May 18, 2005 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol XLV No. 28


The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Hodder): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

This afternoon we would like welcome four students from the Canadian Citizenship Class at Holy Heart of Mary High School in St. John's, in the District of St. John's East, with their teachers: Ms Jacqueline Fewer-Bennett and Ms Kathy Henderson.

Welcome to our House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Statements by Members

MR. SPEAKER: This afternoon we have members' statements as follows: the hon. the Member for the District of Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune; the hon. the Member for the District of St. John's Centre; the hon. the Member for the District of Cartwright L'Anse au Clair; the hon. the Member for the District of Trinity-Bay de Verde; the hon. the Member for the District of Grand Bank; and the hon. the Member for the District of Lake Melville.

The hon. the Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LANGDON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, on May 12 I had the pleasure of attending a volunteer appreciation night at the Lions Club in English Harbour West, for the Town of St. Jacques-Coomb's Cove. Mayor Max Taylor and councillors organized the event to thank community volunteers for their dedication and hard work.

The municipality of St. Jacques-Coomb's Cove, with a population of 700, is unique with six individual communities making up the municipality. Each of the individual communities is well known for their concerted effort in making their region a better place to live.

Mr. Speaker, residents are very proud of their volunteer effort and the contributions they make. Although unique in their geographical layout, they have been very successful in establishing and expanding many local community groups.

There is a very long list of individual groups and organizations that exist in St. Jacques-Coomb's Cove. They include municipal, school, church and charitable groups that play a real key role in their community life.

On May 12, over 100 volunteers attended the appreciation recognition as sponsored by the town. Along with messages of thanks and encouragement, certificates were presented to all volunteers.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the council for recognizing and taking the initiative to organize such an event. It is important for municipal councils to recognize the efforts of volunteers in the community and encourage their future participation.

I ask all members of the House to join me in congratulating volunteers in the municipality of St. Jacques-Coomb's Cove, and all volunteers in the Coast of Bays region.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to recognize National Police Week and give special recognition to the men and women of our police services here in this Province - the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.

May 15 to May 21 has been declared National Police Week and across this country communities, organizations and individuals are honouring the work of our police forces. This week gives police organizations across the country an opportunity to build strong partnerships. Strong communities and strong police partnership help us fight and prevent crime.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, we have approximately 730 police officers who work hard to protect communities and families within this Province. The efforts every day by our police officers help keep us safe and protect our property. As well, police today are very active in educating our children in the areas of drug and substance abuse, child rights, self-awareness and self-realization.

The scope of a police officer's work is greater today than at any other time in the history of policing. Technology, communication, community relations, relationship building and many other skills and attributes are required by today's police officers.

I ask all hon. members to join with me in acknowledging the efforts of the men and women of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, who serve the public and work to enhance our safety and our security.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to congratulate nine Canadian Rangers in my district who were presented with medals and framed certificates to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Queen's reign. They were amongst twenty-nine others in Newfoundland and Labrador who received this distinction.

The Queen's Golden Jubilee medals are awarded to those who have made a significant contribution to our country, Canada.

Among those who received this recognition - and I would like to read their names and communities into the record, if I may, Mr. Speaker - were: Master Corporal Edward Hancock of Forteau; retired Ranger Richmond Moores of Red Bay; retired Ranger William Howell of Red Bay; Master Corporal Ian Stone of Red Bay; Ranger Tom Normore of L'Anse-au-Loup; Ranger Ed Humber of L'Anse-au-Loup; Ranger Reg Fowler of Capstan Island; Ranger Raymond Dyson of Cartwright; and the Late Harold Dyson of Cartwright, whose family members were presented with the award.

These presentations were made at the Capstan Island Community Centre in May by Captain George of Gander, and I would like ask everyone in this Legislature to recognize the contribution that Canadian Rangers make in our communities and to congratulate the twenty-nine individuals in Newfoundland and Labrador on receiving such a great distinction in our Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Trinity-Bay de Verde.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Today I rise to recognize some outstanding young people from the District of Trinity-Bay de Verde.

The Trinity Eagles Wrestlers include members from many schools throughout my district. On April 29, eight students from Woodland Elementary in Dildo participated in the kids division of a national wrestling competition in Quebec. During this competition, they placed second overall for all of Eastern Canada.

There was stiff competition during their visit to Quebec; however, this did not hinder their performance. Each member displayed great sportsmanship and skill, while proving to be outstanding ambassadors of their school and their Province.

I ask all hon. members today to please join me in recognizing the wrestling club coaches, Felix St. George, Todd Philpott and Charlie Bryant, as well as the team members, which include Brandon Reid, David Clarke, Matthew Elford, Jody Pretty, Jordan Smith, Shawn Reid, Michael Peddle and Kyle Smith.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, today I recognize Howard Bonnell of Grand Bank. Mr. Bonnell has been presented with a 2004 Newfoundland and Labrador Recreation Award by the Newfoundland and Labrador Parks and Recreation Association. Mr. Bonnell, a retired school teacher, was nominated by the Town of Grand Bank.

For over thirty-five years, Mr. Bonnell has volunteered in a wide range of activities that have made Grand Bank a better place to live. He has been a member of the Lions Club for thirty-five years and received the Melvin Jones Award, one of the highest awards within the Lions organization. He served as a member of the Grand Bank Recreation Commission for twenty-two years, and in 1999 he received the commission's recognition award for his contributions to sport, recreation and leisure. He was a member of the Newfoundland and Labrador Recreation Association for five years. He has served on the Anglican Church Vestry for six years, chaired the Alternate Measures Organization for four years, and served as a board member with the Community Youth Network for twelve years.

Mr. Bonnell has been a councillor with the Town of Grand Bank for eight years and has served on several committees. He was instrumental in Grand Bank winning a Tidy Town Award twice. He was also treasurer for the 2003 Burin Peninsula Summer Games which were held in Grand Bank and Fortune.

In presenting Mr. Bonnell with this award, the chair of the association's award committee, Gerry Hall, cited the large number of committees Mr. Bonnell has been associated with as a clear demonstration of the amount of work he has done for Grand Bank.

In addition to devoting a tremendous number of volunteer hours to recreation, sport and leisure activities to help others, Mr. Hall said, "Mr. Bonnell brings a positive attitude, a tireless work ethic, and remarkable expertise to all his activities. He has established himself as a clear and excellent role model for recreation volunteers while making extremely valuable contributions to his community."

Mr. Speaker, I ask all Members of this House of Assembly to join me in extending congratulations to Howard Bonnell of Grand Bank.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Lake Melville.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to congratulate Ms Meghan Perry from Churchill Falls, a youth from my district who was the only youth in Lake Melville to receive the Premier's Athletic Awards. Ms Perry has demonstrated her ability to achieve at a higher level in the sport of volleyball. This contribution will assist Ms Perry in her efforts to travel across the Province for upcoming tournaments, and encourage her to continue to be successful and to aim high.

As all of you know, the cost of travel to and from Labrador does not always allow for full participation of all individuals. I am delighted to say that this has not kept Ms Perry from participating in something she loves so much. Some of the finest athletes in the Province have come out of Labrador and, with awards such as these, these numbers will continue to grow.

I ask my colleagues here at the House this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, to join me as we congratulate Meghan on her success in the sport of volleyball.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Statements by ministers.

Statements by Ministers

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to inform hon. members about an international scientific conference that will be held in our Province next month. From June 7 to June 12, St. John's will host the Seventh International Marine Biotechnology Conference, the only international conference to focus specifically on marine biotechnology.

The first of these international conferences was held in Tokyo in 1989, and successive conferences were held in the United States, Norway, Italy and Australia. This will be the first time that this event will be held in Canada.

Mr. Speaker, this conference is expected to attract over 500 delegates from thirty-five countries. Most of the delegates will be leading marine biotechnology scientists who will present and discuss recent advances in their field.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development is a major sponsor of this conference. Newfoundland and Labrador has a young and growing biotechnology industry and this event will allow for the exchange of information and the building of relationships between our scientists and business people, and experts from around the world. This event will also provide an opportunity for companies to learn about new markets, to establish partnerships, and to develop technology transfer opportunities.

It is my belief, Mr. Speaker, that events such as this will result in the sharing of ideas and the identification of opportunities for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for an advance copy of her statement today.

The fact that the International Marine Biotechnology Conference is being held in Canada for the first time, and in Newfoundland and Labrador, is certainly appropriate, Mr. Speaker, and I applaud the department for the role that it played in attracting this conference to our Province.

The minister has referred to our young and growing biotechnology industry, and I think it is an opportunity to showcase, in fact, what we are doing, even though we are babes in the woods, as it were, in this particular industry.

Again, she says the event will also provide an opportunity for companies to learn about new markets, to establish partnerships and to develop technology transfer opportunities.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that indeed there will be a large contingent from our Province, that they will get a chance to network with those leading marine biotechnology scientists so that they can, indeed, learn from others and help our industry grow.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We, too, are very pleased to see this conference taking place here in Newfoundland and Labrador. Obviously, it is a proper fit for a place like this Province to advance in the area of marine biotechnology. I hope it does provide an opportunity for lots of people within the Province to be inspired by the possibilities that exist to network with other scientists and to get some ideas that could develop into major industrial activity or other biotechnological advances for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further Statements by Ministers?

Oral Questions.

Oral Questions

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, concerns are being expressed today in the public by groups, including the Status of Women, police officers in the Province, and the Privacy Commissioner, about a new system that permits internet access to the Province's registry of deeds. These individuals feel that access to personal information is too easily available through this new system. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, we searched for information on an individual in our office who has an unlisted address and phone number, and found their personal information readily available through the internet on this system.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Minister of Government Services: Is she aware of these privacy issues that have been raised publicly, and does she have any concerns that this access through this new system is going too far and invading the privacy rights of individuals in Newfoundland and Labrador?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, our registry is a public registry. The only difference now is - this information has always been available - we have now put it on line so that people outside the overpass, and throughout the Province, can get access to this information.

My officials have had discussions with the Privacy Commissioner and I do believe there is some concern. They are looking at individuals who have legitimate concerns, so they can block out some of this information.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Municipal Assessment Agency, and even the local telephone company, have provisions in place currently that enable people to exclude the release of their personal information publicly should they choose to do so.

I ask the Minister of Government Services again: Why were no similar provisions included in this circumstance, and are there any plans - I know she is now finally having a discussion with the Privacy Commissioner - but are there any plans to follow the lead of other governmental agencies in giving people the option of having this personal information excluded from publication over the internet?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, the information is, as I said earlier, a public registry. We do ours by addresses and names. We are the only registry that does it like that. If we were to do another process it would take another ten years and $50 million to implement the other system that I think the hon. member is talking about. We will certainly take it under advisement and work with our officials and with the people involved to see if there is any way that we can block out this information when there is a legitimate concern.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

One of the groups that did express concern today about this new system and the availability of information is the Status of Women Council for Newfoundland and Labrador. They feel that women, especially those taking shelter from abusive relationships, can now have their personal information published on the Internet for anyone to see. This will make it more and more difficult to keep their addresses and other personal information private as they would like it to be.

I ask the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, what discussions did she have prior to this information becoming available publicly online with the Minister of Government Services, and is she planning to have the concerns of the women, as raised publicly today, appropriately addressed in the future?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, as the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, we certainly take this issue very seriously. The Women's Policy Office, and myself as minister, will work closely with Government Services to see what our options are so that we can protect any women who may feel that they are at risk.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This government's record on rural Newfoundland and Labrador leaves much to be desired. We have seen cuts in jobs and cuts in services. Their policies have severely damaged the economic climate and they have no plan for recovery. This government is clearly abandoning rural areas of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I ask the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development: Can she confirm that of the jobs this government has cut from the public service, over 80 per cent of job losses have been in rural Newfoundland and Labrador? How does she expect businesses and individuals to have confidence in rural areas of our Province when the government obviously does not?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, one thing we are going to have to get clear, I guess, in some of the questions is: What qualifies as rural? Because as one of the members said here in the House recently, that the Codroy Valley does not qualify as rural.

It is unfortunate when we lose any job anywhere in Newfoundland and Labrador. The job losses this year have been distributed right throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, to urban and rural communities. There has also been significant investment by this government in job creation right throughout this Province, and that will continue, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Clearly, the minister must agree, because she did not say that she did not agree, that 80 per cent of the job losses are indeed in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Contrary to the image that this government is trying to portray, the news is not good in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Two of the major initiatives of the previous government are winding down, the White Rose project is in the final stages and the construction phase of Voisey's Bay is nearing completion. Thousands of people in our Province will be out of work because this government has not delivered on any prospects that will see a continuation of this type of work.

I ask the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development: What is the plan to ensure there will be work opportunities for those thousands of individuals, so they will not have to leave Newfoundland and Labrador and take their skills with them?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: There are tremendous opportunities in the future, Mr. Speaker, in terms of Hebron, in terms of Rambler Resources, in terms of the aquaculture industry, all kinds of opportunities all over this Province. Not only are the opportunities there, Mr. Speaker, but this government is putting the tools in the hands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to exploit those opportunities and create sustainable economies all over this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, if the tools are like the fund they put in place for the aquacultural industry that today not one company has qualified with the criteria they have put in place. Those are the tools that are not helpful to any company. Mr. Speaker, we are seeing deteriorating health care service -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS FOOTE: - school closures, teacher reductions, HRLE office closures, reductions in funding for municipalities, and many other cuts that seriously impact on people who live in rural areas of our Province.

I ask the minister: What has she done to stand up for rural areas while all this is happening? How can she sit in a Cabinet, as a minister responsible for rural development, when the actions of the government so clearly are destroying rural Newfoundland and Labrador?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Two months ago, Mr. Speaker, this government announced its Rural Diversification strategy and since that, Mr. Speaker, in the Budget we made available $16 million for people all around this Province to exploit those opportunities. A far cry from the $2.6 million that was available under the former Administration.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, I would be really curious to see the applications piling up on the minister's desk from rural Newfoundland and Labrador to take advantage of that $16 million.

Mr. Speaker, this government likes to present itself as caring about our cultural heritage. They talk a lot about having pride in who we are as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. That is fine, Mr. Speaker, but the talk needs to be backed up with action. We have seen this government stand idly by and allow FPI to walk away from communities like Fortune and Harbour Breton. We have seen the Premier throw the crab industry into a turmoil. We have seen job cuts and service reductions that are forcing people out of rural communities.

My question to the minister is: When are you are going to start backing up your talk about pride in our culture and way of life and help rural Newfoundland prosper and grow?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, this government has not walked away from Harbour Breton and Fortune. We continue to work with FPI on their behalf.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair recognizes the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, it has been said in this House any number of times, this government will not forsake Harbour Breton, this government will not forsake Fortune, anymore than we did Arnold's Cove, which the defenders of the Burin Peninsula did not say a word about, the Member for Grand Bank and the Member for Bellevue.

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to give credence when there isn't any because they spent more on travel than they spent on economic development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

During the crab dispute, the Premier committed several times to putting in place a program that would assist plant workers who had been impacted by the crab impasse created by his government. Monday, the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs seemed to be backing away from this commitment and indicating that there may not even be a program to assist crab plant workers if this dispute is resolved in the coming days.

