for upgrading.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: Oh, we have a commitment, I say to the Member of Bonavista South, by the Government House Leader, that they will have a look at this seven kilometres of work.
AN HON. MEMBER: A good look.
MR. J. BYRNE: A good look. You will do it.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: The Government House Leader said you should never prejudge what you can do in the Budget.
Three years ago, the Minister of Finance could prejudge what he was going to do in November when he presented an update in the House of Assembly, but this year he could not give us an update with respect to the numbers in the financial non-statement he made here a few days ago in the House of Assembly.
In concluding, I would request that the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, in the upcoming budget, take a serious look at this road and make the funds available to recap and to ditch the road referred to in this petition, seven kilometres leading through Open Hall, Red Cliff and Tickle Cove.
I think you know, I say to the Government House Leader, that I support any work that needs to be done in the Province by the Department of Works, Services and Transportation. What I would say is that every district should be looked at equally - not that certain government members' districts be looked at any differently than the district of a member in opposition. There is only one exception that we all know about, and that is the District of Port de Grave, the district of the Minister of Fisheries.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: Oh, Bonavista North. That is pretty close to your district, I would say, Bonavista South.
In conclusion, I would request the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation to stand and speak to this petition and support seven kilometres of recapping done in the district next year, of the road that has been requested.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation.
MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to add a few words in response to the petition that has been presented by the hon. Member for Bonavista South.
I do not, for one minute, dispute the fact that in his district, along with many other districts in the Province, there is still a considerable amount of work to be done in term of bringing roads up to a standard that would be satisfactory to the residents, and a standard that frankly would be satisfactory to us in terms of government policy.
We are endeavouring to meet the need in terms of road construction, in terms of road paving, and in terms of road repaving on a prioritized basis, and we will continue to do that in as fair and equitable a manner as is possible to do.
The hon. member asks for some recapping in his area. There are a bunch of other areas in the Province where we need to recap roads that have been paved many years ago and that frankly, are just as bad now as gravel roads in terms of going over.
On the other hand, we have still about a 1,000 kilometres of road in the Province that has never seen a shovelful of asphalt, that has never been paved, and that has never had any attention in terms of paying. The hon. member, I am sure, recognizes and understands that.
I think last year the record of my budget will show, and our program will show, that in one of his colleague's district, the Member for Baie Verte, we spent about $1.2 million in that district not in repaving roads but in attempting to pave roads that needed to be paved because they had never been paved.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Where?
MR. MATTHEWS: In a Tory district, quite frankly.
AN HON. MEMBER: Where?
MR. MATTHEWS: Where? In the district of, I think it is Baie Verte - White Bay.
MR. SHELLEY: What is that?
MR. MATTHEWS: Your district.
MR. SHELLEY: (Inaudible).
MR. MATTHEWS: Pavement, right. I am sure the people down there appreciate it, and they have still greater needs. We have spent some money in the district of my colleague here for Bonavista North. We have spent a little bit of money in that district. Not near as much as we spent in the Tory district.
The point I make is that we are attempting to allocate our resources on a fair and equatable basis. We are attempting to get the needs met where they exist -
MR. TULK: Do you mean to tell me that Baie Verte got more than Bonavista North?
MR. MATTHEWS: Absolutely.
We are a fair-minded government. We are an honourable government. We are a government that takes into consideration the needs of all the people in all of the Province regardless of how, on a weak moment they might have had on polling day, decided to cast their vote. We understand and we know that people do things like that at certain points in their time. We do not hold that against them, because we know that while the light holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return. That is, of course, in a political context. We do not hold that against them. We continue to do the fair, the right, and the honourable thing.
I think my colleague from Cape St. Francis who just spoke in support of the petition would also be one to acknowledge that if there has been any district treated fairly in terms of black top, it has been his district. It is black over black down there. It is black over black. I am surprised that we have not frankly paved the member over himself.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. MATTHEWS: Obviously he was not down on the road the day that we were down there.
MR. J. BYRNE: I was there (inaudible).
AN HON. MEMBER: He is ready for class A.
MR. MATTHEWS: Let's say he can stand some re-topping.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. MATTHEWS: That is the best and the worst I can say about him.
Mr. Speaker, the $118 million we spent on roads last year was a noble effort on behalf of the federal government and ourselves in road construction. We anticipate there will be a provincial roads program this year. We will again attempt to allocate the resources out on a fair and equatable basis. I have every confidence that when the members come to see me over the next two or three months they will be prioritizing what is as far as they are concerned the priority places in the district to spend whatever money we can allocate to them.
I want to remind my colleagues on this side of the House, for fear of them misunderstanding me, that there will be total equity and equitableness exercised in my judgement. I want them to be assured that they will also get their fair share. There may be one exception, my hon. colleague for Port de Grave. I am not sure that we can find much left to do in his district.
He is a member who has looked after his district in an exemplary fashion. He has provided for the needs for his district, he has seen that the work has been done in his district, and today he sits there almost as a king in waiting.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Member for Bonavista South -
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member's time is up.
MR. MATTHEWS: In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member can ensure his constituents that his petition has been received, that the burden of the prayer has been heard, and that his area along with all other areas of the Province will receive fair consideration when budget time comes in term of our capital roads project.
Thank you very much.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal - Quidi Vidi.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise today to present a petition on behalf of the undersigned residents of Labrador City, who condemn the provincial government in supporting the Iron Ore Company of Canada's decision to process Labrador resources in Sept-Iles, Quebec.
Your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to reverse its decision immediately and support a policy of secondary processing within the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Mr. Speaker, I see the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture over there whining and moaning about the fact that he has been reminded once again of the lack of ability of his government to have the kind of strength, power, and vision some of his predecessors over there had.
We were shown a book the other day where quoting a meeting that took place between Premier Smallwood back in the 1950s with the leadership of the Iron Ore Company of Canada who said they wanted to have a smelter in Sept-Iles. Mr. Smallwood is quoted as saying: Yes, of course, Mr. President, you can put the smelter anywhere you want, but let me tell you this, that if you put it in Sept-Iles I will be doing everything in my considerable power to make sure that you know that it was the wrong decision.
The smelter went in Carol Lake.
That is the same premier who was there at the time of the building of the Come By Chance oil refinery, which went bankrupt the first time around but is now making money. It is a very profitable operation employing several hundred Newfoundlanders. Several hundred Newfoundlanders per shift, six hundred all together, and more than that when they are doing the turnaround. They have a regular workforce of several hundred people per shift, some 600 altogether. On other occasions during the turnaround they employ a tremendous number of people in construction, refitting and maintenance work that is done on a regular rotating basis. It is a very viable enterprise.
Part of the vision of a former premier, I have to acknowledge, and a very controversial decision it was. The oil refinery is not perfect. We understand that it still has problems. There were design problems in the beginning. There were serious, and still are serious, environmental concerns. There have been for many years serious safety concerns about the refinery, but I have to acknowledge that the current owners have done more about that than any of its predecessors.
The previous owners were skimping and scrimping and being parsimonious when it came to putting money into the refinery. They were very busy taking cash out but not putting very much back in. The current owners are doing a great deal to ensure that the refinery produces a better product and in a safer manner. The jury is still out on what happened to the two unfortunate individuals who were tragically killed last spring. We will hear the full details of that when the various investigations are complete and the public enquiry is heard.
The vision of Mr. Smallwood was that we could have a big petrochemical industry in that part of the isthmus of the Avalon, Placentia Bay, Trinity Bay, that whole area of people working in that area. Now we are settling for a transshipment port of oil on our doorstep coming in to be stored in a tank farm. Sophisticated though it may be, called a transshipment port, which it is, but essentially it is bringing the oil in and sending it back out again.
The question is this: How much money and how profitable does an industry have to be before we can expect to get the jobs to go with it? How much money are people allowed to cart away from Newfoundland and Labrador before we are entitled to insist that they ensure that the jobs come here? Where is the vision? Where is the determination? Where is the expectation that people who make hundreds of millions of dollars by taking natural resources out of this Province are required to spend as much as possibly can be spent in this Province as part of that resource development?
Mr. Speaker, we had a resolution yesterday which the Liberal Party, Liberal members and the Liberal government did not want me to speak on. They used the rules and the ruling of the Chair to ensure that I was going to be unable to speak.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member's time is up.
MR. HARRIS: Now my time is up, so I will have to continue again on another petition at another time.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.
MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am glad today to stand and support the member's petition which he presented here today. The truth is, the thought is certainly still fresh in the minds of the people of Labrador West who have called me as recently as this morning wondering how things were going here, and to tell me the things they have done in their own town to try to raise the recognition of this, and how they feel about this whole situation.
They are going to continue to do that, it is not something they have forgotten, it is not something that has gone away, because it means too much to them. It means too much to the people of Labrador West to let this just go away quietly. They have talked to their friends all around this Province on a daily basis. They do have support around the Province on this issue. It goes back to the heart of the issue, which is another resource in Newfoundland and Labrador going out for the benefit of somebody else.
It is the same old story. Here we go again, cliche after cliche. It is the same cliche. Newfoundland and Labrador again taking a resource out. Whether it is minerals, oil, our fishery, or forestry, it is the same old story again. Here we go again. The resource is going out of the Province. It is the same thing with our resources day after day. That is what people say about this. It has hit a nerve in this Province, and people seem to say it day after day.
The truth is that since 40,000 people left this Province in the last six or seven years, these are the people who left with a notion in their mind that again Newfoundland and Labrador have given up on resources, on resource development, on getting a full and fair share. We looked at a report on CBC just a few nights ago on Hibernia. There are all kinds of blame to be spread around. Who started talking about it first? All different governments, all different politicians, but the bottom line -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. SHELLEY: Yes, it is, Mr. Speaker. I don't care who they are talk about. They can talk about certain political errors and so on. The bottom line is we are the ones living in this Province today, and at the end of the day you look to see what is possible. In the oil industry there is no doubt about it, it has a great potential, if we get on the right track to do so as of now. As I spoke today with the REDBs or whatever great plans you have in place, whatever great propaganda could be put forward, the bottom line is people look around and say: How many jobs actually came from this? How many people are working here? How much royalties are we getting from it? That is what they ask about.
The thing that sticks out in the minds of the people of Labrador West - and the Minister of Education throws this forward every now and then - is about the fact that IOC are going to threaten to shut down operations. Can you imagine now? Labrador City, up there for thirty-eight years, and they made anywhere - I will throw some numbers at you, and I will be conservative on them - from $40 million to $50 million a year to $150 million a year in profit sometimes, and maybe even more at times.
In the old days of IOC they have had some banner years. They have had some bad ones, there is no doubt about that, Mr. Speaker, but you do not have to be a mathematician to figure that out after forty years of mining of at least $50 million a year in profits, when you start multiplying that out, the Iron Ore Company of Canada has made billions of dollars out of the resources of Labrador West. That is the bottom line.
They do not need a statistics thrown at them. They need to know that. After forty years of mining a resource in Labrador West this company has made billions of dollars. They simply say, before we even start to talk about the expansion and the viability and all these numbers that are coming at them, they do not want to talk about all those numbers. They just say: Don't even talk to me about it. You have been here for forty years, you have made billions of dollars. If you want to expand and get bigger, you do it in this Province, not outside. That is simply what the people of Labrador West are saying, and a lot of people around this Province also. They do not want to get into all the numbers and get tied up in statistics.
The truth is the people of Labrador City are speaking for a large portion of this Province that says - a company wants to expand and get bigger and be more profitable, that is what it is all about. It is not about being economically viable, or economically feasible. These caption words are stuck there so that a company can use it for their own convenience.
Yes, we are not going to expect a company to come in here on good will and run a business and not make any money. I do not think there is anybody in the Province who is that far left to think that. They are not coming out of the goodness of their hearts. They are coming here to make profits. At the same time, as we know with any big corporation, or anybody that is in business, there is a word: greed. It is human nature. As you make more you want more, and so on.
What we need is a government that would stand up to any company, whether they are a big business or a small business, and say: Yes, we can understand something, a reasonable return on your money, on your investments, so you can satisfy your shareholders. At the same time the government has to be able to say: We have to satisfy our shareholders, the taxpayers of the Province who gave us the job to run this Province. We have to be able to look at those people every day and say to them we have done the right thing here.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member's time is up.
MR. SHELLEY: The people of Labrador West, Mr. Speaker, are not finished with this issue by a long shot.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
Is the hon. member standing on a new petition?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).
MR. SPEAKER: The Standing Orders of the House require that other than the person introducing the petition, there would be one person speaking from each side of the House. If there is somebody else to speak to the petition it would have to be from the other side of the House.
Is the hon. member standing on a new petition?
MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East.
MR. OTTENHEIMER: Mr. Speaker, I stand today to present a petition to the House of Assembly. It states:
The petition of the undersigned residents of Labrador City.
WHEREAS we the residents of Labrador City condemn the provincial government in supporting the Iron Ore Company of Canada's decision to process Labrador resources in Sept-Iles, Quebec;
WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to reverse this decision immediately and support a policy of secondary processing within the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
This is a situation which has obviously raised concern for all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, Mr. Speaker. We have heard in the past several weeks, certainly in the media and directly from individuals who are directly affected by this decision, of the real problem and the real disgust, I guess, which is being experienced by individuals who live in that region. Of course, the message is much broader.
I think this particular message has been given to us by the representatives from Labrador City and Labrador West - not only the union leaders, but municipal leaders as well - that even though it is happening to them at this time, it does send a message which perhaps ought to be heard by all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, that here we have a situation where government has allowed resources of our Province to simply go from within the Province to outside.
When we just hear that, and when we hear that concern being expressed, this has to sound alarm bells. This has to raise concern for all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, because the questions that may be very well asked is: What is next, what particular resource is next, what industry will next be affected? Therefore, even though it has specific implications and ramifications for individuals and residents who live in the area of Labrador West, it indeed sends a message for all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians that we ought to be on our guard.
We ought to be continually concerned about what a government may say one day and then say the next. Is it saying one day and on the one hand that we will protect our resources, and we will do what in fact is attempted to be done with the changes to the Mineral Act, and on the other hand, make changes or allow decisions to be made which are in direct conflict with what government has said the previous day?
There are interesting questions that have been asked by representatives of IOCC. These questions include, for example: What are the profits that IOCC has generated over the last five, ten, twenty or thirty years? Let the people of the Province know exactly what the benefits to this company have been, while at the same time allowing them to make the change that they want to make with, incidentally, the approval of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. What profits has North Limited realized from IOCC since its $230 million U.S. investment in 1977? They are pertinent questions, and they are questions that ought to be asked and remain unanswered. Certainly government has turned a blind eye when we look at exactly what impact this decision is going to have on the residents of Labrador West.
Another question that these same municipal leaders and union leaders have asked is this. Why didn't government pursue legislation with respect to a royalty regime on unprocessed resources? I think it is a very appropriate question because it directly has to do with the long-term benefits, and in terms of what the lifestyle will be, the very existence of the people of Labrador West. Relevant questions that remain unanswered. Why isn't the Province doing something about an outdated piece of legislation, namely the Labrador Mining and Exploration Act of 1938? We see now changes being introduced today and debated today with respect to the mineral act. What about the 1938 act? Why haven't proposed changes been considered by this government with a view to alleviating the very serious concerns as expressed by residents of Labrador West?
There are many questions that remain unanswered. The people of Labrador West in particular have a right to be concerned, but secondly it has implications for all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who now sit idly by simply looking at a decision which government refuses to do anything about, and at the same time are genuinely concerned about the future implications that they may in fact experience as a result of a resource based industry in their particular town or community.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.
MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise in my place today to support the petition presented by the Member for St. John's East regarding IOCC. Believe it or not, we have been discussing this all week in this House of Assembly, and it was a major issue before the House opened, and this is the first time I have stood to speak on this issue with respect to the moving of the IOCC plant to Sept-Iles.
There are three or four points I want to address here. I only have five minutes so I will run through them very quickly.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: I found out this morning that the Member for Bellevue does a lot of skating on Wednesday nights, and not only in the arenas. He was at a meeting last night in his district and he did a bit of skating last night too. Yes, you certainly did.
Anyway, with respect to the pellet -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: Can I stickhandle or can he stickhandle or can you stickhandle. I say to the Premier, I do not play hockey, never played hockey, and I cannot even skate. That's the sign of a very honest man, I say to the Premier. The members on that side can all skate very well, I can tell you that, Mr. Speaker, and I do not mean the skates that are strapped on their feet either.