I ask the minister: Will there definitely be a program to assist crab plant workers this year, yes or no?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. J. BYRNE: Yes.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair recognizes that there is a lot of enthusiasm, but we should be going to the Member for Port de Grave.

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

That just explains how serious they take this. They put this Province and the fishery in turmoil for nine weeks, nine weeks, and here we get no explanation at all saying yes.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair recognizes the hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we have already received reports from people who have contacted the Premier's office and been told that any potential program would only involve workers at plants involved in the crab fishery. Workers at plants that process some crab, along with other species, would not qualify.

I ask the minister: Will he confirm the information these people are receiving from the Premier's office, and would the program be restricted in this way?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that the member opposite really does not know what he wants. He asked a question, yes or no. I said yes, and he had a problem with that, Mr. Speaker.

The Premier has stated in the House of Assembly - the Minister of Fisheries and myself - many, many times, there will be a plant worker program for the plant workers in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, what more can I say?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port de Grave District.

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Speaker, he fails to answer the question again. He says yes, there is a program, but he would not elaborate on who is going to be affected by it.

Mr. Speaker, the minister refuses to answer straightforward, direct questions about a promise his Premier made to assist plant workers. The Member for Bonavista South is publicly saying that minimum wage assistance is not acceptable. If there is a program, as the Premier promised, will it be minimum wage or at a higher rate, as suggested by a member in his own caucus?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. J. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asked a question, and it is a direct question.

As I told you the other day, I would assume, Mr. Speaker, to put a program in place - and the hon. member would know - there are certain details and logistics that have to be worked out. It is not something that you can snap your fingers and it is done overnight.

Mr. Speaker, we will be addressing the concerns of the plant workers in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. You cannot get any straighter than that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is for the Minister of Education and it concerns the College of the North Atlantic Campus in Labrador West, which could be, I say to the minister, much more effective in their delivery of education if they had their own building that could accommodate their needs and plans. For years now, Mr. Speaker, they have been renting space to the tune of over $1 million a year, of which not one penny stays within our Province.

I want to ask the minister: How long does he intend to let this outrageous arrangement stay in place when a new facility would be much more cost-effective and better suited to the needs of the college and the students?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Certainly, I am aware of the situation in Labrador West and the lease arrangement that we have with the Episcopal Corporation, and understand the need to review that situation which is currently ongoing.

We are going to look at the options that are going to be available to us and move on some plan of action after we have done the review.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to say to the minister that both the Towns of Labrador City and Wabush have offered free land on which to build a school. The community leaders, the education leaders, the mining companies, all have views on how the college can improve their current delivery system if they had their own facility.

Will the minister commit to visiting Labrador West in a timely manner to convene a meeting, the purpose of which would be to explore new options with all of the stakeholders involved?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: Mr. Speaker, in response to that request, I am certainly planning in the very near future to make a visit to Labrador West and I will work in co-ordination with the member to set up a meeting so that we can look at some of those options and explore some of the possibilities.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

One final question for the minister. I wonder if the minister can confirm to the residents of Labrador, Labrador West in particular, what the status of the French Immersion Program is - the Early French Immersion - and whether, in fact, there is a commitment on behalf of the government that program will begin and carry on without being cancelled?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: Mr. Speaker, in response to the member's question, we have been in contact with board officials and it is a board responsibility to move forward with French Immersion. The board certainly will be looking at that in their upcoming meeting. I must say, Mr. Speaker, I am very positive that it will be a positive outcome.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

MR. ANDERSEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in roughly a month's time schools across the Province will close for the summer break, and possibly on Thursday the House of Assembly will recess for the summer. Students in Labrador will leave their classrooms heartbroken, disappointed, and feeling rejected by this government for not committing funds to build an auditorium in the Upper Lake Melville area.

My question was for the Premier, but, Minister, will you stand today and admit one of the greatest injustices your government has done was not building an auditorium for the youth of Labrador in Happy Valley-Goose Bay? Will some minister stand today, do the right thing, and commit the funds for such a building? Because, after all, the youth in Labrador are a part of this Province as well.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, in the most recent Budget we have committed many millions of dollars for Labrador, and, as the hon. member knows, the Minister of Tourism has been in Ottawa negotiating with the federal government on a program to get funding for that very auditorium that the hon. member is talking about. Mr. Speaker, what he should do is have a bit of patience and let the Minister of Tourism do his job and hopefully be able to tap into a program from the federal government to build the auditorium

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

MR. ANDERSEN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, and let me say to the minister, a lot of commitments are made to Labrador but very few are kept.

Mr. Speaker, this government received $45 million this year from the Churchill Falls Hydro Corporation. They hijacked this money from Labrador and railroaded all $45 million to pay off The Rooms in the City of St. John's.

Minister, your government had many opportunities to commit funds to build an auditorium for the youth in Labrador, however you chose not to. Minister, today people in Labrador, many of our youth, are asking: What is the real reason we haven't gotten our auditorium?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. ANDERSEN: Is it because they -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. REID: (Inaudible). You don't talk when you are home. People in Labrador are looking for you, boy. Go home. They want to talk to their member. They never see or hear from him.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, it is passing strange that today the Member for Torngat Mountains is condemning government because we didn't fund the auditorium. This government, under the leadership of the Premier, has had tremendous success leveraging funds out of Ottawa, $2.6 billion on the Atlantic Accord alone.

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the auditorium, the minister responsible, in consultation with the Member for Lake Melville and the community groups up there, has been advised of what the status is, and to my understanding are pleased with the progress we have been making.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, there have been no funds highjacked out of Labrador. The fact of the matter is that this issue is a priority, will be a priority, and we are very confident that in due course the people in the Lake Melville area and in all of Labrador will be more than happy with the results provided by the minister responsible.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

MR. ANDERSEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I say to the minister, it was your government that cancelled the auditorium, not us.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. ANDERSEN: Minister, your government scuttled and ripped apart the Department of Labrador and Aboriginal Affairs. Your government slapped the people in Labrador across the face by not appointing a member for Labrador to your Cabinet. You turned your back on the youth of Labrador by denying them the auditorium. You failed to provide the Combined Councils of Labrador with annual funding. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the House of Assembly, the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs has, basically, said his government will tell the people in Labrador when and what they can say.

Minister, because of your government's attitude towards Labrador, why don't you just tell these people that your government do not want them and your government do not need them?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Colleagues, a question has been asked and the Chair is waiting for the opportunity to recognize the hon. the Government House Leader to give a reply.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, the charge and the allegation is hardly worthy of a response, but, having said that, for the benefit of the people who may be watching, the Member for Labrador West said that the Budget this year was one of the best Budgets for his area in Labrador. There are significant investments made in transportation; significant investments that continue to be made in municipal infrastructure; significant investments to be made, and are being made in forestry; significant investments being made in agriculture; significant investments being made in the children of Labrador; significant investments being made in mining.

I say to the member opposite, before you stand up and make those type of allegations, have a look at the facts and deal with what is and not with the fantasy that you are dealing with the government here, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This past year the government beefed up its coffers with an extra $45 million in profit on a Labrador resource and, yet, they are refusing to provide funding to the Combined Councils of Labrador. There's commitment to Labrador for you.

Yesterday the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs said in this House, Mr. Speaker, that they want to dismantle the Combined Councils, basically, by refusing them funding. The government feels, as usual, that they have a better solution as to how the Combined Councils of Labrador should work.

So, today, I ask the Minister Responsible for Labrador Affairs: Will government end the heavy-handed approach and do the right thing and fund the $100,000 to the Combined Councils of Labrador?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

The hon. member must be in the same fantasy land as the Member for Torngat Mountains, Mr. Speaker. I have never said that we would not be funding the Combined Councils of Labrador. I have never said that.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, two days ago I was trying to get in contact, with representatives from my department, with the Executive Director of the Combined Councils of Labrador and was not successful. The Chairman of the Combined Councils of Labrador that night put out a release accusing government of certain things.

Mr. Speaker, we have never said that we would not be funding the Combined Councils of Labrador. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, it was only a few hours ago that I had a conversation with a representative from the Combined Councils of Labrador, I explained the full situation to him and they were quite acceptable to the resolution.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a lot of dialogue with the Combined Councils too, I say to the member, and they are looking for their $100,000 in funding.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister for Labrador Affairs: Will he make a commitment to Labradorians today and tell the 3,000 residents of the Labrador Straits that government will not cut the recommendations that have been outlined in the Hay Group report that they will not reduce the physicians in their hospital, reduce their hospital to a clinic, or force the patients in that area to go to Quebec for medical treatment?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board, and Acting Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Our department is going to work with the Regional Integrated Health Authority for the Labrador-Grenfell area and we are going to look at making the best decisions in the interest of people that they serve. I think anything other than making the best decisions and the best appropriated practices and the best services to the people would be doing an injustice to the people in Labrador and Northern Newfoundland.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Government has had in its hands, for well over a month, a study conducted by the university on marine freight rates in Labrador, and marine shipping will soon be open.

I would like to ask the Minister for Labrador Affairs: When will the report be released to the public and when will we be told what the reduced freight rates will be for this year?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works; Minister Responsible for Aboriginal Affairs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, the report is under consideration by the government now and once the government has had an opportunity to conclude that review, the report will be made public.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans.

MS THISTLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I have more questions today related to post-secondary education. The minister's answers in this House yesterday and his comments in the media today are not very comforting for students and employees who work in the college system of this Province. I have repeatedly asked questions to the minister on this topic and he has not denied that there would be campus closures or program cuts.

Yesterday he said, and this is his direct quote in The Telegram, "I wouldn't say there's nothing radical for next year, or the years to come."

I ask the minister: Will he clear the air and will he end the uncertainty? Will he release the White Paper report and tell people if there are going to be cuts?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: Mr. Speaker, the White Paper process is certainly moving along. The White Paper will be released in due time. At that time any fears that the hon. member has, or others, will be certainly put to rest.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans.

MR. HICKEY: (Inaudible) go back to sleep.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask members for their co-operation. The Chair has recognized the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans and I ask that she be heard in relative silence.

The hon. the member.

MS THISTLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is the first time the Member for Lake Melville opened his mouth and, of course, he said: What are you doing? Gone to sleep! I am interested in what students around this Province have to face this year, and it is time for you to wake up and listen.

Mr. Speaker, this government has stalled too long on making this report public. Students are now applying for programs at campuses that may not be here in the fall.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister: Are the campuses in Placentia, Carbonear and Port aux Basques on this government's chopping block? Answer the question, please?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: Mr. Speaker, when I look at the question that has come across; again, I have to say to the hon. member, we are going through a process. It is a very important paper. It is going to involve decisions, but I can tell you right now that we would not do anything to adversely affect the post-secondary students in this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans.

MS THISTLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, this year government has decreased the student employment program by $3 million, which means that your government has cut one out of every three summer jobs for students this year. These cuts are going to impact students in rural areas. You know full well that there are less opportunities in rural Newfoundland and Labrador for summer jobs for our students.

I ask the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment: How can you justify these cuts, particularly in rural Newfoundland and Labrador?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, this government has invested $6 million in SIOC. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, in our youth services division of HRLE we have also put emphasis on working with youth who are at risk of poverty.

Mr. Speaker, we are trying to reach a goal in three years that the take-up on our youth employment programs go from 7 per cent of youth at risk to 50 per cent in three years.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time for Question Period has expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair recognizes the Member for Trinity-Bay de Verde.

MS JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

Six times during Question Period, the Member for Bay of Islands made the statement, "Be a man." Mr. Speaker, I feel that by stating, "Be a man." is equating having integrity or honesty. I think it is a very sexist comment. I do not think the House of Assembly is the place for that.

I am willing to make a suggestion. I am willing to suggest that the member use the statement, "Be an individual."

In any case, Mr. Speaker, I would like a ruling on that.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

All members should be careful in the expressions they use; however, the Chair did not specifically hear the comments. Therefore, the Chair rules there is no point of order.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

Tabling of Documents

 

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair would like to table the Annual Report of The Commissioner Of Members' Interests for 2004-2005.

Notices of Motions.

Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans.

MS THISTLE: Thank you -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair has recognized the hon. the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans, on a petition.

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

A point of order has been raised by the Member for Trinity-Bay de Verde.

MS JOHNSON: Mr. Speaker, when I stood on my last point of order, the Member for Port de Grave said, "My darling."

I am nobody's darling, Mr. Speaker. Again, I think that is sexist and I would ask for such comments to be taken back.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Speaking to the point of order, the hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: [Mike not on]

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Colleagues, I ask all members on both sides to be careful in the way in which we address each other, making sure that what we say shows respect and shows integrity and shows the way in which we would like to be treated in this House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Speaker is asking members to show mutual respect and show dignity to each other, and to avoid using expressions that might be offensive to other members. There are some expressions that may be colloquial in the Newfoundland context but which members may take offence to, so I ask members for their co-operation.

The hon. the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans.

MS THISTLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand again in this hon. House today to give a petition on behalf of the people of Grand Falls-Buchans and all of Central Newfoundland. It is in relation to a statement that was - a commitment, actually, by the Minister of Natural Resources in this House of Assembly on May 4. He committed that he would not, as part of his government, enter into any power arrangements with Abitibi on the Exploits River without a commitment from the company for a two-machine operation at the mill in Grand Falls. This was broken by the Minister of Natural Resources on May 6.

I have before me today, forty pages of names of people in Central Newfoundland, from all over my district, Bishop's Falls, Botwood, a petition there exclusively from the business community, which is the Exploits River Chamber of Commerce. There is great concern in our area that this government is not going to live up to the commitment that the Natural Resources Minister made on May 4.

I do not know what happened when our Premier came back from Houston, but, when he did, the Minister of Natural Resources completely backed away from a commitment that he made here in this House, and it is recorded in our Hansard recordings on May 4. I do not know what happened, but I am sure the Premier said to the Minister of Natural Resources: You are out much too far, Minister. You had better come in from that direction because you know what the ultimate goal here is for us, as a government, and what we are going to do. Abitibi has plans for number seven to close out, and this government is going to accept that decision from Abitibi and they are going to send the fibre and the power to the Stephenville operation.

That was in their survival plan, and this Minister of Natural Resources is going to go along with government and let that happen, even though he made a commitment to the people of this Province that he would not enter into power negotiations until he got a commitment on a two-machine operation for Grand Falls mill.

Mr. Speaker, what you have here is, one moment a promise is a promise, and now you have a minister who made a commitment. Anyone who sits in the Cabinet and speaks on behalf of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador speaks for the government, but what we have now is a minister who made a commitment to the people of Central Newfoundland and the next day turned his back on the people of Central Newfoundland.

I ask that the Minister of Natural Resources and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador halt their discussions, like they said they would do, and not enter into any power arrangement with Abitibi until they get a commitment from Abitibi for a two-machine operation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair recognizes the Member for Labrador West, on a petition.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition on behalf of approximately 1,500 residents who have taken the time to fill out these petitions and send them in from all areas of the Province, from places like Appleton, Baie Verte, Clarenville, Come By Chance, Grand Bank, Leading Tickles, Lewisporte, Little Bay Islands, Point Leamington, Rigolet, Robert's Arm, South Brook, Terrenceville, and many, many other communities around this Province.

These people have sent this petition, Mr. Speaker, because they are very concerned about what is happening in our Province concerning the addiction to VLTs and problem gambling being experienced by our citizens.

Mr. Speaker, these people feel strongly, very strongly, that there should be an opportunity for people in this Province to have a say in public policy being set by the provincial government. Part of that decision that they want to have a say in, is whether or not VLTs and other forms of compulsive gambling should be entitled to be legitimate in our Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I am wondering if the -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the members if they could take their conversations outside. The Chair is listening to the Member for Labrador West, and I ask members to hear the petition in relative silence.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I was saying, the people of the Province want a say in whether or not this type of gambling should be allowed in our Province.

Mr. Speaker, the other thing I would like to say on this, that wasn't current at the time these petitions were circulated, that has come to light since, and that is the intention by Atlantic Lotto to bring electronic KENO into the Province -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask members to respect the standard etiquette of the House.

The Chair again recognizes the hon. the Member for Labrador West, and I will add extra time to his petition because of the disruptions that have occurred.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, for that.

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, when these petitions were circulated the game of electronic KENO that will be throughout this Province in a couple of weeks was not on the radar screen then. This game has the potential to be equally or more dangerous than the VLTs themselves.

I am asking, on behalf of the people who filled out these petitions, given the fact that government has commissioned a study to look at the prevalence of gambling problems in our Province - this is not a problem, I say to this government, that they are responsible for, this is one that they inherited, but they are responsible on a go forward basis. The electronic KENO is something that this government can take a stand on. Many people acknowledged that the moves they made in the past budget, in terms of a freeze, a reduction, and money for persons with addictions, they were good moves. Did they go far enough? Some people may argue that at least it was an acknowledgment and some moves were made.

What is needed now, Mr. Speaker, is for government to say to Atlantic Lotto: No new gambling games will be brought into this Province as long as the study is outstanding, until such time as the study is completed and made public so the people of the Province are fully aware of what the problems are today. I think it is incumbent upon this government and I ask them to do so, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace.

MR. SWEENEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand today with approximately 3,000 names from residents of Conception Bay North with a petition on their behalf. Mr. Speaker, I will read the prayer of the petition:

WHEREAS Harvey Street in Harbour Grace has been left in shambles and unrepaired following the opening of the Veterans Memorial Highway; and

WHEREAS the water and sewer infrastructure under this street is now being negatively impacted; and

WHEREAS Harvey Street is presently near impassable;

WHEREAS the previous government made a commitment to repair this road once the new highway was opened.

We, the citizens, call upon government to repair Harvey Street and make significant improvements to the water and sewer infrastructure in the area.

Mr. Speaker, every other situation in this Province, where government has put a highway in replacing an existing means of infrastructure, which Harvey Street and the road from Tilton barrens down through, was considered to be part of the Conception Bay North Highway. Now that road has been virtually abandoned, it has not been touched. There has been no repairs done, no resurfacing, nothing done. It is left to the expense of the taxpayers of Harbour Grace. The residents of Harbour Grace are finding it nearly impossible to keep against the road. Numerous vehicles are being damaged on a daily basis. Front-end repairs are rampant out there. Businesses are suffering because the road is not fit to drive over. These petitions were done in businesses in the community of Harbour Grace. This was only for a very short period of time, Mr. Speaker, that this petition was in circulation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the government to go back to the planning stages that were in place. There was a committee in place between Transportation and Works, a representative from Municipal and Provincial Affairs and a representative from the Town of Harbour Grace to bring some resolution to the town acquiring the responsibility for Harvey Street. It is just not practical, Mr. Speaker, after hundreds of years of Harvey Street, Harbour Grace, being used as part of the Conception Bay North Highway, to have this government turn their backs on the people out there and leave them with this mess.

The tourism season is drawing quickly upon us. Harbour Grace has not received any infrastructure money this year again. Mr. Speaker, it is deplorable to expect this street to be used this summer. If government is not going to do anything about it, at least go out there and say that the street is impassable and put some detour signs up and keep people off it from destroying their vehicles.

There was a gentleman from Bay Roberts who went in there and opened a brand new supermarket. He spent a small fortune, investing in his business in Harbour Grace, a brand new modern supermarket, and nearly all the people who are going to his store are finding it difficult with the cost of car repairs and so on. Mr. Speaker, the time has come when this government must take some action and deal with this town and help them fix the street.

Mr. Speaker, I know my time is drawing to a close here, so I would like to present this petition on behalf of over 3,000 residents of the Conception Bay North area who use this street.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair is seeking direction. It is now 3 o'clock and it being Wednesday, under Standing Order 63(7) on Wednesday we would ordinarily go to business of the day. I do still see members who wish to present petitions - we will hear petitions?

MR. E. BYRNE: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Okay.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

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

As we indicated yesterday before the House closed, there has been an agreement amongst all parties in the House, certainly myself in my capacity as Government House Leader, the Opposition House Leader and the Leader of the New Democratic Party, the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, that we would use today, being it our Private Members' Day, for government business. So, there is unanimous consent to do so.

My suggestion and direction, I guess, provided to the Chair, would be that we just continue to go through Orders of the Day as they are presented. I know we are on Petitions. Once Petitions are concluded, then we will get to calling Orders of the Day and particular pieces of legislation. That seems to be the agreement that we are operating under.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand to present a petition on behalf of residents in Labrador with regard to money that government is earning on a recall power contract on the Upper Churchill.

Mr. Speaker, a five-year contract, this year government profited $45 million to its provincial coffers, and people in Labrador feel that this money should be invested back into the Labrador communities. I guess the frustration that they are experiencing right now has accumulated over the fact that you have all of this new money being dumped into the provincial coffers but very little in investment coming back.

Today, in Question Period, there were a number of issues raised where people in Labrador feel that government is not meeting the need and the demands that they expect. My colleague from Torngat Mountains talked about an auditorium for Lake Melville that government has reneged on a commitment to build that facility for children in Labrador.

The Combined Councils of Labrador, two months after the Budget is passed and still have not gotten any confirmation on whether they will receive their funding for this year; an organization that, for thirty-three years in Labrador, has represented the municipalities, the issues, the policies of those organizations and for a small amount of $100,000 they would continue to operate as they have always done, Mr. Speaker. So, when you hear of a sum of money like $45 million in profit on a new power contract, $230 million over the next five years that will go to the provincial coffers and you do not get the investments back that you necessarily want to see, it becomes very frustrating.

We are in a situation right now in Happy Valley-Goose Bay where we do not have enough hydro power to operate the base there, 5 Wing Goose Bay, and the cost of building another transmission line would be around $60 million, I think, by Hydro's estimates. You know, to know that there is enough money being accumulated over the next two years to be able to start that initiative, complete it, and still have money left over, that is what people want to see. They want to see this money invested directly back into the Labrador economy so that you can see some economic spinoff and some economic growth from it.

So, that is the gist of the petition, Mr. Speaker, and I present it to the House today on their behalf.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank district.

MS FOOTE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Today I present a petition on behalf of the residents of the District of Grand Bank. It is about the need for a CT scanner and a dialysis unit for the Burin Peninsula. Both pieces of equipment, Mr. Speaker, to be located at the Regional hospital in Burin.

Mr. Speaker, the petition has been signed by in excess of 3,000 people who cannot believe that this government, yet again, has failed to put a CT scanner on the Burin Peninsula and a dialysis unit. The need has been shown, there are families who are now having to travel great distances to access dialysis services. People have to leave their homes, close up their homes - in fact, Mr. Speaker, in some cases sell them and move out of the community in which they live on the Burin Peninsula just so that they can get the medical attention that they need and deserve.

With respect to a CT scanner. Mr. Speaker, I understand that there was a very public meeting held last night in Marystown. In fact, it was supposed to be in the town hall in Marystown but there were so many people who turned up for this meeting, in fact over 400 people actually turned out, that they had to move it to another location because the Fire Commissioner said the town hall would not hold that many people. So, that will show you the extent of the concern on the Burin Peninsula. They have called on the Member for Burin-Placentia West to work on their behalf to try and make sure that a CT scanner is approved for the Burin Peninsula, as well as a dialysis unit. I understand that he did undertake to work with them to try and secure those pieces of equipment for the Burin Peninsula.

Well, I have called on him several times, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of everyone on the Burin Peninsula, not just the members of Burin-Placentia West but in the District of Grand Bank as well and the District of Bellevue to, in fact, make sure that government understands the importance of putting this piece of diagnostic medical equipment on the Burin Peninsula. We need the CT scanner. There are people who are involved in accidents, people who cannot be transported to another location, to either Clarenville or St. John's, who really believe that if anything should happen then it may be as a result of not having the medical equipment to do the proper diagnosis.

Mr. Speaker, the people of the Burin Peninsula need and deserve this vital piece of diagnostic equipment. Again, we are calling on the government to live up to the commitment that was made by the previous government to put a CT scanner on the Burin Peninsula. The previous government put several pieces of diagnostic equipment at the Regional hospital in Burin and this is another one that they had committed to but the government opposite decided not to go ahead with that commitment. This is one that I cannot understand, Mr. Speaker, how they could have possibly turned their backs on the people of the Burin Peninsula and said no to a CT scanner, a vital piece of medical equipment, no matter where you live today, to ensure that people get the medical attention that they need, especially if they are involved in a serious motor vehicle accident and need to have the services of a practitioner who can use a CT scanner and make sure that the CT scanner is on-site.

Again we are calling on the government, through these petitions, over 3,000 signatures, to put a CT scanner at the regional hospital in Burin and to commit to a dialysis unit - the numbers are there; no matter how you look at it, the numbers are there - so that people do not have to leave their homes and leave their families to avail of dialysis services.

Mr. Speaker, these are trying times for people, and especially people who are on dialysis. It is very difficult for them to find themselves in a situation where they have to leave their homes. In some cases spouses have to quit their jobs just to care for their partner, especially when you are talking about home dialysis.

I think if the government is going to be reasonable and responsible, they have to acknowledge that there is a desperate need on the Burin Peninsula for those two pieces of medical equipment. We are calling on them to act in the only manner that is proper, and that is to put those two pieces of equipment on the Burin Peninsula.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The member's time has expired.

MS FOOTE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to present a petition on behalf of residents in my district and on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, and this is with regard to recommendations in the health care report, the HayGroup.

Mr. Speaker, the HayGroup recommended several things that are unacceptable - unacceptable to people who live in these areas - as it relates to health care. One of them, Mr. Speaker, said that they should remove the physicians from the Forteau Hospital in the Labrador Straits, an area where there are 3,000 residents, and that, in fact, the hospital should be reduced to a clinic style operation, and that the patients in that area should be referred for emergent care to the hospital in Blanc-Sablon, in the Province of Quebec.

Mr. Speaker, that is not an acceptable standard of medical care or patient care to be providing in any region of Newfoundland and Labrador. I strongly - through these petitions - urge the government to not move forward with those recommendations but, in fact, to dismiss it outright and to commit to maintain the physician services that exist in that hospital right now.

Mr. Speaker, it is also asking that the integrity of the health care system under the Labrador-Grenfell Regional Integrated Health Authority be maintained and that the services at the St. Anthony Hospital, such as obstetrics, gynecology, psychiatry, pediatrics, all of these services be maintained to the full complement that exists there today so that you can provide good, adequate health care to the people who live in this region.

Government acted very hastily, I say to you, in striking recommendations in the HayGroup report that pertain to the negative impacts on health care in the Stephenville area, some that were pertaining to the Port aux Basques area, but they have failed to do the same for the people on the Northern Peninsula and in Southern Labrador.

Through this petition we are asking that they reconsider, that they dismiss those recommendations in the HayGroup report, and that they maintain a good complement of health care services to the people in that region, provided through our own facilities and not the facilities of those in another Province. I urge the government to do that, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans.

MS THISTLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would not have to be getting up here today to give this petition again if we had a Minister of Transportation and Works who would see beyond the Trans-Canada Highway.

Yesterday, and the day before, I stood in this House and talked about the terrible, deplorable condition of the Buchans Highway. I even sent the minister photographs that I took while I was up there a week or so ago and, still, that did not dent him one bit.

He does not care that there is heavy equipment going over that highway every day, that is going to the new mine at Duck Pond. It is bringing money into the provincial coffers so that they can have money for roads and hospitals and everything else. He does not care about that. He does not care about woods trucks that are hauling heavy loads over the highway every day. The edges of the pavement are broken. There is no shoulder. He does not care that people are going from Buchans to Grand Falls-Windsor every day. He does not care that schoolchildren have to get on a bus in Millertown and Buchans Junction and drive to Buchans over that kind of a highway. He certainly does not care that there is an ambulance that travels every day, whenever there is a call to be made for someone who is sick, from Buchans, Millertown, or Buchans Junction. There is mail that has to go up every day. There are deliveries of freight and goods.

None of that dents him one iota, not even with a photograph - two or three photographs - showing him the condition of the roads. He has not even made a call to his director of works, services and transportation, Wayne Ricks.

MR. RIDEOUT: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: A point of order has been raised by the Minister of Transportation and Works, and Minister Responsible for Aboriginal Affairs.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, I am reluctant to interrupt the hon. member presenting a petition, but I cannot let her, perhaps unknowingly, give false information to the House.

The fact of the matter is that I asked our director in Central Newfoundland about two weeks ago to provide me with a report on the shoulders of the road leading to Buchans.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

As the minister would know, and all members would know, there is no point of order.

The Chair recognizes the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans.

MS THISTLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

At last I got that minister to stand in his place. At least he said he made a request. We do have cellphones and regular phones and e-mail, and all of that. If he asked his director two weeks ago for a report, why hasn't he received it? The same report that his director gave him two years ago and last year is still in effect. The only thing -

MR. RIDEOUT: (Inaudible) two years ago.

MS THISTLE: Yes, and I was the one who did the repairs on the Buchans Highway - not you, Mister, not you!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS THISTLE: I did repairs on the Buchans Highway every year since I have been elected.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has expired.

Orders of the Day.

Orders of the Day

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

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

Mr. Speaker, Motion 1, the hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Teachers' Pension Act. ( Bill 40)

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board shall have leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Teachers' Pension Act. ( Bill 40)

Is it the pleasure of the House that the hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board shall have leave to introduce said bill?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

Carried.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Teachers' Pension Act," carried. ( Bill 40)

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the said Bill 40 be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the said bill be now read a first time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

Carried.

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The Teachers' Pension Act. ( Bill 40)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 40 has now been read a first time. When shall this bill be read a second time?

MR. E. BYRNE: Later, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Later in today's sitting.

On motion, Bill 40 read a first time, ordered read a second time presently, by leave.