My understanding of this, in listening to the people speaking from Labrador City, is that the quality of the pellets that will be produced in Sept-Iles will be higher, compared to the quality of pellets that will be produced in Labrador City in the future. If that is the case, then that only leads me to believe that somewhere down the road - it could be five, ten, fifteen years - the industry is going to want the higher quality pellets. What impact will that have on Labrador City in the future, I ask the Minister of Mines and Energy.
That can lead to job loss. That is the problem that the people who work in the plant up there have. They are concerned about the job loss. The Premier and the Minister of Mines and Energy have already confirmed that any job losses will be through attrition. In actual fact, over a period of time there will be less people working at the IOCC plant in Labrador City. Is that correct? Therefore, that would lead one to believe again, the natural progression of it would be, that the growth in the area of Labrador, the numbers will be down in the future and will have a major impact on the out-migration. This is going to require that people leave Labrador to get jobs elsewhere. It is going to decrease the people working in Labrador City. That is an actual fact.
Another point that was made in this House concerns the profits. It is not viable or feasible to put that plant in Labrador City, to upgrade it. That is what they are saying. That is what the government is trying to have you believe. The minister stood and talked about the single project. If you take it in isolation it may not be as profitable as putting that one project in Sept-Iles. We still have not seen the numbers from the government on this issue. We have to look at the overall scheme of IOCC, all the years they have been there. How long will they be there in the future? Again, it could be opening the door.
The Minister of Mines and Energy always refers to voodoo economics. Sometimes he does remind me of a voodoo doctor when he gets up to speak. I would not mind if he would define what voodoo economics is.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member's time is up.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: By leave, Mr. Speaker.
I would not mind if he would define some time what he means by voodoo.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: Not you, the man next to you, not the Government House Leader.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: Voodoo? Yes, I know what voodoo is. As I said earlier, I see him sometimes over there sitting in a chair with a bunch of needles in your hand. I do not know what you are doing with them, but you are all the time talking about voodoo economics, so it might have something to do with that. I do not know, Mr. Speaker.
The point I was making was with respect to the overall IOCC in Labrador and the profits that have been taken out of Labrador over the years. If you look at the whole project -
SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, can you believe what you are hearing on that side of the House? Here we are talking about a very serious issue and we have Statler and Waldorf there trying to interject. Anybody who does not know who Statler and Waldorf is, I will tell you, Premier. Did you ever watch the Muppets? You should. They are the two guys up in the peanut gallery, Statler and Waldorf, right there (inaudible), the two of them right there.
I will tell you one thing, I would say to the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, there is more intelligence comes out of the Muppets than comes from that side of the House of Assembly.
On this issue my time is up. I wanted to have a few words because I am going to have lots of time to speak with respect to the Mineral Tax Act. I say to the minister that when he gets up to present the bill I expect to hear a lot of words, there is no doubt about that.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: I will put that on record. The Premier stayed in the House of Assembly to listen to me today. I can understand why he did. Because when he meets with that group over there, in that big caucus room, there is not too much intelligence comes forward, I can say that. I can understand why he would want to listen to me, no doubt about that.
I will say this while I am on my feet, seeing that the Premier wants me to address him. He was in my district the other night, down in Cape St. Francis, in the Town of Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cover, in the Justina Centre - the building that I built when I was Mayor of Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove. When I left, there was no money owing on the building down there, no money from the provincial government, no money from municipal affairs. There was a $400,000 building, all paid for by the people of -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: I was the mayor, not the mare. Where are you from? You are not from the district of the Minister of Fisheries, are you?
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: The Premier looks anxious. He wants to get on his feet. I never finished my story.
Down in the District of Cape St. Francis, the Premier was down for a fundraiser -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
Is the hon. member speaking by leave?
AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.
MR. SPEAKER: By leave.
MR. J. BYRNE: He wants to hear the story.
The Premier was down for an evening with the Premier. It started at 8:00 p.m. The Premier left at 9:32 p.m. There were forty-three people in attendance: thirty-two Tories, out of forty-three, and there was the potential candidate, my potential opponent in the last election -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: Premier, put him in his place.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
It is the Chair's understanding that the hon. member is speaking by leave, but I would remind all hon. members that what the Chair has heard in the last two or three minutes has absolutely nothing to do with the petition which has been presented.
MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I will remind some people to watch their blood pressure.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: I am not talking about you.
AN HON. MEMBER: Who are you talking about?
MR. J. BYRNE: Certain people are getting pretty upset here.
In the meantime, I again refer to the situation in Labrador. With this, I think the people in Labrador have been promised by the Premier and by the Minister of Mines and Energy, and were given false hopes - as they were in the last election - that were committed to but not lived up to. Certainly I will support the petition.
Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.
MR. J. BYRNE: Is he speaking to the petition?
PREMIER TOBIN: I certainly am. I will be at least as relevant as the hon. member.
Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have an opportunity to speak to the petition which was put before the House and to say, on behalf of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, and specifically bearing in mind the work of the Minister of Mines and Energy, and also the very hard work of the Member for Labrador West, that I am pleased to be part of a team that made every responsible effort that could be made to bring the greatest amount of benefits, jobs and investment to the people of Labrador West.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
PREMIER TOBIN: I am even hearing applause from both sides of the House with respect to that particular comment.
The reality is this - and I have waited for a few days to speak to this petition - there are times in the political life of the Province when you are going to have decisions made and when you are going to have developments occur which do not always meet with the expectations of people in any one part of the Province. There is not a better example of that than indeed what occurred in Labrador West, where the union, the Chamber of Commerce, and the local town council, a year ago, sat down in Labrador West with me, with the Minister of Mines and Energy, and with the Member for Labrador West, and said: We have a new operator, North Limited from Australia, who have recently purchased, taken control of IOCC - and we have to remember that North Limited took control just in the spring of 1997. We are not talking about an owner that has been around for five, ten, fifteen, twenty-five or fifty-five years. When we think of IOCC, we think of the company. The reality is that the IOCC of old, owned by a variety of U.S. based steelmakers, is no more. A new owner has come into existence in the spring of 1997. When the word beginning locally went out that the new owner was looking at reactivating an existing pellet plant in Sept-Iles, the local community asked the Member of the House of Assembly, asked the Minister of Mines and Energy, and asked me, to look into the matter and to make sure that North Limited did not expand in Sept-Iles without giving full and fair consideration to additional expansion in Labrador West.
Mr. Speaker, that is the reality. Based on that conversation, I arranged - together with the minister and the Minister of Finance and the Member for Labrador West - to see first of all the President of IOCC, John Le Boutillier, who is a new gentlemen who has taken up that position; and secondly, to see Mr. Malcolm Broomhead, who is the President of North Limited, from Australia.
Our first meeting took place in Toronto. At that meeting we put forward a series of long-standing complaints, long-standing grievances, by the people of Labrador West as to the manner in which IOCC was operating. These related to questions of procurement, not enough procurement occurring in the Province; the provision of manpower for carrying out duties, some from Quebec carrying out duties in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador; the location of procurement offices; the location of Human Resource offices; in short, the economic benefit to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and our belief, and our strong belief, that far more of that activity had to be directed towards this Province.
The other issue we raised was this: We told them we had heard from the community itself - word on the street, word on the floor itself - that they were looking at expanding pellet production by reactivating an existing pellet plant in Sept-Iles. We said, if such a thing were being considered, we wanted full consideration for Labrador West.
Mr. Speaker, we were able to get, through a series of meetings - it did not happen on the first day - a commitment to fully examine in the Bechtel report not only the Sept-Iles location but the Labrador West location. Even after that commitment was given, we said: That is fine - we do not want to be distrustful, we do not want to say we are calling your word into question - but for greater certainty, because we have an obligation not to the shareholders of the company but to the shareholders of the Province, we want an independent assessment of the study that you are going to do. We want the right to look at your books. We want to hire an independent agent - a third party - to examine everything that has been said and done, to satisfy ourselves that the numbers are real.
AN HON. MEMBER: Are the numbers out?
PREMIER TOBIN: Yes, the numbers are out. A $250 million difference, that is what it is.
Not only did we hire an independent agent but, to make sure that agent stayed independent, we asked for, from Hatch Associates, and we received from Hatch Associates, a commitment that as a consequence of doing the work they were going to for us, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador, that they would stand back and not bid on any of the work associated with the $1.1 billion capital expansion that IOCC had announced.