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

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

Motion 2, in the name of the hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General, to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Lobbyists Registration Act. ( Bill 38)

Just for clarification, Mr. Speaker, so all members are aware, that Standing Orders are simply this, that when the bill is read a first time, that is normally when the bill is distributed, not before.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General shall have leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Lobbyists Registration Act. (Bill 38)

Is it the pleasure of the House that the hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General shall have leave to introduce said bill?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

Carried.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Lobbyists Registration Act," carried. (Bill 38)

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the said bill be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that Bill 38, An Act To Amend The Lobbyists Registration Act, be now read a first time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

Carried.

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The Lobbyists Registration Act. (Bill 38)

MR. SPEAKER: This bill has now been read a first time. When shall this bill be read a second time?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

When shall this bill be read a second time?

MR. E. BYRNE: Later today, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Later in the day's sitting.

On motion, Bill 38 read a first time, ordered read a second time presently, by leave.

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

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

I move that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider matters related to Bill 20, An Act To Revise The Law Respecting Smoking In Public Places And The Workplace.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that I do now leave the Chair for the House to resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole on Bill 20, An Act To Revise The Law Respecting Smoking In Public Places And The Workplace.

All those in agreement, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

Motion carried.

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

Committee of the Whole

CHAIR (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

Bill 20, An Act To Revise The Law Respecting Smoking In Public Places And The Workplace.

A bill, "An Act To Revise The Law Respecting Smoking In Public Places And The Workplace." (Bill 20)

CHAIR: Clause 1. Shall clause 1 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Clause 1 is carried.

On motion, clause 1 carried.

CLERK: Clause 2.

CHAIR: Shall clause 2 carry?

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Chairman, I do not know if it is planned to go through each clause one at a time. I understand that there were some amendments being proposed by both sides of the House. I have not seen any of them yet, so I guess we can still talk about the principle of the bill as it is, can we? Would that be the understanding, until we see amendments?

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

If we are prepared to entertain an amendment then we would certainly like to hear some discussion, and we are prepared to table an amendment. I was going to raise that issue, I say to the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, when we get to that clause. I was not intending to deal with it because we are doing clause by clause now, and the principle of the bill basically is in second reading. When we get to a specific one where it might be warranted - if someone has one they want to move at that time on that clause, that is the appropriate place to move that, or have discussion at that particular time.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I do not, I suppose in theory, have a problem with that, but if we are going to be asked to look at amendments and debate amendments that we have not seen, we have not had time to consider - the wording of them. There has been some discussion about amendments around the House, but I have not seen any text of any amendments that either side is going to propose. What I would suggest is if anybody has any amendments that they want hon. members to consider, they should at least make them available so that people can look at them beforehand, rather than trying to deal with them on the fly, and response to the amendments as they come forward.

I, for one, am very concerned about the provisions in the act that provide for an automatic loss of a licence of a person who runs a licenced establishment if he happens to be guilty of an offence under the Smoke Free Environment Act. I find that extremely offensive, Mr. Chairman, that this would continue to be in the act without any amendment coming forward. Now, I suppose I could prepare my own amendment and see where it ought to be in the act, but I understand there are some amendments coming forward.

I am looking at the Liquor Control Act here, for example, and I see how the Liquor Control Act, which is what is being amended by this act in part, how they deal with the issue of, first of all, managing the qualifications for licensees. That is in section 33 of the act. In section 33 of the act, the qualifications for licensees for a licenced premises includes all kinds of things that have to do with the suitability of the individual. The location, for example, is certainly part of it, but the licensee must be an appropriate person, for example. A licence shall not be granted to a person unless he or she is an appropriate person to keep and operate the kind of premises in respect to which the licence is sought and he or she has not been convicted within three years of a (inaudible) offence under the Criminal Code, punished by imprisonment.

So, you would have to be a pretty bad person not to be able to get a licence, Mr. Chairman, to run a liquor premises, but yet, this government thinks that if you break the smoking by-law, or the smoke-free establishment that you are going to be dis-entitled to have a licence. I have a big objection to that, Mr. Chairman, because that is not my understanding of what you are trying to do when you are trying to get people to conform to a new piece of legislation, a piece of legislation that has some controversy associated with it because it has to do with people's freedom and people's ability to do what they are, in many cases, addicted to doing. I think we have to be a little bit even-handed here and a bit proportional.

Section 33 also says, Mr. Chairman, that the board, the Liquor Licensing Board, shall cancel a licence where the licensee operates an electronic or mechanical amusement device in contravention of the Lotteries Act. In other words, Mr. Chairman, if you run a bar and in your bar you are running an illegal gambling operation, you can lose your licence. If you are running an illegal gambling operation you lose your licence. I suppose a cynic might say that you are interfering with the monopoly that the Atlantic Lottery Corporation has. Therefore, they want to enforce that, but that is not the real reason. The real reason is because the government - and the government has an interest in ensuring that we do not have bars being turned into illegal gambling dens. Not that I am in favour of the legal gambling dens we have, but that was the purpose of that long before we had the kind of gambling going on in bars now that we have with Atlantic Lottery.

The purpose, Mr. Chairman, is to say okay, bars should not be dens of illegal gambling. It goes on further to say, if someone is guilty of an offence under the Tobacco Tax Act, section 68(1) and that has to do with selling contraband tobacco. In other words, Mr. Chairman, if you are engaged in smuggling and selling smuggled tobacco outside of the tax laws - in other words, if you are engaged in that kind of illegal activity running a bar then you are not, obviously, a suitable person to be running a bar and therefore you lose your licence.

I do not think, Mr. Chairman, that is the same as being in violation of a public health statute, which is what we are talking about here. We are doing a piece of legislation to protect the public from second-hand smoke. We are not on the same moral ground at all, Mr. Speaker, as we are when we are saying: You cannot have a liquor license if you are running an illegal gambling operation. You cannot have a liquor license if you are running an illegal selling of tobacco contrary to the Tobacco Tax Act, and smuggling.

What do we do, Mr. Speaker, to people who are in violation of the liquor laws? Well, they have a whole different section on that. Section 40, 46, 47 and 48 gives the board the power to suspend or cancel licenses in certain circumstances. They are set out in section 46 of the act. You can suspend a license, "Where the board is of the opinion that a licensed premises is not being operated in accordance with this Act - this act being the Liquor Control Act - or the regulations or the conditions prescribed..." in a license. You can suspend those licenses for a brief period of time but then it has to go to the board.

The Criminal Code regarding indecency, where a licensee, officer, manager, or agent is convicted of an offence under various sections of the Criminal Code having to do with performing indecent acts, Mr. Speaker, the board may cancel or may suspend the license of a licensee; not shall, Mr. Speaker, not take away their license forever. Even if you are running an indecent show in your bar you don't get your license cancelled automatically, Mr. Speaker. The board may, the board has the power, to look into it and decide whether it is an offence worthy enough to have your license cancelled, or suspended, not even cancelled. It might be suspended for a day, it might be suspended for a week, it might be suspended for thirty days. Those are the kinds of powers that we give this board, if they are running a bar and are carrying on some indecent act.

The board may also cancel a license where the licensee persistently fails to comply with the Act, with the regulations or the Liquor Control Act, or persistently fails to carry out appropriate orders of the board, or the licensee fails to keep the licensed premises in a clean and sanitary condition. These are the kinds of things that allow the board to cancel a license. Mr. Speaker, persistently fails to carry out - I can understand, Mr. Speaker, if somebody is flouting this law we are seeking to pass here today, if a bar operator is seeking to flout the law with respect to a smoke free environment, if some bartender decides to have a tolerance policy on smoking in their bar, are not going to comply with the act, we don't agree with the act, we are not happy with the act, we don't like the government, we don't like what they are doing there in Confederation Building and we are going to allow people to smoke because we are here in our own little community we can do what we like, if somebody takes that attitude, Mr. Speaker, then I can see the Liquor Licensing Board saying: Boy, we can't have that, we can't have people running bars who are consistently and persistently failing to follow the law, and we will suspend their licence or we will cancel their licence.

That makes sense, Mr. Chairman. That makes sense, but what we have today, what we have in this act that is now before the House, is a section that says, if you are guilty - you do not even have to be convicted - if you are guilty of a violation of the Smoke-Free Environment Act - in other words, if you do not ensure that nobody smokes in your bar - your licence will be cancelled by the board. The board shall cancel the licence.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I am all in favour of this act, and I spoke on it yesterday. I think it is a progressive piece of legislation, but you do not go from nothing, where you can smoke as much as you want in a bar today, to tomorrow, if somebody smokes in your bar, you are going to lose your licence. We did not do that as a society when it came to trying to control an even greater evil, Mr. Chairman, that of impaired driving. Twenty-five years ago, if you were convicted of impaired driving, you might have gotten a fine of a couple of hundred dollars. You might have gotten a fine of a couple or three hundred dollars twenty-five years ago. You might have. You might have gotten away with it. Then, gradually, the laws of this country got stricter and stricter to control the evil or the mischief, or whatever you want to call it, of impaired driving that caused so many deaths and injuries throughout the country.

Gradually things got worse, to the point that now, Mr. Chairman, if you get found guilty of impaired driving, you lose your licence for six months to a year. You get a significant fine of $800 or $1,000. On a second offence you go to jail, automatic, two weeks. On a third offence you go to jail for three months. These are automatic because we have decided, as a society, that this is something that we are not prepared to tolerate.

Mr. Chairman, we are just at the beginning phase of this. I think society has recognized that smoking is dangerous to people's health. We are not making it illegal, but we are concerned about the dangers of second-hand smoke because of what it causes, after a time, to people who are engaged in smoking and who are exposed to second-hand smoke.

If somebody smokes in a bar today, Mr. Chairman, the people who might potentially be affected by that smoke are not going to be laid waste by cancer the next day. We are not so concerned about it, Mr. Chairman, that we see an imminent danger to people and we have to have draconian, drastic measures at the very beginning.

We want the law obeyed, Mr. Chairman, and I will be the first one to say that this law must be enforced. This law must be enforced, but we, as legislators, have a responsibility to ensure some sort of proportionality, that if there is a law that is related to the public health of the people in a bar, that the law is responded to by the appropriate measures of fines and enforcement. You know, we have other public health measures out there, Mr. Chairman. We have an oil refinery out in Come By Chance. We do not close that down and say you cannot operate an oil refinery ever again because you violated the pollution regulations. We did not do that to Corner Brook Pulp and Paper when they polluted the harbour in Corner Brook. We did not say close down your mill, did we? I do not remember us doing that. I do not remember anybody even calling for that. They got a fine, they went to court, they did their thing, and they had to pay a penalty for doing it. That is supposed to be some kind of a deterrent, and I am sure it is. We expect them to clean up their act, just as we expect the oil refinery in Come By Chance to clean up their act. We increased, a few years ago, the fines to a maximum of $1 million for violating our air pollution act, but we did not say anywhere in that legislation that on a second offence we are going to take away your licence to operate an oil refinery.

I do not think, Mr. Chairman, this is very appropriate at all, whether it is a first offence or a second offence, and I haven't seen the amendment yet. The amendment - oh, here we are. We have an amendment. We are going to talk about that, I guess, when we get to it. The amendment says that we will cancel your licence. We won't cancel on the first offence. We will cancel on the second offence.

Mr. Chairman, I do not think it is appropriate. I have asked someone to get me a copy of the Criminal Code because there was a whole bunch of those sections that were mentioned, that if you breach these sections of the Criminal Code then you might get your licence cancelled.

Oh, here we are, 167 of the Criminal Code, "Every one commits an offence who, being the lessee, manager, agent or person in charge of a theatre, presents or gives or allows to be presented therein an immoral, indecent or obscene performance, entertainment or representation."

So, he can carry on, have an obscene performance, go on and have your theatre in your bar, in a licensed premises, have an obscene performance, not a problem. The board might or might not cancel your licence. They might or might not. They might suspend it - but, if you are caught smoking in that bar for a second time, and you are convicted of a second or a subsequent offence, the board shall cancel your licence.

We have some standards here now, Mr. Chairman. Certain things are very important for us to enforce against licensees, and certain things are less important. It is more important to ensure that you do not smoke in a bar than it is to ensure there is no immoral or indecent performances going on in the bar.

Section 167 was one of them. We have section 173. That refers to, again, indecent acts, willfully doing an indecent act in a public place with intent to offend somebody. That is another one. Exposing yourself - everyone who, for a sexual purpose, exposes themselves to a person under the age of fourteen years, you might lose your licence if that happened. You might have it suspended. You might lose it.

Section 174 has to do with nudity in a public place. If you have a nude show in your bar, you may or may not lose your licence, but if someone is smoking in the bar you are guaranteed to lose your licence for a second offence.

Section 175 has to do with causing a disturbance by various methods, by openly exposing or exhibiting an indecent exhibition in a public place. So, you can turn your bar into an indecent theatre, you can have public nudity, you can have whatever you want under the Criminal Code, those various sections that I referred to, and according to the Liquor Control At you may suffer a suspension. You may have your licence cancelled or suspended. If you are guilty of smoking in that bar, then the board shall cancel the licence where the licensee has been convicted of a second or subsequent offence.

Mr. Chairman, I have a great deal of difficulty with the approach being taken by the current act, which says that, for a first offence, if you are guilty of committing a breach of the Smoke-free Environment Act, you are guaranteed to have your licence cancelled by the board. The board has no discretion, by the way. It is not a question of, does the board think that you are a fit person because you have persistently violated the act, or whether you are flouting the regulations, or whether you are showing an attitude of willful neglect of your responsibilities, or persistently fail to follow orders or directions or any of that nature. You simply have to be convicted of an offence under the Smoke-free Environment Act of 2005.

The amendment that I see coming forward does not seem to do anything to mitigate that, so that is the major problem that I have with the legislation. I want to say that the Smoke-free Environment Act is a positive step. I want to be able to support the act wholeheartedly, but I really cannot say that I am in favour of us creating these kinds of disproportional responses to something that is a public health issue - that is a significant public health issue.

We want to see people be able to comply with the act. We want to see an enforcement of the act. We want to see an opportunity for people to conform their behaviour to the Act. We want them to respect the Act, we want them to respect the law, we want them to respect other people's rights. I say, Mr. Chairman, you lose respect for the law when the law comes up with this kind of arbitrary action that has nothing to do with the level of disobedience. It might have to do only with the fact that you are convicted twice. You might get away with it. You could get away with it fifty times. One person might get away with it fifty times, another person might do it three times, get caught twice, get convicted twice, and lose their license.

CHAIR: Order, please!

I remind the hon. Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi that his time for speaking has expired.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This being Committee, there will be other opportunities.

Thank you very much.

CHAIR: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am glad the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi raised the points that he did, and I am glad that I received a copy of the amendment that the government itself, I understand, is willing to propose with respect to the very issue that he just raised, because that also is one of some six items that I had given notice of to the Table. I believe there have been copies of those proposed amendments too, that the Official Opposition would like to see dealt with as we go through clause by clause.

The first clause that we would like to move consideration of an amendment for is in clause 4, Mr. Chairman. I will just make these couple of comments as we get there. I know we are not there yet, we are at clause 2. I will just make these comments, and the next time I speak, I would expect, would be at clause 4 as we get to that particular point to move an amendment for consideration.

It is interesting to note that we, too, as the Official Opposition, feel that it is time to go the next step with respect to the smoke-free spaces issues in bars, clubs and bingo halls. The owners themselves, as I understand it, are also willing to go there. They just wish there was more of a consideration for their concerns as to how the objectives can be achieved. We will move three or four amendments today that would at least ask and provide an opportunity for government to consider, one more time, these issues and a slightly different approach to it. It is not the general principle, it is the approach to it that we are having some difficulty with as well.

I note that the minister is paying close attention. I am glad to see that the member, the Chair of the Committee, might also listen and consider the amendments to see whether or not some of them might be considered, because they might want to give it some serious consideration by having the occasional quick huddle once in awhile. I know the Member for Trinity North chaired these sessions throughout the Province. There were other members of the caucus with respect to the Member for Gander, the Member for Windsor-Springdale, the Minister of Justice at times, the Member for Lake Melville, the MHA for Humber East, the Member for Bonavista South - certain members on that side did this public consultation in a general fashion and I would ask that maybe one or more of them might consider some of the representations being made here.

It is clear that, in fact, the Province generally, as well as the owners of the establishments, are willing to go to the next step. The plea has been: Could we go to the next step in a manner that accommodates some of our concerns as operators of bars and pubs, accommodates some of the adverse and negative economic impacts that they would suggest that studies have shown have happened elsewhere and are likely to happen here as well. Let's give it some serious consideration, accomplish what the goal is: To have smoke-free spaces for the patrons and for the employees, as the general rule for everybody in the Province, and to allow for some designated smoking areas and designated smoking rooms where employees could go - the government is saying, we recognize that, we are willing to do that - but also where patrons could go, that if there is a smoke-free space that is there as the norm, that is what it will be. If the government is saying we can have some smoking areas in designated smoking rooms, let's talk about who is allowed in them.

That is all that is being asked by the amendments that I am putting forward today on behalf of the official Opposition as well. I think they have been shared with the minister, with the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, and I would ask, as we go through each one, Mr. Chair, that I would rise and ask for consideration and move the amendments at the various stages. The first one will not be until we get to clause 4, so I will take an opportunity to rise and move an amendment at that point.

CHAIR: Order, please!

Shall clause 2 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Clause 2 is carried.

On motion, clause 2 carried.

CLERK: Clause 3.

CHAIR: Clause 3. Shall clause 3 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Clause 3 is carried.

On motion, clause 3 carried.

CLERK: Clause 4.

CHAIR: Clause 4. Shall clause 4 carry?

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I believe the Table and the minister and the Leader of the New Democratic Party are in possession of the amendment that I am now proposing. In fact, just for context, Mr. Chair, it outlines clause 4, "A person shall not smoke in", and then it goes from sections a to u. It lists off, in alphabetical order, from a to u, definitions of places where a person shall not smoke, such as, the first one, of course, being a workplace, and we talked about that before. I am just saying this by way of context. We do not have any disagreement with saying that in the workplace, because in this workplace where I have been, smoking has been outlawed and banned in this building for over a decade, and I think the people who work here appreciate that and support that. As a matter of fact, they used to be able to smoke out on the steps and now, in this workplace, they have said: We do not want you on the steps anymore, we would like for you to move thirty-five feet away from the entrance, so that people do not have to walk through smoke even in the covered entrances. That is the evolution of the nature of this workplace. A law did not do that. The people in the workplace themselves sort of came to much of that by consensus and by agreement, and the law sort of caught up after the fact. I am pointing that out as an example whereby there is not disagreement with that.

The point that I am moving the amendment in clause 4, section (1), subsection(t) - subsection (t)was the issue I raised at second reading as a matter of principle, and I will not belabour it. I just ask the government to consider it, give us the reasons why it is here and why they do not think it should be removed. Section (t) says, 4(1)(t) says, a person shall not smoke in "a private club to which a member or invited person has access." I am moving an amendment , Mr. Chair, that would suggest that should be deleted, and I will just give this brief rationale.

My understanding is that, that kind of legislation was introduced in other jurisdictions in Canada, that it would be banned in private clubs, that it has been challenged at least at the provincial court level and it has been ruled that you cannot stop people in a private club because it is much like a private home; that the law, that the government, does not have the right. This law, for example, does not say that I am not allowed to smoke in my home. It does not say that I am not allowed to smoke in my vehicle. That is not one in the list from A to U. It does not say, my place of principle residence. It makes no reference to that. It is up to me if I smoke at home or not. It does not say, in my private vehicle. It is not listed here, which means it is up to me if I smoke in my private vehicle. It does say that if I get into a bus, which is not a private vehicle, I am not allowed to smoke because that is no longer private. There are other people around, they are in there, and we have a common interest, it is not private.

The law so far, as I understand it, has not gone to the Supreme Court of Canada yet, but it is probably on the way there, is my understanding. In private clubs, in truly private clubs, where if I decide to build a premises and I decide to have a restricted membership and I decide that in this club the only people that are invited and allowed will pay a certain fee for the year, must identify themselves with the proper identification process, just like getting into this building these days, and that is a club for smokers. If somebody walks up to the door and says, I want to come in, then you say no, no, show me your membership. Are you a member or not? If you are not a member you do not get in. It is not a place that is open to the public. It is not a public place. The whole idea of this is that it talks about public places, and a public place is defined back in 2.(k): "public place" means an area or place referred to in paragraphs 4(1)(b) to (u).

They say it is not a public place but then, by including the references (b) to (u), it says a private club is a public place. It either is a public place or it is not. It is one or the other. I contend it cannot be both. My understanding, and maybe the minister can tell me that I am incorrect, is that there is litigation about this working its way through the courts in other provinces where they put this in. They are finding that you cannot really dictate what happens in a private institution any more than you can dictate what happens in my private home, or any more than you can dictate what happens in my private vehicle; because I think there would be a different debate in the Province today if this piece of legislation was including, after section (u), if section (v) said: No person shall smoke in their own home. I think there would be a different debate than we are having today. I am not sure if people are ready to go that far in terms of having it happen.

I say, Mr. Chair, I am glad to hear an explanation from the government as to why they have included this. I am asking for consideration that it be deleted and that the rest of section 4 stand as it is. I am glad to hear some explanation as to why it is that the government might have different information than we, as the Official Opposition, are in possession of, that this has been found contentious in other jurisdictions. It is being litigated in other jurisdictions, and some people are suggesting that it actually violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that allows you to have private clubs just like you have private homes, and that, once it is a private club, the government has no business dictating what goes on in a private club any more than what they dictate what happens in your own residence or inside your own vehicle.

I would gladly hear some representation as to that. I do not intend to belabour it, and we will put it to a vote at some point in time, but I would like to hear some explanation as to what the standard is that this particular government heard in their consultations that convinced them to put it in into this act here.

CHAIR: Order, please!

Before the Chair recognizes the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board, the Table has had a chance to look at the amendment as put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, and the amendment is: That Clause 4(1)(t) be deleted.

The Chair determines that amendment is in order.

The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We do not support that on the following basis: First of all, a private club may be a club that may have a liquor licence, that may not have a liquor licence, or an invited member into that club. You can invite anybody you want into a private club. You can invite the whole public in there. They could be invited guests.

I am not going to draw conclusions on what the courts may or may not decide. If the courts decide it is not the right, obviously we have no alternative; the legislation will have to change if that is the case. That has not been established, to my knowledge, on that particular instance. We will comply with whatever law the courts bring down and tell us we have to comply with. We are not going to go out and conjecture on that, but we do not want avenues in this particular bill to allow an avenue to circumvent the intent of the bill, where you can invite everybody you want into your private club, and leave it open to the public, and they are there on invitation. How do you manage? How do you control? You might as well open up your doors and invite them into any particular club, because lots of private clubs may have guests. They may have invited members, they may come in. If there are in an area, they may indicate that they have been invited into that particular facility. It could become a public facility that is used by people who can be invited. So we do not see, on numerous grounds - it would weaken it down. It would give avenues to circumvent that particular one there, and is one that we do not agree with.

CHAIR: Order, please!

Shall the amendment pass?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

CHAIR: The Chair determines the amendment defeated.

On motion, amendment defeated.

CHAIR: Shall clause 4 carry?

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Chair, there is another amendment later in clause 4 that I have provided to the Table. Maybe you might want to rule whether it is order or not, first, before I make my comments with respect to it. I believe the Table is in possession it.

CHAIR: The Table has had a chance again to review another amendment to clause 4 as put forward by the Leader of the Opposition.

The amendment reads: Amend clause 4 (2) (b) by adding "and their visiting guests" after "may allow smoking for residents of that facility" and before "in a designated smoking room".

The Chair determines the amendment to be in order.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is another point that I raised in second reading with respect to the principle of the bill. It seems to me that there is somewhat of an inconsistency. This one is with respect to the issue - and, again, to make sure we have it in context, it says: Notwithstanding paragraph (1)(d).

So, notwithstanding that particular paragraph whereby you, in fact, are not allowed to smoke in a health facility - because section 4.(1)(d) says, "A person shall not smoke in a health care facility." This says not withstanding that, so this means there are some exceptions in health care facilities and they are spelled out in section 4(2). I believe the Committee Chair and the minister would follow it and they know exactly what I am going to say, that, in fact, it says, even though you are not to smoke in a health care facility we have decided, as the government, that the law will provide some exceptions and the exceptions will be these: that in a long-term health care facility the owner-operator of that facility can have a designated smoking room if they wish. You cannot smoke anywhere you like in the facility, but you could have a designated smoking room inside that facility, if it is a long-term care facility.

Also - and I mentioned this one a couple of days ago with respect to the Western Health Care Corporation - even if it is an acute care hospital, like the Western Health Care Corporation, that has some portion of the facility providing long-term care that facility can have a designated smoking room as well inside the health care - you cannot smoke where you like. You cannot smoke where you like, but there can be a designated smoking room.

The third exception for a health care facility laid out in section 4(2)(b) is for a psychiatric facility or unit, because there are psychiatric units as well in acute care facilities in different places in the Province. There used to be one at St. Clare's. There is one at the hospital in Grand Falls, my hometown. I believe there is a psychiatric unit that might be operational still in Gander. It is not a standalone building. It is not a standalone facility. It is a psychiatric unit inside the regular hospital. It says: In those psychiatric units you cannot smoke where you like in there, but there can be a smoking room. The point I am getting at, though, is it says this: In those smoking rooms the owner-operator of the facility may allow smoking for residents of the facility.

If I am a resident, if I am a patient in the psychiatric unit or in the psychiatric hospital, if I am a patient, a resident, I can go smoke, if somebody will provide the room for me, in the designated room. If I am a long-term care resident, if I am in a long-term care facility and I am a resident, if there is a smoking facility in the building I can go smoke in it.

The reason it came to mind for me is because my mother spent the last three years of her life in a long-term care facility. She was very happy there. She had lots of visitors there. She did not smoke. They did have a smoking room. She did not go there and, of course, when I visited her I did not go there. I can tell you, there were a lot of people who were smokers that when their visitors came, family, some of them from the Mainland, only home for a few days to go visit their mom or dad in the long-term care facility - if their mom or day was a smoker, if mom or day went down the hall into the smoking room, they could not see them.

The Chairman of the Committee knows this because this is what is being told to me anecdotally, is that everybody knows, in those facilities they let the visitors go in the smoking room too. Nobody just does anything about it. You know, if you are in visiting your mother and your mother is a smoker, and she says, come on, Rog, let's go down for a smoke now for a few minutes while you are here, that if I want to go down with her, as her son who hasn't seen her in two weeks, and go into the smoking room, up to today and up to this law, nobody has really done anything about it. It sort of has been the law, but nobody says: Yes, go on in with your mother, boy. If you are foolish enough to go in there and breath second-hand smoke, go on in with her.

What the law says, quite clearly, is that they may allow smoking for residents of that facility, so somebody is breaking the law. I guess I would be breaking the law by going in there with them because I am not suppose to be in there. The owner-operator is breaking some kind of law by letting someone else go in there other than an resident. If one of the nurses or the LPNs or one of the staff, went in there - because this was not even the staff. They were not allowed in there under this regulation. That is why my amendment says that it should read that, in those institutions, long-term care facilities, where long-term care is provided to standalone building in acute care hospitals or in psychiatric hospital or units, that if the resident is allowed to go into the smoking facility that the residents' - and the words I have used are - the residents' visiting guests should be allowed to go in with them, and that should be legal. That should not be illegal and turn a blind eye to it, which is what I am told happens today. I am told that is what happens today. I do not know if that is true or not because I do not frequently visit these smoking rooms. Any relatives who I have to visit in those facilities are not smokers. I am told, what happens today, what has been happening, and what will probably happen in the future, is that the visitors will likely go into the smoking room with the resident, and the nurses, LPNs, the supervisors, are probably not going to do much about it. I do not know what inspectors we are going to send in there and tell them they cannot do it.

If that is the norm, if that is what has been happening, and if that is what people think is sort of commonsense anyway, all I am asking, by the way of this amendment, is: Why don't we make that the law? Why don't we make it legal and permit it for the visiting guests to go into that smoking room if they chose to do so and make that permissible under the law, because it is not permissible today?

I don't think I need to belabour the point, Mr. Chairman, any further than that. I will be glad to hear what consideration the Committee and the minister gave to that before they drafted this piece of legislation, and then I am sure we will put it to a vote.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

His amendment to that didn't address entirely what he spoke to. What he indicated earlier in his amendment: He talked about having a long term care facility within an acute care facility. He did not move an amendment to delete that or have that different. His amendment was, his only amendment, the one I see, 4(2)(b), by adding "and their visiting guests" after the word facility. In other words, as an exception to it, allow visiting guests, in a facility that is a long-term care facility or a long-term facility located within an acute care facility or the psychiatric facility or unit, to be able to go in there as a visitor.

I am not sure if he intended to include that in the amendment too, but the reason we don't support that is - first, I will clarify the distinction there. A long-term care facility within an acute care institution is a designed part of a long-term care facility, whether it is in Clarenville or in Western Memorial. There is a section for long-term care residents designated within a facility. It is not a medically discharged person in a hospital bed who is waiting to get into a long-term care bed. That is not allowed. If you are in a section that is a long-term care facility and because it is located in a designated, specific area, they may - it doesn't say they have to - they may decide to set up a designated smoking room for those residents, not for the public who are visiting, the patron who is visiting. In any establishment we are not allowing people who are visiting, whether it is a bar or whether it is a bingo hall, wherever you go - we are extending that to say that the visitor cannot go in there. Smoking cannot be occurring. Why should you allow a visitor to a facility where there is smoking to go into that too?

Technically, that is for those people where it is their home, it is their residence, in long-term care facilities or a psychiatric unit. Those were the only two instances. It wasn't to allow guests to go in there. We want to make that point clear. The public at large shouldn't have to go into any facility, they don't have to go in there, and we shouldn't provide an avenue to be able to allow any visitor or any patron of any particular area to have that opportunity to do that. That is consistent with legislation that was brought in and the basic principles that are proposed.