Mr. Speaker, I want us to reflect upon that. Hatch is in the business, and one of a handful of employee-owned, creditably companies whose integrity is unquestioned. I do not think any member of the House has questioned their integrity or suggested - the Member for Baie Verte is not suggesting, I know he is not - that they can be bought, or that their opinion can be bought, or that their integrity can be bought.
This is a company whose capacity to work is directly related to their creditably and their integrity. Just as a company that is in the business of doing accountancy work must be -
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member's time is up.
AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.
MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?
AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.
MR. SPEAKER: By leave.
PREMIER TOBIN: Just as a company which is in the business of doing the books for any corporation or institution at the end of the year must be able to sign on the bottom line, and must sign for what is there in true and solid fashion, just as their capacity for future work is directly tied to their integrity, so too is the capacity for Hatch to work again tied to their integrity when they do an analysis of a business plan.
The business plan showed that the cost of doing the same work in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador versus reactivating an existing facility in Quebec was another $250 million.
Mr. Speaker, I want to tell the House that we sat down as a government; we had a committee of the Cabinet. The Minister of Finance and Treasury Board, the Minister of Mines and Energy, myself, and Mr. Canning, the Member for Labrador West, had full access to that committee's work and participated in it. We looked at the ways. We thought theoretically, how can we close the gap? If the gap is not a large one, what could we do to close the gap to entice the company to expand within the Province rather than reactive an existing plant outside the Province? We thought about power lines. We thought about lower power costs, using access to the 130 megawatt recall that we had last March 9, with Hydro Quebec. We thought about other incentives in the area of taxation. We thought about literally every kind of way possible to close the gap if the gap were such that it could be closed and we could capture the additional opportunity within the Province. But all of that, quite frankly, was for naught when we saw that the gap was a quarter-of-a-billion dollars, nearly $5 million per job. That is what the cost to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador would have been to try and close the gap.
MR. J. BYRNE: (Inaudible).
PREMIER TOBIN: Yes, we are talking, those are the numbers. Yes, I say to the Member for Cape St. Francis who is asking questions, those were the numbers.
Mr. Speaker, it is fine and it is easy to stand and say, if you are sitting on the other side of the House and you do not have the responsibility and you are not prepared to carefully analyze the numbers: Well, we would have spent $200-plus million to close the gap. We would have spent $5 million a job to close the gap. That is easy to say but that is not responsible to do.
I say to members opposite, you cannot be on your feet one day questioning the fiscal position of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, suggesting that the deficit has ballooned, suggesting that there is not enough money to run existing programs like health care -
MR. J. BYRNE: Withdraw leave.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
I remind the hon. the Premier that leave has been withdrawn.
AN HON. MEMBER: Are you sure leave has been withdrawn?
MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I just heard the Opposition House Leader say no. Are you withdrawing leave?
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The Chair would like clarification. Does the hon. Premier have leave?
PREMIER TOBIN: Jack, you were inaccurate about that Liberal (inaudible) and I never withdrew your leave.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
Does the hon. the Premier have leave to speak?
AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier, by leave.
PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the Member for Cape St. Francis is saying that the Premier can participate in the debate if the Premier says what he wants the Premier to say, but if the Premier says things he does not want to hear, the Premier cannot participate in the debate.
MR. J. BYRNE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.
MR. J. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, the Premier just made a statement that was not accurate by any stretch of the imagination.
PREMIER TOBIN: (Inaudible).
MR. J. BYRNE: Let me have my say and then you can go out and debate the point.
Mr. Speaker, the point I am trying to say is: the Premier just stated that he could have leave if he said what I wanted him to say. I would like for the Premier to say what I want to hear, but the point I am making is that if the Premier is on his feet by leave, and he is making statements, trying to put words on this side of the House, we are not going to stand for it and I will withdraw leave. Now if he wants to get up and be accurate in his statements, so be it.
MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
The hon. the Premier.
PREMIER TOBIN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to take a look at the Hansard of what the member just said, and when I figure it out I will respond to it.
Now, as I was saying before I was interrupted -
MR. J. BYRNE: You were setting yourself up, I say to the Premier.
PREMIER TOBIN: No, I was down in your riding the other night and I was setting you up.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I want to confirm, if I can digress, that I did indeed visit the house that Jack built. It was a lovely house. It was well built, and I was there at a Liberal function and it was well attended by strong supporters of the Liberal Party, including many who voted for the hon. gentleman opposite last time around.
MR. J. BYRNE: (Inaudible).
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
PREMIER TOBIN: This is not a good thing, Mr. Speaker, when you recognize that the gentleman opposite only won by fifty-one votes last time around.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Member for Cape St. Francis, notwithstanding the manner in which I am now digressing, for being gentle, understanding and compassionate, in allowing me to finish my comment.
Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude, because I know I should conclude, by pointing out that there is not a single member of this House, I would venture to say - I feel very confident in saying this - who did not want in their heart of hearts to see expanded pellet plant capacity in Labrador West. We all wanted that. There is not a single member of this House who would not have done everything in their power, within reason, to make that happen. There is not a single member of the House who would have done different than government has done in recognizing that we cannot pay $250 million, $5 million a job, to make it happen.
That is the reality. Every member on this side knows it, every member on the Opposition side knows it; and nobody has borne the burden of telling the truth, even when the truth is unpleasant and difficult, with greater grace, greater dignity and greater integrity, than the Member for Labrador West.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador would never stand for the government taking a decision in this matter that was not well founded. That is the reason this decision has largely been accepted. It is difficult, but it has been accepted because everybody recognizes we have done everything reasonable, within our power, to accomplish the result that we sought to achieve.
I would simply conclude my comments by saying that I remain committed, the Minister of Mines and Energy remains committed, and I know the Member for Labrador West remains committed, to working with the community, to working with the councils, to working with the chamber, to working with the unions, to working with the citizens of Labrador West, of Wabush, toward building and stabilizing and securing the future of those communities.
Mr. Speaker, we are ready, we are willing, and we are able to participate in a constructive and productive way at the first opportunity, and we look forward to that opportunity coming soon.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's West.
MR. T. OSBORNE: South.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's South - the Chair's apologies.
MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a petition today that was presented to me by the Town of Come By Chance. I have spoken with the member for that particular area about this petition, prior to presenting it. It is a petition regarding the emissions at the Come By Chance oil refinery and it is signed by some 1,545 people. The letter that accompanies the petition:
As per our previous consultations with the Town of Come By Chance regarding the emissions at the North Atlantic Refinery Limited, enclosed please find a signed petition of 1,545 names indicating support to force the oil refinery to operate in a more environmentally sound manner.
On behalf of the Town of Come By Chance and the residents in the surrounding area, we are asking that you please submit the petition at the next opening of the House of Assembly.
Mr. Speaker, while the body of the petition is not directed at the House of Assembly, the letter that accompanied the petition clearly indicates that it be presented in the House of Assembly.
The prayer of the petition reads: Council is very concerned about the emissions from the oil refinery and the possible health risks to residents of Come By Chance and surrounding areas. This situation has been discussed numerous times at refinery liaison committee meetings and with the Department of Environment.
At a meeting on February 26, 1998, the Minister of Environment, Oliver Langdon, assured council that his officials would be closely monitoring the situation, and several options were discussed for bringing the emissions down to acceptable levels.
In spite of our discussions, the pollution from the refinery is getting worse and there seems to be a reluctance on the part of government to force the refinery to operate in an environmentally sound manner.
These levels of pollution would not be tolerated in any other part of this country, and they should no longer be tolerated here. We cannot help but wonder and worry about what effects the long-term exposure to these emissions will be, especially to our children.
In order to be successful in getting the refinery to stop polluting our air, we need everyone in the area to back us up. Please show your support by signing below.
Again, as I have said, there are some 1,545 names.
I understand that the Minister of Environment has had meetings with the Town of Come By Chance and the liaison committee out there. It is also my understanding that the Minister of Environment has been working with the refinery to put forth some recommendations, hopefully in an effort to clear up the problem of emissions coming from the oil refinery at Come By Chance; but it is continuing to be a problem in that community.
This summer was particularly bad, and we suspect it is probably because of the fact that the refinery was operating at full capacity. There was blue haze in the air. I have pictures here that were taken just recently. There was a blue haze in the air out in that area all summer. Medical doctors in the area have said that they are very deeply concerned about the health effects as a result of the emissions at the oil refinery. The residents of the area are concerned, and one of the doctors in the area actually has stated publicly that he feels there is a very high level of cancer in that particular area. In fact, there is a cancer that is very rare indeed. It is my understanding that there are two or perhaps three people in that particular area who have been diagnosed with that particular type of cancer.