CHAIR: Order, please!

Should the amendment, as put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, to clause 4(2)(b) carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

The Chair determines the amendment, as put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, to clause 4.(2)(b) to be defeated.

On motion, amendment defeated.

CHAIR: Shall clause 4 carry without amendment?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Clause 4 is carried.

On motion, clause 4 carried.

CLERK: Clause 5.

CHAIR: Shall clause 5 carry?

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, my understanding is that the Chair and the minister and the Leader of the New Democratic Party, the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, are in possession of the amendment that I would like to move to clause 5.(1). Maybe you could rule whether it is in order or not?

CHAIR: Order, please!

The Chair has had an opportunity to read the amendment to clause 5.(1) as put forward by the Leader of the Opposition. The amendment reads: Amend Clause 5(1) to add "and patrons" at the end of the clause after the word "employee".

The Chair determines the amendment to be in order.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, not to belabour the issue but to look for an explanation. I understand, but I do not fully accept the explanation given with respect to residents and their visitors in long-term care facilities and mental health units and so on; psychiatric units. It probably shows, again, that the government does not intend to listen a lot. They can give a reason why they want to continue on the way they are and not necessarily listen to the details and the plea that has actually been made.

I think, with respect to clause 5.(1), my understanding of it is that this would be the very nub and gist of the contention with this particular legislation and members of the Beverage Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador. This is where their biggest plea is in terms of being willing to move to the next step, to have bars and pubs and other facilities smoke-free spaces but asking for some kind of an accommodation that if there is going to be a designated smoking room allowed in the facility and to be some part of that facility, that patrons be allowed to go into that designated smoking room. Because again, for the context of it, what the government is saying with this new step forward, which is a step in the right direction, is that notwithstanding the rest of section four and so on, an employer may - a person who owns a bar or a pub or a nightclub - in accordance with the regulations - and the regulations are going to talk about what kind of designated smoking room is appropriate and allowable. That is going to be done by the government. The employer may designate one or more enclosed rooms that are under the employer's control as designated smoking rooms.

Again, the government has recognized - and I made this point at second reading. The government has recognized and is recognizing that designated smoking rooms, properly regulated - and they will determine the regulations - work. They clean the air, and that a designated smoking room has the ability to have a smoke-free space adjoining a smoking space. Otherwise, they would not have it in psychiatric facilities. They would not have it in hospitals. They would not have it in long-term care facilities and they would not have it in these smoke-free bars that is now going to become the norm in the law. So, they acknowledge that they work and they acknowledge that they know they can write regulations to have an effective designated smoking room.

I think the only group that is, basically, resisting and protesting this a bit, would probably change their tune completely and totally today if this amendment were accepted. Because the government is already saying to me, if I was the owner of a bar or a nightclub, they are saying I can have a designated smoking room in my club. The government knows how to put a regulation in place to make sure that it works properly and protects the people who are in the non-smoking part, which is the vast majority of my facility. It is going to be smoke-free. So, now you are telling me that I can build this room. It will definitely work. It will function. It will not jeopardize the smoke-free status of the rest of my facility, otherwise you would not allow it. If it was going to jeopardize the smoke-free status of the rest of the facility, I would suggest that the government would not be allowing these rooms. They would be contradicting themselves. So they must work. All they are saying is: If you are going to let me build part of my club where I can let my employees go in there, then why can't they also be joined by some of my patrons who might choose to go in there?

I believe in the representations that they have made to the committee and to the government, that they have said: there will be no liquor service in there because none of the employees will be forced to go in there. Because if it is a smoke-free room and there is going to be a bar in there, then you haven't accomplished the objective of protecting employees from secondhand smoke. So no employee would ever have to go in there. If somebody wanted to have a drink, they would have to come out of that room and go to the bar in the smoke-free space. If they wanted to engage in other - if they wanted any service from the club and its staff, they would have to get that service in the smoke-free part of the establishment. So, you would protect the staff. They would be in a completely smoke-free environment. If they are smokers by choice, they can go into the designated smoking room if they get a break; if the facility is there. The real point, as I understand it, of disconnect here and disagreement is: Why can't the patrons who choose to smoke, go inside that room where an employee can go to smoke, instead of having to go outside the door. I cannot quite follow the logic of it, quite frankly.

As a non-smoker, as I said before, I just do not follow the logic of it. That Roger Grimes is now a bar owner - it does not matter what staff I have - I am allowed to have a smoking room in my bar for my employees. That is legal, permitted, and going to be properly regulated and controlled. The government says by having that arrangement they can guarantee the people of the Province that the facility is now a smoke-free facility - that is what they are saying - and that the employees who go in there are free from exposure to secondhand smoke. That is the Occupational Health and Safety argument that has been made and supported by the labour unions, by the Workplace Health and Safety Commission and by the public, generally, I would propose as well. And, also supported by the bar owners.

The members of the Beverage Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador support the concept of the smoke-free space. They are saying the government is acknowledging that we can have a smoking room inside the smoke-free space without compromising the smoke-free nature of the facility. The only remaining question is, if there are two of us here now, myself and Mr. Butler, I am a patron and he is a bartender. We are standing next to each other at the bar. He is on the inside. I am on the outside. He is allowed to take a break and go five steps over there into a smoking room and smoke. If I am a smoker I have to leave the club and go out in the road. We will talk about whether it is thirty-five feet or not, because the minister seemed to take some offence to that the other day. The only regulation that we know of about a distance from a door so far is right in this building, where it is thirty-five feet.

There are some other questions I will raise, Mr. Chairman. I am not moving amendments but in certain clauses here there are questions I want to ask. There are other things, we are not moving amendments, but we are still not clear exactly what it means.

Again, I think I have made the point clearly. The amendment that I am moving and asking for consideration of is that if you just add the two words "and patrons" then I believe that the government will have 100 per cent agreement with respect to this new bill instead of having the Beverage Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador offside, feeling as if they have been neglected, feeling that they have been ignored.

As a matter of fact, we saw the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs put on a pretty shameful display here the other day suggesting that when I was asking these questions that I was not being sincere, that I was only playing to the people in the galleries - and, why would you raise those questions anyway? Because they are serious questions. Because there is a whole sector out there that generates $300 million worth of economic activity in the Province in a year. By the way, the $300 million worth of economic activity is the same amount of activity that is associated with the landed value of crab. The landed value of crab is $300 million. The value, the amount of money that turns hands inside the Beverage Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador in a year is $300 million. Why shouldn't we ask the questions? Why would a minister of the Crown get upset that somebody would ask legitimate questions about trying to ask for the rationale and the reasoning as to why a piece of legislation that is headed in the right direction has these kinds of omissions in it that have a whole group offside and very upset and disturbed?

I will say it one more time: I would suggest that if this amendment was accepted then I believe you would have 100 per cent of the people out there. You would not have any particular group or organization who would be saying that the government has made a mistake. Right now they feel that they are not being listened to. They do not have any members allowed on the floor to express their concerns and raise their voice. We, as the Official Opposition, choose to make this representation because they have made it and they have been ignored, and I do not follow the logic of it.

As an individual member in our caucus, when we have discussed it, we do not follow the logic of it. We do not see how it diminishes the bill and the intent and a great step forward. I would like to be able to vote for this bill at the end of the day, saying: Congratulations, government, you have made a great step forward.

I don't have a choice, at the end of the day. I will either have to reluctantly vote for it, even if there are no amendments, because of the fact that I believe it is the right step forward, even though you have ignored some concerns, because the other choice, I guess, is to try not to pass the bill and leave the circumstance the way it is today, which is not right.

You have everybody onside, ready to make the changes, and if this change is made you would have everybody for sure. Even the ones who are the dissenting voices now, who are feeling they are shut out, would pat the government on the back and say: You have done the right thing. You have allowed us to make our spaces smoke free. You have allowed us to protect our investments. You have allowed us to run the business as we see fit. You have allowed us to generate $300 million worth of activities - instead of going around saying that 30 per cent or 40 per cent of the business might be lost in the next year, and studies in other jurisdictions suggesting that has, in fact, happened when these kinds of changes have been made.

I will stop there, Mr. Chairman, because there are opportunities to discuss this further in Committee, depending on what answers and rationale we hear.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I know that my colleague for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi - but I think I need to address these in case the member might want to comment on some of the aspects that I also indicated.

First of all, while unrelated to this, I will mention that the landed value for crab, just for the record - there is 110 million pound at roughly $1.60 or $1.50 a pound this year - is about $165 million, not $300 million. There are times when the price is up.

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible) $300 million last year. Why would you bother to argue that?

MR. SULLIVAN: I was just correcting -

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: I think, Mr. Chair, when a comment is made, if someone is entitled to speak on a comment, I think I am entitled -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: Order, please!

The Chair recognizes the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Last year it was about $260-some million, and this year - with the price that I saw mentioned out in the media - it will be in the vicinity of $165 million. I just want to make that point. I am not going to argue that particular point. It is not highly relevant here.

The Leader of the Opposition, the point he was making there, he said: Why don't we allow patrons to go into a designated smoking room? Well, that is really the crux of the legislation that we have had.

What happens if you have an establishment where no employees smoke, and you have a room where you are going to allow employees to go in and smoke? What do you do then? Who maintains the rooms, and who goes in? Somebody has to go in and deal with it. So, if no employees smoke in a bar - you have five employees, none of them smoke, but you have a designated smoking room - who maintains it and who cleans it? Who ensures it is kept up to standard?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: No employee who is a non-smoker will be forced into an establishment, in a public area, or have to go into a private smoking room if they do not so desire. If you are employed -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Chair, I listened carefully to his rationale and I would like the time to respond to those particular points. If the Member for Bellevue wants to get up and sing out when he is duly recognized, I appreciate that, but I am not going to yell out across the House and across his remarks to answer a question that was asked by the Leader of the Opposition. Hopefully, I can make it quickly and without fanfare and then I will stay as long as needed to entertain their responses.

This is the crux of the matter. If you are going to allow that, you are allowing all patrons to go in and you will have a designated area for smoking for patrons and an area that is open for smoking, as you could do. Right now, smoking is banned in certain public places. The Opposition proposed a resolution here on November 22, gave notice, to extend that ban to bars and bingo halls. That is exactly what this government did. They extended that to bars and bingo halls. They did not include in the resolution designated smoking rooms, because ones that are banned right now do not have designated smoking rooms for the public right now. We have broadened that ban. That is what the resolution said. That is what government did. That is what they felt was the appropriate action.

Now, if you followed the rationale and the reasoning that the Leader of the Opposition is saying, you might have a bar and you might have four employees, and you have a designated smoking room and one that is not. Who is going to go in to clean it? Who is going to look after the room? If employees should not have to go in - if the employer says: You are an employee and that needs to be cleaned up, we need something done - you cannot force them, and should not. If we do not go the whole nine yards with this one here, in this case, we are compromising the basic principles that are there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: Beside the point, when this was brought in back in the early 1990s, I think around 1994, there was movement to move progressively to eliminate access to hazards created from smoke. Environmental tobacco smoke, we know, and I will not go into the history of that, and I won't beat that point to death here, I think everybody is aware of some of the hazards and some of the aspects of smoking, there was a progressive movement to make the legislation better for the protection of the public and employees. This is another step in increasing that. Maybe in the future they would ban it even for employees. That could be a logical next step. Who knows?

Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador were concerned, and they have indicated they do not want to have a provision to have a cost put in now that might be, in two years' time, changed, that they have incurred a big cost and they might end up spending it for a purpose for which they should not have to spend it, if it was going to be banned. So, it has progressed.

Legislation on smoking has progressed over the past number of years, and it may progress over the next several years again even to greater extents. Some of that will come in confines with what you can and cannot do. If things are before the courts and there are things being questioned, well, the highest court in the land, eventually, if it is pushed to that limit, will make a ruling of what you can and cannot do. We certainly will abide by that - of course, we have no option - and tailor that accordingly.

We feel that this is crucial, this here. To amend that in this manner here is going against the basic principles of not allowing people who patronize establishments or visit establishments to have to, in any way, have access to be able to smoke. Employees go to work in the morning. They may be confined to that establishment all day long. They may not be able to leave that establishment like a patron. They may have an addiction to smoking; that is possible. If that business wants to provide an opportunity for that person to be able to avail of that in a designated one that meets certain standards, that is one that is still provided here if that business decides to make that provision. They do not have to. Right now it is banned in public places. How many public places have that now in areas where it is banned? They can do it now. For the last number of years we have been operating on legislation where it is banned in a lot of areas in our Province. How many have a designated smoking room in there right now? I do not know of any. Maybe there are. If anyone knows, can you name one where there is a designated smoking room now, in an area where smoking is banned?

MR. JOYCE: Community Hall in Meadows.

MR. SULLIVAN: The Community Hall in Meadows is one that has a designated smoking room in a public place. That is one. I wasn't aware of any, and there could be others.

Mr. Chair, this would be contrary to, I would add, the whole crux of the legislation we are proposing here, and it is an amendment that this government cannot support.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This is an interesting amendment and I was inclined to support it, Mr. Chairman, for a few reasons. I have seen designated smoking rooms in bars and some places where they go and have a drink and have a cigarette after a meal, for example in a dinner theatre. I have seen that in various places. When you think about it, this is not necessarily a request to allow patrons of a bar to have a smoke in its designated smoking room for employees where all you do is smoke. This seems to be a provision which would allow, essentially, a designated smoking area in a bar.

Listening to the Leader of the Opposition, the only thing you wouldn't have in this designated smoking area - and I am calling it area for a reason - is you would not have table service or you would not have bar service. You would have to go to the bar yourself.

MR. SULLIVAN: Can you bring in your drink?

MR. HARRIS: Well, that is not -

MR. SULLIVAN: Where you are not allowed to drink.

MR. HARRIS: When I am listening to the Leader of the Opposition, I think we are talking about, essentially, a designated area of a bar, where employees do not have to go but you can drink, you can take your drinks and you can go back and forth. We have seen what has happened. I know how important it is for bar owners to make whatever money they can legally make, and we have seen what has happened under the lottery licensing provisions. When the lottery licensing act was introduced in this Province and we were allowed to have VLTs and other machines in bars, the government was going to run it. It would keep the mafia out, although Mr. Harper seems to think there is mafia down here somewhere who we want to send to Ottawa. Nevertheless, the whole idea was that the bars -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Pardon me?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Was he? I thought Mr. Williams wants him to send some mafia up and maybe he would have to do that. Anyway, we will leave that out of it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: We will leave that for tomorrow in Ottawa.

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible) deal with a smoking room.

MR. HARRIS: No, I am going to deal with the ingenuity of bar owners, Mr. Chairman. We had a provision that said you could only five VLTs in a bar. What have we got? We have some places not as big as this room with five bars in them and twenty-five VLTs, or four bars and twenty VLTs, because they have a licence for that.

MR. SULLIVAN: The maximum is twenty, I think, in the Province.

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: The maximum is twenty. They have a license in that corner of the room with a partition, they have a license in this corner of the room, they have a license here, and they have twenty machines. That has recently been changed or is proposed to be changed. There is going to be one license per establishment or one set of machines per establishment.