They have some very legitimate and very real concerns, and hopefully the minister - who I know is listening intently to what I am saying here on this petition, and is seated in his seat here today - will stand in his place today and clearly indicate government's position on what they anticipate doing, or what they are hoping to do, in consultation with the oil refinery, the liaison committee and the town councils in the area to rectify the problem of emissions at the Come By Chance oil refinery.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to rise in support of the petition expressing the concerns that exist about the emissions from the oil refinery at Come By Chance and the possible risks to health that arise from that.
Mr. Speaker, we do know that the oil refinery at Come By Chance is a very important industrial contributor to this Province in the form of jobs and export. They have some ads out recently talking about how they have three-quarters-of-a-billion dollar contribution to our export economy by exporting fuels to other parts of the world - whether it is airline fuel, home heating fuel, et cetera - but we have a concern here about the health of our people, and one that ought to be taken seriously.
I do not want to be an alarmist, and I do not want to jump to any conclusions about this. The Member for St. John's South spoke of some doctors talking about cancer rates and things like that. I think that is a bit alarmist at this stage of the game because this type of study, or epidemiology I think it is called, is something that takes a long, level, detailed study and look at all of the factors that might be involved in something like this, and it would be very remiss to jump to conclusions about what might be causing any of these things; even where there is considerable evidence, such as in the tar ponds in Cape Breton where for a much longer period of time there has been pollution. Recent studies have shown almost conclusively - I don't know if they are even conclusive there - of the consequences of pollution on the local environment.
We are talking about more than odour here. We are not talking about a bad smell. I remember what people used to say around Newfoundland when the fish plant gave off an odour, and their response was: Well, money don't stink. We have jobs here. There may be a bit of an odour from the fish plant, but you should tolerate it. That was a common reaction when some people complained about the foul odour that might come from a fish plant or a fish meal plant.
We are talking here not about odour; we are talking about pollutants that have the potential to cause serious medical problems. We do know that things are getting better, but we are concerned that they are not getting better enough. This refinery has been called the dirtiest refinery in North America. I do not know if that is exactly true. I do not have the statistics to show it. I do not have the comparative data, but it has been called the dirtiest refinery in North America, spewing out more pollutants, SO2 emissions and other things that go into the heavy metals, that go into the air, than any other refinery in North America.
If that is the case, then we have a serious job ahead of us in ensuring that the standards that we have here are equal to the standards that exist in other parts of North America. This should not be an industrial wasteland any more than it should be a low-wage economy to allow big transnational corporations to come and exploit our people or take away our resources without proper compensation for our people in proper jobs and proper benefits.
We have a viable oil refinery out there, we have a profitable oil refinery, and we have a company that to date has been responsive in making substantial capital investments to improve the quality of the refinery, to improve the quality of their product, to improve the value-added for the refined products, but we now have to insist that this company also meet the highest environmental standards that are appropriate for the refining industry.
I would support this petition. I would ask that these concerns be taken very seriously by government, and I am hoping that the minister responsible will respond to this petition and give the House a complete update of what expectations government has placed on this refinery, what the timetable is, what are the emission standards that have been adopted and imposed on this company, and when we expect to meet them.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The Chair would like to inform the House at this point in time of the questions for our Late Show today.
The first question is from the hon. the Member for St. John's West, and it is to the hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services, regarding a question on child advocate.
The second question is from the hon. the Member for Bonavista South to the hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods, regarding the Integrated Poultry Limited funding.
The third question is from the hon. the Member for Baie Verte to the hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy, regarding my question on IOCC.
Orders of the Day
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, Order No. 13, Bill No. 38, "An Act To Amend The Mineral Act".
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.
MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, the bill before the House today is, An Act To Amend The Mineral Act. There are a number of housekeeping items in this bill. If you look at the Explanatory Notes -
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The Chair does not have a copy of the Orders of the Day. Are we doing second reading of this bill?
MR. FUREY: Second reading, yes.
MR. SPEAKER: Okay.
The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.
MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, if you look at the bill, the clauses that go from 1 to 14 in the Explanatory Notes give a synopsis of what we are doing in this bill, but I thought I should touch on a number of them with respect to how they will modernize the way mining permits, et cetera, are conducted in the Province. Perhaps I will start and then I will get to the heart of the bill after.
Perhaps we could start will section 21 of the act. We intend to amend section 21 of the act to provide a different procedure for areas coming open for re-staking, and this will be a provision for a draw to determine the priority of applications.
The way it works now is, when a piece of land comes open for mineral staking and there is a competition - in other words there is more than one person or persons who want that particular piece of land - it is gazetted for a thirty-day period. At the end of that thirty-day period, which usually falls on a Tuesday, what happens: it is first-come, first-served. I don't know if the hon. Member for Baie Verte realizes that, but if you go down around the mining building, for example, even today -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: But even today if you go down there, it is such an archaic and backward way to determine who will get the staking provisions; because what they have to do is line up at the beginning of the work day, literally put campers around the building, and tents in some cases, and whoever is closest to the door actually gets to get in the lineup first the next day. Now this is bizarre and archaic.
In fact, Monday night -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: Staking, section 21, Jack. We are amending section 21.
What happens now, I should tell the hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi, it is first-come, first-served on anything that is gazetted; and what that does is create a lineup.
For example, the other night I was working late - I normally leave by the back door because the parking lot is in the back - I could not get out the back door. There were two tents and a camper blocking the door. So the next morning - this is serious stuff. Can you imagine if there was a fire and a janitor or somebody was trapped inside that building? So I changed it arbitrarily the next morning. I said: At the end of a work day, whoever is first in the lineup gets number one, second in the lineup gets number two. Now, get away from the doors. Move your equipment, get rid of those tents, and if you show up at the beginning of the work day and you are here, we will honour number one, number two and number three.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: No, I am changing all of that, and I will tell you how I am changing it in a second. The problem was that I wanted, for safety and practical reasons, to change that arbitrarily, without legislatively doing it the other day, for safety and practical reasons.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: Not this building; the building that Mines and Energy is in now, the old Prince Philip Building. Yes, you have to come to the building physically.
Here is what we are saying in this amendment. This is very unfair to people who live outside St. John's. It is extremely unfair to people who live long distances, because the person for example from Nain, or from my own district, Port au Choix, or St. Anthony, or Burgeo, or somewhere like that, they would literally have to transport themselves in here and get in a lineup. They do not have the same advantages as somebody who lives in St. John's.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: Well, how do they transport themselves if they don't drive? You are into Star Wars, I think.
The point is, we are trying to build fairness into how we -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: How we are proposing to do that is, you don't have to come in physically now and register. You can register by mail. What will happen is, if there is more than one person for a particular staked claim, we will take all of those names for that competition and the registrar, who now handles them, will put them into a draw and draw them out. That is the simplest way to do it, and the fairest way to do it. It removes the lineups, it removes the geographic disadvantages, and puts an element of fairness right into the actual system where it isn't right now.
By the way, you can mail in your application for that stake property because it is gazetted and published for a thirty-day period.
AN HON. MEMBER: So there are no lineups (inaudible).
MR. FUREY: No. If there is one piece of land and five people want it, and they all register on time, within the thirty-day period, the registrar of the mineral department has a public draw of those five names.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) group or company or individual (inaudible).
MR. FUREY: No, any company, any individual, any person. We are not going to restrict it, which is the way it is now, I should tell the hon. member.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: Yes, that happens quite a lot by the way. When the Voisey's Bay staking rush happened - I don't know - it was something like 60,000 applications during that year-and-a-half after that. What people were really doing was purchasing the blocks of land, then turning around, if they had any value, and tripling and quadrupling the value by selling them off. There is no restriction to do that.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: Yes, that is right. That section in terms of housekeeping is amended to clarify that and to build fairness back into what right now we believe is a unfair system.
The second point on the housekeeping or modernization of this bill, is that the bill would require an exploration plan. Right now there is no exploration plan when people come in to talk about going into staking areas to start exploring. We want to know now, and they have to file with the department, for the first time ever, a plan which will include an outline of any activities that are capable of ground disturbance and disruption to wildlife or wildlife habitat. It must be submitted to the minister prior to exploration.
Don't confuse it with the Environmental Act, because the Environmental Act really talks about when there is a development, they have to register that development, and have in some cases a full environment assessment and hearing. What I am proposing to do is to say to people who want to explore in blocks of land from now on: You must provide the department with a exploration program and an exploration plan that must be verified by the department. That isn't in place now, and I think that is important to do.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: It would not cost very much.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: In exploration? They do now. When they come in and explore, they have to say - for example, I think Voisey's Bay last year, there was something in the order of fourteen million or twenty million for Voisey's Bay. For the Voisey's Bay south project, for their exploration program for last year, it was fourteen million.
Should I be answering all those questions now? Shouldn't we do this in Committee? I do not mind doing it but there is provision for -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: You want this approved this evening?
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: The bill would also make non-compliance with the amendment contained in the exploration plan clause an offence. In other words, if somebody came in and staked out, say, one hundred claims, before they ever explored on those claims they would have to provide the department with an exploration plan. If they did not, it would be an offence under this new law, this amended act, and there would be a penalty of anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 upon conviction, depending upon whether it is the first or second time.
The next point I would like to make is that the bill would allow all mineral licences to be split into smaller licences. The industry has asked for this. Let's say they have 200 staked claims, and they determine partway through their exploration program that this fifty or seventy claims, they do not want to use them anymore. Rather than carry them on their books and continue to tie up that land, they will have the ability to split off chunks of those staked areas and return them back to the Crown. I think that is only reasonable.
If I had 200 claims, and one hundred that I am not interested in, and one hundred that I am interested in after a year, I can return those one hundred that disinterest me. That is a good thing.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: Yes, where there is non-compliance with the exploration plan. Right now, the exploration is helter-skelter for that fixed period of time, and they can go and do it whenever they want, so long as they meet the requirements of the amount of money that is scheduled to be spent.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: I can try and answer all those questions or we can wait. You guys are really stimulated by these clauses. I am delighted, it is great.
Let me make one other point about modernizing the bill. The bill would make the requirements regarding a legal survey on land markings to obtain a lease apply to any applicant for a mining lease. Right now, there is a requirement to have a physical survey when a staked area is staked. There has to be a physical survey. We changed the rules, as you know, a number of years ago to allow for what is called map staking. You can actually go to the map and stake from the map. We are simply saying there should be a legal survey, not just for the actual ground staking, but a legal survey now for the map staking as well. That will modernize it.
Let me just deal with the heart of the bill for a minute. We want to amend the section setting out the conditions under which a mining lease is granted and the requirements for further processing of the mineral resources in our Province.
This in no way, shape or form takes away from, changes or alters in any way the public policy as articulated in the early 1990s by this government, and that is that there should be maximum benefits from the resources of the Province where it is economically feasible. You will recall that the test that we put into the 1995 amended legislation said: Wherever it is economically feasible, value-added should happen in the Province.
However, when we looked at the 1995 amendments more clearly, the intention was clear but the legal language lent itself, and opened itself, to interpretation and to various ambiguities. In fact, we had the Department of Justice lawyers - two of them, very senior lawyers - and two very senior lawyers from downtown look at the language for us as well. We said to them: Does this open itself to interpretation, or could it cause the Province any grief in trying to enforce by law what its intended public policy position was?
These lawyers, believe it or not, came to a consensus - which is highly unusual for four lawyers - that there really was ambiguity in there. They gave us strong legal advice that we should change or amend the Mineral Act as it was amended in 1995 to give clarity and certainty to what the government's public policy position was. So we set out to change it.
AN HON. MEMBER: Who gave you the advice in 1995?
MR. FUREY: We had some very fine lawyers in the Cabinet in 1995, one of whom is a senior judge.
Anyway, we wanted to make sure that the language was absolutely certain and that it reflected the intention of the policy as articulated by the government that where it was economically feasible, primary processing would happen.
Of course, that test is still in the legislation, but it now cannot be passed on to a third party for arbitration. Not to an arbitrator, not to a panel, not to the courts, but to the Cabinet of the Province to determine with expert advice what is economically feasible and what is not.
This bill, notwithstanding the subjects I just touched on, which are really - I would call them housekeeping, but yet they are not really housekeeping. They are modernizing the legislation to bring it in line with other jurisdictions. It needed to be changed and cleaned up. The real heart of the bill is to make sure that there is no uncertainly anywhere in this Province, anywhere for industry, on what the rules will be with respect to primary processing. That is defined in the Act, as you will know, as further -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: Right. Which is smelting and refining a mineral or a mineral ore.
That is the intent of the bill, and I look forward to members debating these clauses.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.
MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am certainly going to rise. We are going to have a lot of questions as we go though it clause by clause, I say to the minister. He started off with some of the points.
There is no doubt, first of all, that I want to make a couple of points on the housekeeping. As a matter of fact, I am very familiar with the staking situation, I say to the minister. As late as last year, as a matter of fact, I had to go down and help a constituent of mine who had some interest in the Baie Verte area. There is of course a lot of exploration in that area. He put a heater in his car for three nights and got an extension cord to run from the building. As a matter of fact, I had to get permission from the minister to get an extension cord to run from the building out to the car so the man could sleep in his car so he would not lose his turn in the line-up. I said: My God, there has to be a better way around this. I had mentioned it to the minister before and I understand he took some brief action here the other day.
Now of course this part of the bill - he calls it housekeeping - but there are some things that you can clear up. Of course, the exploration plan makes a lot of sense, as do mineral licenses, now being able to return the unused mineral claims. I understand the mining industry is one of the parties which suggested that very thing. The housekeeping things in this bill, I say to the minister, are things long overdue.
Some of the things were archaic. That you would have to line up in a building and fight over a seat, and if you went to a washroom you had to sit somebody in your seat so you would not lose at chance at staking a certain piece of ground. There is no doubt about that, Mr. Speaker, that taking those housekeeping items and clearing them up is what is needed.
A lot of parts of the mineral act, if you go through them, maybe there are still some other things can be cleared up, I say to the minister, things that are long overdue. Because the mining resources in this Province are still, I think, at an edge. Although we have some setbacks in the last little while with what is happening in Voisey's Bay and so on, I am still a firm believer and a big supporter of the mining industry in this Province. There are some great potentials for that. It is a good idea to take the act, like many acts we have in this house, and do some, as the minister says, housekeeping duties, so that people can go into this industry a lot easier and do things a lot simpler, if they want to get into industry. I am glad he touched on those.
We are just going to start off today by just making a few general comments. As we go through it clause to clause, overall - and our Leader has said it already - the concept and idea of course of keeping resources in this Province is one we all agree with. Nobody is going to mistake that. Of course, we have had situations, most recently with the IOC situation, and many times before. The history of this Province has shown that anything we can do in this Province through legislation or through law to make sure the resources are developed here is good. It is such an irony, though, when you think about it.
Here we are today going to clean up something in the act that is going to change the Province's history forever when it comes to the mining industry. This is going to happen over the next couple of days as this legislation goes through the House. Just a couple of days ago we were talking about what happened with the Iron Ore Company of Canada. The irony is there, that we are about to clear up a mess, but at the same time we made the same mistake just a few days ago. That is the shame of it.
At the same time, we have to get ready for an industry that is about to take off. In our overall history, of course in my district, the mining industry has been a very big part of the Province. The most exciting part about it is places like Kings Point and in the Baie Verte Area, and in the La Scie area, and now with the silica. In the next little while we are going to see, hopefully, some major developments there.
What we have to be really careful about is understanding the mining industry. I know the Minister of Mines and Energy understand very well, and so does the Premier, that we have to keep encouraging investment in this Province. Because the way the mining industry works is that you go and prospect. Anybody who has worked with geology before, you tap the rocks like they did in Voisey's Bay, you do your little bit of ground work, but the truth is - as anybody in the mining industry will tell you - that the real fruits of our labour come when the big companies come in and put the drill in the ground to see what is really underground.
We have all kinds of technology these days - seismic work and so on - that give you clues to what is there. The truth is, like Voisey's Bay, they walked over that little hill so often, chipped away at the rocks, but the real work was not done until a lot of money went into putting the drill holes in the ground to find out what was really underneath the surface.
You have got to understand the mining industry in that way. Yes, we have a great province here with a lot of possibilities for mining exploration. The geology of this Province, of course, when you look around, they say it is some of the best geology in the world. As a matter of fact, the geology in this Province has been described as similar to what was found in the Klondike, and a lot of peak parts of my district, and through Buchans and Badger now. When we talk about the different areas of this Province, you can go around and talk to many geologists from all over the world who say they get very excited when they see the geological structure in Newfoundland and Labrador.