I can envision, Mr. Chairman, if we have this amendment passed - unless there are some very severe restrictions put on it - what we will end up having is a bar that is composed of two parts. There is the part where the employees are, and it might be very small, and there may be a part where non-smoking patrons can come, but then there may be another pretty nice part. It could be the most elaborately decorated, in the best part of the bar, with the best view of the harbour, the ocean or wherever it happens to be, whatever amenities the bar has.

MR. BARRETT: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: The Member for Bellevue can talk about making the employees use gas masks to go to these rooms if he wants. He will get a chance to speak.

You can see a bar owner saying: Well, if it is more profitable for me to have a really well laid out smoking room for my employees and patrons, then that will be the most attractive part of the bar, and then will also ensure that the law is complied with it by having - this is our smoking room over here with the view of the ocean, the amenities, the pool tables, and all of the other stuff that you have. That is what I would envision happening, if all you did was say employees' smoking room plus patrons, because I can see the ingenuity - and rightfully so, they are entrepreneurs, they are out there trying to turn a dollar. I could see that would be the result, in some places not everywhere.

I suppose if what the intention of the amendment is to say, look, we know that people smoke, we know if we are going to give it to the employees why not give it to the patrons - if the owner goes so far as to build a smoking room for employees why can't the patrons use it? I do not know, maybe the Leader of the Opposition can clarify it. Is he proposing that if I am in a bar, it is a stormy night and I do not want to go outside to have a smoke, that I can leave my drink where it is on the table where I am sitting, I can go into the employees' smoking room if they will let me and have a smoke there instead of going outside, or is he proposing that we have a designated smoking area where I can take my drink, where the bartender can put a table and chairs, or ten tables and chairs, or fifty tables and chairs? As long as there is no bar service it is now a designated employees' smoking room, as long as it is enclosed and has a separate door. It is part of the bar, you can drink there, you cannot serve liquor there but you can take liquor that is served there. If that is what he is proposing, I am opposed to that because I think it will be abused. I frankly think that it will be abused.

In reference to what the Member for Bellevue says, I think the employees will probably be taken advantage of too. I can envisage a bar owner saying: Look, you are employees, you do not have to go into this room. It is a designated smoking room for employees, but if you are a volunteer, if you are prepared to volunteer to go in there - and as the Member for Bellevue says you can wear your gas mask if you want. You can go, you do not have to, you can go in there and provide service or you can clean it up. You do not have to. I can imagine, human nature being what it is, Mr. Chair, those volunteers might get a few extra hours working in the bar than anybody else. I think, Mr. Chair, the whole purpose of this act is to ensure that bars are in fact smoke-free environments for patrons, and in order to achieve that result we have to ensure that we cannot get away with having separate establishments.

I am looking forward to hearing the response of the hon. Leader of the Opposition or other members opposite. If what he is saying is that this will be a designated smoking room only and that no liquor shall be allowed in there, then I would support it. I would support it, Mr. Chair, because I do not think that the - if the employer who happens to be a bar owner wants to be build a designated smoking room to met whatever regulations are passed, if some member, some patron, says, boy, look I have to have a smoke, can I leave my drink here on the bar and go have a smoke in your designated smoking room and then come back, I do not really have a problem with that. I mean they can go outside the door and do it. It is not like the Confederation Building where you have a line twenty-five or thirty feet from the door because people have been bothered coming in through. You can go outside the door of the bar and have a cigarette, why wouldn't you be able to into a designated smoking room and have a cigarette if that was there for the people who are employed by the bar?

First of all, I suppose, I could support the amendment if, in fact, the designated smoking room was just that. You cannot control that. I know the Minister of Finance and Health is now saying: Well, how would you control that? I remember there was a law in Ontario at one time - the first time I was in Ontario, if you were at a tavern and you had a beer on your table and you wanted to go visit somebody at the next table you were not allowed to take your beer from one table to the next. That was against the law in Ontario.

MR. SULLIVAN: The waiter would remove it.

MR. HARRIS: The member knows. It was against the law in Ontario. If you were sitting at this table and your buddy was at the next table and you want to go over and talk to him, you are not allowed to do that. You can do it, but you cannot take your beer with you. You have to call the waiter and say: Waiter, I am going to move over to that table now and talk to the Leader of the Opposition at the next table. Would you bring my beer over for me? He would say: Yes, I will, and you would have to give him a tip to do it. It was illegal, contrary to the liquor control act of Ontario, for you to lift your beer from one table to the other.

So, if we want to say: yes, you can have a designated smoking room; yes, you are allowed to smoke there, but you cannot take your beer, you cannot take your drink, you cannot take your liquor. You can smoke a cigar, but you cannot have your port with it, or whatever you want to drink. Then I would go along with that because then you are not setting up a separate drinking establishment, with the only thing different being, that you do not get table service. I think if we had a drinking establishment that did not have table service, but you could smoke, that is a bit of a slippery slope. I think it would be pretty hard to enforce that, particularly in order to protect the employees. If we are just saying, yes, if an employer goes so far as to have a designated smoking room, that patrons can smoke in that room but they cannot take their drinks there. If that is what we are proposing, then I do not have a problem with it. If you are proposing a separate drinking part of the bar with smoking permitted and no table service and no employees, then I think that is something that is contrary to the intent and spirit of the act and is likely, in my view, to affect the rights of the employees to avoid a smoke-free workplace.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. GRIMES: Yes, Mr. Chairman, and maybe with respect to this whole issue, I think it is good and instructive for all of us to hear the comments that are being made. I will just make these comments, and I will not reference them again because it does not warrant being in this debate.

It is unfortunate that the Minister of Finance, the Acting Minister of Health and Community Services, in his usual combative fashion, wants to be petty and try to prove himself right all the time by trying to argue over the value of a sector to the economy when - by the way, if he wants to read his own documents, with his own picture on it and his own name signed to it in the economy and the Budget for the last two years, confirmed by the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture -

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: Now he is saying this year, I am talking about.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. GRIMES: You see, Mr. Chair, this is why people get frustrated dealing with this government because there are certain members over there who want to always try to prove that they are right and nobody else has a clue of what they are talking about. It is a little bit of a fault they have, I would suggest, but I will not get sidetracked.

Mr. Chair, just to point this out. In the government's own documentation in the last nine weeks, in which we have been talking about a crab impasse - which hopefully will end very soon so people can get back to fending for themselves, their families and their communities - the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture himself, the Minister of Finance until today, the Premier of the Province and in their own written documents have been saying: this is an industry, the crab industry, that is worth $300 million; has been for the last two years in landed value and half a billion dollars, the government has been saying, half a billion dollars in export value. Because I mentioned that today, because the number happened to be an exact match for the Beverage Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, he wants to say: Oh, that's not right. The price of crab this year is only $1.60. Does he want to say how much it is going down to next week? He does not want to talk about that today because we do not want the impact on the vote that is occurring. The week after that he wants to say: Oh, no, it might only be $160 million this year.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. GRIMES: Well, for two years in a row, I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, it has been $300 million reported in the government's own documents. It is the petty nature of the way they want - no wonder it is hard to have a sensible discussion with the group because there is an old adage that: there is none so deaf as he or she who would not hear. So, you can talk away to them and they look at you but they are not hearing a word you are saying. They are not listening to anything.

Maybe we will ask the Chair of the Committee - the rationale he gives, he says: Oh, you can't have patrons going in there because someone has to go clean it up. Well, if you are going to have a designated smoking room that one person goes into, somebody has to go clean it up some time. What kind of an argument is that? It is not the same argument that I heard in Philosophy 100 at the university where you studied a bit of logic. What difference is it supposed to make if ten people go in there and smoke or one person smokes, somebody has to clean it up? He wants us to believe that is the main rationale of why they cannot support it. You cannot let patrons go in there because someone has to go clean it up. Now, to me, that makes no sense, but it makes perfect sense to some members opposite; it makes perfect sense. If that is the rationale than follow the rationale and do not allow a designated smoking room at all. There is no logic to it. If your concern is that someone has to go in the room and clean it up, and that makes it wrong, than you cannot have the room. You cannot allow the room to exist. That is the point I am trying to make.

I can understand why groups report to us that they have met with certain Ministers of the Crown and they come away frustrated and upset because they try to make logical, sensible arguments. They try to make compromises. They try to be supportive of the government and say: Will you just consider some of my concerns?

Let me make the point about the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, and maybe the Chair of the Committee, the Member for Trinity North, can enlighten us. I understand that they have asked for opportunities to make their case to the government, to make their views known. I think they went to some of the public hearings and I believe they asked to meet with certain Ministers of the Crown, to talk about their concerns and whether they could be accommodated in this new bill or not. The Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi makes a very good point. I do not know the answer. He makes the point that if it is a designated smoking room for employees and patrons and if you are going to be able to take your drinks in, and all of a sudden it becomes the best room in there and most of the patrons are in there - it is the biggest part of the bar - he would not support that. But if it is a room in which you have to leave your drink outside, but as a smoker it just allows you to go in there and smoke instead of going outside the door, then he could support that.

Now, I do not know what the Beverage Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador would say about that. All I know is, logically, just think logically for a second - the choice today for a patron, if they are a smoker, is you have to leave your drink inside the bar and go out on the road. You are not allowed to take your drink. You do not have a choice, by the way. You are not allowed to take your beverage out into the street. That is against the law of the land. That is illegal. That is not permitted. So the circumstance today is this: If there was a dialogue, if there was a consultation with the Beverage Industry Association, the people who own and operate these bars, which many people in the communities, by the way, want to have them. They enjoy going to these places. They hope they continue to exist. People socialize in them. They go out and entertain themselves there. They do not want them closing up or going out of business. They would like for them to stay.

Talk to the Beverage Industry Association, I would say to the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi. I would suggest they could have a good conversation with him about it, and he would say: Well, if you are willing to say to them: Leave your drinks outside, and if you are a smoker and you cannot resist the urge to smoke in the next ten minutes, and your choice now is: Put your drink here and go outside the door on the street, or put your drink here and go into that little smoking room. If that is what you have to do, if you have to leave your drink and everything else outside, I guess you are not going to want to spent a lot of time in there anyway. They are just going in there for a smoke. I am sure they are not going to want to spend a lot of time on the side of the road in a sleet storm or a rain storm or a blizzard, but if they are addicted to smoking, they do go out there. We have seen them huddled outside this building in all kinds of conditions.

I do not know if the Beverage Industry Association would agree or not, to say: Okay, let's not even serve liquor. Well, they are not serving liquor. They have never asked for that, as I have understood it. It is a protection. The employees do not have to go into any smoking environment unless the employee is a smoker himself or herself who chooses to go into a legally permitted, designated smoking room.

I would ask the Chair of the Committee, or the minister: Have you had that discussion with the beverage industry association? Because you are talking about regulating. You would probably get them to even agree that if you have to - there is no service in there. No employee has to go in there. Somebody has to clean it up. Oh, yes, somebody has to clean it up. If you are going to have it, somebody has to clean it up. There is no doubt about that. Even smokers in their own home clean up after themselves. Somebody has to clean it up, whether one person goes in or whether a hundred go in, so that is an issue. I do not know what the outcome would be. Maybe it would be interesting to see, what discussion has the government had with the beverage industry association representatives about whether or not they would see a designated smoking room with no one even allowed to take their alcoholic beverage in there? Have they had that discussion, and would they even agree to have that discussion or contemplate that as a possibility?

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I do not know what the government's view is on that aspect of it, that I raised as a point. I know, in listening to the Leader of the Opposition, at times he is saying that, well, you would not have to go in there unless you were a smoker. I think that is a concern that I have. Does that mean that bar owners would only hire smokers to work in their bar? You know, would that be the result of saying that only smokers can be asked to go into these rooms or serve in there or clean them up? Does that mean that, then, a bartender is going to say, when you are looking for a job: Are you a smoker? Because if you are a non-smoker, boy, I don't want you because I cannot make use of you. I cannot get you to serve in this smoking area or I cannot ask you to clean it up, or I cannot ask you to go in there.

I think we have to be careful. What is this about? This legislation is about two things. It is about protecting employees, for starters, because we are now recognizing, finally, that a bar or a licensed establishment or a bingo hall is also a workplace and that people who work in those workplaces are just as entitled to a toxin-free environment, or a toxic-atmosphere-free environment as people who work in a factory, or dry-cleaning establishment or any other place that they might work, for one.

Secondly, because it is a public place as well, there is the public. They are offering a service to the public and it should be available equally to members of the public, whether they are smokers or not, and if they are offering entertainment, just as they are not allowed to discriminate against people entering a public place upon the basis of gender or any of the other prohibitive grounds - race, gender, sexual orientation, or any of the other prohibitive grounds under the Human Rights Code - we have decided, and we are deciding in this legislation, that people who are non-smokers who come into these places are entitled, because it is a public place, to a smoke-free environment.

We are trying to do that and, at the same time, ensure that employees are not going to be put in the position that they might be expected to, or - not expected to - allowed to volunteer. Let me tell you, if you are allowed to volunteer to work in these places, or go into these places, you are the person who is going to be getting the extra hours, if there are any extra hours on the go in a bar, because most people who work in bars do not work full time; they only get a certain number of hours a week. I think if we are going to take the next step of saying, well, patrons ought to be allowed in the smoking rooms, then I would support that if the government had the power to make regulations to ensure that the designated smoking room was not a place to which alcohol beverages were allowed to be taken. I guess that can be enforced.

Imagine a situation where you are in a legion club somewhere and there are only two or three patrons in the bar. There is a bartender and someone else working there, and the waiter or waitress goes into the smoking room, and they say: We want to come in and have a smoke. No, boy, you are not allowed in here. You have to go outside and smoke. You cannot come in and have a smoke with me because this is only a designated smoking room for employees.

To me, that is a bit foolish. I would support having patrons allowed into employees smoking rooms but I would not support a situation where the smoking room, in fact, gets turned into a smoking area of the bar, the only difference being you do not have table service, or you do not have wait service in that part of the bar. I think that is contrary to the spirit and the intention of the act.

I guess, if it says in accordance with the regulations that you can go in there, on its face I would support the amendment because it just says that in accordance with the regulations an employer may - in accordance with the regulations - designate a smoking room. I suppose the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, the Cabinet, will make regulations to say with respect to a licensed establishment that no person shall bring alcoholic beverages into the designated smoking room as part of the regulations, or as a prohibition. That might be a way around it, Mr. Chairman. On that basis I could support the amendment, but I do not support having separate parts of bars smoking areas, because that will only lead to expectations that employees would have to serve or participate somehow in supporting that part of the bar just the way they are now in restaurants or other places that have designated smoking areas and designated non-smoking areas. We are trying to put an end to that, Mr. Chairman, because really they do not work in the long run.

We have seen Tim Hortons try that, Mr. Chairman. For a time they had designated smoking areas and they had non-smoking areas. They gave it up, Mr. Chairman, because it did not work out to their advantage. Maybe that is why they have now so much. People smoke in their cars and they go through the drive-through instead of going inside, but that is another issue, Mr. Chairman.