To understand the mining industry, and when we look at changes to the mineral act, we also have to remember from a business sense that we know we can tap the rocks and do seismic work, but we have to get the dollars. The dollars come from investors mostly outside of this Province, but also inside this Province. Of course, we have some very significant investors now within this Province. We have to do things right here so that we are going to be able to attract those people to come in and drill the holes and spend the money to find what resources lie beneath our surfaces. That is what we have to be careful of.
As we look at possible changes to the mineral act, yes, we have to do some housekeeping and tidy up some things to make it easier for people in the mining industry to go forward with their business of trying to find out if we have major ore reserves hiding beneath their feet, but at the same time, for the larger ore reserves that are around the Province, we also have to send a clear message out to investors all around the world. Not just throughout Canada and North America. The message throughout the world has to be -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. SHELLEY: Yes, the first thing they look for, an investor who has money in the mining industry, he looks to see what potential there is physically, geologically, to see if the possibility is there, Mr. Speaker. I can tell you they also want to make sure they are coming into a playing field that is consistent, that they are going to know exactly what is happening day by day, that things are not going to change in midstream. That is what they are going to be watching for.
We all want to develop resources under our surface so that we can create jobs. Because that is what it is all about, creating jobs and economic prosperity for anybody in this Province. As we look at changes to this mineral act, as we look at things that would be housekeeping and, yes, do the right things for the people in the mining industry to make the right step forward, we do it to make sure we encourage them and not drive them away. To get back to a little bit of the housekeeping a little while ago, some people who were lining up for staking last year who were interested in doing so, because of this archaic situation we found ourselves in with staking that the minister already mentioned, some people went home. They did not want to sit there for three nights in their car just so they could stake out a bit of claim.
A lot of that land just lies there until somebody decides to work with it. You talk about the vast area we have in this Province. When you fly over it you see it very quickly, and the vast area of Labrador. If we are going to attract people to come and do business here in the mining industry, remember those are high risk things. People who deal in the mining industry deal with very high risk. You are talking about people who are going to come in to spend millions of dollars to find out, just from some clues - because that is what they are, clues - of some prospecting that was done, and some seismic work that has been done. They are just clues.
Because now we have to get the investor to say: I will spend $2 million, $3 million or $4 million to sink down some drill holes, send people in to do some work. As the minister just said, Voisey's Bay, $20 million in exploration costs this year. They were going to sink $20 million into the ground hoping that from what they have already done and the work they have already done, the analysis, that they were going to hit an ore body. Then the next phase starts, which is the mining.
When we talk about the mineral act and changes to it, of course we have to talk about -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. SHELLEY: I know it very well, I say to the minister. I know as much about the mining industry as the minister knows about the fishery, I will tell him that. Mr. Speaker, I know the mining industry very well, I say to the minister. Growing up from day one around the mines, with a mine producing 5 kilometres from your house, you get to know very quickly about the mining industry, let me tell you. That is what they talked about for years.
The point I want to make, before we wrap up for the Late Show today, we are going to continue on and have some questions on the bill clause by clause. The minister made some points today that we want to continue and ask some -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)?
MR. SHELLEY: No, we certainly are not.
Mr. Speaker, we are certainly going to go through the clauses, clause by clause. There are some very interesting things in this act. I would encourage, by the way, every member in this House of Assembly who does not know a lot about the mining industry to pay close attention, because what is going to be done in this particular act is going to affect us for a long time. It has to be done very carefully.
I will say I will continue with more questions as we go clause by clause through this particular bill. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Debate on the Adjournment
[Late Show]
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
It being 4:30 p.m. on Thursday afternoon we now move to the adjournment debate. The first question is from the hon. Member for St. John's West.
The hon. the Member for St. John's West.
MS S. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to pursue the question that I brought up this afternoon to the Minister of Health & Community Services. That question is on a child advocate. Now I know that the minister said that there will be a child welfare act introduced into the House in this sitting, and that is all very well and good. My question to her was: Will that act include a child advocate?
The Select Committee recommended a child advocate for these reasons: it would be independent; it would not have to report to a minister; and it would enjoy the same privileges as that of the Auditor General. The child advocate will be granted powers in addition to those of the Auditor General to comment, not just on government decisions, but also on the fundamental policies driving the government, and to make recommendations for policy adjustments.
The minister has indicated today, and from time to time, that her department is constantly working with other government departments. Now all of these government departments are responsible to a minister. Why I am asking for a child advocate - this is not my idea. This was the idea of the Select Committee, and this Select Committee was composed of people from both sides of the House, so it was impartial. There are six other provinces and the City of Vancouver that have a child advocate. Obviously a child advocate is not something new, not something earth-shattering, and something that is obviously working.
I also ask the minister: In the absence of appointing a child advocate or implementing a child advocate, is she satisfied with the data? Is she satisfied with the statistics in child abuse? Is she satisfied with the statistics in child hunger? Is she satisfied with the statistics in daycare?
The minister listed a lot of things that they had said in their social policy report that they would implement. Implementation here is the key word. Rhetoric always surpasses deeds, and I think in this case the rhetoric of the minister, and the rhetoric of the department, has far exceeded the deeds, and has far exceeded the performance in the implementing of these things that are for the children.
Ninety-nine per cent of the people who made representation to the Select Committee were in favour of a child advocate. The minister also says that she is working with Kathleen Kufeldt and they are engaged in a study entitled Looking After Children.
Kathleen Kufeldt has said: The welfare of the child is lost in the battle between parents over custody, and this is another instance where a child advocate, on behalf of the children, would see, from a justice point of view, that the children were not lost in the battle of the parents over custody.
In her answer this afternoon the minister talked about the three key points of our child policy: the child advocate, the child and youth secretariat, and the family policy grid. She said we took them verbatim from the social policy report. I suggest that they were also taken for the social policy report from the Select Committee Report. There is nothing wrong with that, because what we must do is follow the recommendation of the Select Committee. The government's only action so far on these three points was to photocopy them from the Select Committee and insert them into the social policy report. This is not action.
I say to the minister, you have the power to actually implement the recommendations and you have done nothing. Our approach to these three points will be actually to implement them when we are in office and have the power to do so, and not just copy them from one report to another and call that action.
Once again, I call upon the minister, and I ask one simple question which requires yes or no. Will we see the implementation of a child advocate as has been recommended in the Select Committee?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
For clarification to the member's very long preamble, I have to say that I did not at any point say that what we put in our Strategic Social Plan was taken verbatim out of the Select Committee. I said that the their children's platform was taken verbatim from the Select Committee on Children's Interest, which was written over almost 2.5 years ago.
What we have done is this. We have not waited to start moving on children's issues now. Now is too late. We started 2.5 years ago. We did not copy it from the Select Committee. We incorporated that report as one of many to put in our Strategic Social Plan. Mr. Speaker, we are working with our departments. We have done a lot of new initiatives, as I've mentioned, including our national child benefit. I would say to the member opposite to stay tuned for the details when the bill is brought to the House.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.
MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is a continuation of the questions I have asked on a couple of days here to the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.
I would like to begin by saying that when the minister answers the question, I suggest that he not refer to us over here as being fearmongers, or not believing in what is happened at Newfoundland Farm Products, are trying to destroy jobs, are trying to destroy a new industry, because that is not the intent at all. What we are trying to do is question the minister and hold the government accountable for up to $23 million of taxpayers' money that was put in this particular industry.
One of the questions I asked, which I did not get an answer to, and I feel it should be an answered, is: What form of accountability has the minister put in place to see that our money is spent wisely, and is spent for the intended purpose? That is all I am asking.
I understand that when the former Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods made his announcement and announced that this money, $18 million at that particular time, was going to be put into Integrated Poultry, if I recall correctly - and I stand to be corrected, but I do not think I am wrong - there was supposed to be a government representative sitting on the board of the new industry, if you would. There was supposed to be a government representative there, and I would imagine that government representative would serve as a watchdog, if you would, to be able to show that our $23 million was protected.
Also at that particular time when the agreement was reached, government themselves had said that in addition to the $18 million we are going to be putting forward, we are also going to be responsible for whatever cost is borne by the new corporation for environmental cleanup.
Another question. Maybe there has not been $1 spent on environment cleanup. I am not saying there is, but I would like to know if there is money spent for environment purposes, and if so, what the cost has been. What is the environmental cost? What cost has been borne by government?
The other question, the other part of the agreement with government and IPL that I questioned the minister on, was the cost of severance pay. I have no objections to people getting severance pay. If they have done their time and served under their tour of duty with the company, they deserve severance pay. But here again, government was to be responsible for paying those employees whose jobs were obsolete or whose jobs were made redundant, with severance packages, with severance pay.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FITZGERALD: How much? That is exactly what I am asking, how much was paid in severance pay. Maybe there has not been any money paid in severance pay.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FITZGERALD: No, it has not been laid out. There has not been one bit of information put forward whatsoever.
I again understand that IPL is after coming back and approaching government. My information tells me to look at government releasing the assets of what government said they want to hold in order to protect their money. Now, I can understand IPL coming back and looking for government-owned or government-controlled assets, because they need that for collateral when they go and try to raise money at the bank in order to carry on their business and have some cash flow.
The question I am asking again is: Has government been approached by this industry in order for them to have those assets released and allow the company to borrow on the strength of what the value of those assets have been?
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FITZGERALD: I am asking the minister publicly. It is public money. I am asking it here in the people's House, in a public forum where they will know, I say to the minister opposite.
I am asking the minister, and I repeat to the minister, if what I am doing is wrong then I will plead guilty without getting into a debate with the minister or without arguing, because I feel that the onus is on us, as the Opposition, to ask those questions and to raise them here in the people's House in order to get accountability.
There have been lots of businesses here in this Province that have had government money in them, that have had government money put forward, that have had many employees and have been closed or have gone the other way, and the minister himself asking those very same questions, which he was expected to ask at that particular time.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The hon. member's time is up.
MR. FITZGERALD: I make no apologies for asking those questions and I ask the minister if he would give us the answers that we need in order to let the public know how their money is being spent - simple, straightforward.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.
MR. K. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the intent, and I appreciate the sincerity of the member, but I think that he should reassess the questions he is asking, the way that he is asking them. The answers have been provided already. We laid out all the information months ago.
I can be concerned about the impact on the markets for IPL, I can be concerned about the impact it is going to have on the creditors of IPL, but I am not the employer any more. We are not the employer. The employer now is a group of poultry farmers who have decided on their own to move ahead and try to do an industry, and create value-added processing in this Province.
I toured the plant a few weeks ago. It has come a long way from where it was when the government owned it. There has been a lot of investment made in it - public investment, private investment. They have been working hard to get a better product, to get in the marketplace and expand, and to make sure the company has a long-term future.
When you get up and ask questions about wanting to know if they have come to the government looking for more credit, what does that do in the marketplace? They have already said in The Telegram, just in the last two weeks, that they have run into some overruns. Everybody knows that. We are working with them to try to see if we can deal with the problem.
For thirty-five years the government had this facility. It did not make money; I don't know if it ever made money. It lost money almost every year.
AN HON. MEMBER: Seven million a year.
MR. K. AYLWARD: Seven million a year on a gradual basis.
What we have done, together with the industry - not us on our own - the industry, together with us, have decided to go in a certain direction. We have put forward a plan that we hope will work. It is all a challenge; it is always a challenge to do business. It is a challenge in this type of business because there is a lot of competition out there, and they have a lot of other factors that they have to deal with. They have to get more efficiencies; they have to get their employees to work with them in a new atmosphere, and that is coming together. But, again, questions that are asked about their whole viability, about whether or not the money is spent in the proper places...
We will give you full accountability about where the money is spent - the capital. I can give a list the capital has been spent on. We have guarantees backing up for security of over 100 per cent of what is down there, in the sense of our liability; $22 million in capital assets that we have secured against an $11 million guarantee that is now outstanding.
The government here is well protected. The bottom line is, we want to see this company succeed. All we ask of the Opposition is that they become more responsible about when they ask questions. That is not a hard thing to ask.
All we want to see is the company survive and jobs be created in this industry for the long term in the private sector. It is not me saying it; the company is saying it. They are concerned about it. Let's get a little more responsible about this issue and work together to make this happen. I look forward to hearing more interesting questions that will not have such an impact on the marketplace of a private sector company.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.
MR. SHELLEY: Mr. Speaker, the minister has me so excited I am thinking about asking some more questions on IPL, but I have to stick to my line of questions on IOC today instead.
I asked some questions earlier this week on the royalty regimes. Simply put, I say to the minister, of all the times we talked back and forth and so on, the people of Labrador West and the people of the Province are asking more and more: IOC has been here for thirty-eight years; how much money have they been making?
Probably even more importantly - because everybody knows they are making lots of money and people do not have a problem that they are making a lot of money. Nobody in this Province has a problem with IOC making lots of money from the resource up in Labrador because people are working and so on, but they have a question. It goes back to the root of the problem in Newfoundland and Labrador. All of our resources - our forestry, our fishery, our mining, and everything else going out - what royalties did we collect from IOC? That was the question I had for the Minister of Mines and Energy.
To be even more specific, so that he did not have to go back through thirty-eight years of records or anything, I just wanted the minister -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. SHELLEY: Yes, we are going to do it quickly now.
I will just tell the minister, we just want last year's. I have asked him to table it in the House for last year.
Now the minister had a little skate going on himself the other day when he talked about corporate taxes. I understand that. All I am asking from the minister: I want specifically the royalty rental paid to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to the coffers of Newfoundland and Labrador, from royalties only, not corporate taxes -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. SHELLEY: No, I don't. You said $25 million to $30 million.
MR. FUREY: You asked me -
MR. SHELLEY: Just let me finish the question. The corporate taxes I want left out. I want what the Iron Ore Company of Canada pays - royalty rentals only - on the ore, on the operation at Labrador City, because it is done on corporate profits. I want an answer on exactly how much the Iron Ore Company of Canada paid to the Newfoundland and Labrador government, the revenues taken in by the government on royalty rentals only in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
It is asked for a very good reason, because we are going to go back to the same argument that the people in Labrador West have put forward, and that is for thirty-eight years this company has made millions, untold billions, of dollars off the resources of Newfoundland and Labrador. Now the people are asking this question, and it should be answered very quickly: What does the Iron Ore Company of Canada pay in as royalties - not corporate taxes, not anything else - on the resource that they take out of the ground in Labrador City? I think that is a pretty fair question. I think that people know specifically. Not to say $20 million or $25 million either; I do not want to hear that. I do not believe that, for one thing. I don't think the minister is right on that one. I don't think it is $25 million to $30 million a year from the Iron Ore Company of Canada on royalties only, to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. I would like for the minister to answer.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.
MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, I think I answered that the other day. I also answered that attack dog. I told you, if you are going to let him in the House, feed him once a week.
Mr. Speaker, the IOCC royalty rate is a calculation of profits. It is 5 per cent of net profits.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: No, you asked IOCC. It is 5 per cent of net profits. You got up in the House the other day and told me what the profits were last year.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: No, I am sorry, it was not you, it was the Leader of the Opposition. You were not here. Then what you have to do is take the Iron Ore Company royalty fund, which is also a royalty. It is 20 per cent. It is calculated as 20 per cent against the royalty fund.
The point I was just trying to make is that if you add in the payroll tax, the corporate tax, the fuel tax, it equates to about $30 million a year on average. Take it from that $30 million and come back to the royalty. Take away the fuel tax, take away the corporate tax, take away the payroll tax, take away the royalty income trust royalty payments, and you are left with 5 per cent of net profits. Some years they were profitable, some years they were not profitable. On average, with all included in, it is around $30 million. Last year, if the numbers were accurate, and I thought it was just less than $100 million, but use $100 million if you want -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. FUREY: Five million dollars, that is correct, but it is a fluid, floating royalty rate based upon net profits.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, before you adjourn the House, and I know there is a motion before the House to adjourn now, I would just like to tell - I am sure everybody in this House would be happy to hear, especially the Member for Baie Verte and the Opposition House Leader - everyone that the employees of Abitibi-Price I believe, the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods tells me, have accepted the package.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. TULK: Loggers and mill workers will start work within the next two weeks. That for Central Newfoundland, and the East Coast where I come from, is very important news.
Tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, we will be back on the mineral act, and other various and sundry pieces of legislation I am sure will get passed.
On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, at 9:00 a.m.
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