Having said that, I can support the amendment as it is, provided that the government is satisfied that the Lieutenant-Governor in Council can pass regulations to ensure that these designated smoking areas will not be places where alcoholic beverages can be brought.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The amendment as put forward by the Leader of the Opposition reads: Amend Clause 5 (1) to add "and patrons" at the end of the clause after the word "employee".

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. GRIMES: Not to belabour the point, Mr. Chairman, but this is the very crux of the matter; it is what I have been pointing out. I thought, before the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi spoke the last time, that either the minister or the Chair of the Committee was going to rise and tell us about what kind of consultation had they had with the beverage industry association about this very issue.

I would like to hear that, because the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi makes some good points. Have they talked to the beverage industry association about exactly what he just described? Would the government consider having a designated smoking room in which there was no bar service, you were not allowed to take your alcoholic beverage, and then would patrons be allowed to go in there under that circumstance?

Have they had that discussion? Would they go and have that discussion with the beverage industry association in the next half-hour, or hour or so, or are they just saying, no, it does not matter what they say; we are not agreeing to it anyway.

This is the very crux of the matter, as I see it, because, as I described the last time I made a few comments, right now the owners of the establishment and the patrons themselves both know, with this law, your choice is, if you are in there and you are having a drink and you are going to have a smoke, you have to leave your drink somewhere and you have to go outdoors. So, would they entertain saying you have to leave your drink somewhere and you go in there, where there is no service, no nothing, but, rather than have to go out in the rain and snow and sleet and everything else you can go in there and smoke. Have they had that discussion? Would they have that discussion? Does that make any kind of sense, or are they just so stuck on it because this is what they have written, and as per usual, not going to change it, because somebody else might have suggested it? Is it that kind of a problem? Have they had the discussion? Is it half reasonable? I would like to hear a bit about what discussion they have actually had.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to add slightly to that, because we are trying to deal here a little bit, as much as we can, with the concerns that the Beverage Industry Association has. They are afraid that smokers are going to stay home. They are afraid that smokers are going to say, well, I will not go to the bar any more, I will not go to a restaurant any more, I will stay home, especially if the weather is bad, because I do not want to have to go out in the rain to have a smoke. If I can go to the restaurant or the bar and they have decided to accommodate smokers, smokers can come here because we have a designated smoking room, you do not have to go out in the rain, you can have a smoke in our place but you have to go into a special smoking room, you cannot take your drinks there, at least those people will feel they can go to a bar. They can go there and say: Okay, well I do not have to stay home now, I can go down to xyz place because they have - it does not have to be a dingy place, it can nice, it can have a nice view if we want too. It is a smoking area that will accommodate at least those people who feel that they are so addicted that they cannot even go out at night to a place that does not accommodate their ability to have a drag in the smoking room. At least they will be accommodated.

I think there is a point there, that we are saying: Look, the Beverage Industry Association is there saying there are going to lose a lot of money, they are going to lose a lot of business. I am certainly sympathetic to that, but not at the expense of employees, or the principles behind the act, or the purpose that we are trying to achieve. If we can achieve the same purpose by saying, okay, instead of going outside the door, as the Leader of the Opposition said, can you go as a patron into a designated smoking room without your drink. Isn't that something that could be done and accommodate at least those patrons who might otherwise stay home or go somewhere else rather than patronize the establishments that are operated by the Beverage Industry Association? I think it is a good point and maybe it is something that there should be some consultation on before a decision is made, on the other side, whether to support this amendment or not.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The Acting Minister of Health and Community Services.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I guess it would be fair to say there were different opinions on this particular issue overall. I guess, one of the things that we heard - and I spoke with several in the last few days, and one of the things that was raised, in particular, was that we want a level playing field. Some people have the capacity to accommodate, others do not have the capacity, they are in very confined spaces. A level playing field was one of the things very significantly put forward by the industry, that they want a level playing field. If some have the capacity to do something and some do not have the capacity, it creates an uneven playing field. Then, some businesses will bear the brunt of that because they do not have the ability to accommodate a designated smoking area and be able to put it in. That was one of the aspects that came up.

This legislation is consistent. It is consistent in that it does not allow any patron or any visitor to any establishment - the two exceptions we talked about in acute care, if it is the long-term part of acute care, long-term standalone, or in a psychiatric unit, it did not even allow patrons or visitors to engage in these facilities. I guess one of the reasons is that anybody visiting there does have options. People employed there or residents in those specific facilities sometimes did not have the option in those facilities. That is a position and that is the crux of the legislation, that the option should not be there for patrons of visitor facilities. I think it is one that is on a solid foundation. They may be people who think there should be another option. We are getting variations with designated smoking rooms, or an option to smoke for a patron in facilities. It is difficult to keep a level playing field in that area.

We are very cognizant of impacts this could have, certainly on businesses. They are out trying to survive and it is not easy to survive. We tried to reciprocate to a certain extent on what has been in effect for a long time, a 12 per cent tax, that they pay more for their liquor than you or me who walks into a liquor store. They pay 12 per cent on top of what we pay and then they have to go sell it. Most people go out in the retail goods and buy them wholesale, at a cheaper price. We have said, immediately we will remove 3 per cent and the remaining amount, we said, over a four-year period. That is $1.6 million involved in that alone. That is the total amount that would be in their pockets at the end of the day. This year it would be one-quarter of that. Roughly, the amount is around $360,000 or $370,000 for 3 per cent. We tried to move in that direction. It is something we could look at during the course of this year, whether that could change, whether we could accelerate that. There are options we will bring back to the budget table next year to deal with, and we will take a look at, to assist businesses out there.

I understand some of the concerns that are raised. I am much aware of it. I was in that business for seven years. I owned a facility, operated a facility, was involved in it, and I know exactly what they are talking about. We want to be accommodating, but there is an issue here, too, of public health. There is a issue of the rights of individuals. We are trying to move forward, to reduce costs in our system on health care. I think it is a noble effort in that regard. Nobody wants to take action that is going to, in a way, affect business. I will not go back into research. I know there are different areas there. There is a decline in sales, an issue when that comes in, and I admit and agree with that. It shows that it rebounds over a period of time. It does show that other clientele look at facilities, and a lot of people want to go into smoke free. I know that is not the specific issue in this amendment, but the whole thrust of it - I think it is an issue that we are moving forward. This may advance farther. This designated smoking room issue might be thrown out for employees in the future. Who knows?

We, as a government, are not opposed to that, but that was not a part of the consultation process, to move in that direction. Who know? I am not going to speak for government, what might happen next year or the year after, or what might be brought to us to look at. That could be a possibly in the future. That is one of the concerns that businesses had, the cost of putting something in, that it could change with the movement for trying to eliminate access from people to smoke. If we move there in two years time - who knows - and they have spent a significant amount of money - because it is expensive to put in one that meets those standards. I mean, fourteen liters of air exchange per second - there has to be a negative pressure.

There are numerous areas and significant costs that some can afford and some may not. Then if you allow patrons to go in, the ones who have deeper pockets have an advantage over the ones who are struggling, and that is an not a level playing field. All of these parts are very much a part of the big picture consideration. We have given a lot of thought to that, the various aspects, and we think that the route we are going here allows, at least, a level playing field. It could be detrimental to ones who are better equipped to be able to meet those costs. It does have, I think, a negative effect on other people who are more marginal in their operation.

Overall, we feel what we are doing here is the appropriate thing and we cannot support this particular amendment here on that basis.

CHAIR: Order, please!

Shall the amendment, as put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

The Chair deems the amendment, as put forward by the Leader of the Opposition -

AN HON. MEMBER: Division.

CHAIR: Division.

Call in the members.

Division

CHAIR: Is the House ready for the count?

MR. E. BYRNE: We are ready.

CHAIR: All those who are in favour of the amendment, as put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, please stand.

CLERK: Mr. Grimes; Mr. Parsons; Mr. Butler; Mr. Barrett; Ms Jones; Ms Thistle; Mr. Reid; Mr. Andersen; Mr. Sweeney; Ms Foote; Mr. Joyce; Mr. Harris.

CHAIR: All those against the amendment, as put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, please stand.

CLERK: Mr. Edward Byrne; Mr. Rideout; Ms Dunderdale; Mr. Taylor; Mr. Hedderson; Mr. Sullivan; Mr. Jack Byrne; Mr. Shelley; Ms Sheila Osborne; Mr. O'Brien; Ms Burke; Mr. Tom Osborne; Ms Whalen; Mr. Hickey; Mr. Wiseman; Mr. Denine; Mr. French; Mr. Harding; Mr. Young; Mr. Hunter; Mr. Jackman; Ms Johnson; Mr. Ridgley; Mr. Skinner; Mr. Oram.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

CLERK: Mr. Chair, twelve ayes and twenty-five nays.

CHAIR: The Chair deems the amendment, as put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, is defeated.

Shall clause 5 carry, without amendment?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

CHAIR: Clause 5 is carried without amendment.

On motion, clause 5 carried without amendment.

CLERK: Clause 6.

CHAIR: Shall clause 6 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Clause 6 is carried.

On motion, clause 6 carried.

CLERK: Clause 7.

CHAIR: Shall clause 7 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to ask a couple of questions with respect to clause 7.

Clause 7 is the clause that indicates (1), "The minister may appoint inspectors to inspect (a) public places; and (b) facilities, to ensure compliance with the Act." In fact, that, "The minister responsible for the Occupational Health and Safety Act may appoint inspectors to inspect workplaces to ensure compliance with this Act." We have inspectors referenced in section 7.(1) for public places and facilities to comply with the act, and inspectors referenced in section 7.(2), the minister - issues relating to Occupational Health and Safety and they may enter a place and so on.

So, I am just asking for clarification as to how many inspectors, and who they are. My understanding of it again today - I would just like for a bit of information, as we vote with respect to this, for clarification - is that for liquor establishments today under the liquor inspection act, that there are very few liquor inspectors in the Province; three, I believe. Is three the right number? I might ask -

MR. SULLIVAN: That could change.

MR. GRIMES: The Minister of Finance confirms that there are three liquor inspectors.

MR. SULLIVAN: I am not sure of the exact number.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. GRIMES: Again, Mr. Chairman, acknowledging too, what he is saying that - this is the point of my question. He is saying: and that may change. Now, my understanding is that there are three liquor inspectors in the Province and that for establishments that have a liquor licence, which is - we are not talking about the other public places. We are not talking about the health care institutions and long-term care. We are talking about the bars and pubs and lounges that have a liquor licence, that there are three inspectors in the Province today that go around to many of these bars and pubs. So, unless there is an incident reported to somebody, that they see them once or twice a year.

Now these inspectors are going to be asked to inspect and make sure that people are not smoking in them. The question is: Are we going to see additional inspectors hired by the government to enforce this, or are we going to see - because the reference to Occupational Health and Safety is there. Part of this legislation, that I fully concur with by the way, is to protect the workers who work in that environment, who have no choice. If they are going to be in a smoking environment they have no choice but to be exposed to secondhand smoke. That is the part of all this that I fully agree with, and our caucus agrees with, and the bar owners agree with, and everybody agrees with. But it references here that under the minister responsible for the Occupational Health and Safety Act may appoint inspectors. So, now not only are you going to have liquor inspectors going to these establishments but you are going to have Occupational Health and Safety Inspectors going to the establishment.

I would like for the minister, or somebody in the government, just to explain to me about the interaction. How many of these inspectors there are right now? When are they going to be there? I know it says they go without notice, because of course there is no point in going if they are going to give notice. If you are going to go and inspect to make sure they are complying with the law, it is not much point in saying: Boy, we are going to be down Friday night at 10 o'clock, now make sure you are abiding with the law.

So, they go in as inspectors, as they do any time, doing their job as they see fit, without notice, and they do not need to give notice but I am just seeking clarification. What type of inspectors? How many? Is it Occupational Health and Safety Inspectors and liquor inspectors, a combination of both? Are we going to see the government now hire - because there are hundreds of these establishments in the Province. Are we going to see a couple of dozen of inspectors hired, either under Occupational Health and Safety or liquor inspectors who do not exist today, or are there going to be a group of inspectors who are currently -

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible) works, I understand it. Let me say this -

CHAIR: Order, please!

The Chair needs some guidance. My understanding is that while we are doing government business today and it being Private Members' Day, the Chair would like to have some guidance whether the House recesses at 5:00 or whether we sit beyond 5:00.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. E. BYRNE: I believe we have agreement, Mr. Chair, to stop the clock while we are doing this piece of business, is my understanding?

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I have had some discussions with the Government House Leader. Albeit unknown to me at the time we had our last conversation, I wasn't aware of a certain engagement, which I have since advised him about.

So, we certainly have no objection of going beyond 5:00, particularly for the purpose of concluding the other pieces of business that we alluded to. With regards to this piece, however, I was not aware that there were as many amendments as there were also. So, maybe we can talk on as long as he would like on this issue but maybe then move on to the other business. If that would be fine?

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: I do not have any objections to stopping the clock for a moment but I understand there are other potentially controversial amendments that are on the table here and, if we are going to be carrying on until those are all completed, I am not necessarily in favour of that. I wasn't aware of any suggestion that would happen today but I do not have a problem with stopping the clock to deal with the questions that have been asked. I have one or two myself that I would like to throw into the mix, as well, before they are answered. So, if we are going to carry on for a few minutes -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: The bill?

AN HON. MEMBER: No (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I do not think we can conclude the bill unless we are going to be here for quite sometime. But I wanted to ask, along the same lines as the Leader of the Opposition because I note here, it says in clause 7.(2)(b), that the proceedings may be commenced in the form of a ticket issued under the Provincial Offences Act in respect to a violation. I do know that later on in the act, as it stands right now at least, if you get one ticket, you lose your licence (inaudible).

CHAIR: Order, please!

The Chair would like some guidance if we are going to stop the clock before we get into continuing debate on any other topic.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Chair, (inaudible) guidance. Obviously, it is an important piece of work. There are more amendments.

I am going to move, although I do not have to, but I will move and suggest that the House adjourn and we resume tomorrow. We have all day tomorrow and all tomorrow night to conclude what we need to conclude and even into next week if we need to be here.

So, it is an important piece of legislation. There are divergent points of views on some of the clauses. So, let's do it appropriately. We will conclude the House for this afternoon and move on. We will see everyone back here tomorrow.

I am just providing direction to the Chair. If that is fair enough?

CHAIR: Fair enough.

MR. E. BYRNE: With that, Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

CHAIR: The motion is that the Committee rise -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

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

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Motion carried.

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

MR. SPEAKER (Hodder): The hon. the Member for Bonavista South and Deputy Speaker.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SPEAKER: The Chairperson of the Committee of the Whole reports the Committee have considered the matters to them referred and ask leave to sit again.

When shall the Committee have leave to sit again?

MR. E. BYRNE: On tomorrow, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: On tomorrow.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

The Chair was just checking to see if there were any final, last minute instructions.

This being Wednesday, the clock has been stopped for a few moments, under the authority of the Standing Orders this House now stands adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, May 19 at 1:30 of the clock in the afternoon.